This is a lot like asking, in regard to events of August 1939 -- "Do you deny that Poland has ethnic Germans in it territory"?

Of course it did, and in fact (though this is largely forgotten) Poland was abusing its German population somewhat (far more than anything Ukraine has ever done to its Russian-speaking population). But Hitler's claims of the extent of such abuses were wildly exaggerated and overdrawn. Just as the depiction above of Ukraine "crushing those Russians because of their dissent" (without providing specifics) is wildly out of touch with reality.

And his stated rationale of the need to to start a full-scale war in order "protect" this population was a big lie of course, created specifically to appeal to people gullible enough to believe such things. Putin's claims of the need to "protect" the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine are equally baseless, and are designed with a similar intent in mind.

But what I do expect is to engage with their people and their neighbors on these issues in hopes of avoiding war and maintaining territorial integrity.

Ukraine did engage with Russia on the issues -- they just weren't willing to bend over and give Putin everything he wanted. More specifically it definitely sounds like you were expecting the Ukrainians to agree to permanent large-scale territorial concessions. Because since 2014, that's been the bare minimum of Russia's terms for "avoiding war".

If we dismiss everything the Russians say and accept everything said by those arming Ukraine there is no point for debate on this topic: we can only accept the mainstream media narrative that Ukraine must fight and we must support it endlessly.

All I can say is we had similar situations in the past and decades after the fact we realized we were lied to. Too bad millions died I guess?

If you listen to Russians, then you're left with an impression that they are being surrounded by US weapons on their borders. If you look at the numbers, then that turns out to be a blatant misrepresentation of truth. For example, the US fielded ~5000 main battle tanks in Europe at the end of the Cold War. In 2013, the last 10 were removed. The opposite is true: post-Cold War era has brought rapid disarmament to Europe, which has emboldened Russia to invade Ukraine, because disarmament has limited how much and how quickly allies could help Ukraine.

> But I think it’s kind of obvious that the core Russian desire is to keep nato far from its borders.

Ironically, this is "obvious" only if you accept the premise that Russia is determined to violate the security of its neighbors.

But to address one aspect of what you're saying now:

I think it’s kind of obvious that the core Russian desire is to keep nato far from its borders.

This is broadly correct, and perfectly understandable.

However the war was never really about NATO expansion in the first place. And even if it were -- it definitely wasn't a rational response to that concern. And it certainly wasn't a response that the current regime was "pushed" into in any meaningful sense (as would seem to be youre implication here).