There is a very fine line between cooperation and appeasement, especially in the eyes of someone who has the mindset of a dictator. It could be argued that most dictators do not understand the difference. It is a lot like working with a narcissist. Any concession, is simply seen as proof they can go take more.

Yes, it was impossible to deter the axis forces from expansion. They had been discussing the desire to control their respective spheres of influence for years, they made diplomacy a no go. Even questions about walking back some of the Treatise of Versailles fell on deaf ears. Most experts also agree that even had they scrapped it, the fascists would have turned to another grievance, to justify their ideology, as a core aspect of fascism is a grievance, towards an outsider, they can claim victim hood to. Ultimately, they promised way too much, and without the war machine, and the looting of their neighbors, they couldn’t stop the populace from, fairly rapidly, turning against them, because all the money being spent to bolster their huge employment boom, would just reignite the inflation, something that would be a death blow to any regime replacing the Wiemar. Are these the same things as today? No, but there are echoes of the fascist rise of last century, today. Also, I was commenting directly to your statements about working with the Nazis, to a comment about conceding France.

The idea this is because “Putin is bad” misses the point that “Putin is invading other countries, and annexing their land”. This war didn’t start because Putin was at home, doing awful things to his own country, and being a terrible dictator there. It started because he decided to start annexing other country’s land, and forcing himself on people who didn’t elect him. He did a little here, a little there, saw no real response from the west, and decided that the annexation of those countries was a concession the west was willing to make, to avoid war with them. He full tilt invaded Ukraine, found out otherwise. The west was willing to make concessions on the basis of going “Ok sure, Crimea has a large Russian population, and a separatist movement, it isn’t worth a war with Russia over that piece of land”. The west was not fine with conceding all of a large country that borders the Schengen. Why didn’t Putin just take his diplomatically achieved concession, where he got the ethnically Russian part of Ukraine, and with it, open access to the Black Sea? Why did he not consider that annexing part of Ukraine would, of course, heat up public desire to join treaties like the EU, and NATO? He could have just been fine with the ethnically Russian part, Black Sea access, and Ukraine still not in NATO, because of that annexation, but he didn’t. He wanted all of Ukraine from the start.

The people wanting to just not fight Putin seem to be under the assumption that expansionism, and reclamation, of their previous empire, isn’t the goal here. They seem to ignore the fact that Ukraine joining NATO wasn’t really popular, and their entry to the EU had a luke warm reception, until Russia gave them reasons to want to do these things. Putin has been discussing reclaiming the lost countries of the USSR since before he was the president. He dipped his toes into it a couple times, and saw that the west was fine to concede territory to him, in order to avoid war. So, more than a year before the escalation of western intelligence operations started in Ukraine, and around 5/6 years before Putin escalated in Ukraine, Putin had started really ramping up anti-Ukraine propaganda everywhere. Their puppet leader had failed after Ukrainians revolted, expelled his puppet, and elected a Jewish man in a landslide. The west was now training Ukraine to protect themselves, and offering some access to their intelligence. Putin had hit a wall with the west just allowing them to continue annexing places. At least ones that bordered the Schengen economic zone.

Seeing this the propaganda machine shifted to leaning on racist sentiment against Slavs/Ukraine and infantilized them, saying over a million people revolting, to his puppet, was just them being too stupid to realize they were controlled by the CIA. Also, after electing a Jewish man in a landslide, Putin decided to go with the story that Ukrainians are nazis, so their invasion was justified. This is the fault of Putin’s desire to expand, he is at fault here. He can stop any time. He chooses not to. He has been getting foreign weapons this whole time, just like Ukraine, but now he is getting foreign boots on the ground. He is escalating again. This is why the Ukrainians were given permission to use longer ranged arms on Russian territory. When does it become Russia’s responsibility to stop escalating? Do you really think you have the right to tell other countries to concede their sovereignty? They elected a leader who fights back, if they wanted a leader who fights back, who are we to dictate otherwise?