[mcv]

I suggest you read and watch a bit more about how Ukrainians themselves feel about this situation. Their fighting spirit is higher than I've ever seen in a war. And it makes total sense if you think about why.

Yes, powerful people make the decisions, but those decisions are meaningless if nobody obeys them. You see that in Russia without hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the country in order to avoid conscription. They have no faith whatsoever in Putin's war, and don't want to fight in it. Ukraine, on the other hand, doesn't just have much of its own population willing to do what they can, they also have many foreign volunteers who believe sufficiently in their cause to help them. That is not something that happens when the decision only comes from the top. This is a massive difference between Russia and Ukraine, and it's visible in the vastly different morale of the soldiers on the ground.

> Real individuals are preoccupied with much more mundane things, like providing for their families and so on.

Yes, but how are you going to do that when your country is being invaded by someone who wants you dead? This is exactly why Ukrainians are so eager to fight and Russians are not: the effect the war has on them personally.