Again, I am not talking about justification. That's a moral subjective thing and I'm not interested in that conversation.
Regarding motivation, you are making a claim that contradicts the evidence. There were ongoing provocations post 2014. Also I'm not talking about the alignment of individual Ukrainian peasants. This is about power at the highest levels of authority. The Ukrainian authorities willingly provoked conflict with Russia. It has become a proxy state of the west. War would most likely have been prevented if Ukraine remained neutral.
> Regarding motivation, you are making a claim that contradicts the evidence.
No, I'm not.
> There were ongoing provocations post 2014.
There was an ongoing war post-2014, because of the Russian invasion.
> The Ukrainian authorities willingly provoked conflict with Russia.
No, Russia provoked conflict with Ukraine, by invading the country, annexing part of it, and, with a mix of proxy forces, Russian-paid mercenaries, and Russian state forces continuing fighting Ukrainian forces in other parts of the country, for the entire period from 2014 on.
> It has become a proxy state of the west.
Yes, it has become dependent on the West in a way it never was before as a direct consequence of the war initiated by Russia in 2014.
> War would most likely have been prevented if Ukraine remained neutral.
No, it wasn't, and this is demonstrable because Ukraine had not stopped being neutral at the time the war started.
Then have the balls to define how Ukraine stop to be neutral? Or we should believe the Kremlin paranoia? Was that EU deal? Russia is afraid if Ukraine enters in EU and grows like Poland then it could be danger and Russia needs to keep Ukraine down?
The alignment that occurred after and as a direct consequence of the Russian invasion are neither justification nor motivation for the invasion.