Ant Vaz

📢📢 The #RussiaUkraineWar 📢📢 ➡️Laying a foundation on why, all things consider, we should support Russia's position and that it's the most viable way for peace.⬅️ ✳️Introduction: Dealing with factoids and smaller events only leads to endless discussions on who's telling the truth or distracting us for what really matters when it comes to the big decisions that affect countries. We should distance ourselves from this futile and tiresome endeavor. Thus, I propose a broader analysis to the conflict following some key points from a top-down approach. ◻️ Point 1 Nobody wants to see wars or invasions. Unless you're a psychopath or someone still stuck in 18th century thinking. ◻️ Point 2 War is an extension of diplomacy when it fails. It is an extreme act of last resort. ◻️ Point 3 There is no one in this world who has received the divine right to impose their vision of politics, society and humanity on other nations. ◻️ Point 4 Liberal democracies have not upheld the values ​​they stand for, breaching the rules they claim to comply with, forcing the reinforcement of spheres of influence and geostrategic concepts of maritime and land powers. ◻️ Point 5 International law ceased to exist for a long time now and the rules-based world is a sham where rules change according to need. ◻️ Point 6 The USA, the hegemonic power, is a fabulous country but also the main destroyer of international norms and laws, using the ideas of ​​democracy, freedom and human rights to intervene in the course of other peoples lives for its own benefit. That is, there are no humanistic motives but rather the perpetuation of power and continuation of the way of living of the USA and its allies. And we in the West, who were fortunately to have born on the right side, live very well with this status quo because we benefit from it. ◻️ Point 7 Russia is not aligned with this movement and not just by its own fault. There is ample evidence of its continued attempt to get closer to the West and our model and way of living. ◻️ Point 8 Russia was made an enemy mainly by our own fault. NATO has the sole purpose of having Russia as an enemy. There is no interest in its integration when we can portray them as a cruel and backwards people and take advantage of the traumas of the past Soviet period in some Eastern countries to perpetuate unfounded fears and prejudices towards Russia, keeping Europe divided and dependent on the USA. ◻️ Point 9 All of this leads to a backlash from Russia, as a result of who we demonize becoming the devil we fear. It's from human history. ◻️ Point 10 The expansion of NATO is an aggression against Russia. As would be the expansion of a new Warsaw pact, or a new military bloc led by China, or another country that, legitimately, sought to guarantee its defense in opposition to NATO or the concertation of our so-called collective West to impose our interests and world view. ◻️ Point 11 This covert hostility, associated with economic and financial coercion and interference in internal affairs, leads to the need to create areas/spheres of influence. It is nothing new and is even practiced by the greatest economic power and the largest liberal democracy in the world in an even more ruthless and brutal way, in the face of our total indifference. ◻️ Point 12 All this would be enough to understand Russia's position. But we don't need to understand its position neither, even less, to formulate value judgments, make claims of moral superiority or invert reality in the sequence of cause and effect, to claim that we don't do anything wrong and that all our actions are peaceful and purely to create a better world and that Russia is an evil empire. This is not what Russia thinks and being a military and economic power this should be enough for *real politik* to understand the limits we are faced with and act in order to reach consensus and compromises.