re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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No. Get it right. It's America's fault that we don't force Ukraine to give up their sovereignty. Even though they want to keep defending themselves.

Our corrupt MIC is forcing the Ukrainians into a hopeless slaughter when they should just accept their fate of becoming the next Belarus. Which is in their best interest.

We don't know what's best for them. They don't know what's best for them.

Putin knows what's best for them.

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Entertaining rant

But let's address it more seriously.
Referreing to the Ukrainians, you sarcastically quipped, "They don't know what's best for them."
On the surface your derision seems well placed. It really does. After all, they must know what's best for them. Right? Doesn't everyone?

E,g., Presumably the same premise is applicable to the US?
We must know what's best for us, right?

Yet, with bipartisan effort, we are $34T in debt, our southern border is wide open, and we're more interested in teaching our kids transgender concepts than we are in teaching them economics and home finance.
Why?
It's a leadership thing resulting in misplaced public perception.
Now that doesn't mean our next regimes or next generations will be as clueless as our past ones. But it does allow legitimate questioning as to whether we actually do know what's best for us at the moment.

Ukraine is no different.

As a centuries old precept, Ukraine fell traditionally within the Russian sphere. Geographically, it is "Belgium of the east," a crossroads borderland of traversable plains used by massive European armies to attack Russia over the centuries. (As an aside, that is not similarly true of Finland, or the Baltics).

Russia instinctively yearns to maintain those 'borderlands' within its sphere as a buffer against future western incursion. By hook or crook, or savagery, or sword, the Russian psyche has always been focused on maintaining "the borderlands" as a buffer.

Meanwhile, 20yrs ago, the US initiated efforts to inject itself into Ukraine, and wrench it from the Russian orbit. If you honestly believe that effort had an iota of Ukrainian interests in mind, you need to stop the trips to the spiked punchbowl. Those efforts, as with NATO expansion, were brazenly designed to isolate what we misperceived as our greatest national threat (This at the same time we rolled out an economic red carpet for China). It was absurd policy. It was callous to Ukraine. We knew the effort would be off putting to Russia. Perhaps we knew even better than Ukraine did.

Ukraine was drawn to the allure though. Western riches! Join the EU! NATO! In no time, Kyiv would become the Paris of the east. So began an expanding game of Ukrainian footsie with Europe and the US.

But here's the cold reality: In 2010, when Yanukovych was elected, Ukrainian trade looked like this:
Exports: Russian Federation $13,432M (26%), Turkey $3,027M (6%), Italy $2,412M (5%), Belarus $1,899M (4%), Poland $1,787M (3%).
Imports: Russian Federation $22,198M (37%), China $4,700M (8%), Germany $4,603M (8%), Poland $2,789M (5%), Belarus $2,568M (4%)

Those numbers had shifted slightly away from Russia (Exp 24%, Imp 30%) at the time of the western aligned Euromaidan coup d'etat in 2014 against Russian interests, yet Russia still dwarfed all of Ukraine's EU trading partners combined.

So in terms of Ukraine knowing what was best for them during the coup, did they really? From a military stance, they lost Crimea, and the eastern oblasts (Yanukovych loyalist areas) revolted in response. Might it have not been better to tell Soros and western-backed Euromaidan activists to F/O and wait a few months until the 2015 election?

From a purely economic standpoint, was Ukraine in a position to shirk Russia as they did? No. Looking at the trade numbers, it wasn't even a close call.

Was it a smart diplomatic decision then or later?
Russians are nasty, self-interested, and traditionally autocratic. They are led by a cold, ruthless, calculating man who was increasingly enraged at western interference in the Russia sphere. When he saw Ukraine overthrow a Russian-friendly president, then eventually elect a man whose greatest accomplishment was playing piano with his dick and dancing in stilettos, Putin dangerously perceived it as a sign of alignment with the enemy and national weakness.

After Zelenskyy's election, Putin and he met. Putin was unimpressed. His predator-prey perceptions of undisciplined Ukrainian weakness deepened.

When Zelenskyy got drawn into NATO conversations with Biden, it was spark to kindling. Putin assumed he would quickly bitchslap some sense back into Ukraine with sweeping military force.

Russia's invasion was as it's characterized here. It was horrible. It was not militarily provoked. It was a brazen breach of Ukrainian sovereignty, etc. Putin thought it would be over so quickly, it wouldn't matter. He miscalculated. Now we have a protracted war instead. In terms of knowing what was best, Russia undoubtedly would like a do-over.

But regarding Ukraine, had Ukraine known then what they do now, would they also have made different decisions?
I think it's fair to say they would.