Starting to feel like this is going to spiral into something horrific.
The only thing more horrific will be if the world lets them get away with it with impunity.
This is more like if Pakistan invaded Bangladesh to get it back. Wars where very similar people who speak slightly different languages fight over whether they should be two countries or one country are a dime a dozen. One country being a democracy for all of five minutes doesn’t change that math.
Also, "get it back"? Kievan Rus predates Muscovite Rus by over half a millenium. If you would like a beginner's primer on the history of ethnic and cultural ties and conflicts involved, I recommend Suzanne Massie's Land of the Firebird.
(Of course the US did intervene in the Bangladesh-Pakistan war, on the wrong side: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/us-forces-had-orde.... But even if it had supported Bangladesh, at the end of the day it wasn’t any of its business or risking the life of American soldiers.)
The world is far more integrated than you seem to want to see, what happens in Ukraine today will have effect in Europe tomorrow (in fact it already has effect here) and in the United States the week after. Isolationism only works for countries that have no standing, even China could not afford to stand with Putin on this.
You want safety and stability for yourself and your family. And so does everybody else. Unfortunately the country that you are living in is well known for taking up arms in conflicts around the world precisely for the same reason that you ended up there: it is a country made up of large numbers of immigrants (and obviously some of the original population as well, but let's leave them out of this to not complicate things even further).
When WWII was well underway America was still neutral, and many of the things that you are saying today were said by people in the United States as well. Then Pearl Harbor happened and the rest as they say is history.
Sometimes you get to choose how long you will be neutral, but not if you are going to be neutral. I have friends and family very close to this conflict, on both sides of the divide. None of them want war, and yet, here we are. So consider yourself lucky that you are 1000's of km away from the hotspot, but realize that Putin can ruin your life in about 15 minutes and that if you do not want to be in a situation that is dangerous there are very few places in the world that do not have a warhead with it's coordinates programmed in aimed at it.
That is how the world works. You can deny it or you can accept it, that is obviously your choice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
Says it much better than I can. And the history of that man should be a lesson to all of us.
I’m not sure why you’re downplaying the horrific tragedy occurring in Ukraine right now.
Things can always be worse.
The second a Russian boot crosses a NATO/EU border it will likely escalate so rapidly that you won't have time to make coffee to see how it ended. Until then Putin is can make all the noise he wants. Or he may try a nuclear first strike on NATO.
Other possible escalations, which I'm not sure about what the response would be, would be the use of the TOS-1 against civilian targets in Ukraine and the use of tactical nukes in Ukraine.
I think the question of who is the aggressor is less clear because wars usually stem from a long series of escalating aggressions and threats before military action.
I don't think Russian boots will cross a NATO border, but am very concerned about NATO boots crossing into Ukraine.
Officially we are far away from that point, unofficially there is an endless stream of weapons flowing right now and I've seen some evidence of 'individuals' from NATO countries are enlisting in the service of Ukraine.
Just like Russia never had a presence in Ukraine until last week. Right?
Russia has had several aggressive incursions into Ukraine. Most notably the 2014 annexation of Crimea and arming of Ukrainian separatists. At the same time they were losing ground on other fronts in Ukraine. They were unable to prevent NATO troops and arms shipments from coming in. They were also loosing the propaganda and economic competition in Ukraine.