I think it is a difficult case that the invasion was a net benefit in overall humanitarian terms.

The invasion occurred suddenly, without any final demands articulated to avoid war.

NATO expansion was a cause. Russian expansion was a cause. I oppose both, and take issue with the campist position of denying or underplaying atrocities committed by Russia.

It is a mistake to divide the world by bad states versus good states. We can sympathize with workers oppressed by Ukraine, but our side should not be Russia. Our side is the international workers of the world.

At issue is whether to support the invasion, and whether the reasons for such support validate denying or underplaying atrocities committed by Russia.

The situation for some may have improved, or be hoped to improve, as a consequence of the invasion, but the overarching calamity across the region overshadows such particular gains. The overall humanitarian situation unequivocally has deteriorated due to the invasion.

We need to be careful with terms. “Ethnically suppressed” is vague. Russian-speaking Ukrainians were not selected for internment or elimination. Ethnic cleansing certainly seems an inappropriate allegation. What was the experience that made resistance worth the cost?

Also, fascism has a particular meaning. Ukraine has fascist militias. The regime is reactionary, installed through a coup, and a puppet of the US. All are alarming, but also common throughout the world, and their convergence still does not amount to the regime being fascist.

Is acknowledging that Russia has committed atrocities incompatible with acknowledging that Russian-speaking groups may have legitimate grievances about rule by Ukraine?

You can’t read.

Russian-speaking groups in Ukraine certainly may have legitimate grievances. Whether they were worth a prolonged conflict is questionable. Most of the bloodshed could have been avoided by such groups accepting the terms of rule by Ukraine, despite their grievances. They would not be fully satisfied, but also not be bombarded by shelling. The conflict is a civil war, not ethnic cleansing.

Regardless, Russia is not liberatory. Life under Russian rule for Russian-speaking groups in the contested regions would be oppressive just as life is oppressive generally for Russians, and even if life for such groups is oppressive under rule by Ukraine. The situation in the contested regions was invoked as an excuse to garner popular support for the invasion, and helping the population was not authentically a motive.

Framing Russia as humanitarian or liberatory is absurd, and defending its atrocities is disgusting.

Ukraine represses separatist movements, just like Russia and every other state.

How does it bear on Russia having committed atrocities?

World War II was big bomb go bad boom.

I am very intelligent.

What word do you need sounded out?

Identifying a few factions, dates, and names of the events would be a solid way to respond to a request for clarification.

Do you describe the Second World War as “bad thing where people died”, or could you think of more details that elucidate the events?

Who are my heroes?

Regardless, please clarify “the campaign of ethnic cleansing”.

Both sides of the conflict are indictable, but atrocities cannot be excused on the same basis as war.

Please clarify “13,000 Ukranian civilians murdered by their own government”. Casualties in conflict are not murder, much less murder committed by the “by their own government”, even if the conflict could have been avoided.

There are fascists in Russia, too. Russia and Putin strongly express elements of fascism. Putin does not care about Nazis in Ukraine. They were invoked as an excuse to justify the invasion.

Your apologetics for atrocities is really disgusting.

You don’t understand dog whistles and you don’t understand imperialism.

No one is denying the existence of pro-Israel lobbying, but its significance is secondary.

Your argument that the US is being duped or coerced to harm its own interests is not credible, and genuinely approaches the conspiratorial.

Some inconsistencies may be found, but the overarching tendency since the creation of Israel has been plainly that the US supports the existence of Israel because the existence of Israel supports US interests in the Middle East.

“Zionist elites” is a dog whistle.

Another phrasing should be chosen.

Zionism has roots as early as the early modern period, but Israel became a state only after the Second World War. Many Zionist individuals and groups were powerful, as were many antisemitic groups and individuals. Israeli statehood only became possible when the powerful Allied victors, the US and UK, determined that the displaced Ashkenazim should settle in Palestine. It was an opportunistic alignment of Western interests and Zionist ideology. Flavors of Zionism not aligned to Western imperialism began to fade, with the more expressly ethnonationalist ones becoming increasingly prominent.

Again, please stop trying to paint powerful states as lacking of any comprehension or agency. Arguments that insist Zionism is some kind of infiltration into the Western governments that support Israel is barely removed from a conspiracy theory.

You are not informed or sincere in relation to the topics you insist you have mastered.

You don’t understand dog whistles.

A statement may be accurate and justified in its literal phrasing even while such phrasing also insinuates unwarranted animus.

Consider learning more about dog whistles before continuing the discussion.

“Zionist elites” is a dog whistle.

Another phrase should be chosen.

You never offered an argument of any consequence.

You summarized one event, and alluded to “obvious evidence”.

The history of Israel being supported as a US colony begins at least as early as the creation of the state of Israel, and never simply evaporated.

The existence of a settler-colonial project in the Middle East directly supports US regional hegemony, by contributing to the Middle East remaining weak and divided.

I suggest you try considering a more complete range of evidence and analysis.

“Zionist elites” is a dog whistle, because it resounds of conspiracy theories about insidious control by Jews, as distinct from plainly visible political processes. The phrasing is actively used to propagate such counterfactual and dangerous beliefs. Because it has such history, the phrase is not functioning simply toward a neutral explanation of established facts.

The essential observations are that Zionism is fundamentally a European project, and that Israel is fundamentally a US colony. Even if some politicians fail to follow the plot on every detail, the existence of Israel as a settler-colonial ethnostate is plainly aligned to state interests. The US supported the creation of Israel, and the relations of colonial vassalage would remain even if the lobbying were dismantled.

The only means of altering the relationship is to attack the heart of the US political establishment and the military-industrial complex.

Of course through Zionism, ethnicity is invoked disingenuously, but the objective within the US political establishment is the state interests of imperialist hegemony. It is not being duped or coerced into a “money laundering scheme”.

Stop trying to redirect responsibility away from the US state interests that Israel plainly serves.