Putin has been telling NATO that NATO expansion into the Ukraine and Georgia are red lines for Russia since 2007. First he said it calmly and nicely, and then he said it more insistently. The Ukraine has let itself be used as a pawn in great power struggles.
Russian society is not as anti-war as you think. Putin's popularity has increased from doing this; the people who didn't like him hate him more, but the people who liked him are happy they're finally hitting the Ukraine after years of anti-Russian bluster. The people you interact with are not his constituency.
Your statements on the status of Russian in Ukraine are just not correct. First, although I despise the Ukrainian language, which does sound like hick Russian (and you know this is true), the point about Ukrainian is that it has been shoved down everyone's throat. Every Nikolai in Ukraine has been forcibly made a Mykola, every Alexander an Olexander, every Vladimir a Volodymyr, and every Ksenia an Oksana. The 2004 Revolution started the laws that pushed Russian from the public square (and even in 2014 you couldn't find a Ukrainian language newspaper or website based in Kiev; statistics to the contrary are propaganda attempting to justify the limitation on Russian). You have the February 2014 law that only permits Russian in any oblast if more than 10% of the population lists it as "native" (something the authorities manipulated regularly). In 2016, Russian language programming was curtailed significantly on television to less than 25%, and Russian language education was banned in most schools except as a foreign language class. A 2019 law fully banned Russian in any official capacity, as government workers were prohibited from using it. This is when most people continue to use Russian rather than Ukrainian, even in most major cities. The exception is in the west - Lvov, Ivano-Frankovsk, Zhitomir, Vinnitsa, etc.
If the Ukraine wanted to serve as a buffer state even with the limitation on the Russian language Russia would not have gotten involved. As I said, the EU and US upset the apple cart. Yanukovich was trying to sign treaties with the EU and Russia. The EU said he couldn't sign both and forced his hand since trade with Russia was far more important at the time. Then, after an illegal coup supported by the US (especially Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland) and EU, Ukraine ratcheted up its bid to join NATO even before Crimea was annexed or the Donbass war started. In fact, as late as Monday Zelensky was saying neutral status was out of the question. ONLY NOW, after the tanks rolled in, is he offering to demilitarize, and that seems to be a little late.
To use one of Putin's favorite devices, поздно, Лора, пить Боржоми, когда почки отказали.
The war is a tragedy, and lots of kids from both sides are being needlessly killed, but let's not pretend that the US had nothing to do with letting things get to this point. The US cheered on the Ukraine's bluster and empty threats. The tragedy is summed up in the story of the border guards on Zmeiny Island. The Russian ships pulled up, they said пошли вы нахуй, and the news media said "Oh look how brave they were, and now they're dead". Then it turns out they surrendered to the Russians after the shelling started. That's not bravery. That's bluster. The US encouraged this anti-Russian bluster for over a decade, and now it's real and of course no one is coming to help them. No one wants to start a nuclear war with Russia.
And you're saying that this is purely Putin's fault?
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*
