I’m sorry, I thought you understood we were talking about Ukraine

We were, but you decided to talk about your embarrassment and atrocities in Afghanistan, for some reason.

Cute. Downright adorable. You knew full well what I was talking about, you just elected to change the subject. Which suggests you're not arguing in good faith and just wanted a smug put down.

I’ve heard claims that the 2014 was western-backed, though I’ve never seen anyone attempt to substantiate that claim

The Nuland-Pyatt correspondence where they discussed whom to put on the throne in Ukraine instead of the then-current leader were leaked in early February of 2014, before the coup. She also bragged about how much the US spent on influencing the Ukrainian government. And, of course, the leaders of the coup were politicians - it was not a grassroots movement.

I haven't heard of this before, so I'll check it out.

Go ahead and quote the part where I said anything about how they should or shouldn’t resist

You keep talking about how Russia is bad for resisting you, for example.

I can't believe your reading comprehension is genuinely that poor. You know what I actually meant, and this is just a poor attempt to change the subject to one you find more favorable.

I never did, nor was that the topic at hand

It’s literally the topic at hand. You started it by talking about how Russia shouldn’t have resisted your aggression the way Russia did.

Look, there's the discussion you want to have, and there's the discussion the rest of us who are paying attention are trying to have. Try to stay on topic. No, I did not mention Afghanistan, even if the description is relevant to more than what we're talking about. No, it wasn't a genuine mistake to misinterpret it that way. Don't try to play smug and stupid at the same time.

The discussion at hand, since you seem to be struggling to grasp that, was whether or not Russia was trying to prevent war in Ukraine

War with NATO more generally.

And yeah, Russia did try to resolve it otherwise. Russia did not just do an overt full-scale invasion in 2014.

Full-scale? No. Invasion? Yes. Russia tried to deny troop presence, but I recall several instances of soldiers accidentally revealing their presence.

Notably, you are fine with voluntarily invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Vietnam, Korea, committing genocides, including the one in the occupied Palestine, known torture sites, coups, etc.

You know, I don't recall ever mentioning those things. Don't see them in this thread anywhere. Do you assume the worst of everyone who disagrees with you, or am I just special?