The Russian thinking on this war is clear, and I've seen polls show a 70% approval rating for the war in Russia, at least at the moment. Rather than being motivated by evil or madness, imagine they are rational for a moment. Here's the background:

Russia has made very clear they regard Ukraine as within their sphere of influence, much like we regard the Americas as ours. America fostered a coup in Ukraine back in 2014 that re-oriented the country to the West. Since then, American ha armed Ukraine and pointed their militias at the Donbas to attack, murder and harass Russians living there. NATO has dangled the possibility of NATO membership like a carrot in front of Ukraine for years now, and America and the UK have sent troops to Ukraine to train their armed forces.

Having been invaded by the West through Ukraine during WW2 and having lost tens of millions of people in that war, Russia is very fearful of letting it happen again. They regard NATO as a hostile military alliance, and having Ukraine join NATO and be used as a host to NATO forces or missiles is intolerable. So, rather than allow this to happen, Russia lined its army up on the Ukrainian border and demanded that Ukraine be declared neutral and with a guarantee they would never enter NATO. They also demanded independence for the Russian speaking provinces in the Donbas.

Now it doesn't matter if you think the Russians are evil, crazy or just simply wrong about these matters. This is how they THINK, and that's what counts. Russia's demand was Ukrainian neutrality, Donbas independence and no NATO. They have other, more negotiable demands, but those were the key demands.

And the West said "no." Western diplomats aren't stupid, so they knew Russia was serious, but they said no anyway. This can only mean that the West found these objectively reasonable demands unacceptable, or they wanted the war.

Me, I think they wanted the war. War factions in America have been looking for a bad guy ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, and Arab terrorists were just not cutting it. These people could care less about the suffering and death they knew would come if they refused the deal back in December, and now Ratheon and Northrop are popping Champaign corks in celebration. After years of punching Russia's buttons, they finally got the Bear to bite. And this is what they got:

1) A new Hitler to terrify voters with and strengthen the security state.

2) An urgent reason to increase "defense" spending.

3) The death of the Nordstream 2 pipeline, forcing Europe to buy gas from America at much higher rates than from Russia

4) Unification of purpose in Europe. They need America to keep them safe from Russia.

5) An excuse to print money to fund all this cold war stuff, inflating the dollar and causing more poverty and misery in America.

Now Russia is the enemy and it will be a generation before that has any chance to mend. All of our hopes of reconciliation after the fall of the Soviet Union are ashes, and the nuclear balance of terror hangs over our heads again like the sword of Damocles, just like the good old days. All because they just couldn't leave Ukraine alone.