I've been to some border crossings between Ukraine and Poland, and I've been transporting some refugees away from the border - but didn't speak much with them, both due to language issues and I also felt that some of them didn't really want to speak much at all. I did see some weeping refugees, and some visibly sad refugees, but also smiling refugees. The brutal realities of war didn't really strike me that much - not until yesterday - in Norway. I had an arbitrary meeting with an Ukrainian man. He has been living in Norway for a long time, speaks Norwegian fluently, of course he has a full time job here and family. He has had a story in the national Norwegian media - he took his family to Ukraine just for a week in late February, but was not allowed to return home. But here he is ... in Oslo ... I did not ask him how he got out. That's not my business.
This man was from north of Kyiv if I understood it right. Out of ten good friends, five had died so far due to the war, and a lot of people he knew didn't have houses anymore. He had gotten his granny with him to Norway, 94 years old - she was a teenager during WWII and remembered it well (but probably too young to remember the Голодомор). She had good memories from the Soviet times and considered the Russians to be "brothers". She had invested many decades of work into her house and garden. Now she was just sitting weeping every day in Oslo. Not only grieving, but also because the fact that the Russian invasion totally broke up her world view. He also knew grown-up men that was weeping on a daily basis.
The Russian tactic is brutal. One of the first targets prior to taking over a place is infrastructure for electricity, telecommunications and water - in best case, perhaps it's to encourage civilians to escape. The next they do is to strike hard with artillery. I suppose the best way to be safe against Ukrainian snipers is to make sure there are no buildings left they can hide in.
Still there are people - even here in Norway - that believes the russian invasion is a justified war, to stop "Western" imperialism, or to "liberate" the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine from suffering (and genocide) under the "nazi" regime. A significant amount of Russians don't believe there has been any war crimes going on in Bucha and other places - Bucha was just a "staged provocation" - and the bombing of Mariupol was allegedly performed by the Ukrainians themselves! Perhaps such things makes a sense if one trusts the Russian media and only tunes in on the Russian media.
Of course there may be nuggets of truth in some of the claims - propaganda is thick on both sides, I have no doubt that war crimes happens at both sides, but for anyone in the world the hard realities should be pretty obvious. This is Kremlin ordering a full-scale invasion on Ukraine. This is a war of choice. Ukraine is defending itself, it's not the aggressor. Technically, yes, it's a proxy war since "The West" is giving massive military support to Ukraine - but it's all legitimate help for Ukraine to defend itself against foreign aggression, and the weapons are supplied because we can see that it does more good than harm. No, "The West" could (probably) not have avoided the war through diplomatic means. No, this was never about NATO expansion. ("Everybody" knew that Ukraine couldn't become a member of NATO as long as it had a war going on in Donbas and unsettled territorial claims over Crimea - and besides, this invasion sort of proves that collective security is the only way to be secure against Russia). Yes, by now "The West" wants to see Russia militarily and financially weakened to the point where it cannot bully or influence its neighbours through brute force or the threat of brute force. Yes, by not "The West" wants a regime change in Russia - just like "we" wanted the same for Germany in the late 30s. It's fully legitimate to wish this - and it's fully legitimate to support Ukrainia in any possibe way (and until Russia stops attacking Ukraine, it's fully legitimate for Ukraine to attack military and dual-purpose targets in Russia itself). Russia is dangerous with a big army (and with nukes!) combined with it's current regime.
Some of the reasons for the war should also be pretty easy to see. Putin is an imperator and wants full control over all Ukraine (that got pretty clear during his speech some few days before the war). Kremlin wants to be able to use the infrastructure that has been built over decades for accessing Crimea (railroads, good road connections, water supplies, electricity, etc). Kremlin wants to connect with Transnistria (where their current "peace-keeping troops" can only get in and out by flying via the airport in Moldova).
Kremlin is deliberately ambiguous and vague in it's communication. Prior to the war they said that "they had no intentions or wish to invade Ukraine", and "We want peace" ... "but not at any cost". And their communication about nuclear weapons ... it's quite scary, it feels a bit of the same. The "special military operation" is going according to the plan (always!), but of course the plan and objectives for the "special military operation" is secret, ambiguous and vague. Originally it was domestically "sold" as an operation to "help" the (russian-speaking) population in Donbas. Now if so, why did they attack in the direction of Kyiv? Why did they need to take Kherson? It's like, every time Lavrov comes with a statement, he may or may not mean exactly the opposite of what he is saying.