Sorry but that’s absolute drivel(most polite word I could use) and it annoys me that by reading such a baited article you will earn money from it. As for me, who has spent 15 years in the former Soviet Union, 7 years in Russia and speak Russian- almost every point you made was wrong.
1) the war has nothing to do with Ukraine joining NATO and Ukraine was very unlikely to join NATO in the next 25 years and possibly never would, despite their desire to do so.
2) Of course Putin doesn’t want countries to join NATO, Georgia was a much stronger candidate for it than Ukraine and ended up being invaded. And, of course, you can’t join NATO while you have a territorial dispute and this stops Georgia from joining without ceding territory. Putin achieved this objective already by taking Crimea- so again Ukraine couldn’t join NATO without giving up its claim to Crimea.
3) the idea of winning has nothing to do with financial and military assistance- that’s a bizarre argument. So what if the west is supplying weapons to achieve that goal? There were no rules established beforehand that both sides should line up on the field of battle with what they had and duke it out.
4) Talk of diplomacy is normal and what Ukraine has also offered to prevent the war. Doesn’t mean the other side is reasonable, especially when it is talking about removing your government as part of the process.
5) Putin could have had an easy win, humiliate Ukraine and not lose a single soldier by declaring Lugansk and Donbas as republics( which he did) , invite in Russian peacekeepers( done also) and kept within that territory. Even if he had pushed to take all of Lugansk and Donbas in the beginning, instead of the Ill fated attempt to take Kyiv, his troop losses would have been less and he would probably have achieved that objective. In the former scenario there would have been some shouting and finger pointing and maybe some light sanctions but his economy would have been largely unscathed. The fact he didn’t take the easy win is telling.
6) Russia simply wants to be surrounded by vassal states that exist at Russia’s pleasure and for Russia to exploit and one thing it certainly doesn’t want is another Poland. As democracy marched east and living standards and government improved, Ukraine sees that and says yeah we want that too. Then if Ukraine, one day, gets that then the people of Russia will be looking at that too, which is a threat to Putin’s power. NATO isn’t the threat-rule of law, governance, higher living standards and democracy are. The last thing the Russian government needs is people enmass asking where all the oil money went. If you have spent any time in Russia outside of Moscow like I have, you would understand.
