I agree it's all a stupid waste, and things should have been settled through negotiation.
'I don't acknowledge your state existing, and have taken chunks of it before.'
'OK, sure thing, we will give it all over in the most convenient way so that oil and grain prices are not affected in the United States.'
Is the only thing that would not have led to war. When the Russian top brass see the collapse of the USSR as a big mistake and Ukraine as 'Not a real state', then everything else was just shadow puppets.
Just laying out my cards on the table: Im a Ukrainian American. Lived 1/2 of my life there and I have immediate family there. My nearly 90 year old great aunt was a block away from where a long distance missile levelled a apartment a few months ago. She lived through WWII and lost her father in the conflict.
But before this invasion - I was actually pro-Russia in all of this. Ukraine was a collapsing house of cards. Corruption, lack of unity, evil politicians and a un-patriotic citizenry got me thinking that Russia would more or less have Ukraine join it within 30 or so years, western involvement or not (unless the west really planned to up the amount of carrots given).
2 days before the invasion date, I was absolutely sure it would not happen because Russia got everything it wanted and a get out of jail free card. The days of invasions where over. Was Russia gonna wage a destructive land war over the things it wants to conquer? Phah, that was in the past. And while Putin was an asshole, he was a forward thinking person who wasn't a child who would not be provoked into a economically suicidal war because somebody called him a doody head.
Do you feel sorry for all the Serbian civilians that NATO killed?
Yes. I also feel bad for all the Russian soldiers who die on shitty order for the glory of their leader.
I don't know what the greater NATO operations in the territory was.
I thought I was a cynical person. This war told me I was niave. The reality is that the world is still filled with the same people that would risk everything and smash things if the United States didn't have a gun pointed too their heads (for its own benefit largely, but this world order does have fringe benefits for allot of others). If you want a basic economic thing: because a large segment of the worlds grain and neon is produced in Ukraine. This disrupts supply and trade everywhere, and if Russia won it over, it would be invigorated to attack other places.