It reminds me of how liberals talk about about successful revolutions in general. "They just should've done something else." And that something else is never elaborated. The conversation is then supposed to move on as if that was a scientific law or something.

No but seriously, this question needs to be asked. What should Russia have done instead? Typically you get one of three possible answers from the anti-SMO liberal-left:

1. No answer at all. Simply dodging the question and pretending it wasn't asked, or just flippantly saying "just don't invade"...ok, but what then? You're just saying what they shouldn't do, but what should they do? Should they do nothing? Have you given a single thought to what the consequences of that would be? Of course not, "just don't invade".

2. Suggest that Russia should do the very things it had already tried and was already doing for years if not decades; protest, negotiate, offer concessions, try to deter aggression by posturing, etc. This just shows that they have not been paying any attention whatsoever prior to 2022, instead acting as if history started in 2022, like Zionists with Oct 7.

3. Completely unrealistic and naive non-proposals like "wait for the UN/international community to condemn Ukraine's aggression if it attacks the Donbass". It goes without saying that this is laughable and infantile. Ukraine was already attacking the Donbass and we all saw how these international institutions ignored it or even gave them cover.

The only conclusions you can draw from this are either a) they have a very shallow understanding and very superficial knowledge about the conflict and its history, or b) that they are just trying to find ways to say "Russia should just roll over and surrender", which is what they are saying when they suggest Russia should have let Ukraine make the first move (and overrun the Donbass) "so that the Russians are not seen as the aggressor"...

Except that they know perfectly well, even if they won't admit it, that Russia would have been cast as the aggressor by the Western media regardless even if they let Ukraine make the first move, even if they reacted purely defensively and restricted their operations to the DPR and LPR. The West was already saying that Russia was in Ukraine even before 2022, they were already claiming that the Donbass militias were "Russians in disguise". We weren't born yesterday, we've been reading this shit since 2014.

The idea that Russia would be treated fairly if they "played by the rules" is ridiculous, and the West's moral condemnations are worthless anyway, they are literally supporting a genocide. They would condemn Russia for defending itself no matter what, just like they condemn anyone resisting Western imperialist aggression, occupation and genocide. There is only one thing that can satisfy the West and get its media to not cast you as the villain and that is total and complete capitulation.

Someone who wants badly enough to engineer a war will always find a way to get one, no matter how much restraint the other side tries to exercise. And no matter how much ground you give and how defensively you act, those who control the narrative via the media will always be able to spin it to make you look like the aggressor. At some point the only possible response is to establish undeniable facts on the ground, which sooner or later will have to be acknowledged. This is what Russia is doing. It's as simple as that. (Geo-)Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.