Ukraine is being run by a bunch oligarch elites that get their support from a core of slack-jawed yokels.

These last think that getting a tank from the West and being forced inside it to die on the frontlines while your home is destroyed by Russian bombs means that the West considers Ukraine their equal and not as cannon fodder.

So it's a colony that thinks that being used as bait is such a high honor that it cannot be a colony by definition. It is quite fascinating.