Your American analysis is not firmly based in reality. It looks to me you believe that Ukrainians do (or did) have a decent chance of prevailing in this tragic conflict. Unfortunately, they never had much chance. Minsk 1 and 2 and Istambul negotiations were Ukraine's best chances to achieve less bad outcome. Important note: they never had any chance of gaining back Crimea. With the help of their Werstern masters, Kiev completely ignored physical limitations to their own powers and chose the escalation of the war. After three years of going the wrong way, Ukraine is not changing her approach while her chances of winning are keep on decreasing. At this point, it is hard to even name a miracle which would change the current nearly catastrophic situation.