No, Russia obviously doesn’t see it that way. There are key geostrategic points leading into the plains of Russia. Ukraine is right at one of those points.

I don’t know if you’re a history buff, but about 80 years ago there was a country in Central Europe that attacked the Soviet Union through — wait for it — Ukraine. They made massive advances and killed 10s of millions of Soviets partly because one of the key launching points for the baddies was from Ukraine. Again, Putin mentioned this specifically in his justification for the war (which it doesn’t justify to my mind).

The world has a lot of options other than “sending him packing.” I have Ukrainian friends. I think it is a beautiful country. I have wonderful memories of my time there. But I’d have to be out of my fucking mind to risk WWIII and nuclear annihilation just to keep Russia from winning in Ukraine.

WWIII and likely nuclear annihialtion IS what you’re talking about when you say “the world must send [Putin] packing”, let’s be crystal fucking clear about that. Right now this is (mostly) between Russia and Ukraine. For the sake of humanity we should all be trying to keep the war limited to those two parties.