Is there any part of "Putin and his imperialist invasion" which is incorrect?
Putin claims to have ordered the invasion, and I haven't seen any reason to doubt that.
And whatever "legitimate security concerns" may have contributed to that order, those "legitimate security concerns" are rooted in a post-Cold-War doctrine of a claimed Russian "sphere of influence" in its "near abroad."
Which is just another way of saying "a peremptory and preeminent power to dictate to polities currently on the fringes of, and historically at times part of, the thousand-year-old Russian empire."
One can be opposed to (further) US intervention in the matter without pretending that Putin is some kind of misunderstood hippie peacenik. He decided he was going to dictate to Ukraine's regime, and invaded to enforce those dictates and punish disobedience to those dictates. Any justification for those dictates is inextricably linked to Russia's history as an imperial power vis a vis Ukraine.
image hat tip -- Matt Hicks on Facebook
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