Sure, but propaganda works more by “licensing” than “brainwashing.” There are underlying material conditions for the conflict.
If the war kicked off because of NATO encirclement, and there are now two more NATO members than before the war… What’s the end goal?
Regardless of morals, Ukraine is being demillitarized, and Donetsk and Luhansk are being folded into Russian territory. These are 2 explicit goals of Russia’s that are hard to deny at this point. What matters more for Russia isn’t necessarily the total number of NATO countries, but their relative proximity and millitary power. Much of NATO is de-industrialized and doesn’t actually have much of a long-standing fighting force except the US. Russia is now less encircled than before, but the NATO-aligned and non-NATO aligned countries are at a higher split than before.
Ukraine is being demillitarized
I guess they’re trying, but at what cost and to what end? If the idea is that they’re afraid NATO is going to encircle and then invade them, they kind of overplayed their hand. Everyone now factually knows Russia is a paper tiger, and they’ve squandered a significant portion of their Soviet stockpiles and hundreds of thousands of killed and wounded for a few km of land. If NATO wanted to invade, they could get to Moscow in no time. I assume putin is keeping his best reserves near Moscow, but we’ve seen from the kursk offensive that russian capabilities behind the front lines are severely lacking.
Also the bit about reducing NATO military power… The US made bank selling HIMARS to Russia’s neighbors after seeing how effective they were. They’re stockpiling to protect against Russia.
