Ukraine certainly could have chosen to accept Russia's demands, but the demand was essentially the extinguishment of soverign Ukraine, and the extinguishment of Ukrainian identity. At least, those were the demands I saw.
Not a lot of diplomatic room. Also, Ukraine had engaged diplomatically with Russia in the past, but it turns out there's no mechanism for Ukraine to enforce treaties that Russia signed.
In which documents, please? I would like to see for myself where Russia demands the extinguishment of sovereign Ukraine, that's bound to be interesting language.
> “I have said many times that I consider the Russian and Ukrainian people to be one nation. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours,” Putin said, according to Sky News.
This closely mirrors the actions of Russians in the 1940s against a number of countries in Eastern Europe. Exterminate doctors-lawyers-merchants to destroy natural leaders, and then exploit the working class people as slaves to the immigrant class of Russian masters. This is the blueprint of how Russia has grown from a small city-state to span 11 timezones. The parent poster mentioned banality several times. It's utterly banal to believe that you can smooth talk your way out of this.
As much as the poster criticizes Western attitudes, they end up reproducing one of the most characteristic ones: the belief that every conflict can be managed through negotiation and that there is always some mutually acceptable deal to be made. This reflects the Anglo-American bubble and bias toward materialism, which leads to serious misjudgements when applied to situations where motivations other than economic.
Which is to say, your "What Russia Should Do with Ukraine" is just a projection of the, indeed very materialist, "Project for a New American Century" - so shall we castigate all Americans for callously allowing such totalitarian schemes to have been committed, in their names?
Your agitation against Russia is the kind of smooth talking that gets people into conflict, not out.
Regardless, let us not ignore the statistics for "# of states considered inferior by ones own states' ruling elite and thus qualified for destruction and then actually destroyed", per-state, shall we .. the OP is right to point out the sheer magnitude of crimes when comparing Russia vs. Western-5-eyes states...