They're fighting to keeping themselves free. My country's and NATO's defense is what's keeping me free. Any additional assistance from my tax money to Ukraine (which I agree with) is entirely optional and should be repaid.
They're fighting to uphold this order, to show that it's not simply yet-another-treaty that a warring nation can break and take territory from another country with few consequences, where allying to countries doing that will be met with absolute resistance to hold to this ideal.
That's what we are paying for in Europe, if that doesn't have any value to you and you prefer to see it as a purely transactional interaction then go ahead to hold this opinion, other people believe in something further than simply tit-for-tat transactions. Morally speaking is a better way of living.
Just because I don't want my tax money going to aid another country's war any further, doesn't mean I want Russia to win. I want Ukraine to win, just not with my tax money, especially knowing how corrupt Ukraine is and how luxury car sales have boomed in Ukraine in 2023-2025, maybe they should look internally for war revenue instead. I'm already doing my part housing Ukrainian refugees in my country on my tax Euros, even though a lot of them are military aged males and come with cars worth more than I make in a year.
I have two follow up questions.
How much do you want Ukraine to win?
Are you concerned more tax Euros may be spent if Russia wins?
I'm fairly sure, if Russia wins less tax Euros will be spent. That's because the European economies will be doing worse, and less GDP also means lower taxes.
I'd like some trustworthy sources on the luxury car sales since whatever search I do return results from absolutely sketchy websites with similar naming to real news outlets ("globaleuronews.com" instead of the real "euronews.com", "news-pravda.com" [which is very much a Russian propaganda site]), or stuff named using extremely generic terms (such as "automotivelogistics.media", "good-times-invest.com", etc.).
I believe you were victim of propaganda but would like to check what sources you have to challenge my assumption.
Which such blatant accusations it seems you've already made up your mind, and it would be a waste of time to entertain this further and go nowhere. I have already expressed all my arguments above. If you don't believe them, that's fine with me, I don't have to make you change your mind, I'm OK with you expressing a different opinion than mine, I'm not OK with you making accusations about me when you don't know me and expecting me to disprove your accusations as if I owe you that.
Please, share your sources and we can further the discussion, no need for the defensiveness.
Edit: also even if it's the case you have fallen victim to propaganda in no way I put any sense of judgment in that, anyone can be victim of disinformation, what is a failure of character is digging deeper into that belief after being shown one was bamboozled. Up to that point anyone is just another victim.
> I have already expressed all my arguments above.
I do not understand why questioning where your information might have come from triggered a whole meltdown, your argument might be based in disinformation (that Ukrainians have bought luxury cars and your taxes are being wasted on that) and if that's the case then your argument has no basis to it. I would like more information...
When your bank balance is zero or negative and rent and bills are due, do you care about your own today or do you care about the tomorrow of another country hundreds/thousands of KM away?
Because that's how most people think in private. Only the privileged with a warm home and a full stomach can afford to think about other countries. Everyone is rooting for Ukraine if you ask them, but not many are willing to sacrifice their own welfare for it.
Do you think Putin given his ego, after all he's put his country and reputation through, is just gonna walk back and admit defeat if you throw enough EU money and Ukrainian bodies at him?
How naive can you be?
Russia is almost certainly not going to deploy nukes over Ukraine. The cost/benefit is just not there: they won't help take or hold territory, and they invite strategic retaliation from more actors than just Ukraine.
So. Putin's political position is not unassailable (remember how touch-and-go things were with Prigozhin? How hardly anyone stood up to him?). If holding Ukraine becomes genuinely untenable, he'll have to make some excuse to leave, or fall. It's even possible he'll die of old age or pneumonia and be replaced by a more reasonable psychopath.
Putin is not a God, he is a man. The circumstances of that are extremely unpredictable.
See what Ukraine is doing right now, and add more weapons and money.
They won't 'defeat' Russia in the sense of Ukrainian soldiers marching down Red Square in Moscow. But they will make Russia lose the war.
> Do you think Putin given his ego, after all he's put his country and reputation through, is just gonna walk back and admit defeat if you throw enough EU money and Ukrainian bodies at him?
If the alternative is being deposed at home, yes.
Where do you get that from? As far as I can tell, there's no voting at all involved. Formally, any member state can unilaterally invoke article 5.