Neither is true;

While sociological data in a dictatorship is to be taken with a grain of salt, the data shows that most Russians support the "special military operation": https://www.levada.ru/en/ Worse, there are a lot of people on Russian social media that are aware of war-crimes and support them, I hope their numbers are small, but unfortunately rulers known for cruelty like Ivan the Terrible, Peter I or Stalin are quite revered, and Putin has drawn parallels between himself and them (most recently Peter the First).

Russia lost the war in the sense that the original intent was to occupy all or most of the country. But Ukraine still has lost 20% of the area and much of the population is under occupation, refugees or mobilized. This is far from victory for Ukraine and the country needs to be helped to win. Ukrainian victory is in everyone's interest because otherwise wars of conquest will become the norm again.

Most ethnic Russians in Ukraine support the action too. The crisis in the Donbas has really soured them.

The inevitable outcome is that like with Crimea, Russia will successfully annex the parts of Ukraine that are overwhelmingly populated by Russians who prefer Russian rule.

Please don’t mistake a prediction for an endorsement.

> Most ethnic Russians > in Ukraine support > the action too

I think the cause and effect are reversed here: people choose the identity to reflect their political views. So, those who still choose the Russian identity often do so because they support Russia; but it's not a static group, their numbers are dwindling.

I believe that a lot of people who used to consider themselves Russians have now embraced Ukrainian identity to distance themselves from Russia.

The 'ethnic Russians' and 'ethnic Ukrainians' in Ukraine has much more to do with self-identification than with anything else.

(I have an example of my grandfather. Having born near Khabarovsk, he moved to Lviv when he was twenty-some.

He considered himself ethnic Ukrainian, while all his family that stayed in Russia consider themselves ethnic Russians.

They have the same family history: some of their grandparents emigrated from Ukraine, so it wasn't a made-up identity. But it was a choice: my grandpa, living in Ukraine, considered himself ethnic Ukrainian, and his sister in Kamchatka considers herself ethnic Russian.)

'Ethnic Russians' and 'ethnic Ukrainians' are not some stable groups where members of one cannot become members of another. Basically any Ukrainian can claim to be ethnic Russian, and almost any Russian from Ukraine (except perhaps late immigrants — but even those can usually find some Ukrainian roots) can claim to be ethnic Ukrainian.

> The inevitable outcome is that > like with Crimea, Russia will > successfully annex the parts > of Ukraine that are > overwhelmingly populated > by Russians who prefer > Russian rule.

I don't think such parts exist. After 2014, Ukrainians have had a good chance to see what happens in places conquered by Russia, so Russia is fooling no one: no one would look at Donetsk and say 'nice, I want my city to be like this!'.

> 'Ethnic Russians' and 'ethnic Ukrainians' are not some stable groups where members of one cannot become members of another. Basically any Ukrainian can claim to be ethnic Russian, and almost any Russian from Ukraine (except perhaps late immigrants — but even those can usually find some Ukrainian roots) can claim to be ethnic Ukrainian.

That may or may not be true, but having spoken with some that's not what they think. It's definitely not cut and dried. Even so, if you imagine a rainbow you could think of yellow as being west Slavic Ukrainian and green as east Slavic Russian. Then sure, you have a fair amount of yellow-green in the spectrum, but that doesn't mean yellow and green don't both exist as meaningful categories.

I do agree thought that many, even perhaps most, Slavic people in the region can trace themselves back to Rurik's days and thus have some tie to the various successor states.

> They have the same family history: some of their grandparents emigrated from Ukraine, so it wasn't a made-up identity. But it was a choice: my grandpa, living in Ukraine, considered himself ethnic Ukrainian, and his sister in Kamchatka considers herself ethnic Russian.)

How much of this was due to the founding of Ukraine and the somewhat artificial creation of a new Ukrainian nationality to supersede Ruthenian and whatever else people who lived there called themselves before? I honestly have no idea on this, but from a distance it looks like the standard consequences of a great power coming in and drawing borders without much regard for the ethnic groups living there.

I have a Polish buddy whose uncle lives in western Ukraine. The uncle considers himself Ukrainian, but his Polish family all consider him Polish. The Ukrainian he speaks even sounds to them like Polish with funny grammar.

It's nice and all to say people choose their identity, but one observable fact about ethnic conflicts is that your self-identity matters considerably less than how others identify you. Look at the powerful west Slav bias in Poland's refugee acceptance for example.

> I don't think such parts exist. After 2014, Ukrainians have had a good chance to see what happens in places conquered by Russia, so Russia is fooling no one: no one would look at Donetsk and say 'nice, I want my city to be like this!'.

One nice thing about this conversation is we're both making verifiable predictions. So let's see how it shakes out.