> had they somehow forced them (and you have to force people to leave, believe me) to leave, they would lose the justification. well exactly. my point was this: russia did not go out of their way to help it's ethnic russian population inside ukraine. because if that were the cause, be sure that those people would have fled ukraine to safe haven. yes of course some would choose not to leave even under high danger, but most of them would. the vast majority of any population is not composed of fighters. besides that, russia should have not invaded(even if said persecutions continuted or some shit). let's remind ourselves of the timeline: russia moved troops in belarus and attempt a quick blitzkrieg-style overthrow of the government, which failed. they did not try to save it's "persecuted" ethnically-cleansed population (which from what i've understood was mostly in the east and south), they tried to overthrow the puppet regime in ukraine.  the rest of it it's history, and i've thought about it quite a bit (more than you probably, considering the proximity of the war being closer to me than any other western country). the fact is that russia used this and other arguments, which aren't even semi-accurate as justifications for it's invasion. think whatever the fuck you think, russia also could have proved the "ethnic cleansing" (which wasn't happening quite as much) through it's channels that weren't completely severed post 2014 and pre-war (rt, telegram,etc.). even if western media did not report it fully, it would have eventually get out. the ethnic cleansing theory does not have that much evidence to back it up, but feel free to proof of how it was happening and why it was justified to invade another country.
Romania