Look, about the cookies you are getting boring.
I think is time you start acknowledging that you are sitting at a table full of cheaters playing poker - and Ruzzia is no exception - and you are accusing the others of cheating better than you. Ruzzia has massively interfered with every European election, with the US election and has used money to buy anyone for sale in the European parliament, in Ukraine, in Chechenia, in the UK and in half of Africa. You may wish to keep pretending otherwise, but there is a big, ugly trail of reports, news and evidence backing it.
So, if you think that cookies are the reason, then you need to make your cookies sweeter because, again, Ruzzia is doing pretty much all the repertoire of manipulation, interference, money handling, disinformation... And speaking of deals, it has been proven that a deal with Putin makes just good toilet paper.
But to things that matter:
There are many countries that share resources with he western countries- just as many countries "share" resources with Ruzzia, sometimes willingly I guess.
Ukraine is offering a commercial partnership with the right partners that will not threaten an invasion as a negotiation tool. It is clear that the future path of an independent Ukraine is to be ready to defend itself and to be ready for EU investments. And again, if Ruzzia and you personally do not like it, then you'd need to think what did Ruzzia do wrong.
On Ukrainian troops in Europe, I think it is a stupid idea. The whole idea of having US troops in Europe is to make an strike an act of war with the US and the best position for Ukrainian troops strategically is in Ukraine or Kursk
https://carnegieendowment.org/europe/strategic-europe/2014/06/judy-asks-should-nato-have-bases-in-its-east?lang=enI guess that as a result of this war Ukraine may get nukes.
A quote attributed to Churchill captures that spirit: he is supposed to have said that he needed one American soldier, “preferably dead,” to ensure the defense of Europe.
Ah so you're finally starting to pick up on the game, good! But you're once again defaulting to absolutes without context as you usually like to do. Sure, Russia is also attempting to "play" the game, but it's a newcomer to this table. The real question is how are Russian actions around the globe compare to what the "west" is doing? You'll see that the difference is in magnitudes!
Since the Cuban missile crisis, humanity forced the game to adopt few unwritten rules, one being that countries in direct proximity/on the boarder can be considered an existential threats, and are thus off limits, Cuba was in American "backyard". There were challenges in Africa, LatAm, middle east etc.. but we all stayed safe until that rule was broken in Ukraine with the culmination being Nuland's cookies and the "
Fuck the EU" comment. That challenged the world's status quo, after which the two outcomes were either a total collapse of Russia (and then China), or the status quo is restored.
As I've mentioned many times before, the weigh categories are different, Russia just cannot compete with the amount of cookies US has. And that's the exact reason why the cookies were chosen for Ukraine. The irony in that is that now China picked up on the game and now spreads it's own "cookies", so in a typical hypocritical manner now everyone needs to be convinced that China should not be allowed to buy influence with their cookies.
When one country managed to make itself totally dependent on the other, even for such basics as the salary of its government, the "commercial partnership" is just a nice name for being a vassal, which has zero leverage to negotiate. It started with Ukraine accepting tasty cookies, it's ending with Ukraine offering it's resources itself, which doesn't even look like the west will even accept. Ingenious foresight and a master play by Ukrainian government.
If you think that in any scenario Ukraine will be allowed to get nukes (by either side), that just shows your total ignorance at what this conflict is all about.