How do you guys explain Ukraine to friends and family members?

I find it's pretty much impossible to engage with people who still think Ukraine can either win or negotiate better terms by prolonging the war. No matter what you say, they're just going to counter with that.

It's going to be easier to talk about this once the war is over and Russia has won. At that point, they will have to grapple with the fact that Ukraine is objectively worse off than it would've been had it taken the deal two months into the war. Once that's established, then it's possible to start talk about whether the west actually helped Ukraine in the end.

100,000s have died that would be alive today if a ceasefire was reached. The West is so russophobic that context will just make them dig their heels in deeper, you need to get them to accept that endlessly killing Ukranians isn't helping Ukraine first and foremost.

That it is a proxy war between two world powers on the territory of Ukraine, as a start.

By referring them to the Cuban Missile Crisis and reminding them what the US did to one of the tiniest countries in the world the second they thought about joining an economic and military alliance with our rival superpower

If geopolitics is actually their interest, I share John Mearscheimer's lecture on Ukraine with them. It both helps that he isn't a communist and that his analysis and breakdown is accurate and accessible.

Not at all, they will gleefully talk about how they hope for a second "Nuremberg trials" for Russia and talk endlessly about how this shows how much of "Stalin's legacy" remains in Putin

Nothing I can do there

I don't talk about it with people who are heavily dug in, but I will talk about it with friends and family who see the headlines or the two minute national news segment and never looked further. They're usually quite open to learning more.

I give them the broad strokes of Ukranian political history since 2004, and the expansion of NATO since 1991. I really try to underline the material interests of the parties involved, specifically Russia's security concerns and the desire of the Ukranian people to choose their own path rather than have one dictated to them. I sometimes go into how US capitalists have bought up Ukraine in return for the weapons if they're still interested at that point.

For me, the biggest thing is hitting the right tone in talking about this. Not lecturing, not talking down, but meeting people where they are at and finding common ground like wanting all peoples to have self determination.

You don’t lol but in all seriousness the only conversation I had about Ukraine at all with family was when my stepdad asked me my feelings on it. I cannot for the life of me remember why he asked me this but what I do recall is bringing up Euromaidan and the Donbas. The conversation was incredibly short as I had to leave right away but I remember it ending with him asking if I thought Putin had legitimate reasons, I said yes and left (I did not leave because of the conversation, I needed to take the dog for a walk because a baby just entered the house and my dog hates young children).

I think the main thing is gauging whether the person is open to even talking about this or not, to my surprise my stepdad did (he and his family are Ukrainian, but I think only his great grandparents were immigrants) and even though we could not continue the discussion he hasn’t acted cold to me at all and still engages in political talk even if I find his opinions misinformed. I could gather from our brief talk that he was open to listening to me and giving background information tends to help understand the conflict a bit more, because surprise surprise a lot of people didn’t know about Euromaidan or the Donbas (I sure didn’t). I wasn’t able to talk about NATO expansion but that would be a good idea as well.

Depending on your situation, avoiding the topic at all might just be your best bet. I never bring up politics ever because of how insane my family can get, so sometimes you have to wait for them to come to you. Knowing your stuff beforehand and relaying that information in a calm and kind manner can go a long way.

The points I try to hit most are:

1. There is no way for Ukraine to win short of WWIII, so the best option for the Ukranian people is to negotiate an end to the war immediately. This will not be on great terms, because that's what happens when you lose a war.
2. Fighting longer will only kill more Ukranians and get them a worse peace deal.

If you can bring them around on these very immediate points, maybe they'll listen to what you say about why the war began in the first place. If you can't get through to them on "they lost, how many more have to die," it's not worth arguing much else.

In Poland it's not even that hard, you go for obvious banderite worship first. Problem is, you might accidentally hit a hardcore PiSmann who would take you for his fellow fash. Then again such people are rather easy to spot since they never shy from announcing their political opinions.

Fortunately my friends and family members don't need it explained to them because we're all leftists, but outside of the hardcore Ukro nationalist types I find that almost no one where I am has a strong opinion on the conflict other than a) people should stop dying and b) we should stop sending our money to them. I've found it pretty easy to suggest to them that Russia has legitimate reason to start this war and that media has mislead them, and we can usually agree that ending it as as soon as possible is best course of action.

For the nationalist sorts I just avoid all discussion of it lol you will never break through to someone who is able to hold contradictions like that in their mind seemingly without issue.

Well I tried to tell them about what's really going on but they bought the Mainstream Media narrative about stopping Putin from getting into Europe. I was disappointed but they're smart people, I'm sure they know shit's crooked.