the feather to broke this camels back is when the ukranians started shelling the east of the country for wanting to break away -- like isreal is doing to gazans rn -- and that's provocation enough.

Merkel and Zelensky have admitted that they never had any intention of honoring Minsk, but instead use it as a stalling tactic while further arming Ukraine.

This is the war the imperialists wanted: to poke the bear until it inevitably responded, and then claim that the response was “unprovoked”.

1.5M of your comrades to the meatgrinder

They’re not my comrades, and meat grinder/meat wave was bullshit, fascist propaganda during WWII and is still bullshit, fascist propaganda today.

NATO overthrowing a legitimate government to install a fascist regime and potentially put nukes next to Russian border does in fact justify the reaction Russia had, which is the same reaction any other major power would have in the same situation. Russia did not choose war over diplomacy, and tried to do diplomacy for nearly a decade.