Is the argument that the U.S. should only militarily intervene when conflicts are internal within another country, as opposed to when it’s one country invading another? As that’s the opposite of the established international laws around prohibiting one state from attacking another vs the principle of non-intervention.

They haven’t had an election since the war started and routinely force unwilling conscripts into vans.

1. The Russian position in 2014 was that the Ukrainian people in Donbas were being oppressed by the new Ukrainian central government.

2. There's a lot of domestic political/information suppression in Ukraine but I consider this somewhat normal for a nation in a pretty existential conflict.

3. The Ukrainian military is 70-80% conscripts, increasingly of the "forcibly mobilized" variety (look up "TCC busification" for examples), with almost all military-age males banned from leaving the country. Dudes are getting beaten up, stuffed into vans, and sent to trenches to eat Russian artillery and FABs (air-to-ground bombs)....against their will. I think that definitely counts as suppression.

[flagged]