Only de jure. If the US tells them they want a Klitschko brother as a politician - Ukraine makes them a politician. If the US wants Ukraine to invade Syria - Ukraine invades Syria. If the US wants Ukraine to bomb Nordstream, Ukraine bombs Nordstream.

Pissrael is also de jure not a part of NATO, and yet, it's all the same polities that control it, and supply it with weapons.

Furthermore, even if you want to ignore the fact that Ukraine is thoroughly subjugated by NATO and maintain the illusion that it is sovereign, there is also the fact that the Ukrainian state has sided with the most malicious polity on the planet.

I'd love the empire to fall.

And yet, your proposition is literally to give it more resources for no reason.

A land grab against Russia's neighbor isn't some benevolent fight against imperialism

Let's get this straight - you care more about imaginary lines in the sand shifting around than about the aggression from the genocidal empire that is currently doing such things as the Lebensraum in Palestine? And your argument is currently that the Russian state isn't doing it for benevolent reasons?