Sad

Yeah it's sad I can't have my flag because of some old guy in a suit. I feel like world should not generalize people based on their leader. In fact it's hard to even call him one. Hea more of a tyrant or dictator

It's a complex situation with no easy answer.

It is fairly normal in times of war for innocent civilians to suffer because of the actions of their leaders. It behoves all nations to choose their leaders and their political systems with care, or where this is not possible to act to create that environment as best as they can with courage and without apathy.

I understand the frustration, but I also understand the actions of those nations who choose to sanction nations who act contrary to their own best interests, or contrary to the peace, civilisation and stability of the world.

Politics is hard, generalised, compromised, messy. And conflict always brings collateral damage.

I wish a speedy peaceful and positive end to all hostilities across the globe.

Ah, the laugh of jaundiced nihilism, I know it well. Sometimes it's the best response to an absurd and violent reality.

I agree. My mother is ukranian and spent some years living in the Russian SFSR during the USSR era. Russian people are mostly good people, and they live under a repressive regime that feeds them propaganda and does whatever it wants. Its not their fault they find themselves in this predicament.

A cultural shift would likely have to precede any political revolution or change. I wonder how many Russians, especially older, religious or more rural Russians, would want a more NW European style democratic culture?

This is the way.

I don't think anyone has been racist to me, even if this site is been trying so hard to promote racism. By the way, it was NATO that started this war, in 2014.

This nice Ukrainian regime deserves all the help and money the US and the European Garden can provide.

I suspect it's not that the Ukrainians are such a great nation that's the reason for the support, it's that they can a) be brought into the Western fold, and b) are the enemy of Putin's Russia. It seems strategically advantageous for the West to support UK against Russia for longterm benefits. This is real politik. The 'niceness' of any particular group is a lesser concern.

Yeah, it worked so well with Nazi Germany and the Taliban, both were helped and befriended by the US till it was too late.

It's the same with Ukraine, NATO were pushing into power the worst people the world has seen since the Great War in hopes to weaken Russia. Well, after the war is over and Ukraine is defeated the Ukranian nazis and the west provided weapons will go to Europe and America. Good luck with them.

The world will always be like that people are looked at by the way there soldiers represent their country

Everyone has reasons that make sense to themselves. It hardly matters.

I've played opponents from both Russia and the Ukraine, and have chatted with them and become casual friends. They are human beings, no different from any of us. Most of us are not at war even when our country is, and we shouldn't be judged by what our country might be doing. I strongly disagree with chess.com's policy of disallowing the Russian flag. For citizens of Russia, right or wrong, that is their country and they should have the right to express it.

Putin didn't start anything, Russia is doing a great job keeping NATO murderers out of the Donbass. If you want culprits look at the Biden administration, people like Victoria Nuland or Blinken. This is Nuland, btw.

Even European leaders like Merkel or Hollande have admitted that they did everything in their power to start the war.

Just out of curiosity, would you apply that principle to any culture/regime or ideological flag either current or historical?

At the end of the day, enjoy your just deserts. Your sanctions are not working and NATO is losing the war, badly. The world is seeing the US for what really is and abandoning the dollar. The European Union is just the lapdog of America.

Congratulate Biden for the war.

What makes you believe these things to be true?

@21

I'm applying it here to established countries that are inhabited by normal human beings, those being Russia and the Ukraine. I was not applying it to a culture or an ideology.

So I would likely not support displaying a flag that indicated a political ideology or something otherwise chosen by the person. I'm not sure what standards are being applied to Russia to deny their flag, but I'm pretty sure that if those standards were applied universally, many other countries would be denied as well, at least some of the time. The US flag could certainly have been denied during the Iraq war or Viet Nam war.

Sure. But I'm asking what you would apply that principle to. For example, would you have applied it to the Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany? What about N. Korea?