Ukraine had signed the Minsk agreements only to buy time to build their military to NATO standards. Petro Poroshenko and Angela Merkel have admitted as much. With the US promised them backing they believed that they could be victorious even if Russia intervened.
Armed with this information they were planning and preparing to take back Donbass by force. OSCE data shows increased activity and casualties on the Donbass side in the days leading up to the invasion. Remember how Ukraine was constantly pleading for a no-fly zone? They had likely been counting on it (false promises), that the US and NATO would jump in and give them the upper hand.
At this point Russia couldn't really have let the ethnic Russians there lose and die in large numbers with the remainders getting assimilated through Ukrainization as this would've been quite a bad look back home (Russia has always protected ethnic Russians in other countries) and so it was more or less forced to act. The US knew this and still pushed for it. It was certainly not an unprovoked aggression. Remember Euromaidan where it was portrayed as all of Ukraine protesting? It was actually closer to a 50/50 split (population vote) between EU and the Russian customs union in late 2013.
As for Russia losing much? Compared to Ukraine and Europe (who are the big losers here, Ukraine for obvious reasons and Europe financially and industrially) not so much at all. Since 2014, when the sanctions actually made a decent impact, Russia had spent all this time hardening their economy. Living standards of Russians hasn't really changed, aside from some foreign products that aren't available anymore and many already have Russian replacements. They have managed to switch their exports towards Asia and India (and actually made more profits than before). Sure there are things that will take time to adapt and will be costly in the long run but still nothing compared to the problems Europe is facing, barely managing to fill up its gas reserves for this winter.
You make assertions to statements made by Merkel but give no links to back that up.
OSCE data shows that 21 people were killed the year before invasion, mostly from mines.
My friend that died fighting for Ukraine in this war called himself 'Russian from Ukraine' before the war, went to university in Moscow, spoke Russian, and loved Russia prior to the war and was helping this malinki chuvak learn Russian. He was sadly killed a few months ago but the ethnic Russian Ukrainians that I still know HATE Russia now.
Russia has lost how many working age males to the surrounding counties in order to avoid the draft? But Russia isn't losing much? How is that not losing much? The mayor of Moscow is on record as saying Moscow was losing 200,000 jobs from western companies leaving(2% of the population of Moscow).
This was the winter to impact Europe. By next winter Europe will have plenty of alternatives. Even with blowing up the pipeline and trying to create market uncertainty that would drive up prices to cause Europe pain, Europe survived this winter (the largest hurdle).
First of all I'm sorry about your friend. This whole thing really sucks and the only winner seems to be the US military-industrial complex (and other US investors buying up Ukraine at a discount). There was no reason why it had to happen and could have been avoided. That was what the Minsk agreements were attempting. At least on paper and by some parties.
I just assumed it was common knowledge about the Minsk ruse. Quick search for "Merkel admits Minsk agreements buying time" returns a large amount of sources for me (using kagi.com), first one: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/22/ffci-d22.html
Poroshenko's admission was earlier last year.
There are also many Russians who have now, after seeing Ukrainians as their brethren pre-war, grown to despise Ukraine and the west overall.
Losing jobs due to foreign companies leaving is a temporary blip, they will be replaced by local ones. That's actually what the US is trying to do now, to decrease reliance on foreign production. Any people avoiding the draft by legal means are likely to return (this is something I actually don't know much about, will most be able to return without being persecuted?).
And regards to Europe I don't think the worst is over, it's not like things are going back to normal in terms of energy prices any time soon. US LNG for example is a lot more expensive than pipeline gas and Europe might've managed this winter but the increased energy costs will have snowballing effects. Do you think industries won't be massively affected?
As for the OSCE events there were double-digit events most days but they increased to triple and some quadruple digits (from my memory, I can find links when on desktop, have the filtered results from that period bookmarked somewhere) in the days before the invasion. And the vast majority of those events were on the Donbass side, indicating an offensive by Kiev (which they had been planning literally for years). US "intelligence" is of course not very honest with pretty much any of this and neither is the western media.
Armed with this information they were planning and preparing to take back Donbass by force. OSCE data shows increased activity and casualties on the Donbass side in the days leading up to the invasion. Remember how Ukraine was constantly pleading for a no-fly zone? They had likely been counting on it (false promises), that the US and NATO would jump in and give them the upper hand.
At this point Russia couldn't really have let the ethnic Russians there lose and die in large numbers with the remainders getting assimilated through Ukrainization as this would've been quite a bad look back home (Russia has always protected ethnic Russians in other countries) and so it was more or less forced to act. The US knew this and still pushed for it. It was certainly not an unprovoked aggression. Remember Euromaidan where it was portrayed as all of Ukraine protesting? It was actually closer to a 50/50 split (population vote) between EU and the Russian customs union in late 2013.
As for Russia losing much? Compared to Ukraine and Europe (who are the big losers here, Ukraine for obvious reasons and Europe financially and industrially) not so much at all. Since 2014, when the sanctions actually made a decent impact, Russia had spent all this time hardening their economy. Living standards of Russians hasn't really changed, aside from some foreign products that aren't available anymore and many already have Russian replacements. They have managed to switch their exports towards Asia and India (and actually made more profits than before). Sure there are things that will take time to adapt and will be costly in the long run but still nothing compared to the problems Europe is facing, barely managing to fill up its gas reserves for this winter.