By contrast, Russia openly condones war crimes. Not in the debatable "enhanced interrogation" borderline kind of way. In the kidnapping children to wipe out an entire cultural history and intentionally bombing civilian targets kind of way.

Would you rather your country and governance be controlled and dominated by Russia or by the EU & the west?

I think most people here, if they're being honest, know that despite all its issues, political and economic life in the Baltic states, Poland, Czech Republic, etc. is better in most respects than life in Belarus or large parts of Russia, or the Russian dominated states that surround it. We can debate why that is the case, but I think that's basically fact. (Yes, I hear the streets of Minsk are very clean and it's a "well ordered" society, but this is the kind of thing we hear about all sorts of authoritarian countries and it doesn't make up for lack of basic democracy and individual freedoms, etc.)

In other words: We are not talking in this concrete instance about whether "the invasion of Iraq is better/worse than Russian invasion of Ukraine", but whether Russian dominance and control of Ukraine is better or worse for Ukrainians than western.

I think on the whole the Ukrainian people have voiced their position on this.

Now, whether life will be better for Ukrainians in a post-Russian-control world, I can't say, because it seems the Putin/Lavrov regime is doing its best to make that impossible by destroying as much of Ukraine's productive capacity and future success as it can. Russian strategy seems to have transitioned -- about last fall -- from "occupy as much as we can and destroy the Zelensky regime and take over" to "retreat to a defensive line and f*ck up as much of the rest of Ukraine as we can, salting the earth to make it clear what leaving Russian domination looks like"

Clearly the US invasion of Iraq is a historic war crime. It should not have happened, and I agree with others that the perpetrators should be held to account. But this isn't a math equation where we balance the one action with the other. We are talking about the physical real lives of Ukrainians, and their ability to control their own country and trade with who they want, and manage their own affairs -- not Iraq.

In other words, it's not US imperialism in the abstract vs Russian imperialism in the abstract, it's in this instance for this real world situation the case that western/EU/US alignment is better in the long run for Ukraine than Putin's.

Let's also remember a few millions of Ukrainians were starved to death not 100 years ago by Russians. Ukraine is and was the most fertile soil in Europe. Russians sent soldiers to steal food and to ban people from leaving.

This is what happens when Russia invades you. People in the west have no comparison.