>> Personally I'm not rooting for either side

The hell you aren't. "Neutrality" always favors the aggressor. And here, you are literally spreading Putin's rhetoric.

No one is "poking the bear". The bear is doing what it has historically done, violently attempt to expand its empire with a genocidal assault on it's neighbor's territory.

This has zero to do with The Former Guy, who would literally hand over Ukraine to Russia; remember he was first impeached for trying to blackmail Ukraine, withholding arms (such as Javelin anti-tank weapons) until Zelenskyy would falsely announce opening some fabricated investigation of his political opponent.

In this case the assault is at it's root being done because Putin cannot tolerate having his public see that a state former under Soviet rule is becoming successfully (small-"d") democratic, prosperous, and seeking to associate with Europe and the free world instead of Russia. The very real problem for Putin's administration is that his subject's seeing Ukraine's success is likely to provoke rebellion against his authoritarian rule. The problem that knowledge of Ukraine's success poses can be seen well in the Russian soldier's universal theft of toilets and painting on the walls "what gives you the right to live so well?". So, (knowledge of) Ukraine's success is an existential threat to the rule of Putin and the Oligarchs. Hence Russia's genocidal rhetoric, saying that they must eliminate the very idea of Ukranian existence, and their genocidal actions, from systematic rape and torture, stealing hundreds of thousands of children for "reeducation", etc.

Another key reason this is happening is that the west has in the past failed to respond. In Chechnyia, Georgia, Syria, Crimea, Donbas, and more,when Russia attacked, the west tried to avoid engaging. The result, that Russia was allowed to continue occupying those territories, and was not punished for repeated atrocities and likely war crimes, was seen as weakness and permission. So they did it again.

Unless it is stopped, it WILL continue. Russian spokesman, up to former Presidents still in the govt have explicitly made statements that the Baltics, Poland, and Germany have no right to exist, and that they should be nuking England.

Russia (along with other authoritarian/fascist states) is a literally an existential threat to the world of democratic nations. If not stopped in Ukraine, they WILL continue their aggression. And, China is watching very closely - if the west lets Ukraine fall, then they WILL attack Taiwan.

So, the question is, if we don't stop Russia now, when do we stop them? It would have been far better to have stopped them at Crimea. But, Obama didn't do that. So, do we stop them now, or in the Baltics, or in Poland? Or, do we wait for artillery to start falling on Berlin, or London, or Washington?

The cost of stopping them goes up at every step, both economically and in blood. It is more expensive now than it would have been in Syria or Crimea. But now is also incredibly cheap. Ukrainian military is literally doing all the heavy lifting, and we are spending low single-digit percentages of our DOD budget sending them third-shelf inventory. And Russia is now stopped dead in it's tracks and it's military capabilities to threaten the rest of the world are heavily degraded.

Providing arms for Ukraine to defend itself against genocide is the bargain of the century, and it is literally necessary to preserve democracy globally. The current POTUS deserves huge credit for leadership in stopping this aggression, and when it is finished will take it (i.e., no one is trying to pin anything on TFG)