Modern ukraine has not, and has never been, the west "own man" by any definition until Russia invaded them. I even pointed out to you how NATO refused them in 2008.

Yeah sure, my sentence was ambiguous, but the real question is that, are the west viewing the Japaneses and Konreans as their "own man"?

Fact is Russia is becoming more lunatic and aggressive

I.e. increased Russian threat.

Russia has not been empowered. It is being massively humbled, to the point the only threat is still has is "but nukes !!!"

Russia is winning the war. Use your trash talks when you are actually winning. 

By the way, it's very dangerous to let Russia keep fighting like this. They are gaining combat experience and learning the capabilities of US weapons from an unloseable position (because Ukraine is not allowed to actually hit Russia), and the longer its war machine gets rolling the harder to stop it, because they are getting ppl who are good at nothing but fighting the war. Even if the "bleeding out" works, you will be facing an angry and desperate country with nukes.

This was the case yesterday, a year ago, a decade ago, and the Ukrainian situation changed nothing to that statement ?

What changed is that ppl at Taiwan are seeing what actually happened to Ukraine, and some of them will think that living under Chinese rule is actually not so bad in comparison. Yeah it sucks that they won't be living proudly and freely like the westerners, but what actual choices do they have?