"But I do know that the individual counts and deserves consideration and respect."
- From what I've seen from you it sometimes seems that only 'some' individuals count, but others don't.

"They shouldn't just be swept aside in the Kremlin's desire to re-establish the USSR."
- They don't want to recreate the USSR mhaze.
That's as blatent a lie as the one Hillary spun about good ol Uncle Donald getting urinated on by Russian prostitutes on his visit to Moscow.
He doesn't want NATO on his doorstep, it's no different to the idea of the Monroe Doctrine which prevents Russia and China having military bases in Mexico.
And you know what else?
You and I don't actually want NATO in Ukraine or Georgia either, unless you want to increase the likeliness that one of them makes a mistake, and the planet goes up.

Back in 2014 after the Maidan in Ukraine mhaze, they changed the foreign ownership laws, which allowed foreign bankers people like Blackrock to buy up large parts of the country, in order that Ukraine was able to qualify for IMF loans, money to make war - higher ups decided losing Crimea to Russia was a no-go.

Now Ukraine is a bankrupted failed state owned by foreigners.
500k dead and another million critically wounded.
Ukrainian women and kids are good for human and sex trafficking.
The Ukrainians are dying for the bankers, it's not even their country anymore, and well 'U.S. interests want them to send in the teenagers now, you think they really care about the Ukrainian people?
Is this how one treats ones friends?

You think they care about the Georgians, or anyone else?
Hundreds of billions in weapons that all of us through our government have to pay for, and for what?

We're all pawns.