Interesting that you make your argument about reneging on a deal. It was Kiev that reneged on a deal (Minsk) that it signed in 2014 -2015 and that was enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution. Russia pushed for 8 years to get Kiev and the European countries of France and Germany that served as guarantors of the agreement to abide by it. The agreement would have preserved the Donbass as an autonomous part of Ukraine. Former Ukrainian president Poroshenko recently admitted in an interview that Kiev never had any intention of abiding by that agreement and instead simply used it as cover to build up their military.