The issue with Ukraine is very little leftist pre-work for the eventual break out of the conflict. We fucked up by misreading that Russia would invade over it and saying that Russia would not.

Compare this with Palestine, where there are literally decades worth of leftists talking about the issue, the ongoing problems, the open air prison conditions, etc etc.

With nothing to point to but a handful of BBC clips covering the nazis there and the immediateness of the BBC flipping the script and acting like that was just a few of them and Ukraine doesn't actually have a problem, the bourgeois media took control of that narrative and set in the minds of the people a clear story that has solidified. Once the story is set and gains traction it's almost impossible to dislodge.

With Palestine on the other hand, years of leftist content and no mistakes about what Israel would do made it very easy for the left to secure the narrative.

If we had years worth of discussion about Ukraine and Donbas before Russia stepped in, with correct analysis and a correct assessment that Russia would step in and proper reasoning for that before it happened, the left could have won that narrative. The left however spent years largely ignoring what was happening there and then acting like Russia would never do what they did. It was a collective fuck up.