Not to say that I disagree.  Oh, noes!  Putin is an evil man:  I think that he’s the new Saddam Hussein, and Russia is now Iraq.  It is totally unprecedented for any country to make a preemptive military escalation when a strategic threat develops at its borders; anyway, I do not know how to read a map.  I am so glad that the Western media have never lied about atrocities, that the U.S. president has no corrupt connections that may be relevant, and that—totally unlike Russia!—the Western intelligence agencies don’t have a long history of using online brigades of professional shills to manipulate discussions and destroy reputations.

Evil Putin bans all freedom of speech.  Russia’s enemies embrace freedom of speech.  There is no active U.S. program to censor Internet discussions about Russia.  Unlike Russia, the West tolerates dissent.  I can just totally believe that everything Russia says is false, and everything its enemies say is true.

Anyway, this discussion of the war is off-topic in Meta.  The important question is:  Why is this thread still here?

---

On a personal note, I am aggrieved at the war—and for my own part, I lay the blame squarely on the corrupt politicians in America who engineered it.  I have had both Russian friends and Ukrainian friends for years.  When things started to blow up in that region in 2013–2014, I tried as delicately as I could to plead that the worst wars are wars between brothers.  I strongly dislike some of the rhetoric that the Russian media tend to apply to Ukrainians (and also, to various people from the Baltics).  Nonetheless, when the U.S. has been seeking via NATO, etc. to gain a strategic proxy like a dagger poised at Russia’s belly, I cannot avoid looking at a map, and remembering how the U.S. reacted in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

---

I have recently noticed some non-n00bs who should know better issuing negative trust feedback based on pro-Russian political opinions.  That is reprehensible, and a clear ~.  This forum has a customarily strict taboo against using political opinions as the substantial basis for negative trust feedback.  That is not even something that was ever controversial in DT, like some of the types of tags I issue.  Red tags for political opinions are 100% clear-cut trust system abuse.

The moderators should move this thread to Politics & Society.  It is totally off-topic in Meta.

Permitting this thread in Meta gives the impression that the administration may consider sanctioning people who express unpopular opinions about the war.  The continued existence of this thread in Meta has a chilling effect on the freedom of speech.

OP is perfectly free to express his political opinion in the Politics & Society forum, or in forums where generalized or off-topic discussion is invited or tolerated (WO, Off-Topic, or the generalized Serious Discussion board).  If he wants to advocate that forum users with unpopular opinions should be banned from the forum and/or burnt at the stake, then that discussion is on-topic in Politics & Society.