Hard price to pay, but it had to be paid at some time. Would have surely been nicer if it had been a slower switch, but former governments didn't want that to happen.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267541/germany-monthly-... [2] https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...
Give it up for those repeating those misconceptions and making the argument into one where NATO is pushing, or the U.S. isn't being "moderate" enough with regards to Ukrainian sovereignty.
Talk to the Ukrainians, the Lithuanians and Estonians, the Poles, and the Finns. And they'll all tell you the same: It's been Russian imperialism for centuries, be it under the guise of the USSR or Tzar or the current president for life. They don't want to give up their land and populations to become part of Russia's empire. And just a very cursory glance at history will pull examples of this. Finland lost it's second largest city in the 40s, and is still without it. The Baltics and Ukraine only became free in the 90s. The Poles went through multiple stretches of time where they were divide up and didn't exist.
Your country gets invaded one day, the occupied lands vacated of their residents, the children re-homed in families elsewhere, but you'd tell them to "moderate" their policy? That further more, they shouldn't be allowed to seek alliances? If someone invaded the U.S., I seriously doubt that line of opinion would obtain support anywhere.
It's not about U.S. policy. It's about Ukraine wanting to be independent and Russia wanting it as part of theirs. Simple as that. Don't ask the U.S. about Ukrainian policy like the Ukrainians aren't there. Have some respect, and ask the Ukrainians what they want.
Then I dare you to tell them to moderate it.
How is it a proxy war? Again, you frame your argument as though is the U.S. driving everything, and that the Ukrainians have no agency or say. On one hand, you take shots at the U.S. as running roughshod over other country's wishes, and yet in your very same argument, deny that these nations have any say of their own.
Try this one on: The Ukrainians don't want to stop fighting, because they want their land and people back. They were given a security guarantee once, handed over their nuclear weapons as part of it, and that guarantee was ignored. They're not going to be burned twice.
If I were a Ukrainian, I'd find it rather insulting to be told that I was "dying for nothing" and that my country's sovereignty didn't matter, and that furthermore, I wasn't part of a real country (as Putin attests) but just some U.S. puppet.