They could have always moved back and have given up and this would all be over.

Ukraine could surrender at any time and this would all be over

Lmao what? Eeww dude, gross, your brain is leaking onto my shoe

Do you know what escalation means? Russia hasn't escalated shit since it launched the invasion. Each thing Russia has done since the invasion is part of the invasion. They haven't attacked other nations, they haven't embargoed or disrupted trade beyond their own borders, they haven't introduced new weapons platforms, they haven't made attempts to decapitate Ukrainian leadership.

Ukraine and the West are escalating. They've been escalating literally since the end of the Cold War. Each country on the border of Russia that got NATO nuclear sites was an escalation. Each color revolution was an escalation. Each sanction was an escalation. Each call for a no fly zone was an escalation. Each new weapons platform sent to Ukraine was an escalation. Each use of Western military intelligence to coordinate Ukrainian strikes was an escalation. Each time Ukraine struck civilian infrastructure inside Russia was an escalation.

You are using words you hear people say but you don't understand them.

Russia has had one demand since the USSR was dismantled - no NATO operations in Ukraine. When the USA escalated and supported the coup in 2014, Russia escalated and took Crimea. When the fascists in Ukraine escalated and sent paramilitary forces to terrorize and mass murder ethnic Russians, Russia escalated with paramilitary of its own in the region. When Ukraine escalated by pursuing NATO operations in its country and NATO made noise like it might, like when Trump escalated and approved the first weapons shipment to Ukraine in US history, Russia escalated by invading the border region. That's all of Russia's escalatory moves - 1 every 5 years or so. It's Ukraine and the West that have escalated since then. Sanctioning Russia was an escalation. Seizing Russian assets in violation of international law was an escalation. Sending lethal aid each year totalling more than the entire Russian military budget was an escalation. Sending Western intelligence, trainers, and even combatants to harm Russia are all escalatory moves.

The one country that is escalating things is Russia. They could have always moved back and have given up and this would all be over.

Are you fucking serious

What do you call expanding NATO? You think that isn't escalation because, what, "it's a defensive pact"? You really don't see how a country like Russia could view an encirclement of "defensive" pacts as aggressive, when it has constantly stated that Ukraine joining NATO is a red line?

You don't think NATO discussing sending NUKES TO UKRAINE, putting them within MINUTES OF MOSCOW, is in any way an escalation?

What the FUCK is wrong with you fucking people

NATO could have simply not attempted to expand, Ukraine could have simply honored the Minsk agreement and stopped genociding Russians in the Donbas, but you don't say shit like that, you think it's entirely on Russia. Brainwashed ass motherfucker

• NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
• The Ukraine Mess That Nuland Made Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.
• Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU
• US Imperialism and the Ukraine Coup
• Former German Chancellor Merkel Admits that Minsk Peace Agreements Were Part of Scheme for Ukraine to Buy Time to Prepare for War With Russia
• Zelensky admits he never intended to implement Minsk agreements
• The West’s Sabotage of Peace in Ukraine In May of [2022] Ukrainian media reported that then-British prime minister Boris Johnson had flown to Kiev the previous month to pass on the message on behalf of the western empire that “Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with,” and that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”

• History of Fascism in Ukraine: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
• BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
• Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
• The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
• The Guardian, 2017: 'I want to bring up a warrior': Ukraine's far-right children's camp – video
• WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
• Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
• The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
• Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
• Consortium News, 2022: Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev
• Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?

• The Intercept, 2021: Meet NATO, the Dangerous “Defensive” Alliance Trying to Run the World
• CounterPunch, 2022: NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance
• Noam Chomsky, 2023: NATO “most violent, aggressive alliance in the world”
• Thomas Fazi, 2024: NATO: 75 years of war, unprovoked aggressions and state-sponsored terrorism

Edit: coming back to all the reactions. Just wow, hilarious.

It's okay to admit you're incapable of grappling with reality and prefer to stay inside your NATO mind palace

The one country that is escalating things is Russia.

This war is literally only happening because of the US and the other countries in NATO. Don't think you should be writing such pithy statements if your understanding of the war is equivalent to a Star Wars plotline.