It seem's that this situation even if it somehow ends in the next five years. Will be argued for the next five hundred years.

Those "autonomous states" are having thousands of their people being tossed into a meat grinder and receiving a much larger share of the conscription than the likes of Moscow and St Petersburg because ultimately they aren't autonomous and Putin is the leader of them all and wants to remove ethnic minorities from the population.

Your mistake is thinking the argument is that Putin suddenly woke up one morning and decided to be a madman, that isn't it, Putin has always been one, he has always been a horrific human being. Putin's invasion of Ukraine didn't start in 2022, it started in 2014. Putin has jailed political rivals (see Navalny), has blatantly poisoned people on UK soil (see Litvinenko). Russia's actions in Moldova (specifically Transnistria) and Georgia (specifically Abkhazia and South Ossetia) mirror their actions in Ukraine. Putin's involvement in the absolute decimation of Chechnya. Their role in Syria.

Putin has always shown horrific actions throughout his political career but the West looked the other way in exchange money or diplomatic relations, it took until Ukraine's full scale invasion for them to stop looking the other way at Putin's actions. For years now, Putin has poked at the West to see what he could get away with, slowly pushing the boundaries overtime, whilst at the same time attempting to ensure the West is reliant on Russia via energy, he tried to make Europe dependent on Russian energy so that when he makes the ultimate push, the West wouldn't do anything out of fear.

This is why he attempted to blackmail the West with energy, why he attempted to blackmail us with the Nord Stream pipeline, stop supporting Ukraine and lift the sanctions and we'll supply you with energy again, Russians were practically salivating on their state run media that Europe would freeze to death over the Winter, this blackmail attempt failed as Europe weaned itself off Russian energy quicker than expected but nevertheless it was an attempt.

Practically all media sources in Russia are state run or terrified of saying something against the state, people were arrested in Russia simply for holding up signs which said "peace" and they were arrested for protesting against the war along the lines of "discrediting the armed forces of Russia" if this isn't a dictator state then nothing is.

This is the Trump reality distortion field in full spectacular glory... And once you loose an argument, you shift to the next.

There is an agreed cost formula that NATO members have to pay... Which is a percentage.
That means a tiny country with a tiny GDP will pay less than the USA... And that agreed amount is 2% which was ratified in 2006 at the Riga Summit.
Trump made no changes to ANY of that.

There are calls for an increase to 2.5% by eliminating things like fuel subsidies, see how that works.

Trump literally did not make anyone "pay their fair share". And all NATO members contributed.

Trump failed... Just like building a wall and getting mexico pay for it, just like managing covid, just like paying down debt (he increased it).
He just failed at everything he did.

You did.

Republicans have lost their sanity.  I do not understand what happened to the party. 

When did FOX news become conservative?

Oh a bunch of elected officials are supporting the position.

Moscow is very close to the Ukraine border: As others stated, the Baltic States are just as close, and it's actually easier to get to the Russian capital from there.

Russia has been invaded twise through Ukraine: Yes, because Ukraine was an important asset in both invasions: For Napoleon to feed his troops (at the time, they supplied themselves from the regions they were in, not getting them from home), and Hitler because most of the military production and food was produced in Ukraine prior to the invasion, so invading there would also have knocked out Russian military poduction and supplies if the hadn't moved them to Tankograd in time. Neither had anything to do with distance or defenses, just that going through Ukraine was the most logical in both cases due to their respective stategic needs.

Ukraine leadership was a partner for a long time: Nope, Ukraine was pretty divided between integrating Europe and closer ties with Russia. in fact, pro-Russia and pro-EU leaders succeded each other.

The first president, Leonid Kravchuk, was pro-European. His successor, Leonid Kuchma, was pro-Russia. Kuchma was followed by pro-European Viktor Yushchenko, which got succeded by pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych got deposed because he tried to make a complete U-turn, cancelling existing agreements with the EU in favor of some with the Commonwealth of Independent States led by Russia. He got then succeeded by Pro-European Presidents as the pro-Russian population was for the most part either in the seccession terriotiroes of the Donbas or in the occupied Crimea, so the pro-Russian vote didn't have much weight anymore.

In other words, Putin shot himself in the foot when he supported the separatists and occupied crimea because it meant he coundn't get the rest of Ukraine without force anymore. Hence the invasion 2 years ago.

[Putin]'s looking to restore the buffer zone in some way: He, and by extension his predecessors, could have done so by not pushing their former allies around and dropping them in their times of need. The baltic states applied for NATO membership as soon as they were out of the Soviet Union due to how Russia treated them within the Union. Ukraine had to suffer throught the Holodomor (lit.: death by hunger) during the Soviet Union despite being the breadbasket of the Union. Not exactly the best base for getting under Russia's wing wing again.

Also, with the invasion, Putin utterly failed if he wanted a buffer zone. Like already had been stated before, the distance is pretty much the same from the baltic states, so it was an impossible thing to create to begin with. Worse, with Finland and Sweden joining NATO, he actually lost a lot of buffer and gained 2 strong potential ennemies if he (or a potential successor) starts pushing things too far.

giving Putin some kind of assurances: Ukraine gave away their nukes to Russia under the Russian assurance that they would never attack Ukraine, see where we are now? I wouldn't give any weight to any assurances for Russia to keep them. If Ukraine will not join NATO it just means that Russia could finish at a later date what they started now, but better organized and equipped that time around.

Nah I don't think he can control governors who shut down without getting absolutely made into the badguy by the press and think he was done in the election as soon as it happened since the economy was gonna take a hit.  And no I don't give Biden credit for pulling out of Afghanistan either one was gonna do that in a similar timeframe.  The lack of organization made it a failed pullout when it should have been organized and not destroyed everything that was built while leaving weapons around in a disorganized mess.  If Trump is in office maybe he sees the chaos and makes them slow down and do it right.  i have no idea what Trump would do lol he wasn't there and it didn't seem to be happening under 4 whole years of him (here comes the "Then neither was the Afghanistan pullout" reasoning when his plans were already laid for that.)

"Also, with the invasion, Putin utterly failed if he wanted a buffer zone. Like already had been stated before, the distance is pretty much the same from the baltic states, so it was an impossible thing to create to begin with. Worse, with Finland and Sweden joining NATO, he actually lost a lot of buffer and gained 2 strong potential enemies if he (or a potential successor) starts pushing things too far."

Pretty much, Lol.

The reality is, Moscow was already close enough to Estonia and Latvia.

Now they've added on Finland/Sweden to the NATO list which apparently they're okay with despite the fact that Finland (and Norway Tbf) are on the ass of Severomorsk, what is Severomorsk? Only the HQ of the Northern Fleet of Russia's Navy and their main fleet.

Their Baltic Fleet is completely surrounded.

St Petersburg is right on the ass of NATO.

Their Black Sea Fleet is a non-factor as long as Türkiye controls the straits.

But suddenly Russia cares all about their security to the point of invading another country because that country is too close to Moscow? Lol.

In the event of a war, NATO wouldn't even need to invade Moscow on foot.

Oh and when Wagner invaded and marched on Moscow, Putin fled for St Petersburg 😂

There were practically no obstacles to Wagner on their march to Moscow, if Prigozhin wasn't such a moron, they would have very easily marched into Moscow and held it for a period of time, ultimately they'd lose it though but still, really shows how much Putin "cares" about Moscow.