I don't see "the USA" as fighting Russia so much as an arrogant self-aggrandizing group we call neocons, which rose to power under Reagan during the Contra War against Nicaragua, and sees itself as being in charge. Many Americans have no beef with the Russians and are in fact of Russian heritage. Washington DC may see itself as representing "the USA" but some of us just see a silly City of Morons (one of my blog posts). Clearly I have my own deviant rhetoric.
I also tend to shy away from historical accounts that make "nations" the principal actors. I don't have any great belief in nations except as ideological / psychological constructs we use to organize our human affairs, akin to a corporation or religious bodies / institutions.
The English language allows us to construct stories wherein Europe does this and London does that and Nicaragua does something else. I know how to talk this way too, and do (when in Rome...), but under the hood I'm a skeptic. Only humans have agency. These inanimate actors are at best a kind of journalistic shorthand.
A faction of Ukrainian ideology wants "Ukraine for Ukrainians" and has a very definite idea of what that means. Ethnic Russians fall outside the definition. It's like if we had a faction here saying "real USAers" have to be white and of European heritage, anyone else is tolerated but is not as real.
Given my upbringing as a liberal, I was taught that "ethnic uniformity" was a primitive older idea of "a nation" that had been superseded by the modern conception, one which accommodates a mix of cultures and religions and doesn't put any one of them in charge. I call that "secularism".
Secular nations (which accommodate religions) are the ones I'm snobby about and think more highly of. "Ukraine for Ukrainians" sounds old fashioned and immature to my ears. I'm sorry this faction has gained an upper hand in Ukrainian politics and that they have their proud boy types to enforce their racist views.
Translating to Americanese I might say that in my view 2014 was a January 6 moment, except the Trumpies won, the ultra nationalist Bandero Ukraine for Ukrainian proud boy types forcefully took charge. The decent Ukrainians, especially out east, were shocked by this violent uprising and wanted out of this nascent nation-gone-bad. Russia is blue, fighting Maga Reds in Kiev. NATO is fascist to the core, we know from what it did to Libya, where my family worked for six years.
