Chaos is the goal., I can't understand the end game, but chaos is the most served dish right now.
Control is the Goal.
Chaos is a result of the push.
"They" have been working in Ukraine since the 1950's, looking for western sympathizers to counter eastern(moscow) influence. And its not just USA, the brits are there too along with many others.
Personally, it looks more like the democrats, some Rhino war hawk politicians, along with their European partners lost patience and started pushing way too hard when they saw the violent uprising occur in 2013/14. "nows our chance" kinda thing. And they did. If you step back and look at it, up until Putin invaded in 2022 the west was winning in Ukraine. Even thought Russia had moved in and grabbed a small portion of the South East. Most of the Country was taken with little destruction.
At this Point, if US/European leaders that pushed this coup, stepped back and saw what they had done, gaining control of +80% of the country as a win and seceded the lower portions to Russia as a concession, I think this entire war could have been avoided. Instead they stepped up the anti Russian rhetoric and started pushing harder. Finally Russia had enough.
Now Ukraine is Getting destroyed, 1/2 the population is gone. Industry has ground to a halt, and they are a military welfare nation. Freedom and Democracy in Ukraine has disappeared and has turned into an authoritarian miltary junta. All because they couldn't allow the South East of the country to break away and aline east after the coup.
The end game is weakening Russia.
Seeing western supplied weapons bombing Moscow's Financial district... Bombing Nord Stream.. They want Russia to react, so they can play victum and go in full force. They are waiting for the next Pearl Harbor. Edit- This is why before this all started in FEB 23, I didn't think Putin would invade, I figured he see it for what it is.