Except that we’ll never know how much violence would there had been in Donbas had Russia not sent their troops and weapons there back in 2014.

And it’s not like Putin cares about the people in the Donbas soo mich that he just had no other choice besides invading the rest Ukraine to protect them. I’m sure that Russia could have pressured Ukraine into allowing some UN supervised referendum in the region if they cared even the tiniest bit about that.