> Not sure why anything they said back then is worth while to base opinions on today.

There is still a lot of that hope but it's also a different time. The bravery of of Ukrainians in the initial wave and the counter-offensive as unmatched. The West helped but it didn't help enough. It was always piece-mailing military equipment. With a lot of wait times and a lot of hand wringing. We gave them tanks, but no F16s at the time. We could given them AA weapons earlier and more of it. They also made mistakes, there is a decent amount of corruption, and fumbled on recruiting after those who wanted to fight joined they started sending vans with military dressed people to effectively kidnap men off the streets or their places of employment. That looks bad and make their own people fearful of the military and those men won't be fighting the same way as those who sign up voluntarily.

> OK. But Ukraine choses to keep figting. Let them decide their fate

Their fate was never really just their own after the initial resistance. Without the Western help they couldn't have lasted this long. The West both helped a lot, and not enough at the same time. It's like a friend needing life saving surgery and it costs $10k. We send him $8k. He should be very grateful for such a generous gift, but everyone knows that also won't be enough and he will likely die.