The war did not start in 2022. The war started in 2014 after a coup.

Russia - in 2008 - saw exactly this situation coming. They extolled the US to stop meddling in Ukraine, because Russia feared that a pretty evenly divided (pro-West/pro-Russia) Ukraine would end in civil war if the US kept pushing our anti-Russia politics in Ukraine. A civil war is exactly what happened.

Russia is not "good" for invading in 2022 and joining the separatist forces in Ukraine. Russia is not "good" for annexing parts of Ukraine. I don't think they have the international legal right to annex those last two oblasts.

To your statement that I quoted: This is not true. Russia said they will not accept Ukraine joining NATO. That is not the same as the EU.

The issue with Ukraine integrating with Europe was a Ukrainian historical issue. Ukraine was massively integrated into the Russian economic infrastructure. The demands from the West were that Ukraine could not continue working with Russia. To integrate with the West Ukraine would have had to give up all its tooling and manufacturing infrastructure geared for Russian standards. This would have been economic suicide, and political suicide for any Ukrainian politician proposing it. The West also demanded an end to generous Ukrainian pension plans, another political suicide position. That is why Ukraine chose the Russian offer over the EU offer in 2013, leading to the coup in 201 4 that lead to the civil war that lead to Russia's invasion.

Starting Ukrainian history in 2022 is disingenuous at best.