Comment by necovek

FWIW, yes, Putin has spewed a bunch of bullshit about Ukraine not being a nation, and such. But pretexts add up, and remove enough of them, and invasion is simply not on the table anymore.

The neo-Nazi line is probably based on things like https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-ba... (a bunch of references inline — I had no idea of this until earlier today when it was posted to, of all things, HN).

In a democracy, it takes 51% of voters to elect a president, so you can still have large population that doesn't agree with that (I am not saying this is the case in Ukraine — esp as Zelenskyy got something like 70+% of votes — just that the fact that they've got a Jewish president does not mean they don't have a Nazi problem: it certainly makes it less likely, but they are, logically, independent arguments — even 1% of "active" neo-Nazis in any country would be a huge problem, though I repeat, I am not saying this was happening in Ukraine).

To be honest, I don't see how invading Ukraine and turning the entire world against Russia is going to make Russia superpower anything, and I'd be surprised if Putin is such a dummy to think so (though, I am beginning to fear he might be).

I must admit to not knowing what Putin would have done if circumstances were different in a way I suggest, but you seem very confident about it, so apologies if I don't take your view as truth either (you might be right, but we'll likely never know): we'll just have to agree to disagree.