On April 17, 2023, the Moscow City Court convicted Vladimir Kara-Murza on combined charges of treason, dissemination of “false information” about the conduct of the Russian Armed Forces, and involvement with an “undesirable organization”, and sentenced him to 25 years in maximum security prison with an additional fine of 400,000 rubles (approximately USD 5,000), restriction of freedom for 1.5 years, and a ban on journalistic activities for 7 years.
No one wants to defeat or have war with Russia (nor China or any country). That wouldn’t make sense. NATO could have entered the war in Ukraine at any time (with the “excuse” of Russia did “strike first” as you said), but it didn’t, because this war -like any war- doesn’t make sense.
Fair. But didn’t Finland recently and all other countries before join Nato voluntarily? Why so?
If we do what the people want -in Russia, Ukraine, and everywhere else- then we would “magically become democratic”. I argue that no soldier in the battlefields wants to be a soldier, and those who want the war are not in the battlefields. But in non-democratic societies, people don’t make the decisions (and, yes, no democracy is perfect, there’s is a lot do and the work may never end).