Yep, Putin’s “wonder weapon” isn’t a game changer as it is advertised to be.
But the Russian-Ukraine situation is a bit more nuanced than big nation invades small nation. There’s valuable resources in Ukraine but compared to Russia’s largely untapped riches it’s nothing. In my opinion, after the Soviet Union collapsed, we made promises not to advance NATO to Russia’s front door, which we did anyway. Knowing how paranoid Russia is historical about the Steppes being the invasion route of every power that threatened the motherland, what did we do, exactly we “poked the Bear” This is of course a simplified version but we, the West are seen by Putin as the “aggressors” The Ukraine is being played as a pawn by all sides and by it’s own leaders for their own selfish interests. Only victims here are the dead, dying and displaced.
Least this is how this country boy sees it.
I think we lost a lot of opportunity to make Russia our friend from the 1990’s onward. I put the blame on President Clinton, especially when we went into Kosovo. It then snowballed from there. I think President Trump did some good in making Putin respect us and reversed it a little but with the inept jerks we have on power now, they are back to “poking the bear.” The real losers, you are correct, are the Ukrainian people and even Russians forced to fight as well. I also think when the Ukraines had their nukes, they should not have trusted us and held onto them or at least maybe 20 or 30 missiles as a deterrent. Nations are like people, they are the first line in looking out for themselves.