now i am confused. Would you have cheered for saddam hussain when the world (except US) knew there were no WMDs and this was a straight up coup and a massacre and annihilation with what repercussions? If you want to hold russia to the lofty standards of human rights and sovereignty, why not look around and also start blaming others for doing so? Again, i am not saying dont blame russia because US was never blamed or faced any consequences, on the contrary i am asking to hold US and allies in the same light as you are holding russia.

saudi-yemen? why isn't saudi being sanctioned and bombed for committing more of these "human rights" crimes? oh wait, they are allies.

This discussion derailment technique is called "whataboutism". It's a modified form of the "tu quoque" logical fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Note how your whining about whataboutism effectively allows you to evade answering OP’s appeal to applying common standards for everyone, which is the only proper ethical response to hold. People who complain about whataboutism are the ones who want to get away with their hypocrisy and moral relativism whenever doing so serves their unsound political viewpoints.

This is what makes tu-quoque such an insidious logical fallacy: It allows someone to sidetrack the conversation by changing away from the original subject.

Had I followed along with this ruse, it would be trivial to keep piling on another country's bad behavior until the actual issue (Russia invading and annexing a neighbor) eventually gets buried in the noise from the resulting back-and-forth. And it often works because onlookers are fooled by the sleight-of-hand, while the accuser is left on the defensive because the subject has now shifted to something different of the interlocutor's choice that cannot be defended.

They're called logical fallacies because they give the appearance of logical argument, but are actually invalid and prove nothing (and are in fact deceptions). I suggest you read up on them; I posted a link to the tu-quoque fallacy earlier.

You are wrong about it not proving anything, as it proves that you're intentionally trying to trivialize the conflict into an event of its own, by hiding the context of the prior events caused by other actors playing on the same field in their chronological order.

Secondly, I'm yet to see a proof that it's indeed a fallacy, as you are yet to demonstrate how exactly OP's appeal to common standards is an unsound argument causing faulty reasoning. You're just evading the argument altogether whilst calling it a fallacy. I bet you're either cherry-picking definitions or not fully understanding the meaning of the term, especially when it serves your intent to hide your lack of consistency on the subject matter of military conflicts.

Now I am confused. Why do you bring up the US in a discussion about Ukraine and Russia? What did Ukraine do to deserve their fate as unwilling Russian vassal state?

I think what the OP is implying is that there should never have been a war in Ukraine. Obviously they are fighting to survive and for the sovereignty of their nation.

I agree with they OP that this is a proxy war but it's ultimately between china and the USA. Both Russia and Ukraine are caught as pawns in a much larger game. You only have to look at which companies are allowed to bypass sanctions to sell and see it's a game being played with the lives of people. Very sad.