I seem to have forgotten the part where the US is at war with Russia. Pray tell, what day was it declared? Should I be running for my crazy prepper bunker?
But I'm glad that you mentioned the proxy war that is being fought right now, that's one example of how you can respond to a country's bad behavior without actually starting a war with it. There are many others.
"appeasing brutes like russia has a long history of not working" is a true statement that, in this context, does not do any of the work one would like a true statement to do, but it does do much of the work that one would like a statement to do if one were behaving with malice and dishonesty. It collapses the critique it's replying to into an inaccurate summary ("all of the things you said amount to 'appeasing Russia'") and uses a weighted, emotionally loaded verb to do so ("appeasing"). What this response actually says is "all of the problems that sedev pointed out are irrelevant because Russia is bad," and I am not surprised that you didn't say that out loud because when it's said directly, it's obviously wrong.
There are a large number of options. Doing nothing is not a valid option. Given that Russia and Ukraine are already at war, which makes all attacks on the table and so Ukraine should be considering this as a message. (it may not be the best use of Ukraine's limited stock of missiles, but the serious threat that Ukraine is looking into it usefully forces Russia to move their defense to defend against this attack)
