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Thanks for asking civil questions.

Would you object to the USA providing directly to Ukraine from here on out only physical (not money) humanitarian aid and older weapons we would otherwise scrap or replace in coming(5?) years?

No, but I'd caution that doing it leaves a bunch of long term questions unresolved, and it'd cause the USA some reputational damage.

Ukraine didn't get "muscled" by Nuland and co. Poroshenko, then Zelensky, invoked the Budapest Memorandum. As much as the Russkies here don't like it pointed out to them, the Memorandum was signed by an independent Russia, an independent United Kingdom, and an independent USA. It's as close as the world could ever get to a binding non-aggression treaty... And Russia totally violated every clause except one by systematically trying to take Ukraine over - first by attempting an assassination on Yuschenko to get their puppet Yanukovych a win by default, then by blackmailing Ukraine from 2008 to Winter 2013, then by getting Yanukovych to violate his constitutional oath of office on December 17th 2013. And when ALL OF THAT FAILED, they resorted to military offensive.

If Britain and the USA didn't uphold their signatures on that bargain, after Russia totally violated their end, then the entire post-WW2 concept of collective defense goes the way of the dodo. The precedent would mean, China invading Taiwan would be without consequences, Russia invading the Baltic states would be without consequences.

Have you read Russia's demands to NATO from December 2021 that were repeated when the peace negotiations in 2022 NEARLY came to an agreement? What you're pitching is exactly what Putin and the Kremlin pitched. In effect, "NATO must let us invade anyone we like, and ask our permission before even doing training exercises, and if you don't agree to that then we'll invade Ukraine."

Ukraine must agree to no strikes more than 70 miles inside Russia’s 2013 borders, and they must be on military or relevant logistics targets.

They already are. Apart from the tiny fireworks that hit some apartment roofs in Moscow, and that very obviously staged one at the Kremlin, can you name a single incident of Ukraine bombing a theater full of sheltering kids? Or any maternity hospitals?

I've got friends and colleagues in Khmelnytskyi (which is hundreds of miles from the front lines), who've lost their homes due to Russian rockets.

The idea that Ukraine, while facing off a military invasion, needs to officiously avoid hitting a single civilian in the country that's invading it, EVEN INSIDE UKRAINE'S OWN BORDERS, while that country's spent almost eighteen months deliberately attacking civilian population centers, is just a ridiculous Revanchist troll position - especially because Ukraine's never done that before the SMO and even now still isn't doing it.

Ukraine has the moral and international legal right to wipe the Russian invaders off its internal map. That includes all of Donbas, the four fake annexations. The one concession I'd probably grant you is Crimea had too many ex-pat Russians living there before the SMO for Ukraine to reasonably accuse them all of being part of the invading force, but as far as I'm concerned Ukraine can run combine harvesters over every last frickin' Russkie in south Ukraine - they whole darned lot of them are complicit in the invasion and if they really do want to live under the Russia n yoke that much they can always piss off back over the 1991 border between Ukraine and Russia.

I realize that in practice our NATO allies would not be happy, but, A) The Euros have recently committed a large block of funds to aiding Ukraine in coming years, so monies from those funds should be available, and, B) We could offer easy financing to stable NATO allies. C) Europe bears considerable responsibility for not listening to Trump years ago!

I cannot disagree with a single word there, but you do need to distinguish between two things. EU-NATO needs to take the lead on this, absolutely - and the USA should step away from any conflicts between Europe and Russia. Ideally, demote itself to EU-NATO Partner. But, and here's the big but, as long as the USA has got NATO Article 5 security assurances AND the USA remains the only country that's ever invoked Article 5 AND you want the world to respect your signature on a treaty, you can't break the Budapest Memorandum on the basis of nickle-and-diming your way out of obligations you signed up to AND expect other countries to honor when it's YOU doing the asking.

Mostly, I agree. The stipulation on limitation of deep strikes into Russia proper is merely a slight loosening up of present policy. Mostly it just takes away any argument that Ukraine defending itself is some sort of serious offensive threat to Russia proper.

I did say fine tuning was likely needed, so...

"Would you object to the USA providing directly to Ukraine from here on out only physical (not money) humanitarian aid, training, intel, and older weapons we would otherwise scrap or replace in coming(5?) years?"

Ukraine could still of course obtain most anything else through other NATO countries, just not at US' expense. Note that my whole argument is not to supporters of Ukraine defending itself, it is to those complaining about the cost while the US supposedly isn't spending enough on domestic priorities. (That complaint is ridiculous -- the aid to Ukraine is the proverbial drop in the bucket compared to what the US spends (a lot of it misspent or even does damage) on domestic programs, but I digress.) I received no substantive reply from any of these complainers. ;-)

The precedent would mean, China invading Taiwan would be without consequences, Russia invading the Baltic states would be without consequences.

Heck, we've got numerous FReepers who think that's just fine! Basically "Why should I give a ****?". Me, I really don't want to have us retreat back to US shores, quintuple our defense budget, live considerably poorer, and wait for the radioactive fallout* to drift in...

*Granted it might be a bit before Satan gets THAT belly-laugh. :-(

What you're pitching is exactly what Putin and the Kremlin pitched...

My intent would be for Ukraine to beat Russia back, and then remain much too prickly to step on. So, I don't quite understand how you come to that conclusion. Granted it's been a while since I read those demands. Please elucidate / quote. Maybe more fine tuning or detail is needed. I am open to suggestions. ;-)