Okay so what is Putin doing which prevents the missiles from hurting children?

Aiming them at military targets, not civilians. Even West Ukraine has not started shipping children to the front line as human shields (although I see that they are now drafting boys as young as 16.)

It is a war. Even in the most careful war, there are civilian casualties, but compared to West Ukraine which routinely fires unguided artillery shells into villages and towns in Donbas, and drops banned petal mines in civilian areas, Russia has so far been amazingly restrained and careful. They have been more restrained than the Americans were in Iraq. No drone attacks on wedding parties.

Russia is not soft but they are fair and are not deliberately targeting non-combatants. (Stalin is rolling in his grave.) When it comes to open battle, they have been smashing the West Ukrainian forces. And when the West Ukrainians hide inside theatres, nursing homes, shopping centres and other civilian buildings, by the international rules of war that makes them a legitimate target and the Russians have not hesitated to take them out. Any civilians casualties are on the West Ukrainians who use them as human shields. But beyond that, they are not targeting civilians.

Ukranians would say that the ruzzia started the war against them in 2014.

Yes, but West Ukrainians also said that Russia would run out of fuel in less than three weeks, that the Ghost of Kiev shot down their airforce, that the Russian soldiers would all desert and run away within the month, and that they would run out of missiles and tanks in days. Zelensky claimed that an old woman shot down a Russian drone with a can of tomato soup. West Ukraine's propaganda is written for children by idiots.

The 2014 revolution was a CIA coup. The Maidan massacre was committed by far-right militia, and the new government immediately turned on the East Ukrainians. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the occupation of Crimea, even Wikipedia has had to admit that the majority of Crimeans supported the 2014 referendum and wanted the central Ukrainian government to accept it. The UN considers that the right to self-determination is a universal human right, and that was the reasoning behind NATO attacking Serbia to guarantee Kosovo's independence. The same applies to Crimea. They are Russians, culturally, genetically and politically.

West Ukraine will never take Crimea or Donbas back, but even if they managed it by some miracle or treachery, they would have to rule it as a hostile occupying power.

Since 2014, the Ukrainian central government has persecuted Russian-speakers, leading to the civil war in Donbas. In February 2014 a majority of people in Donbas preferred unity with the Ukrainian central government. Even if you think the voting in May was untrustworthy, there is no doubt at all that after eight years of unrelenting attacks and the most horrific brutality from neo-Nazis like Azov and the feared Пра́вий се́ктор (Pravyi Sektor, Right Sector), that the people of Donetsk and Luhansk have no wish to remain in Ukraine and overwhelmingly support Russia.

West Ukraine has nobody but themselves to blame for this. All they needed to do was guarantee the rights of East Ukrainians of Russian ancestry, remain officially neutral between NATO and Russia, and clamp down on violence from the neo-Nazis, and they could have continued looting the country as the most corrupt nation in Europe without a war.

But they thought that NATO would protect them, they thought they could threaten Russia's security without consequences. They fucked around and now they're finding out. They have already lost a quarter of the country, they will be lucky if they don't lose another quarter, including Odessa, and end up land-locked.

They should have honoured the Minsk Agreement and kept the peace treaty

They did...

They did not. West Ukraine has never honoured the Minsk agreement and ceasefire. For some time they reduced their levels of attacks, but not to zero.

You surely remember that West Ukraine started shelling Donbas again, in mid-Feb 2022, before the Russian invasion? It was all over the news! Nah, I kid, the western press doesn't report things like that any more. That would have muddied the waters from their "Russia Bad" propaganda.

I say "again", but they had never really stopped. Nevertheless, in Feb 2022 they increased from an average of 1 or 2 hundred ceasefire violations a day to over 3000. Given that Zelensky had just publicly stated that they would no longer accept the Minsk accords, it is almost certain that Ukraine was planning a major attack on Donbas, and the Russians knew it.

We have since learned from former Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, and confirmed by former French President François Hollande, that NATO never intended Minsk to be an actual peace, just a delaying tactic to put Russia off guard. This is why the West never pulled Ukraine up on their almost constant ceasefire violations. The Minsk Agreement was not meant to bring peace to Donbas, but to just give Ukraine time to arm up and destroy them.

Putin genuinely seemed shocked. I think he genuinely believed that even though Merkel was on Ukraine's side their commitment to the peace process was genuine. I think it will be very hard for NATO and Ukraine to convince Putin to accept anything less than complete and overwhelming victory after their treachery regarding Minsk.

you perhaps forgot what happened on 24th Feb. What you mean is - they should have submitted to the Z

As I said, all they needed to do was guarantee the rights of East Ukrainians, control the neo-Nazis thugs, and remain neutral between NATO and Russia. The first part is just common human decency. The second and third were just common sense.

What they did instead was try to ethnically cleanse Russians and East Ukrainians, give the neo-Nazis free reign and integrate them with the army, and tried to threaten Russia's very existence by joining the NATO encirclement. They fucked around and now they're finding out that America and NATO consider them disposable pawns, and Russia is a bear, not a pussy.

They should have stopped bombing civilians in Donbass.

You mean they should have just submitted to the Z?

If you think that not murdering civilians is "submitting to the Z", then you are part of the problem, and that attitude is why Ukraine is going to be smashed by Russia and eaten alive by American and German corporations in the aftermath.

I feel great sorrow for the Ukrainian people. Most of them do not deserve the corrupt and stupid leaders they have got. I even feel sorry for Zelensky, who actually tried to do the right thing, but didn't have the guts to stand up to Azov when they threatened him. He's just a greedy, corrupt TV comedian but once upon a time he actually did try to bring the neo-Nazis to heel. Now he sucks their dicks and hopes that they won't do to him what they did in the 1940s.

It is the lot of all small and weak countries that they have to compromise with large powerful neighbours, and not pick a fight with them. Ukraine could have stayed neutral. They could have even done what Finland did, and have a defence treaty with NATO that allowed NATO to defend them in the event of Russian aggression, without being part of NATO and their aggressive encirclement of Russia. But they could no more expect to join NATO and allow NATO nukes into the country, than Mexico could invite China to install nukes a few miles from the USA. When you are the neighbour of a Great Power like the US or Russia, you can be their friend, or you can be neutral, but it is foolish to threaten their security and pick a fight with them.

Ukraine has already won it. Who is taking half of Ukraine?

West Ukraine has already lost control of about a third of the country. If West Ukraine has won, who just surrounded Soledar? Who controls Mariupol? Who has established a land corridor to Crimea?