I've come around after a journalist I trust (real journalist, got his house firebombed and his crew falsely arrested) explained the history of Russia that led up to this. I don't think NATO troops should be in Ukraine and I don't think Ukraine should've ever been floated as a NATO candidate (as insincerely and manipulatively as it was).

I think both Russia and Ukraine are serving as barriers to peace, in Ukraine's case mainly because of their stubborn insistence on American involvement in any post-war security arrangement.