Buterin Slams Russia's Invasion as 'Criminal Aggression', Urges Opposition Reform

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has taken a firm pro-Ukraine stance ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion. In a lengthy post on X, he declared unequivocal support for Kyiv and called the war 'criminal aggression.'

Buterin, who was born in Russia and raised in Canada, rejected two common justifications for the invasion: Russia's claimed right to prevent NATO expansion near its borders, and the argument that Russian-speaking populations in Crimea and Donbas had a democratic right to join Russia.

He acknowledged that Western nations made mistakes in the 1990s and 2000s, but argued that none of these grievances could justify what happened in 2022. Buterin pointed to specific events as evidence that the war's aims went far beyond protecting Donbas: the attack on the Mariupol theater, the killings in Bucha, strikes on hospitals, and what he called 'human safari' in Kherson over the past three years.

In the second part of his post, Buterin turned to Russia's political opposition, describing a stalemate where some figures left the country after 2021-22 and settled into comfortable roles as professional dissidents. He argued that new voices and new ideas are needed, and that the opposition's current leadership structure prevents them from emerging.