No, that wasn't my argument. The US and Russia have been having a cold war over trade, and defense, with ex-soviets countries since the soviet union fell. Both have been exercising various amounts of power over Ukiraine against each other. For instancem, Poroshenko was involved in very Trump like corrupt business deals with Russia. He was also playing cards of possibly siding with the EU to get more favorable outcomes from Russia, and vice versa. People in Ukraine had valid reasons to sour on him. I am not saying the CIA didn't act on this momentum, but you paint the CIA as a total control mechanism of Ukraine, and Ukrainians without, or very greatly reduced, agency over their own actions. This is something the "non-western" imperial apologists have a tendency to do. The CIA is credited with so much they are like some sort of near politically omnipotent entity, and the people in the countries they operate in are little more than easily controlled, witless, puppets. This is not true. Outside of situations where the military was totally willing to be pocketed by the US, the CIA has only the ability to give fuel towards already existing political momentum. Put their hand on the scale, so-to-speak. They also ignore the same proxy war crap Russia does, because it makes their narrative cleaner when they are only pointing to one provocateur. Yanukovich was corrupt, and his position within Ukraine was deeply soured by his own actions. Did the CIA play a hand in euromaiden? Of course they did. However they did not create the backlash to his presidency, nor was euroomaiden something the CIA fabricated whole cloth. In the end Yanukovich was deeply corrupt, had lost most of his favor with the people, and Oligarchs that would better profit from the deal with the EU, that he killed, likely false flagged some protestors, as an icing on the cake measure towards someone already in free-fall. Poroshenko was not assassinated, the military, and other security organs did not oust him, there was no massive public backlash, ala euromaiden. He lost an election to Zelenskyy, who won by a large margin for a national election. Zelenskyy was popular for a number of reasons, he was relatively popular as a comedian, he was charasmatic, and found it easy to defend himself with words, probably aided by his occupation. Also he garnered a LOT of popularity being that he was just some comedian, and Poroshenko was just another corrupt politician in Ukraine. So this was not some situation where Russia was just trying to be Ukraine's BFF, and giving them the best possible diplomatic outcomes. They had FSB on the ground, they were buying people, they were reaching deeper into Ukrainian trade interests, etc. They lost. Guess what? Neither group is the good guy here. You seem to take my stance that Russia is complete shit, and held back by NATO being a barrier of a, currently, greater imperial power, as me supporting the US/NATO. I see them both the same, just that NATO has a lot more wealth, so they are currently the ones exercising that power most broadly. If Russia could, they would, and Putin, when addressing his own people, even in private events, makes speeches about how that is exactly his intent. Nationalistic fervor is hugely popular in Russia. The point being, Russia is not JUST innocently defending themselves, they are vying for power projection as they can.

This same two way interference went on with Georgia as well. Difference is I don't turn a blind eye to Russia's empire expansion, or the "west's". They are both knowing players in a political campaign that predates the USSR.

"So your argument boils down to that the CIA operation to regime change the democratically elected government of Ukraine is a preemptive strike to…

NATO and the EU, also acting in their self interest, wanted Ukraine to favor trade, and defense pacts with them instead.

uh, gain control of Ukraine. And Russia should just concede that they lost."

Correct, I have modeled it after your argument of just surrendering Ukraine to Russia. If it's an acceptable outcome for Russia, it should be acceptable the other way around too. Both are just empires maneuvering for control of spheres of influence, and strategic resources.

"So: if you know that action A leads to consequence B, and you do action A anyway, you are accepting the consequence as the price for your actions." - in relationship to seeing expansion of western sphere of influence into Ukraine as something that will trigger war.

This cuts both ways, there has always been two players, at least, vying for Ukraine. Whoever lost the cold war either has to choose to cut their losses, or turn their military power on Ukraine, and invade. There is no morally upright outcome to this. Neither side was going to just give up. Well, at least I believe the US probably would have invaded, in case of loss, but that's not how it played out, so I may be wrong, but I am pretty certain I am not. I have no doubts it would have been an incredible tragedy for the Ukrainian people either way, and that is what I am concerned with. People who defend non-western empires so often call for nuance, but what they want is for only information painting their opposing camp in the worst light, and apologia when the corruptions, FSB manipulation, etc. of Russia is brought up. Always playing Russia as merely defending its self, and never just suffering the consequences of participating empire building proxy wars. This is the outcome when you are capitalists, you compete for trade, and influence, and you do whatever to achieve your goals. This inevitably leads to wars.

"But yeah I think objectively Russia is the lesser of two evils by far"

As do I, but only because they are the poorer empire, by far. They walk like a duck, and quack like a duck, so they are a duck, and loss of western control of these spheres of influence will only open a vacuum Russia will do everything in it's power to fill, as long as they are physically able to do so.