I still have contact with people who are heavily affected by the propaganda machinery at the other side of the iron curtain. I'm not very good at pointing out what I think is absurd in a real-time discussion, the fact checking does take some time, and even when trying to point out that the arguments given are absurd, I'm not getting through. But let it be said ...
No, "the west" have no interest as such in the sanctions. Of course there will always be some few companies, individuals and nations raking in money i.e. due to high energy prices, but in general "the west" has nothing to win on the sanctions. It was not "going to happen anyway" - rather the opposite, given enough time most likely all the remaining sanctions imposed after the annexation of Crimea would have been lifted. And no, the sanctions aren't very well planned and thought through, both as mentioned in my earlier post and even The Guardian has some articles that the sanctions may not be very well thought through (here and here). It does not mean that Putin is "winning the economic war", this is not a null-sum-game, and if there ever was a winner, it's probably China, Turkey and other countries not taking part.
Allegedly there is a huge flow of Ukrainian men fleeing Ukraina through the only way it's possible - through Russia. I find it highly unlikely that there are a lot of Ukrainian men escaping from Ukraine by first passing the frontier over to the Russian-controlled territories and then getting out through Russian territory. The wast amount of flow of Ukrainian male refugees crossing through Russian land can very well be explained by the fact that Russia now holds 20% of the Ukrainian territory, and for those not agreeing with the occupation, escaping through Russia is pretty much the only option.
Allegedly Ukrainian male immigrant hooligans does cause quite some troubles in Europe. I didn't know. Even though I've seen some racism in Warszawa. (Indeed, the angry man was a man - but he was probably old enough to pass the border in a legal manner).
Allegedly Зеленський has British citizenship. I can't find any credible sources backing up this claim. Some sources claim that Boris Johnson wanted to offer him British citizenship to make it easier for him to evacuate Kyiv. For all I know that may be true, but I wouldn't hold it against him, and it for sure does not justify an invasion.
No, the US does not earn fortunes by selling weapons to Ukraine, and no ... the US did not earn a fortune on the original "lend lease"-program. "Lend lease" was never about profiting. The "lend" part simply meant ... "we lend you some weapons for no charge, and eventually we may want to get them back at some point". It was well understood that the most of the equipment would get destroyed and never be returned. The background was simply that there were not enough domestic political support to donate weapons directly, hence it was needed to come up with some sillyness like "we're not giving away weapons, we're just lending them weapon". Quote from wikipedia: "A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $690 billion in 2020) worth of supplies was shipped, or 17% of the total war expenditures of the U.S. In all, $31.4 billion went to the United Kingdom, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France, $1.6 billion to China, and the remaining $2.6 billion to the other Allies. Reverse Lend-Lease policies comprised services such as rent on air bases that went to the U.S., and totaled $7.8 billion; of this, $6.8 billion came from the British and the Commonwealth. The terms of the agreement provided that the materiel was to be used until returned or destroyed. In practice, very little equipment was returned and most was destroyed during the war. Supplies that arrived after the termination date were sold to the United Kingdom at a large discount for £1.075 billion, using long-term loans from the United States"
Stepan Bandera. I was encouraged to compare the English Wikipedia article with the google-translation of the Ukrainian article. Yes, Bandera may be a hero for quite some Ukrainians, but that does not justify an invasion. As an Ukrainian nationalist, he was both against the Soviet regime and against Poland (which held places like Lviv prior to WWII, Lviv was his home city for a long time), and this caused him to end up at the wrong side in the war. That reminds me a bit about Finland, which ended up at the wrong side simply because it got invaded by the Soviet before the Soviet got invaded by Germany. Bandera was arrested by the Germans and spent significant of the war time in house arrest and in Sachsenhausen, that does put some limits to how much he can have supported the Nazism. For me it seems wrong to label people as dangerous "nazis" just because they hold positive views on Bandera.
History, history ... yes, lots of bad things have been done by "the west" up through the ages and in the 19th century, but that does not in any way justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine today. Ukraine is not Russia. Russia occupies 20% of Ukraine, and they are moving forward, inch by inch, destroying everything by artillery fire first, with no attempts made on reducing civilian causulties. The carnage and damage is (almost) entirely on Ukrainian territory. "The west" is giving both military aid and humanitarian aid to the defenders because it does seem to help to prevent a total occupation.
Quite some more bullshit was said ... but this is all I have time to write as for now. And no, sadly I did not manage to make a dent in the beliefs held at the other side.
