Someone who repeats an untruth, however blatant, that they actually believe is not a liar. Deluded, credulous and/or bonkers, perhaps. But not a liar.

So let's not call each other liars.

arz. We already talked about this some time ago.
There are more links I thought I didn't need to read or watch again
https://thehill.com/opinion/internat...und-the-alarm/

I have, but I guess two people reading the same text can come to different conclusions.

You seem to read it as 'Putin had no choice but to invade to protect his interests'. As if the West forced his hand. I don't agree.

I read it as 'Putin is using Ukraine's desire to make closer ties to Europe as an excuse to do something he's wanted to for a while'. He wants a land route to Crimea. He thought it might be worth trying for the whole country, but since that strategy didn't work he's falling back to Donbas and a land route.

you claim that the plan for "de-ukrainization" was voiced by Putin, but refer to an article by some Sergeytsev, whose opinion is of little interest in Russia, and in the West it is only because it was possible to catch nonsense that is especially tasty for Western propagandists from a five-page semi-fiction. The fact that this clown is allowed to be published in the state owned agency does not mean at all that he voices the opinion of the leadership. There's a lot of delirium in the public media, both in Russian and Western.
I'd encourage to pay more attention to the official sources.
For instance, Peskov clearly repeated the 3 officially announced objectives. Any deviations from them are pure fantasies.

https://youtu.be/L0WScHPbaPA

Ah, fantasies ... and you are proving this with the interview where Peskov looks like a total fool in denying Russia's responsibility for Bucha.

GTFO.

In other news..
The Kremlin has today announced that the Russian warship ‘Moscva’ is now on a special operation to de-nazify the bottom of the Black Sea.

What's indicates a fool is your personal opinion.

I, personally, consider foolish to believe the massacre like in Bucha could be done by any regular army.
Irregular armed forces are much more likely candidate.
As per so-called "proofs".. There's been so many of those in the past years

Handy that you lot have those Wagner guys, right?

More poor fodder for the cannons...

Remind me, what's the politics of the guy in charge of that group? (I don't mean Putin!)

NATO soldiers are specifically trained to behave civilized in extreme stress situations (to not let only basic instincts take over), while Russian soldiers are not trained in that topic at all.
Therefore, it is not surprising at all how they behave.
If you say that couldn't be done by regular army, maybe Russian army doesn't deserve to be called "an army" then. More like a wild bunch of bandits and thieves.

Apart from his Nazi tattoos, he is probably just a bloodthirsty thug who would murder for whoever pays. Won't attach too much politics, but I could be wrong. This outfit is nothing but irregular Russian troops to do the dirty work and allow the Kremlin plausible (?) deniability. Polite peope, little green men etc.

Ok, I bite:
Granted, it's only the Kremlin, not Putin himself. But there's a chance he actually says exactly that in one of the clips on the page the quote is taken from.

And how exactly they behave?

But please without references to the tabloids and the officials who quote them

Avoid killing civilians, don't drink alcohol, don't rape, don't steal, don't execute PoWs, don't bring fu**ing mobile crematories.

You guys. Enough is enough. I am now ignoring this thread.

It’s a real pity we can’t have a civilized discussion on the situation in Ukraine.

From what I've read, many of those in the Russian military are conscripts and didn't know exactly what was going to happen until things got underway. As such I can't paint every single one of them as a "bandit and a thief". A large portion are probably just scared kids who haven't had much training. Another part might be bullies-at-heart who love the idea of having power.

I suspect there's quite a mix. Some Putin loyalists as well as some who don't really like the idea but the military is what supports their family. They know what happens to people who cross Putin.

I'm not defending what has happened. But war is ugly and people don't behave as they would in peacetime.

But we are having a civilized discussion, by now almost 300 pages of it. That it´s not always going your way doesn´t mean you should quit now.

the same as azov battalions.

Now we know what happens when you give football hooligans weapons.
Wagner group vrs. Azov, now that would be a death match worth watching. I read somewhere that members of the Wagner group fought American troops in Africa and got their asses handed to them with a few non standard, surplus holes punched.