There are a number of things that have to be said first. They have to be said because virtually no U.S. television viewer knows or is likely ever to know them. They have to be said because if I'm going to suggest any flaws in the actions of the Russian government, I have to establish at least the possibility of doubt that I'm bought and owned by NATO or the Pentagon. Here are those things:
Ukraine has in common with Yemen, Iran, Taiwan, Korea, Syria, and every other global hotspot, a central role by the U.S. military.
The U.S. globally dominates weapons sales, base building, military alliance building, dictator-arming, coup-facilitating, and war launching.
Russia's military costs 8% what the U.S. military does.
The U.S.-driven expansion of NATO and militarization of Eastern Europe is at the root of the crisis.
The new U.S. bases in Slovakia, tank sales to Poland, and giant weapons sales to Ukraine and throughout Eastern Europe are not incidental here.
Russia's demands to get the weapons and troops and war pacts out are perfectly reasonable and exactly what the U.S. would demand if there were Russian troops and missiles in Ontario, and exactly what it did demand when there were Soviet missiles in Cuba.
That being said, there remains the problem of my lack of permission to say anything to Russians or Ukrainians. Having the particular responsibility that is bestowed on anyone who lives in the United States to go after the dominant military machine on Earth, it might be reasonably supposed that I don't have any free moments to outrageously dare to criticize any of the victims of the massive death force that my neighbors and I fund, generally fail to restrain, and truth be told in most cases know virtually nothing about. And yet, even as I devote myself to shutting down U.S. militarism and implore the rest of the world to help, I find that I can spare a few moments for Russian militarism too.
Both sides have predictably escalated violence in Donbas. The immediate cause of this is each side piling up arms, each side swearing that the other will attack at any moment, each side promising to counter-attack, each side piling on nationalistic and ethnic identity and hatred, and each side either stupidly imagining that peace can survive such actions, or imagining that machismo requires mirroring the other side's militarism, or imagining that non-military alternatives don't exist, or actually wishing for war.
Each side has enough nukes to destroy all life on Earth. Each side has been massing armies and engaging in war rehearsals even nuclear war rehearsals, and talking about moving nuclear weapons into new countries (Belarus on the one hand and Ukraine on the other).
The most effective moves by the Russian government have not involved its military. They have been: (1) making clear their very reasonable demands, (2) mocking the ridiculous predictions of a Russian invasion on particular dates by the U.S., and (3) evacuating people from Donbas to protect them from war as violence escalated at the Western border of Donbas.
These most powerful actions have been overshadowed by quite counterproductive military posturing and preparations. For what Russia spends on its military, it could do all of the following:
Fill Donbas with unarmed civilian protectors and de-escalators.
Fund educational programs across the world on the value of cultural diversity in friendships and communities, and the abysmal failures of racism, nationalism, and Nazism.
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