Everybody uses justification for war in late 20th and early 21st Century.
If it was ever brought before the UN, none of them would be justified. And nearly all of them would have been convicted of being War Criminals.
For example: the US lied that they were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin - and used that as justification to invade Vietnam that killed over 3M people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia - even used Chemical weapons (Agent Orange). And it used a fake WMD to justify a war against Iraq (2) that killed over 1M people.
Bottom line: countries (especially major powers) pursue war/s because it serve their strategic interest - nothing more and nothing less.
Putin knew what he is doing would make him an international pariah. That's why before he launched his military operation, he went to both NATO and US, to negotiate a Security Guarantee!!!
And if you watch the videos leading up to this invasion, he and Lavrov repeated it again and again, telling the world, Russia would take military actions to protect its Security interest. Go back and watch those videos - its on youtube.
Why NATO and US said it was a Non-Starter, you will have to ask them.
And if you want to look at from the "Strategic" NOT the "Moral" justification:
- Look up the Constitution of Ukraine where it stipulate its their goal to join NATO,
- Look up the Ukrainian forces serving under the NATO umbrella in Afghanistan,
- Look up the military cooperation between NATO forces (particularly US and UK) on Ukrainian territory.
This is what the Russian saw. They became alarmed.
They tried to negotiate a Security Guarantee with both NATO and US.
But when that failed, they did what they had to do: Invade - exactly what the US did in Vietnam - and exactly what NATO did in Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria and Iraq 2.
This war was totally avoidable.
Here is a video of Biden (more than 20 years ago), predicting Russia would invade if NATO kept encroaching towards Russia.
Here is a video from a retired colonel from US army explaining why Ukraine serves as a puppet of NATO.
