Was musing about when Ukraine lost the war and if "The War" was avoidable. Realpolitik says it never is tho.
I think Ukraine lost the war in 2014 when it got decided that it's gonna be war.
With Maidan happening I think Moscow decided Ukraine was lost, and they had to salvage anything they could, so they took Crimea, the one region with key importance, and instigated the separatist movement to have further way in to Ukraine when later becomes necessary, or when the time is right.
Why I say Ukraine lost it already? Because no matter the outcome, Ukraine will lose with a war being fought on her soil. They'll lose population/manpower and for there is no chance to stand alone, they lose their assets, land and production facilities to the West in return for the help "help".
So in early 2014 it was sure that war is unavoidable. Frankly it started already. We might just did not see it some surely did, but if they claimed they "always knew with utmost surety" that would be just backwards forethought, there are always differing opinions, and with enough amount of opinions some bound to be right in the end, no they cannot actually know until things happen and make them right. But prior to that?
With the collapse of the Soviet Union US thought now everything is up for grabs, so they started to chain up their new vassals, gradually moving to east. For example Hungary joined NATO in 1999 the year when NATO bombed Serbia to pressure the release of the parastate Kosovo. And Hungary joined EU in 2004, that year saw the so called Orange Revolution of Ukraine, which helped the pro-West/pro-EU Yushchenko into power in 2005, which meant a drift away from Russia.
I think it goes without saying that while there surely were local groups - and people in general - in Ukraine, who favoured the West, US, EU over Russian relations, neither the Orange Revolution, nor Maidan could have happened without Western meddling, without them artificially creating and inflating local movements. And they probably went beyond astroturfing, using professional agents to do stuff as well.
I think Ukraine's only chance was not being a rope in a tug-of-war, which could have happened if Western Europe and Russia could have reconcile, and started to cooperate. Ukraine could have been a bridge in the process that connects, instead a rope pulled - and now torn to pieces.
So essentially Ukraine had no chance. Countries that entered NATO started to enjoy the protection of the nuclear arsenal of the West and the MAD that comes with it. But Ukraine had none of that, but the US's pull, and Russia's jealous stare.
But what if Russia had been quicker and prevented at least the Maidan, and perhaps the Orange too? Maybe Ukraine would be in peace now, but perhaps a different civil war had been broken out, just in the west with secessionist Lwow and such.