Zelensky might have had no power or influence prior to his country being attacked but the man is the Iron Joker now and commands the respect of the world. He is the man who could have flown to Brussels but stayed in his office in Kiev in the face of incredible danger. When he broadcast that he was working from his office in downtown Kiev it stood in direct contrast to Vladimir Putin hiding in a mountain fortress bunker at the end of a hundred foot table like some sort of bond villain hiding behind henchmen.

Things in Ukraine are not as they were. Who knows how the oligarchs there will land.

Good thread on hunger politics with regard to the war in Ukraine:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1535617894045868033.html

Zelensky to sign a bill which allows to send terrytory defense forces (militia) to war zone.
https://itd.rada.gov.ua/billInfo/Bills/Card/38749

Nord Stream 2 is not needed as Europe tries to get rid of Russian gas as soon as possible.
Gas flows through Ukraine, who do you expect to bomb it?
From Ukraine gas flows to Slovakia, Romania but most notably: Hungary. The last country is the biggest Putin friend in EU.
So if you cut gas from them, it doesnt make you look good. Thats why nobody does it, even if both sides could. Ukraine also needs gas for their own.

Putin needs people to make his country an empire. His country is only 140 million people, and its declining. Thats why he needed Ukrainians and why he needs other nations too to re-conquer.
Also Ukrainians know how to produce various things, there are big factories there, Ukraine was important part of USSR economy in the past.
Also their agriculture rich lands are very juicy and tempting for Putin, as others mentioned it brings a lot of political power to the guy who owns them.
He also needed to show Ukraine as an example for other nations: "see, when you dont enter Russia on your own, we attack you, bomb you and bring you forcefully".

These are pretty much 4 reasons why he attacked Ukraine.

Now the reasons why Ukraine defends:
They know they cant rely on Russian mercy, and giving up would mean many Ukrainians die or suffer.
because they have faith it will be better for them in the future. Corruption can be fought, Poland was also corrupt as it was also a part of Soviet world, but now its better and corruption is much lower and not really tolerated any more.
Ukrainians believe that they will get some real security guarantees, either from NATO or some kind of mini-NATO at least.
That they will get closer and eventually join the rich European Union. Full join would be difficult though, as western countries dont really want EU to accept more countries fast.
Most probably Ukrainians are simply also pretty pissed at Russians and dont want to have anything in common with them.

America and Russia are repeating the Syrian playbook. Its more than just a parallel, its a low effort hollywood remake.
And it doesn't end well for us.

Putin intentionally exploited and exacerbated a refugee crisis in Syria to destabilize the EU. We saw it happening in real time, we knew what he was doing, he did it, our strategy imploded, and a few years later we were arming Kurds to fight alongside Russians to kill the people we had previously been arming to fight Assad and the Russians. And we handed the country back to Russia on a silver platter and Assad remains in power. We see Putin intentionally exploiting and exacerbating a worldwide food shortage. We know it will cause a refugee crisis in Africa. We are seeing it happen in real time. We know what he's doing. And the Russian economy is hilariously in better shape than ours right now after Biden channeled Jefferson's very smart and effective 1807 embargo act.

Taxes in Russia halved. You cant compare this with whats going on in western economy.
I understand there is some inflation in western world, mainly because we were printing empty money since 2008 year, and printing like crazy during covid.
Im surprised it took that long for inflation to launch, lol.

War will be over once the pipeline is destroyed. The one who owns this pipe can dictate his own terms for the entire region. Nord Stream 2 was put on hold. The biggest pipeline belongs to Ukraine. It was kind of revenge by Putin. Nobody wants their wheat. It can last for years if kept in proper conditions. It's all about gas. It does matter since you cook said grain using it. Get wheat from Kazakhstan, Canada or USA. Why do you need Chernobyl wheat?
Russia-Nato relationship is the key problem. Now people are dying for nothing simply because big guys can't negotiate.

The Russia economy is doing reasonably well and the western sphere's collective economy is in shambles and spiraling even further downwards. Whatever we can cry about centralized economies and market manipulation is 1) not changing that fact and 2) hypocritical to an extreme.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/06/10/russias-economy-appears-to-be-back-on-track
https://archive.ph/d5YRh

There is 'some inflation' in Russia, there is hyperinflation in the US. The Ruble is at 30% higher than pre-invasion values and the Russian central bank is cutting interest rates. The US dollar is plummeting and the federal reserve is hiking interest rates. The Russian trade balance is 4x higher than a year ago and exports are 65% up. Its just an economic fact right now that Russia is doing extremely well by comparison to the west. Its like the comparison I made to Jefferson's 1807 Embargo Act. In response to British naval aggression, Jefferson tried to avoid direct military conflict with aggressive embargos. The result was a crippled American economy and the British trade being stronger than ever. It plunged America into economic crisis. And guess how that diplomatic back and forth ended, 5 years later.

There are longstanding economic issues that caused this wave of inflation, there's no doubt about that, decades of printing money was compounded by a few years of extreme money printing coupled with economic stagnation due to the pandemic. It was energy prices from Biden's economic warfare on Russia that was the proximate cause tipping point that plunged us over the edge. Without that, we might have had years of borrowed time, and a few of economic booms like Trump's economy could have generated the real economic growth to neutralize the effects of irresponsible quantitative easing. But that's not going to happen. There's a 101% +/- 1% chance the American economy is headed into a recession and several market bubbles bursting simultaneously, notably housing. All coupled with a food and energy crisis that Russia is leveraging.

Trump waged a trade war on China and extracted some reasonable gains. Biden waged a trade war on Russia and we might not even survive as a nation

Overdramatized

RUSSIA IS WINNING