The victim is not to blame, no matter how unwise they might have been

From On Ukraine: what course others may take by The New Neo.  She makes an observation that is wholly independent of the Ukraine situation.

Sometimes people get confused about the assignment of responsibility for some bad result. For example, I don’t go out walking at night in a high-crime area. But if I did, and if I were to become the victim of a crime there, the person who committed that crime is 100% responsible. I bear no responsibility at all. No one forced him (it would probably be a “him”) to break the law and attack or rob me. The fact that my decision could be considered somewhat risky and not all that smart has nothing to do with the fact that he has total responsibility for his own crime and I have none. The fact that the crime would not have been committed – at least, not on me – had I not gone walking there that evening is utterly irrelevant to the apportionment of responsibility.

Indeed.  It is a tricky point and she doesn't fully develop it.  I would expand her observation.

When a crime is committed, there are three parties involved.  The victim, the perpetrator, and any authority responsible for the rule of law.  The latter is usually the State, whether federal, state or local in the American context.  

I am responsible for my own personal safety.  I can make better or worse decisions with regards to the effectiveness of achieving personal safety.  

For example, I need to engage with life above some minimal level.  Sitting on the sofa in my den ad infinitum eating potato chips has a set of long term dangers, mostly associated with mental and physical decline.  On the other hand, going outside to drive recklessly, drink hard, and play hard has a different set of dangers.  

As Hesiod said some 2,700 years ago

Observe due measure; moderation is best in all things.

I am responsible for determining that happy but uncertain median between too little danger and too much.  I bear responsibility to myself for those decisions.  If I suffer a rock climbing accident and severe injury, absent other circumstances, it is my decision and my responsibility.  Rock climbing may be inherently dangerous but it is not obviously unwise.

The perpetrator is entirely responsible for his or her decisions as well.  If they commit some crime against my person, then they are entirely and solely responsible for that crime.  

There is always an inclination to blame the victim - the argument is that they were doing something to bring the calamity down upon themselves.  As long as what they were doing was neither unlawful nor obviously self-destructive, then they are not to blame for someone else's crimes.  

Walking on a street at night in a bad neighborhood might not be a wise decision for an individual but it is their decision to make.  It is not their fault if someone attacks them.

Likewise, it is entirely and solely the responsibility of the person committing the crime.  It doesn't matter what their background or circumstances might be.  They decide whether or not to commit a crime and they bear the consequences of having done so.

The part that New Neo leaves out is the role of the State.  We all live, to a greater or lesser degree, in a State.  The State takes on certain responsibilities and powers ceded by us as citizens to accomplish certain outcomes upon which we all agree.  One the most common responsibilities of the State, across different nations, is the imposition of The Rule of Law, and certainly in the US, with equality before the law.

Thus, independent of the victim and the perpetrator, there is the State, tasked with establishing and maintaining order through the rule of law.  It is the State's responsibility to establish and maintain some minimal level of acceptable security.  It is never total because a) total security is not achievable and 2) complete responsibility for all security to everyone is an inherent self-destructive model.  When the State has enough to protect everyone from everything all the time, there is no longer any freedom or liberty which make that security worthwhile.

The victim gets to make any decision within the law and cannot be held responsible for the decisions of others.  The State is responsible for establishing the rule of law and maintaining it through security services, judicial services, legal services, and systems of punishment.

The victim of a crime may hold themselves responsible for bad decision-making but that is not a judgment that others can impose.  We don't want a system where victims are responsible for punishing perpetrators as that undermines the rule of law.  At the same time, we need the State to bear its responsibility for the totality of security in the sense of 1) policing, 2) justice, and punishment.  

The victim of a crime has three parties to blame.  Themselves, the perpetrator and the State.  While they may not have been wise to walk abroad in the dark of night, it is their right and it is the responsibility of the State to provide security within its own limits but also to ensure that there is justice and, where appropriate, punishment of perpetrators.  

There is a certain modern academic sensibility which relieves perpetrators of responsibilities, blames victims for decisions they did not make, and relieves the State of accountability for failures to provide policing, judicial services and punishment.

These are existential failures.