in the 90's Ukraine was loaded with nuclear, then in Budapest treaty the top dogs like: usa, uk, china france and RUSSIA fuckers, "Assured security" in exchange of disarmament. It was stupid from Ukraine to give a inch of trust to this bunch of fuckers.
1) NATO's frontline is stopped at Ukraine, not at Poland's, Hungary's, Czech's border 2) for Ukraine, they'd need to fight the long war like Afghanistan did (9 years) (CIA support was one of the reasons for their success).
Ukraine didn't have the launch codes for the nuclear weapons, so they wouldn't have been able to use them as a deterrent against invasion. So, they weren't giving up as much as one would think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances
This video is from 2015. But this guy predicts exactly whats going to happen to Ukraine (its going to get wrecked), long video but i have cued it to the end bit where he predicts what is going to happen and how to avoid it.
In a ideal world Putin would be held accountable . The reality is they're the second biggest nuclear state and US direct involvement would be disastrous for the whole world
If Putin doesn't back down, it seems inevitable. Because anything less will be an invitation for Putin to flex his expansionary intentions even more. Where, then, does it end? Yeah, it's one hell of a conundrum.