they love to look like good guys who protect underdogs, ukraine is just their another pet like lgbt or ethnic/religious minorities, and the us propaganda works on them by painting countries who threaten the american hegemony as hollywood villains. in reality they don't care of course, it's just for publicity and virtue signalling. i've never seen anyone in the usa protesting against violating freedom of movement and basic human rights after zelensky closed the border and stopped hohols from seeking refuge, enslaving hohols to the trench, killing journalists in prisons.
Russian Federation