It is hard to be a pacifist when yet another war starts – I am thinking of Ukraine right now, without ignoring the pre-existing wars still raging (e.g. Yemen).
Pacifists don’t start wars. They are put in an impossible position by militarists who start them. If we had more influence, we wouldn’t start from here.
I should add that people living in safe countries are not in a position to tell Ukrainians how to react to the Russian invasion. The choices are stark: either nonviolent resistance or violent resistance. I do not see a half-way house. Each course has unpredictable consequences. The military occupation of a nonviolent country could still be brutal and oppressive; there could be deaths; there could be arrests and detention. Forceful resistance means deaths on both sides. This tends to include very many civilians (on the defending side), as has been clearly seen in Ukraine. I feel too for the Russian conscripts forced to take part in this war – cannon-fodder, I guess.
We all need to live in a climate of peace and justice. When war crimes and crimes against humanity are committed, do the ultimate adjudicators have to choose between a just settlement and an (outwardly) peaceful one? The latter is only viable when the offended choose forgiveness over retribution. But again, third parties are not in a position to demand that those who have suffered forgive those that have inflicted the suffering.
Pacifists have no easy answers to these matters.
davidronaldharries 