What are your reactions to Russia invading Ukraine?
As an agnostic, I tend to be very cognizant of how I form my views because it is easy to get caught up in biases, tribalism (i.e. us vs. them mentality), politics, propaganda, etc. I can say that I've experienced more than a fair share of everything having done a lot of discussion on this topic. Trying to do away with all of the negative cognitive factors myself (i'm not perfect), has led me to be open-minded to consider points from multiple sides and not see things as black-and-white as others might see it. Whereas, some might see the West as being right and Russia wrong, in contrast, I don't accept that the West is right in every way and I don't accept that Russia is wrong in every way. In general, this is the perspective I try to use to form my views on this situation. So let's get to my actual position and I encourage other agnostics to join or I'll post their views here, even if from other forums.
In my view, Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine since it was an unprovoked attack. I can understand that Russia does not want NATO expanding up to their door step just as the United States didn't want Russian military accumulating on their border (e,g, the Cuban Missile crisis) but Russia should've waited until there was actual NATO movement into Ukraine before striking. Russian president Putin sending out mixed messages as to why he invaded Ukraine certainly doesn't help Russia's credibility.
Now there is room for criticism of the West, especially the United States. The United States was being hypocritical to not take Russia's concern about NATO expansion seriously. The US was given a chance to make an official deal with Russia PRE- Ukraine invasion, but yet they called Russia's demand to keep Ukraine out of NATO a "
non-starter". That's very hypocritical given how the U.S. reacted to the Soviets storing missiles in Cuba. Why can't the US consider that Russia also doesn't want a hostile military presence on its borders?
Unfortunately, I've received some push back for my views, but interestingly, it has been centered on taking sides, or me not taking the side of the West as much as a lot of Westerners are doing now. I can understand the want to be unified with those of the same culture and region, but I'm only willing to do so to the extent that my culture is in the right. I assume we need to get along with China, with Russia, and with a lot of the big players out there, and it certainly doesn't help to have a us. vs. them mentality. Still what unifies me with Western culture is my love for democratically elected government (although I don't want to force that on other government and people) and our shared civil liberties.
