https://archive.is/Ei14W

Here is what we know for certain. Despite repeated entreaties from Vladimir Putin to President Joe Biden and other Western leaders to provide assurances that Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO, the West told Putin to screw off and continued building up Ukraine’s military. The U.S. and its NATO allies believed that Russia’s military was weak and ineffective. Western leaders also believed that Russia’s economy was vulnerable to Western economic sanctions and that an economic collapse in Russia would catapult Putin from power.

The Western plan was simple, audacious and delusional — i.e., using Ukraine as a military proxy, defeat Russia and humiliate Vladimir Putin; apply Western economic sanctions that would devastate the Russian economy and further erode support for Putin; break up the Russia Republic into 41 new countries. Sounds crazy, but take a look at what Angel Vohra wrote in Foreign Policy Magazine in April 2023:

Sounds like another delusional goal that rivals the Iraqi invasion on 2003. Now it's all backfired and the US is losing credibility even more.