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Notes -
I can very much claim the above isn't evidence of his motivation being "ethnic Russians" because he doesn't do all that for the ethnic Russians who don't live on the territories he wants to grab.
There are lots of ethnic Russians in Russia who are far better off due to pensions, jobs, crime, state assistance, and most other objective metrics due specifically to Putin. You can claim whatever you like and yet ethnic Russians are far better off in Russia now than when Putin took power.
edit: I didn't claim Ukrainians "bullied" Putin through their treatment of ethnic Russian Ukrainians, it's simply an analogy to demonstrate why I think it's dishonest to simply assert putin "caused" the war. He did and the bullied kid "caused" the fight by not bowing down and submitting to be abused, but then again so what?
so claim putin doesn't care about ethnic russians because evidence of him caring about ethnic russians is explained through ulterior motives you have divined, but yet claiming there is "no evidence" is simply wrong
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