You receive an emergency alert: "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL." What do you do? How do you think your neighborhood will react? What memes be on Lemmy?
Russia has a nasty habit of attacking smaller countries to feed their imperialist ambitions and hiding behind their nukes whenever anyone says anything. It's better to risk a nuclear exchange to bloody their noses and teach them some manners, than let them continue their crap.
Both objective reality, and Russian perception, is that US is 100% responsible for instigating and perpetuating the war. The only objective for fighting is to continue to diminish Russia through NATO or US alignment. You are essentially saying that it is legitimate to make the "evil side" STFU through a nuclear strike potentially on civilian/economic targets. You can thank Putin for being so moderate and patient in this war so far, in not making the US choose to STFU and collapse.
You mean when Russia invaded in 2022, which nobody expected to actually happen because it was obviously stupid and wouldn't work? America gave that order?