One more thing, the reason why most west should actually care about this war is that it might be prelude to much bigger war (as russia+china partnership suggests). Many geopolitical commentators with very sound arguments implying catastrophical consequences to global security if russia suceeds. That means even you might get drafted.

I have no doubt people got spooked and ran away. But what that spooky thing was that they ran away from - I am not sure. Even your example: a friend, not you, deals with NGO but does not deal with the raped girls herself. Hmmm. And lack of coincidence is that none of ukrainians I know got raped, and none of the russians I know seem to be the rapist type. Weird lack of coincidence. I know it is hard to believe there would be lies at this level. But then, I care about the perimeter that I am capable to care of properly. The rest - I have my suspicions, but I do not judge. If you check my notes history, you will see that I do share my suspicions, too, but I try to differentiate between things I suspect and things I know.

Dont know where you are but my guess is that much further west than me. So your perimeter is obviously different. Your approch is to “pray problem away” by just ignoring all witnesses. I guess fine attitude if you live in a cave and dgaf about the world. The problem is “the world” my come for you. Participation on societal issues is important in democracy.

Oh Jee, the deeper we dig... :). I can see that we are on very different levels of trusting the surroundings. Let me answer indirectly: One of the formulas in my head: Governments and central banks are necessarily one of two: 1. Ignorant enough to maliciously steal from me through inflation of fiat currencies, or 2. Ignorant enough to steal from me through inflation of fiat currencies without realizing it. So why would I think they are not ignorant enough to intensionaly or unintensionally lie to me about Ukraine? I should verify if I don't trust, you would say. But what is an incentive for me to do that? I have other higher priority business to take care of. Especially that I happen to have known dozens of random Ukrainians and Russians since long ago, and from them I get an impression that governments are possibly lieing indeed. For sure, none of them came asking me for help, and I hate to interfere where I am not invited. If you are helping a society that you do not closely know each one personally, you are interfering and most likely making things worse. Society is a communist term. My friends, friends of my friends and so on, are the correct terms. Everyone else is strangers. Strangers do not get to medl with my business and do not get help from me. Unless of course they become close friends before any need arises. That is fair. They have their friends to help them. If they do not have enough friends, then rhey either get into too big troubles or are too little friendly.

In term of caring for the world, we have such an old anecdote: a crazy man stands by a river in Vilnius and waves his hands like crazy. A bypasser says: - what are you doing? - I am scaring away the crocodiles. - but there are no crocodiles in Vilnius! A wise man came and said: - that is because of him waving his hands!

I will answer to just one topic: The fact that I will never get drafted aside, I would rather be drafted myself than put wellbeing of any Ukrainian at risk for the sake of me not being drafted.