One big PR issue is that Ukraine and the West collectively forgot how deterrence works. Russia arguably never really learned.*

Preemptive formulation and announcement: "If you X, we will escalate in Y way. If you do not X, then we will not."

Instead, there's a hodgepodge of reactive escalation, which is far less effective.

The point is to bargain your willingness to escalate into a self-limitation on your opponent's part.

F.ex. this war might never have happened if NATO had said, before the post-Crimea invasion, that if Russia further invades territorial Ukraine then it would supply massive amounts of arms to Ukraine.

* Russia, on the other hand, apparently never figured out that announcing everything as a red line and constantly making nuclear threats makes such announcements useless. But it seems like authoritarian regimes often have trouble interacting with freer information spaces.