Okay, read it.

1) It’s a bigger pile of shit than I suspected at first.
2) The translated link at Der Spiegel, far from “spilling any beans”, leads to one where Frau Farbissina Merkel saying she regrets Germany didn’t pony up 2% of its GDP far earlier, and considers that a failure on her part during her time as PM. If someone can pry out a link to WTF they meant to link to, post it. The one they supplied themselves was horseshit.
3) The linked editorial was suspect as soon as I got to the quote “respected independent military analyst Scott Ritter”. He’s a “respected independent military analyst” like James Comey was a “non-partisan even-handed FBI Director”. Ritter was one of the leading proponents for WMDs in Iraq, and later loudly proclaimed the US would never be able to militarily conquer and occupy Baghdad. (Which, in fact, took a bare few weeks.) After that, he became one of the loudest proponents for the idea that there were never any WMDs in Iraq. He’s nothing but a shit-talking opportunist, and operates entirely on his own delusional reality, which life in the real world seldom supports. He should have been shit-canned from the Marines before he made captain, but evidently, the intel weenies were pretty hard up for anyone who wanted the job.
4) By 2014, Putin had already illegally annexed Crimea, violating their own agreements when Ukraine gave up its Soviet-era nukes (biggest strategic blunder of the 20th century, obviously). Vlad then sent airborne and Spetsnaz troops into the Donbas in civilian clothes, and pretended they were a popular uprising against Kiev, in the most obvious fraud since Hitler’s Operation Canned Goods in Poland in 1939. That may have had a wee bit to do with why no one in NATO was buying Vlad’s bullshit way back when, or any time since.
5) In all, the editorial in question is screed masquerading as something new, rather than simply a slightly re-worked FSB press release from last February on why Putin had no choice but to try and conquer Ukraine by invading for a third time in 8 years, because their serial annexations, threats, and invasions hadn’t resulted in Ukraine welcoming them like a long-lost lover.
The only difference between Vlad and an abusive boyfriend who won’t take “no” for an answer from his ex- is simply one of scale and scope of the infuriated slaughter that ensues.
6) The coup in Kiev resulted in massive rearmament by Ukraine, because
a) they had finally dumped the latest in an unbroken line of leadership that had been sucking Moscow’s ass non-stop since independence in 1991, and
b) they’d already been invaded by Russia twice in the prior year, and Putin was already threatening and blustering to take even more. Bithcing about that, as the editorial screed attempts, is like taking a homeowner whose home has been invaded, and his wife and daughters ass-raped in front of him, twice, for daring to buy himself a gun. This is pure Russian propaganda and drivel.
7) They then go on to bitching that Ukraine is now striking targets inside Russia, after 9 months of Russia fucking up anything they can hit with a pulse inside Ukraine. Usually, you only hear “bitch-ass niggers”, to use Dave Chapelle’s notable description, whining when the guy they’re robbing has the unmitigated gall to shoot them back in their own ass, but now this load of codswallop wants to carp because Ukraine is dealing Russia the same shit-sandwich they took without escalation for months on end. It’s no wonder none of their bitch-ass whing pussies had the balls to sign the piece, but instead posted it as an anonymous editorial, because that kind of position is quite obviously nothing other than a load of total horseshit.
8) Someone should send them a calendar, because the West being pissed off with Russia for their stunts in 2014 amounts to a tad over 7 years when the war broke out, which is not, as this screed attempts to characterize it, something that has persisted “for over a decade, if not longer”. Evidently they’re no better at calendar math than they are at common sense.

I hope that wasn’t too subtle a fisking of that floating butt-nugget piece. This is why, when I see anything similar, the best thing to do with it is jiggle the handle and flush again.

And Barry is mostly right. Vlad is a dictatorial asshole with delusions of former Soviet grandeur, and both governments there, as well as our own are corrupt beyond belief. The one indisputable fact about Zelensky is that he isn’t Moscow’s bitch, which is a first for anyone running Ukraine since they became independent over 30 years ago. The only reason I support the Ukrainian response is because I think the people of Ukraine have the right to pick their own rulers, and have proven worthy of as much support as they can make use of, but unlike Barry, I think sending them our munitions rusting away into obsolescence is a worthy expenditure, because anything that hamstrings Russia’s militaristic adventurism increases world peace in the long run, and embarrasses them on the world stage in the short run.
A crippled Russia is a happy European continent. And Vlad ain’t gonna live forever.
I wouldn’t send them a single soldier in direct support, but handing the guns and bullets, and letting them do the Russian-hunting shooting, is perfectly splendid, and ought to be encouraged to the fullest extent, until they get the hint, and scuttle back to actual Russia. You might have thought their own Afghanistan experience would still be fresh enough in Russians’ minds, but evidently, you’d be wrong about that.
Continual punches in the nose, and the dick, should refresh their recollection, and Ukraine seems more than happy and capable of doing it, ad infinitum.
Best Wishes to them in that endeavor.

Error happened.