As far as children go, they nearly universally want peace.
I saw a quote from one kid finding the countries on a map: “Russia is so big, why do they need more?”
That’s the level kids are thinking at.
In my view, the West's only wake up is that they are right, 100%. Ukraine began a low long slog to kick off corrupt, useless authoritarianism. The government was shocked & surprised when they pushed for authoritarianism & anti-European policies & got serious kickback during the Euromaidan color-revolution, the revolution of dignity. People resisted molding then: in that we agree. But human nature was to seek democratic ideals, to let our voices free, to cast off molding from the state then.
And that's still the heart of what petrifies & goads Russia into this vile war: Russia has to believe in molding people, has to believe it can exert top down control over people. Russia is insecure that it cannot shape human nature. Human nature, in a connected world, has perspective to understand iniquity & injustice & illegitimacy & the individual works to better mold society towards a more healthy & self-legitimizing state/State.
The chattering classes have been right about their own virtue, about how vile sad corrupt & unjust the alternatives are. What we are seeing is someone unwilling to be molded by the this superego desire for betterment. That person is not moldable, they are set in their ways, but to think that there is not a malleability, a flux within society, is exactly the wrong lesson to take out of all of this. This is a gasp against flux & change & re-molding.