The "red line" of attacking a NATO country seems so arbitrary to me. The reasoning no one can step in and directly help is because NATO is not an offensive treaty, and god forbid anyone attack russia because OMG NUKES WW3! but the ultimate extension of that logic is that it's never appropriate to attack Russia. If allowing Russia to genocide a country is preferable to potentially invoking WW3 because everyone is scared shitless, then why doesn't it also apply when he attacks a NATO country? I know NATO is supposed to defend all members, but if he attacks Poland what is the better scenario: We allow Poland to be attacked, or we fight back and risk WW3? If WW3 is so terrible I don't see how the calculus changes when the genocide moves from Ukraine and goes 1 inch into NATO territory; if losing Ukraine is preferable to MAD, then surely losing Poland is also preferable to MAD. We are allowing him to terrorize the world. I understand not wanting to go into Russia proper and attack them, but no one is seriously suggesting that, the only suggestions are to possibly attack Russia while they are invading Ukraine.
I also don't understand the arguments of "lets cripple them economically and wait for them to collapse" as an argument that we can't attack, or at a minimum defend Ukraine. Russia says setting up a no-fly zone would be a declaration of war, but so fucking what? It's not Russia's airspace so I don't understand why anyone takes that demand seriously. It's straight up terrorism: I'm going to take Ukraine, and if any other country tries to come into THEIR airspace we will nuke them. What? It's fucking insane that anyone is tolerating that bullshit. And if the logic is that we must acquiesce to all of Russia's insane and illogical demands because we fear MAD, then I don't understand how it makes sense to cripple them economically. Like it's some kind of "gotcha" technicality that we can sanction them to hell and back and arguable do more damage to the country than a few fighters that aren't even in Russia's territory, and Russia somehow can't retaliate against anyone because of a technicality, even though they are openly committing war crimes. He's using all the conventions that outlaw war crimes as a god damn check list, but we are all banking on the fact that we can ruin their economy with no repercussions because he technically can't attack us since it wasn't a direct attack, even though this entire situation is because he directly attacked a sovereign country completely unprovoked.
I sure hope the powers that be are playing some 4d chess and making moves that are beyond my comprehension to bring about the best possible solution with the lowest amount of casualties, because it sure is frustrating to watch this shit go down in real time and feel so helpless.