my reading is exactly that the more distant empire decided to make the land where my grandparents were born the playground for this proxy war. after the coup d'etat, any preexisting self-determination was toast. it became a pawn for the US. and then, just like russian missiles in cuba led to a strong reaction, the prospect of US/NATO bases in ukraine led to a strong reaction. so obvious and predictable that arguing the provocation didn't intend that outcome would be disingenuous at best. so the US weakened russia by getting it into a war against a proxy for the western world and by getting an excuse to impose trade sanctions on it; weakened and aligned Europe with the US empire by threatening energy supplies coming from Russia; strengthened and expanded NATO through fear from Russian invasion; strengthened the US war industry by supplying Ukraine and prolonged the conflict by discouraging peace negotiations while pretending to care about the Ukrainian people, who they've used as pawns, pretend to support, but who are actually getting beaten up by both empires. this all adds up to the very opposite of supporting Ukrainian agency. that's why considering the big picture and the forces from a distance matters. Ukrainian agency will not be served by throwing it on the lap of either empire. the Russia=evil/West=good narrative is built on propaganda. I mean, at least the second half of it is. we'll all be best served by fighting imperialism, not by favoring either empire