Ukrainian Army was trained by NATO instructors.
The only thing the Ukraine is providing really in this war is cannon fodder.
The way I look at it: in 2014 an otherwise peaceful Ukraine was invaded by its far larger and far stronger neighbor who entrenched themselves after robbing a bunch of territory on a pretext. Ukraine learned the hard way that they were underprepared, changed tactics and dramatically improved their military, while at the same time due to internal issues (mostly corruption) their larger neighbors saw the quality of their army decline.
Then, in recent times Russia decided that just having the Eastern part of Ukraine wasn't enough because those pesky Ukrainians were showing other countries in their sphere of influence (notably: Belarus, Georgia) that it was possible for a country to lift itself out of poverty by aligning with the West.
A complete lack of realistic estimates of operational readiness, underestimation of the Ukrainian resolve and a significant propaganda effort later the larger neighbor decided to finish what they started in 2014, which is roughly where we are today.
The West obviously stands a lot to gain from Ukraine not ending up in the same way as Belarus and so has a strong motivation to ensure that the new Russian imperialist effort fails. This, plus the fact that housing another 40 million refugees is not an option suffices to explain why the West is fairly eager to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia.
Also, "cannon fodder"? Ukrainian army defends its people and its country. Russian soldiers are truly cannon fodder for Russian imperialists.
Ukraine is a key regional strategic partner that has undertaken significant efforts to reform its military and increase its interoperability with NATO.
Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $5.6 billion in total assistance to Ukraine, including security and non-security assistance. In 2021 alone we committed over $300 million in assistance to support Ukraine’s democratic and economic development, and over $650 million in security assistance.
https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-ukraine/
Ukraine is providing leadership, initiative, and massive amounts of weaponry on their own. Zelensky is asking western governments for more every week.
As for cannon fodder, civilian casualties are most likely much greater than military casualties at this point, and will likely get worse. Add to that the all the material destruction.
The cost in human lives would be far greater without western aid.
The way Ukraine fights is not in adherence to some NATO standards
Not standing idle while Russian Nazist regime genocides Ukrainians speaks great of NATO.
>Ukrainian Army was trained by NATO instructors.
and it shows. There is a reason people try to get to best schools. At the same time it is obvious from its performance that Russia hasn't gone to school at least for the last several decades.
Btw, the video of the mightiest Black Sea missile cruiser whose main purpose was to provide air-defense to the naval group being hit by Ukrainian missile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uXT3kOZGNE&t=73s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um3_6NM6II4
Cruiser was hit indeed, but this footage is from completely different event.
But yeah, NATO is helping a lot.
There's no shortage of volunteers in Ukraine (and abroad), the forces are full, they're not accepting people even in support positions anymore. It's Russia who's providing the cannon fodder.
And before there's a whataboutism reply, I also do not agree with a lot of the US' aggression, and they and their leaders should be tried for war crimes.
I must have missed the bit where people started calling for Russia's destruction.
TBH it has surprised me that Ukraine hasn't carried out a lot more behind-the-lines attacks on Russian supply convoys; I'm aware of just one attack on a Russian fuel dump inside Russia. It's as if they are fearful that an attack on Russian territory might lead to retaliation. But isn't Russia already 'retaliating' as much as it can?
It's hard to do on Russian territory because of closed borders and anti-air. It's hard to do on captured eastern territories because there are too many ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking people live here, who are quite sympathetic to Russia. And there are rumors that FSB acquired the lists of all pro-ukrainian activists on these territories from SBU.
And no, Russia has not even start to retaliate.
Drones and missiles are flying in belgorod district but mostly countered by aa.