One's liable to draw a rather more considerable response than the other

Russia is already "responding" as hard as it can, and yet it's still getting its ass kicked. It's not like Ukraine cares about making Russia "mad". Bombing the Kerch bridge made Russia launch maximum escalation and retaliation. So it's already happening. Russia can't do more.

The only reason it isn't using nukes is because the rest of the world would assfuck Russia to oblivion if it did, so the Russians are making a risk/reward calculus like Hitler did with chemical weapons and not using them.

Also, Russia is losing to a Ukraine that's being gifted vast quantities of munitions and training

The total amount of military aid to Ukraine is something like $10b. Meanwhile Ukraine's total military budget was $6b versus Russia at $70b. Russia still enjoys a huge budget advantage even with the aid, and yet it's still losing badly.

her army enjoys access to very expensive toys.

not really. HIMARS isn't even considered expensive or high tech. It's just the STANDARD US rocket artillery. The "expensive toys" for the US are aircraft.

I care about being made to pay for it, whether I want to or not.

The money given to Ukraine of 10-20b is a tiny fraction of biden's total spending of $7t, representing something like 0.2%.

Where are your posts whining about the other 99.8%? Funny how suddenly fiscal conservatism only comes roaring out with Ukraine but not anything else.