The poster boy for the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

Don't you realize that Ukraine is a PROXY for the (collapsed) US-centered attempt at Global Monopolar Hegemonic Empire - and that the US Military alone spends more than their next ten potential adversaries (that includes Russia) combined - and that Russia held off responding for at least 8 years of deliberate US provocations, on their borders? (10 years if you count the proxy war we started in South Ossetia, when our Georgian puppet-regime attacked Russian Peacekeepers).

All of that money wasted - and we lost. Trump's doing the correct thing, which is to cut our loses, and improve relations. Blinken and Nuland tried to get the demented old fool to start WWIII, for them.

Follow the money...

No. Ukraine means Borderlands - as in -between Russia and Europe. It was NEVER it's own country, prior to 1991. It was always divided between other powers - Russia in the East and South, Poland/Lithuania, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Romania etc., in the North and West. Your ignorance of these facts seems to be complete.

Crimea has been part of Russia, since the time of Katherine the Great. It's had a (warm water) Russian port and Naval Base there, since 1775. Odessa was founded by Katherine the Great. The people on the South and East are overwhelmingly ethnically, and linguistically, Russian. It was the Russians who fought a war with the British, over Crimea - not the western Ukrainians, who went on to become fascistic ultra-nationlists under Petliura and then Bandera. Russia attacked nobody in 2014. After the CIA used Ukrainian Nazis to overthrow the lawful Government in Kiev, the ethnic Russians, seeing the genocidal hatred for them, held by the people who'd seized power - refused to recognize the illegitimate and overtly fascistic new Government in Kiev. In Odessa, the new Government facilitated and oversaw a MASSACRE, at the trade union house, committed by Nazis and Soccer Hooligans, with support and protection from the Police.

In Crimea there was still a legitimately formed Government, since they had maintained autonomous status in 1991, when the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became the first bonafide, independent Ukrainian Government. The Crimeans seeing the massacre - voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine, and rejoin with Russia - first in their legislative body, and then by popular referendum. 90%+ popular - and that kind of support can't be faked or coerced. The people in the Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts, followed suit, but Russia felt unable to accept them into Russia (primarily for economic reasons, apparently) - but they DID agree to support them becoming independent and autonomous, from the illegitimate Government in Kiev. At that point the newly minted fascist leader in Kiev, Poroshenko attacked the civilians in those Oblasts, using the National Army. Some of those soldiers defected and switched sides, taking their weapons with them. Some civilians decided to join the militia. Russia gave them military assistance, to defend the people there, from a genocidal onslaught, that lasted, until the SMO began, despite two separate peace agreements, that Kiev never honored or followed.

Cont'd - someone has been filling your ears with a whole bunch of NeoCon and CIA Bull$hit, it appears.

You should read Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard" (1996) - it explains the US' stated goals of creating a Global Monopolar Hegemonic Empire, made plain by the "Wolfowitz (aka CHENEY) Doctrine", back in the early 1990's. Both are restated in the platform of the "Project for a New American Century" - PNAC. In Brzezinski's book, the goal of splitting Ukraine away from Russia, and leaving Russia isolated from Europe is explicitly spelled out... So too is the need for a new "Pearl Harbor"-type of event, to get us into an area from Afghanistan to Northwest Africa - all of which WE DID.

As for the idea that Vladimir Putin is a "DICTATOR" - it's complete bull$hit. He has in excess of 70% approval both at the polls, and as measured by US-sponsored polling. He's more popular than Joe Biden, Scholz, Starmer and Macron - combined. And Russia has not only free and fair elections - but a robust political and media opposition - of various ideological persuasions - none of which can be said of the Ukrainian Puppet-Government, installed by the CIA, and their Nazi handmaidens, mostly from western Ukraine.

It's not "freedom" if America imposes its will, onto another nation, over the wishes of a majority of its population.

As was clearly expressed in the diplomatic cable from then-Ambassador to Russia, William Burns (released by Wikileaks) in 2008 - entitled, "NYET means NYET" - it's universally rejected in Russia, amongst all political factions, that Ukraine and/or Georgia, would join NATO. IT'S a strategic National Security and existential interest for Russia to prevent any of that from happening - for the exact same reasons that the US was willing to start a Nuclear War, over the Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally - Ukraine has been used to invade Russia, from Europe, multiple times in the past several centuries. The scars left by Hitler and Napoleon, are still fresh in the Russian psyche.

I have no clue what neocon is. Also, Russia is quite literally a dictatorship. I have friends that moved to Australia BECAUSE of Putin's dictatorship.

A NeoCon is a "NeoConservative". Rightwing, Imperialist expansionist, anti-Russia and typically Genocidally Zionist, as well. It's a political philosophy currently in vogue throughout the US-centered Empire, usually on both sides of the political spectrum. It's first proponents were fallen Trotskyists, like Leo Strauss. Dick Cheney is a NeoCon - so is Victoria Nuland. You should learn to use teh interwebs better. Even wikipedia (edited by the Spies of the Empire) will give you the broad strokes of what the movement is. PNAC was their home in DC, at one point - but after Obama was installed, that shut down, and the NeoCons all moved across the street to found CNAS - the "Center for a New American Security".

As for your friends... I'm sorry that they don't like Russia. Since that's the case - Australia sounds like a perfect fit, for them, as it's within the British Empire, abd the political system there is dominated by the CIA, since at least the Coup against Gough Whitlam's Government in the 1970's. (You should follow fellow Aussie Caitlin Johnstone, if you haven't yet noticed any of that).

But let's be clear - Vladimir V Putin isn't a "Dictator", by any stretch of the imagination. He holds free and fair elections, even while at war. And he wins them, handily, because his popularity is at ~70% levels. He's politically conservative and capitalist. He is a strong leader. Some might say he's "authoritarian", though even that's debatable. But if your friends didn't like him, they wouldn't have liked Yeltsin either - unless they were big fans of an authoritarian - who works for the CIA, and proceeded to dismantle and destroy Russia, demonstrably, by every available metric.