I'm not defending Russia. Its a fucking hell hole run by autocrats without any regard for human rights.
I don't think our current sanctions do much to solve the above issues though - but open to hearing a convincing argument to the contrary.
I do think that a ceasefire saves lives. That I support.
You know, we could save even more lives if we all just agreed that Ukraine has no sovereignty and let Russia have it wholesale.
Let me try to break this down for you. When a country acts in a reprehensible manner, when they invade and kill, there are a few different levers that other nations can pull to curb this behavior.
They can respond with military force. A pretty straight forward response that gennerally inevitably costs lives. Or they can respond with sanctions. Sanctions are more complicated, but they avoid direct military conflict.
If you remove the sanctions before the sanctioned nation repents and stops the behavior that precipitated the sanction, then you destroy the effectiveness of future sanctions. Nations learn that your sanctions have no teeth and they can just wait them out and have their cake and eat it too.
When you cheerlead the removal of these Russian sanctions, you are cheerleading the destruction of one of the primary tools we have in avoiding armed conflict. You are cheering a more dangerous world where state violence is more prevalent. And then you have the audacity to say that the people in favor of sanctions are the hawks.