As I stated, our foreign policy has been far from perfect. Still what Putin did was an act of war. He has no legitimate claim of self-defense, and the tragic affair would not have happened if he would have stayed home.

While Putin may have been hoping to copy that model of puppet installation, our own history of that has resulted in more burdens than successes.

Freedom cannot be given to a people. It must be earned by those people, and the price can only be paid in blood.

How to avoid being invaded

You say that ukrainians did not want to be invaded?? Then perhaps they should have avoided the following:

Handing their country over to George Soros ,Bork Obunga, SlicKKK KKKlintler, Patricia Nuland and other transnational gangsters for nefarious purposes and usages.
Allowing their Nation to be made into a planetary epicenter for child trafficking, money laundering , and every other kind of major International gangsterism.
Shelling the innocent people of the Donbass on a daily basis after the Nazi takeover in 2014
attempting to implement genocidal policies ( Banning the use of Russian language in ethnic Russian regions).
Allowing American interests to construct and operate several dozen illegal bio-war Laboratories within their nation's territory. This action by itself would have constituted sufficient reason for Russians to invade.
Placing NATO weapons at Russia's doorstep from their territory despite repeated warnings from Russia that this amounted to Crossing an absolute Red line.
Attempting to actually join nato. All I've ever seen nato do is attack and bomb innocent people and I'm an American; Putin and Russian officials who have to deal with those wankers on a daily basis probably have more reasons for disliking them than I do...
Seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Ukraine after all is not a legitimate nation; more like a Nazi army occupying land that has been expropriated from Poland, Romania, Hungary and Russia. Nobody wants nazis living nextdoor to them and especially not nuclear-armed nazis and double especially not nuclear-armed nazis who have no legitimate business even being there...

our foreign policy has been far from perfect. Still what Putin did was an act of war. He has no legitimate claim of self-defense

I agree. We are not perfect, but we love peace, and freedom and democracy and so that covers a lot of sins. Putin is a thug. There is no justification for what he does. If Zelinsky makes common cause with our deepstate to sell out his country and become a proxy to push globalism in Europe, that is his freedom to do so. If he chooses to launder our aid back to our politicians, that is his affair. That is absolutely none of Putin's business and he needs to stay out of it.