Damn right we did.
The deal Clinton made was that the US would provide “security assurances for Ukraines territorial integrity” in exchange for Ukraine becoming denuclearized.
Look how that has that worked out.
Under Biden Russia helped themselves to Crimea, now they want more.
I wonder if Russia would have invaded if Ukraine had nukes.
Peace through strength.
The US and NATO negotiated to give all their nukes to Russian for destruction with the promise that Ukraine would never become a NATO member......remember that Russia faced invasion from both Napoleon and Hitler, who both matched thru Ukraine en route to Moscow.
Bomma allowed Russia to take Crimea in 2014, but only after the US sponsored a coup in the Ukraine, removing the government elected by the Ukrainian people.
The Ukrainian people, many of them ethnic Russians, had chosen, through democratic elections, to have leaders that were more aligned with Russia, it's neighbor, than the US.
The US literally caused a government overthrow, and installed a set of pro-US leaders, allegedly with "Nazi" ties. The Russians reacted very negatively to this illegal overthrow of the democratic government, and in a move to "protect" ethnic Russians and gain strategic access to the Black Sea, they quickly re-took Crimea, a territory that had been Russian or Soviet until 1991.
Obama did nothing, other than harsh language, to change this. Neither did Trump 45. To Trumps credit, he maintained status quo. Unfortunately, his lack of attention to this matter allowed the election of puppet/actor Zelensky -- who had actually portrayed the Ukranian president on a TV show. (you can't make this up!)
Then Biden became POTUS, with an election result still disputed by Trump.......given what the US did in the Ukrainian coup, is there much doubt stiil about the legitimacy of 81 million votes in US?
Biden's Administration forced Zelensky to provoke Russia further -- because Germany was also getting closer to Russiand and buying huge amounts of natural gas, breaking the post Soviet promise that Ukraine wouldn't join NATO, and Putin reacted with force, quickly gaining the territory with mostly ethnic Russians call Donnbass/Donetsk. For about 3 years they have literally just held that ground. They have also strategically bombed the various bio-weapons labs that the western world claims did not exist.
While little has changed since Trump re-gained power, he did promise to end the conflict on Day 1, and clearly was disrespected by Zelensky in the Oval Office.
A simple peace could probably be had, now, by letting Russian keep the territory the have now, with Ukraine re-commiting to the original promise not to join NATO. Or the US and NATO allies can keep wasting lives and billions of dollars with effectively no accountability.
Does it make any sense, at all, to keep sending US $$$ to keep killing young soldiers and those collateral damage around them?