I wonder if that happened to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Yezhov as well, FPS games represent you as a Superman, there's a big gap between games and reality. That being said I want my air traffic controller to be good at cooking mama.
The idea that you “have to” fight is abdicating your moral responsibility. He chose to fight.
Doing that had a major personal cost, but I wasn't willing to fight for a immoral regime. It wasn't Ukraine, and perhaps the calculation in Ukraine would have been different, but the point is that claiming one doesn't have a choice is an excuse, nothing more. What it's really saying is that one isn't willing to pay the price for making a difficult choice.