Starting a war is evil. It's the kind of evil that has been normal and commonplace, representing a centric view or a "moderate" attitude, i.e. not an extreme outlier, in human history, cf The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker. Compared to the last ten thousand years of wars and strife it's actually the somewhat nonviolent and affluent post-cold-era in the West that has been "extreme". But overpopulation, climate changes and resource scarcity have contributed to ending the neoliberal world order (thought it may resurface in an AI robot version in 2045 maybe). It's therefore most likely, but not certain, that the "fair weather"-peace of the last thirty years will be replaced by stormy and turbulent (periodic) authoritarianism and rebellions in the West, as we have already seen after the pandemic started, cf The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche. The New York Times:

Is Civil War Coming to America?

Putin is rightfully condemned today after he went further than "just" protecting the 1/3 of Donbas inhabited by ethnic Russians. But if he successfully takes eastern Ukraine or the entire country he will be remembered in 2122 or 2222 as one of the so-called "great leaders" of Russia. A century from now the horror caused by the war will be (mostly) forgotten. Just look how quickly we forgot the horrors caused by Yeltsin and Putin in Chechnya.

Romanticists are amoral aestheticists. Russia belongs, in a significant degree, to the tradition of Romanticism, and so do hundreds of millions of people - if not billions of religious humans - all over the (non-Western) world. Romanticists are impressed by Russia's authenticity, it's dark idealistic will to stand up and fight the woke libertine AI robot metaverse panopticon in the West. If Kremlin (partly) destroys this high-tech dystopia, it's no doubt that supporters of original non-cyborg humanity will thank Putin afterward. Russia is already "the third Rome".

Everyone who is opposed to war and authoritarianism should therefore be fully aware of the strong motives that might perhaps be the leading drivers of Kremlin today. If the men in Kremlin are half as darkly idealistic and patriotic and religious as "primitive" zealots in the Middle East, then neoliberals and neocons will not be able to defeat them.

Neoliberals and neocons are aware of what is at stake: the future resurrection of the now dead "liberal" world order. They will therefore fight too, at least in the form of equipping Ukrainian insurgents and subjecting Russia to "sanctions from hell". They may also get dragged into the war if things become a nightmare in Ukraine. Amoral romanticists will say: this can be an epic war that changes world history.

Russia today is an empire doing that which all empires do: fighting in bloody disgusting wars. Washington has done the same in many wars since 1990. But high-flying dark romanticists may get disappointed before things get really incendiary, because Russians today may have become too decadent and Americanized to protect their own empire. Kremlin may not be able to communicate to them what is at stake: the very existence of Russia in the future if the woke libertine panopticon is not destroyed (or at least contained within the US/EU).

Russia has an additional problem. If Kremlin worries about opinion polls and the criticism presented by political leaders who still cling to the remains of the neoliberal "order", it can all be very demoralizing for Kremlin in the long run, especially because nobody who supports universal ethics will stand up and defend Kremlin's war in Ukraine.

I'm a 30% romanticist and can therefore have aesthetic sympathy with Russia, but I also support universal ethics and that prevents me in principle from ever supporting an invasion of Ukraine.

However, if Russia actually defeats the beginning of "Skynet" (Skyborg), then the moral (utilitarian) calculus changes, but that is a very big if. Russia stands therefore alone today, at least in public.

But all real cultural conservatives (silently) hope that Russia is not defeated, even when we justifiably criticize all violence toward innocent civilians in Ukraine. Kremlin may reply that we are cowards who want Russia to do the dirty work for us. In one way that is true, but it's also incorrect, because modern humans are often multifaceted (to some degree), so many today will not fully commit to anything and that is justifiable sometimes, particularly in a complicated war situation.

It's not easy to be an empire.

I'm a cultural conservative but I'm also an anti-imperialist. Outside the context of science and academic philosophy I will personally never say one morally good word about any empire unless this regime is the last chance to protect original humanity from a global AI robot panopticon.