There's no right or wrong here, only strength and paranoia.

The Russians think, probably correctly, that NATO is slowly tightening the screws. American bases ring the globe, the baltic states are all in NATO, America tried to flip Georgia to their side, and now they were trying it with Ukraine. Don't forget the 2014 American sponsored coup that flipped Ukraine to the West.

Because the Russians think this, they demanded Ukraine be neutral and they demanded a guarantee Ukraine would never join NATO in the future. They also had demands about recognizing Donbas independence. Those people are Russian speakers and claim, probably truthfully, that Ukraine has bee harassing and attacking them since 2014.

That's the Russian point of view and the Western refusal is what set them off. They are correct in trying to protect the Russian speakers of Donbass--those are their people.

As for the rest of it, well, what can you say? Russia lost tens of millions of citizens to Germany in WW2. Their paranoia has some justification. NATO really is closing in on them, refuses to listen to their concerns, breaks their deals and basically never listens to anything but force.

From Ukraine's point of view, Russia is a monster. This is hardly the first time they've been on the receiving end of a Russian army. Stalin deliberately starved millions of people in Ukraine in an attempt to clear out populations he found troublesome. The Soviet Union and the communists ruled with an iron fist and had to be some of the worst rulers in history. They have every reason to try and get out from under Russia's heavy thumb.

All the players here have reasons to do what they are doing. If you were Russia's ruler and faced with the option to allow Ukraine to become enemy territory and host missiles and troops aimed against you, then attacking Ukraine to end the threat would be tempting.

At this point, it does seem clear to me that if we could go back in time to last December and sign that treaty, we'd do it in a heartbeat.