Rolling over and giving in to threats sometimes means those threats aren't carried out. Sometimes. Other times it simply emboldens and encourages the ones making the threats to threaten even more.

The fact that Putin is using Ukraine's possibly joining NATO as an excuse to invade does not mean he would not have invaded anyway. It's entirely likely he would have seen that as a further sign of weakness and simply found another excuse. So no, I don't agree that what you said is true and I don't understand how you can be so sure of it.

It's possible but I dont think it's at all likely given the immense cost of invasion and the sheer impossibility of occupying.

Putin is not unaware that Russia will come out of this bloody and bruised and nearly broken (potentially completely) and he's not irrational either.

He may be aware of that now, but I don't think he was at all aware of it a week ago. I think he was expecting an easy takeover just like Crimea.

That's absurd.

We have two examples of Russian tanks rolling into an east European territory and taking it over almost bloodlessly. Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Crimea in 2014. I don't think it's at all absurd to think he was trying for a third.

> I do believe in democracy.

No, you quite obviously don't.