If Ukrainians had an actual Ukrainian president, and not a post color-revolution TV actor puppet, there would be no "resolute defenders". Peace would have already been negotiated. No, scratch that, there would never even have been a war in the first place.
We're basically throwing money at these poor people to keep them dying for us, and it's absolutely disgusting.
This isn't a Russian elite problem, it's a Western elite problem. In fact, if what you suggest happened to the Western ruling elite, it would be far more likely to reduce the body bag count for both Ukrainians and Russians, not to mention Americans and Europeans.
It feels tedious to ask the question, because you and everyone else should know better, but if a Russian led coalition organized a revolution in a US border state, provoked a proxy war, funded it with billions of dollars, called for the fracturing of the US, death to its leaders, and a US president took severe actions to defend against it, might you see things a little differently?
Probably a good time to repost this video:
Sen McCain & Graham commit felonies inciting war in Ukraine. - YouTube