Here is one perspective from “The North American Peace Movement” on the Ukraine war.

Initially, there was less clarity regarding the events in Ukraine of February 24, 2022. With research and reflection, most of the movement came to understand the conflict did not begin that day. The supposedly “unprovoked” Russian intervention in Ukraine was sparked by NATO moving closer and closer to the Russian border, the 2014 Maidan coup, the sabotage of the Minsk agreements, etc.

A consensus is maturing in the antiwar movement that Ukraine is a proxy war by the US and its NATO allies to weaken Russia. Even key corporate press and government officials now recognize the conflict as a “full proxy war” by the US designed to use the Ukrainian people to mortally disable Russia.

Dissident Voice

I can see a perspective that the Ukraine war really started with the Russian invasion of Crimea (aka Ukraine) in 2014 and the Russian-supported independence declarations of two other provinces in the east of the country. It was really a military conflict between sovereign countries at that point, and you can see the 2022 invasion as a new campaign within that war. The “Maidan coup” was the 2014 ouster of a pro-Russian government through a parliamentary process, and the election of an arguably anti-Russian government through an election with a lot of international observers that was generally deemed free and fair. I wouldn’t doubt for a second that the CIA interfered in that election at least through financial and propaganda support for its preferred side, and I wouldn’t doubt for a second that Russia and many other governments’ intelligence agencies did too. I can see the point of view that the Russian governing class has felt threatened by the U.S. and NATO going all the way back to the Balkan war in the 1990s and feels they are making a stand. And I don’t doubt that U.S. and NATO leaders encouraged Ukraine not to accept its initial loss of territory after 2014 (“the Minsk agreement”) in return for promises of military support.

Russia never respected Ukraine’s status as a sovereign nation state. This is the single greatest issue to me – Ukraine is a recognized sovereign nation with a seat at the UN, and all other UN nation states need to stand up for any nation state whose established territory is violated. This just has to be a bedrock principle that everyone (ESPECIALLY the U.S. following its adventure in Iraq) needs to recommit to.