Riverman I guess the biggest difference at least with me is that we have different axioma's. I'm reasoning that the Ukraine is an independent country. ...
That's not my issue, my issue is that we had a de facto situation in Eastern Ukraine, with the Donbas and Crimea. The early war showed that in the Eastern Ukraine, before the massive propaganda efforts, was a significant pro-Russian sentiment, reaching further than what the Donbas Republics controlled before the recent escalation.
So the minimum the Ukraine should have aknowledged, if they want to depart and go their own way, is to accept the seccession of Crimea and open the water supply again, instead of drying the country out, give up on Donbas or grant it autonomy as the minimum, and declare itself a neutral state. Instead they actively engaged in becoming a NATO member, armed up, prepared for the reconquest of Donbas and ultimately even Crimea, and constantly shelled and attacked the Donbas areas, including attacks on civilians and the killings of local leaders. They completely ignored Minks II, refused to enter any negotiations and just kept on pushing, once the Biden administration declared its full support - also because the US establishment/deep state wanted the conflict with Russia and the Biden family owes the Selenski regime and the Ukrainian oligarchs a lot.
Independent country on paper never stopped the US or anybody else to intervene, and the Ukraine clearly, especially its Eastern territories, are not in the same way an independent country as e.g. Poland is for the Russians. The Ukrainians followed an aggressive and confrontational path, absolutely ignoring any Russian interests and internally purging the whole country with arrests, persecutions, blackmailing, censorship, disappropriation and even murder from any pro-Russian significant movement and sentiment. The recent Ukrainian regimes, but Selenski in particular, practically declared war on Russia.
All of this has a prehistory, its not like "Russia invaded an independent country without reason and legitimate claims out of nothing". If anybody pushes that narrative, its just a blatant lie.
My issue is more with the exact borders as with the Ukrainian people and their independence as such. They should have accepted the established borders since 2014 as a fact, make peace and come to terms with Russia. That was the deal for kind of leaving the wider Russian state, to develop like they want from then on, as a neutral state.
People might say Ukrainians have the rights to do this or that, Russia has its interests and rights as well, and the outcome of such a conflict was predictable: It will escalate.
Is it worth it?
I think both the Ukrainians and the Russians acted horrible in the last years on the issue. I see no perpetrator and victim, I just see two sides in conflict which are both good and evil, which have both legitimate and illegitimate claims. My main interest is that they stop the killing and end the war, make peace with each other. And from my personal perspective, I think the Donbas people and Crimeans have the right to join Russia, at their will, especially under the given circumstances.
If the Ukrainians want to reconquer and suppress, displace or annihilate them, I see no just cause and absolutely no claim to support such a goal. And this became, by now, the main reason for the war going on. These territories and the neutral status of Ukraine.
Where is the right to self-determination for those people? Where is the right of Russia to secure its borders and sphere of influence, just like the USA do it all the time and go even much further than that. These are not the same rules. We saw it in the past, many times.
Its not like I prefer the Serbs over the Croats or anything, but remember when the Serbs weren't allowed to form their own state or join with Serbia in their territories in Croatia and Bosnia? Yet when they lost, they could be expelled from Krajina and the "international community" barely noticed.
The USA always interferes in a way which brings them into a better position. If the US establishement conceives a people as hostile vs. potential allies or simply weakening an opposing force, like the Serbs.
Take for example what happens or happened in Rwanda, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Bahrain, in Yemen or in Ethiopia. If its not useful for weakening opponents, competitors, they don't care about suppression or even massive, grand scale genocide. But if its in the interest of the US establishment, you hear all that talk about international laws and what not, but only then. Like in Syria (against the pro-Iranian/Russian Alevite regime), in Yemen even the rebels and suppressed people can become "evil" (Huthis = Shia affiliated) or the Tigray in Ethiopia (they supported their "equal rights president of Ethiopia, even when he started "a genocide" (the US lose definition they used many times) on Tigray people. Or in Bahrain, undemocratic, brutal suppression of the Shia majority.
The list could go on for two pages at least, with many details about how the US being involved or just ignored, depending on its interests. The whole Ukrainian story being just blown up and brought out of context because the Biden administration wants to hurt Russia.
But Biden was at least reasonable enough to no try to escalate to the next level. Which makes me concerned about why the Biden/Hunter Biden story comes up now! The suppression of the truth prevented a 2nd term for Trump, which is what the establishement/deep state wanted, but now they are confrontational with Russia and while Biden did push the issue, he made his own red lines clear, which was a reasonable move. Now they probably just want to weaken him, for exerting even more pressure on the administration to act unreasonable, unaccountable, and escalate the conflict to the next level.
Its ridiculous, but just shows how people from the background can manipulate and control politicians in office. They can strengthen or weaken them, at will. So I'm not sure, on second thought, that this is all good news, that the truth about Biden came up. Because it might be played out the wrong way, namely to even push the issue of Ukraine further than even Biden would have on his own, which was bad enough already.
