I also thought the Ukraine as a neutral independent buffer state would be best for everyone. The problem is that Russia won’t allow Ukraine to be independent. It has to be a puppet state at least. There is a deleted Russian state news article describing their ambitions. This article was meant to be published after Russian victory in two days, but things obviously didn’t go as plannend.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20...

Russias hyper aggressive policy against Ukraine has bitten them in the ass. I believe a softer approach would have been better. Focus on strengthening economic and cultural ties. Have Ukraine to be Russia sympathetic country instead of a Russian controlled one.

That idea seems to be less relevant since there are Baltic states and Norway already bordering Russia.

Edit: If Russia really needs buffer - it is big country, they can create it inside Russia`s border. But they do not need this buffer because Russia`s army compared to NATO is nothing - buffer would not help. But Russia has more nuclear missiles then NATO. And that is more powerful then some mythical buffer zone.

the general idea was to install a Yanukovych 2.0 to disallow exfiltration of black money percentages to liberals, and not to the Russian oligarchs and connected presidency where it historically belongs to. democracy and free markets are a major disruption to their extortion business model.

plus they need Mariupol and the protected black sea harbors.