Hmm, let's try a little reasoning here. Put the shoe on the other foot so to speak.
Let's say that Texas wanted to secede from the union and be an independent country. We granted that petition (which we wouldn't, as demonstrated by the US Civil War) with the caveat that we didn't want Texas to become a tool of Mexico and Central America (and the cartels that control them).
The problem with the agreement is that there are parts of Texas that don't want to secede. They want to break off and stay part of the US. These would be the northern and Eastern parts of the state, and the Dallas/Ft Worth area. Texas already has the agreement in place to secede before these other regions are able to assert their independence from Texas.
It leads to a conflict with the new country of Texas such that the end result is Texas shells/bombs these 2 regions indiscriminately for 8 years. In the meantime, Texas has publicly and in writing agreed to allow the cartels of the south to use their territory to create labs that explore new types of drugs to sell that are more addictive and eventually deadly to users, clearly in violation of their agreement when allowed their independence.
Knowing that the US has a War On Drugs underway with the cartels of the south, at what point is the US able to go into Texas to protect the people of these 2 regions that are being attacked without ceasing for 8 years, to allow them to become independent states in their own right, and to rid Texas of the drug labs that violate the agreement they had with the US, and that threaten the health of US citizens because of the trade border with Texas?
All of this is rhetorical, because you know what the US would do and has done to states wanting to secede, but if these circumstances were to come about, you would side not with the US or Texas because of the position of either, or reasoning therefrom, but simply because of how and how much you were INFORMED of the situation, and from which propaganda perspective you favor.
I take no side because I don't have all of the information. I have enough to know neither propaganda perspective is true. Things lie somewhere in between.
-Ukrainian survivors taking refuge in Romania have no reason to lie about being abused or shot at by Ukrainian troops. In fact they have the opposite motivation if they ever want to return home.
-Russian soldiers don't surrender without any fight unless they really don't understand why they're in Ukraine, or they're conscripted and didn't want to fight in the first place.
-Russia hasn't suffered the losses to their air force that Ukraine has said, and they also haven't lost as few soldiers as they want their people to believe.
-The Ukraine Military is not innocent of killing and abusing Ukrainian civilians, nor forced conscription of them. Doubtful that Russia is innocent of the same.
Putin has a known history. He is our enemy, but can in some operations be our ally, as Russia was in WW2. Ukraine is known to be corrupt, its president an actor (for all intents and purposes each one has been controlled by opposing oligarchs and institutions). They could be our ally in some operations, but until they act on better impulses, they should be our enemy. NATO AND THE UN, likewise.
