Also bad for the world. The lesson, as with Iran and Iraq, is: you’d better have nukes and never give them up. This is the opposite of the lesson we want if we want to contain proliferation.
The global taboo on use remains. If someone breaks that and gets away with it we are into civilization ending danger territory.
Russia claims those assurances ended with the US actively advocating on the ground in Ukraine for the overthrow of their government in 2014, as the assurances included not interfering in domestic politics or using economic coercion. But the US also sanctioned and was working to overthrow Belarus as far back as 2006, so those assurances had been pretty much dead for a long time.
Outside of that I completely agree with everything else you said, especially with people not appreciating how far back these conflicts go. The whole Bandera stuff has no real parallel in the West, so I think most people wouldn't really be able to 'get it' even if they had the facts, which they overwhelmingly do not.
From the Guardian (12 days ago): "Kyiv’s decision to honour second world war fighters who killed about 100,000 Poles has revived simmering tensions". Bandera was a Nazi collaborator and today's Ukraine politics worships Bandera. Lots of streets are renamed to honor him. Eastern Ukrainians are considered second class - or as some politicians said: "There are 2 million people too many".
The US (look up Nuland and her quote about 'fuck the EU') fueled with $5B the nationalism in Ukraine. Now imagine, the US would fuel with $50B the nationalism in Belgium and the the flemish would attack wallonie. You know what would happen? France would support the wallonie. Nothing to see here.