The US is a settler-colony, that's an entirely different situation. The Donbass region is historically a group occupied by ethnic Russians, Russian is the dominant language, and it has been this way for centuries. Even a basic Wikipedia article makes this clear. Whether or not the Donbass region is historically occupied by ethnic Russians isn't what's in question, what's important is that the post-Euromaidan government is a group of nationalist Banderites that have been suppressing ethnic Russians, including erasure of the Russian language.

This is why it's important to recognize that the seperatists have very good reasons to want to leave Ukraine. Those that are against their ability to join Russia through annexation must make the argument that they not be allowed to secede even from a government that has been shelling and slaughtering them.

Are we supposed to just erase that Kiev was shelling and slaughtering the seperatists in the Donbass region for a decade prior? And that these same people specifically requested Russia comes in and help? It's incredibly important to analyze situations and why they happen, because they tell you what options we realistically have when it comes to trying to find the best outcome. It seems you've taken the opposite approach, turning a blind eye to everything that built up towards this in a Marvel-style hope that the "good guys" will beat the "bad guys" and everyone will live happily every after.

Your comment is a prime example of the clash between two paradigms in understanding international relations:

• The Liberal-Idealist Paradigm, where conflicts arise from the violation of universal norms and rights. The solution is to isolate the aggressor, punish it, and support the victim. Morality and law are the main guiding principles. The comment is written from this perspective.

• The Realist Paradigm, from Classical Geopolitics, where international relations are an anarchic environment where states rationally (though sometimes erroneously) pursue their national interests based on security, power, and influence. From this viewpoint, moral assessments are useless for analysis; one must study the balance of power, geography, interests, and perceived threats.

You made a morally powerful but analytically poor statement. It accurately reflects the emotional mood of a significant part of the international community and serves as an important reminder of the human dimension of the conflict. However, as a tool for understanding what is happening and forecasting future events, it is useless and even harmful, as it calls for the abandonment of critical analysis in favor of pure moralizing. The task of a geopolitical expert is to synthesize both approaches: to be fully aware of the monstrous nature of events, while also coldly and rationally analyzing the mechanisms driving them.