I see Russia going with the false flags as expected and pretending that Ukraine are invading them to justify their actions.
The West as a whole has been pretty toothless to date, it’s tricky as without getting into a full on war/nuclear war there isn’t much we can do other than support Ukraine militarily and threaten heavy sanctions
One good thing is that the US and ourselves have been using our intelligence to publicly call out Russian plans like false flags, not actually withdrawing troops etc which you would hope makes it harder for Putin to bullshit his way through this
I always felt Putin would eventually pull back but now it feels like either invasion or ‘will he/won’t he’ going on for a while yet