The sources of these pieces are literally the Ukrainian government itself. The journalists reporting based on these sources work for some of the richest people on the planet. If you think RT isn’t reputable for being Russian state media, you cannot seriously assert that The Ukranian government and the private mouthpieces of billionaires are even slightly more reputable. Ukraine especially has been known widely for making shit up, even NATOids admit this.

Or how about that putin is the aggressor as well and attacked under a pretext of training and then a ‘special operation’?

this is a really misinformed and reductive understanding of the situation. this is a conflict that has been happening since 2014, and arguably much longer if you consider that Ukraine is being used as a proxy by NATO which was literally founded to be an aggressor against the Russians and their allies before most of us were born.

I thought Putin was responding to Ukraine persistently breaking the three Minsk agreements (a ceasefire of sorts), with their ethnic cleansing of ethnic Russians in Donbas.

But what do I know.