So you admit that the sources provide a substantial amount of evidence while also claiming that the article doesn't provide proof of extensive documentation?

You also cannot claim that Russian propaganda played no part in the stark differences in political outlook for the people in eastern Ukraine. Propaganda doesn’t really work without fertile ground to spread it on.

Just the same way western propaganda played a role in western Ukraine. US has the most sophisticated and well funded propaganda engine in the world. Russia doesn't even come close to that.

That’s just not true, but we cannot go beyond “is, is not” arguments here.

Again, a government that bans opposition parties, tortures journalists, bans media, and cancels elections is the definition of a regime. They started doing these things before the war started.

Is that still true though? Seems like US is pushing a lot of resources into this non-core interest. Could it be that Biden’s admin thinks differently from Obama’s?

Biden admin is obsessed with Ukraine, but that obviously doesn't make it a core interest for US as a country. In fact, it's pretty clear that this proxy war against Russia has already had disastrous economic and geopolitical consequences for US. It's very likely that the situation will get worse by next year at which point democrats will almost certainly lose the election.

I don't support right wing parties in Europe or US, but unfortunately the left decided to align with the war mongers and the only parties that took a consistent stance against the war were on the right. Now that the support for the war is collapsing, these parties are gaining a huge amount of momentum. This will be a tragedy for the west in the long run.