Donald Trump versus Volodymr Zelenskyy: Debate in White House

timactual: Except that Ukraine has the same problems, 

Nope, they’re not suffering the same problems as the Russians have. This is a part of the reason to why the Russians invaded Ukraine, the latter deviated from the way the Russians did things… Including how they run their military operations. 

timactual: is also taking substantial casualties, and has only about a third of the population to start with.

Not as substantial as the Russians. Contrary to Russian propaganda claiming otherwise, the Ukrainians are not running meat wave assaults or doing the things the Russians, and their propagandists, claim. Remember, they’ve been training with western countries since the last decade, and have utilized western tactics with deadly consequences to the Russian side. 

The Russians, as the attacking side, are losing more people as a percent of the total force than the Ukrainians are on their side. The KIA numbers are lopsided against the Russians, and so are the WIA numbers. In addition to fighting smarter, the Ukrainians have found novel ways to stack up Russian bodies. It doesn’t help them that the Russians continue to chose to be predictable. 

The Russians have gone as far as deploying horses and mules to the front lines, as they’re running out of reserve armored vehicles. It doesn’t help them that the Ukrainians have figured out how to use drones to hit Russian energy production and other energy storage areas in Russia itself that are aiding forward deployed Russians. 

With all other things being equal, this is looking like a repeat, for the Russians, of their performance in Afghanistan and in Chechnya. Russian predictability on the battlefield doesn’t do their superior population any good, especially when the Ukrainians are doing to the Russians something similar to what the English did to the Spaniards during the Battle of the Spanish Armada. 

James Baker’s saying “not one inch eastward” doesn’t constitute an agreement between NATO and Russia. An agreement would be on a document, detailing what that agreement is, and signed by both sides making that agreement. No such binding document exists. 

Your link addresses assurances of “non aggression” towards the Soviet Union. This was not an agreement that NATO would not expand eastward, just some folks giving assurances while focusing on a united Germany being in NATO. These were also assurances about NATO being more political, as well as being open to diplomatic interaction between the Soviet Union and NATO. 

PolitiFact, which includes your same link in its fact checking article, puts it into perspective:

The comments, they say, were made in the context of the German reunification debate. Talk of NATO’s expansion to the rest of Europe never came up, in part because the Soviet Union and its associated Warsaw Pact were still intact. And in any event, those assurances were not baked into the final U.S. position and agreement around “special military status,” they say.

“There was a discussion about whether the unified Germany would be a member of NATO, and that was the only discussion we ever had,” Baker told CNN during a 2009 interview. “There was never any discussion of anything but (East Germany).”

The Warsaw Pact still existed, so it made sense to say that NATO would not “expand one inch forward”… Right into Warsaw Pact’s jurisdiction. East Germany was a part of the Warsaw Pact. It’s unification with West Germany would change the border between NATO and Warsaw Pact. These assurances were made towards the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, both ended up “coming to a conclusion.”