alt Hacker NewsNo, you clearly don't understand my argument.
Ukraine didn't just disadvantage their neighbor. In international affairs, red lines are a common tool for expressing acceptable bounds of negotiation. Russia made it very explicit that if Ukraine joined NATO there would be conflict. We live in the real world, and "sovereignty" is not real; nations are not unconstrained agents that can do whatever they please. They have to weigh the effects of their actions and be willing and capable of defending the consequences. This has been true for all of human history, has never changed, and likely never will. You simply deluded yourself into thinking otherwise.
I will also add that in the modern world, peace has largely been maintained because the value of international commerce is much greater than the value derived from conflict. Economic integration is the best recipe for enduring tranquility. However, the US has pursued broad economic sanctions against Russia since the annexation of Crimea, all but ensuring that an invasion of Ukraine would be a profitable (or at least not harmful). In other words, the United States miscalculated, overplayed it's hand in pursuing a containment strategy against Russia and ultimately invited violence.
Please look up "victim blaming" and understand how it applies in this context. If Islamic terrorists say "if you depict Muhammad, we will attack you", and someone depicts Muhammad and are attacked, we don't say "wow, they really shouldn't have depicted Muhammad, this is their fault". We say "wow, those terrorists are awful." Russia's red lines were never acceptable in the first place, and their existence does not justify war crimes.
> However, the US has pursued broad economic sanctions against Russia since the annexation of Crimea
Oh those poor Russians, they can't even violently annex neighboring territory without getting sanctioned. I feel so bad for them. We should have just uttered "tsk, tsk" and kicked them out of the olympics. That'll teach 'em!
No, the "economic tranquility" was the period after the Soviet Union fell and the entire western world was welcoming Russia in with open arms, and the economic integration was well under way. Until Putin came in and decided "no, I like things the way they were" and has been trying to bring back the USSR ever since. He doesn't want any economy he can't directly control by force. You think Putin wants economic integration? He wants his soviet union back.
None of what you're talking about is "politics" unless you think Russia actually has a leg to stand on with any of this. They don't. They never have. They're the aggressor here and none of the "warnings" they gave justify any of this.