Sorry, NAFO folks, Ukraine *is* a proxy of the west. You know how you can tell? Because if you weren't, you'd be getting as much help from NATO as Palestinians do.
"We're doing this on our own!" as you fly American jets and fire Patriot missiles with American training and UK intelligence, getting your Internet access via Starlink.
It sucks that you're being used as a pawn. It sucks even harder that people refuse to acknowledge it.
When Trump declared the "Donroe Doctrine", he gave Putin the same right over former Soviet states, and Xi the same right over the South China Sea.
If you don't think Putin and Xi should have those rights, then you need to treat the USA as the rogue state it is.
You don't get to cling to Pax Americana while simultaneously rejecting the new American order that divides the world into spheres of influence. Pax Americana is *over*. No matter what happens in the upcoming elections, the US's decline is only going to accelerate from here on out.
Europe has to decide if it really wants to go down the same road of militarization and belligerence against its most powerful neighbor, or if it wants to try a different path.
"Oh but it's Russia who's the belligerent one."
Is it? Is it so unreasonable for them to not want an anti-Russia alliance to expand right up to their border?
"But they were interfering in Ukrainian politics!"
And what do you think the CIA was doing that whole time? Watching from afar?