Absolutely fascinating to see brand new accounts (all made within the last ~2 months) repeating the same propaganda here on HN, of all places. And not just one, but several -- exactly the same language, too: "Mexico ICBMs," "Azov Battalion," etc. I don't want to accuse anyone of disinfo ops, but spending literally all my day on social media today (reddit/Twitter/FB/HN/etc.), I've started to notice patterns.

You don’t have to understand these “patterns” as just disinfo though, there’s plenty of reasons why people would make new accounts just to start political debates, other than being “hired by Russia/China” as both the mainstream liberals/conservatives of the US often default to. It’s just that some people want to post their political opinions separate from their main accounts; when they really have some arguments they want to say about current events, they simply create throwaway accounts. And if you’ve ever done even a modicum of Twitter, you’ll know that some people are just very enthusiastic about their political opinions even without any financial incentives (even when what they’re spouting can be very polemic and seem like state propaganda).

I’m totally fine for criticizing the OP in factual, political, or ideological terms, but think that shrugging these comments off as “disinfo” actually deter any civil debate and actively increase the amount of hysteria among people and make things worse (you’ve said you’ve been all day on social media… maybe this is why you’re currently overtly hysterical about paid state actors on the Internet?)

And you are simply refusing to see reality as it is because you have biases going in, I'm simply trying to see why this is happening and who really started it but if you keep trying to reduce this to an us-vs-them juvenility then knock yourself out. I have no interest in this region other than figuring out what got us here.

Also I have no intention of backing a country like Russia but I also don't feel any sort of ideological camaraderie just because I am from the West. This coldness is largely how I deal with human attrocities, I take the emotion out of it and reduce biases to accurately gauge reality.

Can't do that when you let somebody tell you what is propaganda or an entire country are the baddies and we are the goodies....I mean that was fun in high school but surely you realize the duality and hypocritical nature of our modern reality....or at least might have been too much to ask during the war itself.

Perhaps when Ukraine becomes part of Russia which it inevitably will be through a forced federalization, will it strike just how badly the Ukranian leadership screwed up in misjudging Ukraine's geopolitical importance—if not obvious from the West's lack of military reaction.

I'm sorry but Ukraine does not produce any derivative goods like Taiwan's semiconductor industry which is of critical strategic importance to the West and one which US signaled military action against China in the event Xi tries to take it.