To me it seems there is a clear ideological angle to your perception of this conflict. Which of course is perfectly ok. But for me, ideology is a mere vessel for transmuting the actual geopolitical goals into reality.
It is forexample a historical fact that the Soviet Union was one of the driving forces behind de-colonization, after the second world war. I regard every form of colonialism as tyranny thus in my book there was positive sides of Soviet Union. During this period the United States OTOH was often in support of the colonial master, be it the Dutch in South Africa with it Apartheid Regime or Portugal with its reluctancy to give up Goa in India or the French who of course till this day still treat west Africa as its own backyard.
Then he have US actions in Middle East the past 20 years, which is a chapter on its own. Just for the fact, about 3-10 million civillian people have been killed from the direct consequences of these wars. What is this if not tyranny? It certainly wasnt Russia who killed all these people.
So when you use ideological angel in order to try to legitimize certain political actions. It really isnt something i will buy immidiately. There is a reason for that; Man is greedy and always lusts for power, money, gold and of course women. Those are and will always be the REAL driving factors behind every conflict on this planet.
How to know if Putin will be settled if Ukraine and Belarus would have been agreed to made into buffer zones? Well we dont know. But that is irrelevant for NATO. Because we dont have to know what Putin wants to do. All we need to know is what WE want to do. Where OUR red lines are drawn. In my book that red line is any form attack on any member state is regarded as attack on all member states. Couldnt be any clearer than
