It never was, and Zelensky knew that. The US told him directly that Ukraine would not get NATO membership, but publically the door would be left open. Zelensky and co. knew this before the invasion. Yet Ukraine continued to provoke Russia by saying in Munich that maybe Ukraine should get nukes, NOT implementing Minsk II which they signed and Russia was pushing to get implemented, and then in Feb 2022 massing 100k+ troops to overrun the Donbas and increasing shelling of the ethnic Russians there.

I feel really sorry for the Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. The soldiers are literal pawns of Zelensky who is getting rich skimming off the money the west is sending while his people die.

Zelensky KNEW that NATO was and is not sending troops.

None of this makes Russia the "good guy" in this war. There are no "good guys." The US is bad, Russia is bad, and Ukraine is bad. Each in a different way. Putin is a brutal dictator who may have false-flagged his own people to come to power, and he is the "least evil" in this situation. How shitty is that?