agh, it's so amazing that such heroes still exist in this Western world of materialism, just knowing that they exist is enough

I wish we could have a list of these people, their background, thoughts and motives, where do they find the strength and courage to travel to a foreign country to fight a difficult war, big respect and motivation for anyone who cares about justice to keep up the fight, any way we can

War brings out the worst and best in people. I remember when 9/11 happened, I was 10 I believe, in 5th grade. Even in my young ignorance, I could tell people were unified. I haven't felt that same unification since then, until now.

I feel like Putin awoke the sleeping giant of the west, to paraphrase Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. The "my country first" movements are shifting into a "west nations first" mentality, which is going to lead to increased connectedness of western nations the likes of which we haven't seen in decades. This will be even bigger than 9/11, I think, because this isn't a one-off attack followed by an invasion of non-western nations. No one of importance is talking about countering Russia by invading their soil, it's all about defense.

I think many nations will basically be done with trading with Russia except for absolute minimum needs going forward. Putin has ruined his nation's economy for at least a decade or two and it may never be as good again as it was. I think western nations will increase trade deals with each other and increasingly less with Russia and, eventually, China, because of this. They have now proven they cannot be trusted and no one wants to be scrambling the way Europe is right now for oil, in the future. People will want to have full proof plans and you can't have that when your nation is dependent on Russia/China.

Yup, the world is too interconnected with one another these days to consider a war.

If Russia wanted Ukraine back in the fold, they've gone the wrong way about it. They have an interconnected heritage. I believe Russia even started in Ukraine. There can be no dispute that their people are by and large... Of the same heritage.

Why not take that route and try to get them back through diplomacy, trade agreements... whatever it took for a peaceful reunification. Putin seems almost desperate with this move due to the small chance they will shift further away and into the "west". All this has done is push them towards that goal at a much faster rate.

So, when I read that the Ukrainians captured yet another batch of russian equipment like tanks and cars and so on, I think the russians just handed it to them. When this war began we heard numerous stories of how the russian soldiers never knew what they were supposed to do and didn't even want to participate in a war at all. I think this mentality still exists. Because the russian soldiers are basically in a position where they have to choose between four options.
A) Obey to your orders and just pray that it's over soon
B) Obey to your orders and die
C) Disobey and end up in a russian prison
D) Disobey, get captured and apologise. Start a new life outside of Russia.

All four options are bad, no matter what you pick you'll still face severe consequences. If I was in their position I'd definitely be wearing blue and yellow socks from now on.

I recommend everyone to watch this lecture from 2018. It helps to understand why Russia thinks and does things differently to western world. It's in finnish but you can turn on english captions. 

It also explains why it's highly unlikely Russia will ever be a democracy. And why world being interconnected doesn't prevent Russia from starting a war.

The "main" part, is the avg russian, considers ukraine like a sister nation.
It would be like, one day, your president tells you (if your american), we're invadeing Canada, and you have to go there and clusterbomb their civilians.

To most russians (soldiers), this isnt a appealing idea.
So they "take their time" (even the guys leading them, dont want to do this), they purposefully "run out of gas" and stuff like that.
Basically their self sabotageing themselves (to avoid having to fight).

Their will to fight is so low, while ukrine's is high.
They want to sabotage things, and the russian soldiers are basically just letting them (to avoid haveing to go meaninglessly slaughter people).

This is why Putin's war isnt going as well as he predicted.
He expected that ukaine would "welcome their brothers with open arms", and they would all just unite as a bigger russia.
Turns out thats not happending, and while neither side probably wants to kill the other, one is a invader, and the other wants to protect their homes & familes.

Also, I think the avg russian soldier would like to avoid your option A,B,C,D.

Yes exactly, they sabotage themselves and their stuff on purpose. That is probably option E and easily more favorable than the other four options.

President Biden finally caved to the bipartisan pressure and is banning Russian oil imports.

A top economic advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNBC that countries who were importing oil and natural gas from Russia were ultimately financing the country's invasion of Ukraine with "bloody money."

International governments have imposed massive sanctions on Russia, aimed at bringing the country's economy to its knees and cutting off funding for its military. Measures have included blocking transactions from Russia's central bank and barring some banks from using SWIFT for communications about cross-border transactions.

But the sanctions have avoided targeting Russia's oil and natural gas exports, which many countries, particularly in Europe, rely upon.

Oleg Ustenko, one of Zelensky's advisors, told CNBC on Monday that countries buying Russia's oil and natural gas were "responsible" for financing Russia's military actions.

"It's extremely important to cut off them from these bloody money receipts," Ustenko said. "And we do believe that by doing this we will be able really to hit Russians very hard." Zelensky urged countries to boycott imports of Russian oil and natural gas on Monday.

Ukrainian presidential advisor says the West is financing Russia's invasion with 'bloody money' from oil and natural gas purchases

Something I said here days ago regarding nations being hypocritical about saying they were "all in" on support for Ukraine, but meanwhile continuing to purchase the main export from the country they are being invaded by.  In the US, Biden is worried that sanctioning imports of Russian oil will increase the price of fuel at the gas pumps and hurt his already low poll numbers, as inferred by statements made by his own press secretary.  But, the price of gas in the US was on the rise well before the invasion, and even before Russia started massing troops at Ukraine's border.  In my opinion, it would be a much better look if the increase were actually tied to support for Ukraine due to sanctioning Russia's top export.

I think it's ok if Western companies selling/producing/delivering food in Russia don't stop their business even if many complain about some companies not doing it. As much as Russia needs to be sanctioned but anything which is about delivering food to humans should work as normal as possible. If such a company stops their business in Russia it wouldn't only mean no products of that company (let's say McDonald's), it would also hurt the whole supply chain. If it's a Russian farmer or whoever who could start to struggle. But they are after all responsible to feed people.