You are absolutely right that Russia is the aggressor. No doubt about it. But we have to see the bigger picture here; the assault on Ukraine seems to have been provoked by the ongoing NATO expansion.
What ongoing NATO expansion? The last time before any country joined NATO before Russia's large scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was Macedonia 2020 (hardly relevant), Montenegro 2017 (another non-event) and Croatia and Albania 2009 (nowhere near Russia's borders). All four are militarily weak countries not in strategically important locations. The last significant round of countries to join NATO were Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia as well as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 2004. That was 18 years prior to Russia's large scale invasion of Ukraine.
The potential memberships of both Georgia and, most importantly, Ukraine were on hold indefinitely as they were opposed by France and Germany in 2008.
There is objectively no doubt that NATO has expanded eastwards against the deals made with Russia in the 90s.
Objectively? There are literally no treaties signed to that effect. And even verbal promises given or hinted at that are highly doubtful. Russian propagandists do like to repeat that point. But as anything uttered by Russia, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Is that the actual reason for Putin's motivations? Who knows, but it certainly makes sense that they would not want to allow Ukraine to become part of that alliance and station rockets and nukes (?) there. Does that justify the war? No! But the "west" is not even interested in diplomacy; all attempts have been thwarted. That is what I am criticizing in this post. There is no will for peace on (both?) sides.
Russia sees itself as a great power, which are the only sovereign entities in the world according to Russian thinking. Imperialism is at the core of the Russian national idea. In the view of Russia's leaders, Russia's post-Cold War weakness had come to an end its military and economy had been rebuilt to enable it to take control of Eastern Europe again.
Putin has violated practically all of its agreements regarding Ukraine. It sees Ukraine as a territory. The Russians don't even recognize Ukraine as nation. The only reason Putin wants a ceasefire now is that Russia has no offensive capability left for now. It wants to solidify its control of the Ukrainian territories it currently holds until it has rebuilt its armed forces. No doubt it would also want the sanctions lifted in exchange for the cessation of hostilities.
It's clear that the strategy of sanctioning Russia has not only failed but backfired.
That's false information. Why do you think publicly supporting the sanctions is illegal in Russia if they are doing no harm? Russia's income from fossil fuels (gas, crude oil and distillates) sales have dramatically decreased as a result of the sanctions. The price cap on Russian oil has permanently widened the price difference between Brent and Urals crude oil from $3 per barrel to $15. The cessation of gas purchases from Europe has left Russian gas largely stranded as Europe has successfully replaced Russian gas with LNG from various suppliers. The rouble has gone from $0.018 to $0.01 in the last year.
There are diesel fuel shortages in Southern Russia thanks to the massive demand from the military and because Russian refiners prefer to export their diesel oil and gasoline due to the weakness of the rouble. The government will step in but if that happens, they're probably going to scale down operations and find "technical" reasons to do so.
Russian military industry is incapable of exporting nearly as much as it did before the large scale invasion of Ukraine because it needs everything in Ukraine.
The Russian government is currently running a deficit and because it has no access to the international capital markets it will have to cover the shortfall from the national welfare fund. When it runs out, there will be very high inflation in Russia.
To bolster the rouble when it hit $0.01 the Russian central bank hiked key interest rate from 8.5% to 12% after an emergency meeting in August. That helped for a while until last month when the key interest rate was raised to 13%. Now, high interest rates are poison to the economy as they make borrowing very expensive.
NATO is not weakening Russia with this; it is now only costing lives by the hundreds of thousands(!). It is staggering that we are justifying so many people's lives for ulterior motives.
The justification for the defense of Ukraine is really simple. The Ukrainian people want for their country to continue to exist and to be able to live a life worth living as life under Russian occupation is hellish.
Russia is absolutely getting weakened economically, militarily and politically because of its invasion of Ukraine. Russia has been running through its vast Cold War stockpiles at a high rate. It's has lost thousands of officers and thousands of tanks, even greater numbers of other armored vehicles, thousands of artillery pieces and thousands of tactical trucks as well as other equipment. Russia's cruise missile stockpiles have been severely reduced. Russia's Black Sea fleet has lost 10% of all of its ships, including its flag ship the missile cruiser Moskva, and much more if you account for tonnage. Sevastopol is becoming untenable as the main base for the Black Sea fleet. Its air defenses have been severely degraded including the destruction of an S-400 system, making possible to wipe out its headquarters along with its entire staff and commander a few weeks ago.
Russia is losing its sphere of influence in the Caucasus region and Central Asia. CSTO is dead for all practical purposes. Finland joined NATO and Russia could do absolutely nothing about it. Sweden will soon follow. The large scale Ukraine war has been an unmitigated disaster for Russia. It has been an even greater disaster for Ukraine because Ukraine is three times smaller in population and many times more smaller in terms of resources.
The UN resolution to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine was voted against only by Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Eritrea, Mali and Nicaragua.
Human life has never been valued very much in Russia. It's completely understandable Russia's neighbors want to get away from Russia's sphere of influence as soon as they can. Russia is stuck in past centuries when it comes to its power structures.