My explicit problem with calling out Ukraine's supposed offensive in Donbas prior to the Putin Military Action is that Putin was financing the rebels in Donbas providing weapons and munitions since before Crimea was invaded and occupied. 2014 by itself would be sufficient reason for Ukraine to tamp down further insurrection in the eastern provinces, and NATO by extension to supply arms towards supporting that effort.

Negotiating away 20% of your previous post Crimea land mass is not going to do anything but reward Putin for bad behavior. In another short period of time Putin's cronies will push a new offensive and take Kharkiv and surrounding territories, then they'll come in from the north in Belarus and take more territory away... etc, etc...

You give Putin any kind of success in Ukraine, there would be nothing stopping him from planning on invading the Baltics, or Poland, or ...

Given that what has happened with the hesitancy for the West to get involved first hand, now you have military exercises by China running through simulated invasions of Taiwan.

You show a bully that you will not stand up for what you perceive is your rights, not just that bully but every other one in the neighborhood now sees you as an easy mark. The west should just give Ukraine the weapons needed to blow Wagner and regular forces off the map and be done with it. That would both bitch slap Putin, who doesn't have the reserves nor the weaponry to provoke WW3, but also give Xi something more concrete to think about as he plays war with his toy soldiers in an effort to be the other fascist leader to reunify a once "great" country.