Spoiler alert: they’re probably not buying mass produced China sets even if they are nice.

Source: me exhausting all avenues of trying to part with vintage China set(s) and replacements.com telling me to politely fuck off.

I’m educated enough to know you’re either deep in a hole of disinformation / misinformation or on Russia’s side. We learned that appeasement doesn’t work with Nazi Germany and other examples, Russia being the latest.

If you know of the history and issues of Russia and Ukraine then you’d know they’re intrinsically linked to the USA and “Western” interests going pretty far back. Plus lots of trade flows through Ukraine and they export a ton of food - it’s important to lots of innocent people who are also impacted by the war even if it’s not by blood loss. The costs in lives is too high but also the costs in material, in trust, in future cooperation between nations has been eroded by Putin’s actions.

I can believe that because I think Putin doesn’t necessarily want to start WW3. But he has indicated that it wouldn’t have stopped him as well

You can’t have it both ways. It’s either he would or would not have. I think recent history has shown the exact opposite of what you claim Putin indicated. Nobody has invaded a NATO country because it works. That’s why the reaction from Finland and Sweden to this Russian invasion was to join NATO after so many years of not being a part of it even bordering the USSR. They know Putin won’t dare attack a member of that alliance. Clearly neutrality did not work when it came to Ukraine. Nor did appeasement, we’re paying for not being tougher in 2016 but the time between then and 2022 was spent strengthening Ukraine’s military precisely to stop the next occurrence of a Russian attack.

I’m not saying I have better insight about that war, but from my understanding, Ukraine shouldn’t join NATO

Well it’s a good thing that from the understanding of the people who make the choices you’re in the wrong.

I think it should be readily obvious why the USA should defend a country against an act of aggression. For one thing, violating international boundaries and seizing land through war ought to be punished. The precedent should be set that doing so brings about international rebuke and strong consequences. For another, the USA made a security guarantee to Ukraine when they gave up their nuclear weapons. We should make good on it.

Ukraine joining NATO would have prevented this war. Russia isn’t going to war with a country in NATO - just look at the Baltic states. They joined NATO to protect against a possible Russian aggression just like what’s happening now in Ukraine. That worked. It would have worked for Ukraine and it’s part of why I believe Putin pulled the trigger on this before Ukraine was in NATO.

I’d call it more of an opinion piece than actual reporting or journalism but it’s still dumb.