admit Russia is doing an imperialism

The very fact that you treat imperialism like an action and not a system shows that you don’t have even the minimum possible of understanding of what it is.

It’s only imperialism if it comes from the West

In the present stage of history, yes. No country other than Japan or the western ones have managed to rise to the status of being imperialist powers. The reason is simple. The powers which became imperialist first delayed the development of the rest of the world by literal centuries, preventing any other people from becoming imperialist. Japan happened to escape this fate by geographical luck and developed early, allowing it to join the ranks of the imperialists.

There is a reason why the most dominant/advanced capitalist countries today are still the same ones that were advanced over a 100 years ago.

otherwise it’s just sparkling being an asshole to your neighbors

This has literally nothing to do with imperialism, which is the system by which a handful of the most advanced capitalist countries have consumed unparalleled sums of human labor from the whole of humanity for centuries on end.

Really feels like we are in WW3 and the imperialists are overextending themselves.

That echoes the peace terms that Zelensky and Putin’s representatives discussed in Minsk, Antalya and Istanbul in March and April 2022. Those talks ultimately failed because the Kremlin team refused to budge on key additional demands such as limiting Ukraine’s armed forces and rewriting laws on language rights.

Well, it seems the Russians have gotten their demand of limiting Ukraine’s armed forces either way. So the first one was at least in retrospect, not a bad compromise. As for the second one, what exactly are those details, would you like to elaborate, Mr. Matthews? Is the reason that you aren’t elaborating that the Russians were against the reduction of minority language rights, as admitted even by an Atlantic Council article?

But in many – in fact most –important ways, Zelensky is a victor. Four fifths of Ukraine will emerge independent of Russian dominion

Independent of healthy prime aged males as well

free to rebuild itself as a prosperous European democracy

Yeah cause the “prosperous European democracies” are doing so well themselves, right? How many European leaders have an approval rating above 30%? How many are neoliberal hellhole police states, Owen?

If Ukraine is very lucky, it may find another leader of Zelensky’s strength and calibre.

With luck like this, Ukraine won’t need enemies.

Well, funding so many wars is partially why the Biden admin lost the popular vote and election in the first place. Nothing too surprising here.