Because both sides are funded and armed by much larger players using their respective proxies to deplete the resources of the other side. NATO is using Ukraine like a bullet sponge to deplete Russian resources, China is using Russia as a bullet sponge to deplete NATO resources. NATO sends Ukraine equipment, happy to send hundreds of thousands of Ukranians who have no say in the matter to their deaths. China sends Russia raw materials and manufacturing equipment for weapon systems, happy to send hundreds of thousands of Russians who have no say in the matter to their deaths.
Western defense contractors and Chinese industrial suppliers profit. Russians and Ukranians alike die.
You must have missed my comment about opposing the war. But this kind of bad faith accusation is really disappointing to see on HN. The caliber of discourse here is usually much higher - people engaging with the actual merits of the points being raised, not reverting to attacking strawmen that only exist in their head as if this was Facebook.
Ordinary Russian and Ukranian people are both victims of this war. It is being waged for reasons neither of them chose, that neither of them asked for, that neither of them wanted. Civilians are being killed on both sides, and the people most vested in the continuation of the conflict are those that reap all of the profits from the war while paying none of the human costs. This is a classic principal-agent problem.
If you can't see the inhumanity in the structural forces at play and want to play a game of "attack the strawman" to score meaningless internet points while millions die needlessly over a pointless war, I can't force you to stop, but I'd at least hope you can grow up and take the tragedy and human suffering seriously enough at some point to care more about that than you do about your HN rep.
> You must have missed my comment about opposing the war.
You're opposing the war in the same way Russian propaganda "opposes" it: if only Ukraine stopped fighting, so many lives would have been saved!
But Ukrainians don't have that choice; if they stop fighting against the Russian aggression, they will be fighting as part of it in a few years when Russia invades the next country over. Not to mention losing their culture in the cultural genocide that Russia is committing in the occupied territories.
On the other hand, Russians can stop fighting and go home any time you guys feel sufficiently "opposing the war". But that option is clearly not what you're advocating here with your posts.
Ukrainians had a choice as well which is why many of their men and women escaped and are now living in various European neighbouring countries instead of rotting in a ditch somewhere.
> But this kind of bad faith accusation is really disappointing to see on HN.
The longer you stick around HN, the less surprising this is.
HN does not punish commenting in bad faith, and the design of HN's gamified engagement systems encourages bad-faith use of the downvote and flagging system.
Western defense contractors and Chinese industrial suppliers profit. Russians and Ukranians alike die.