US influence in Ukraine was clearly the deciding factor, yes. What would be an example of a proxy war if this isn't one? Both Korea and Vietnam had their own motivations.

You'll have to walk me through that part. Consider that after Maidan, there was a certain amount of meddling by one side (annexation of Crimea, the Donbass war) which dwarfs anything the Americans attempted.

Maidan had, to the best of my knowledge, never more popular support than about 40%.  And do you think that it's expected for a revolution to have another country's representative pick the political leadership afterwards? Political meddling is a matter of chronology, not arithmetic.

have no idea why you believe that the aspiration of Ukrainians to join the EU is ahistoric. It's been a fundamental, and divisive, issue for the last couple of decades. The succession of presidents elected - Yushenko, Yakunovich, Poroshenko, Zelenskiy - would seem to show a temopral strengthening of popular desire to strengthen ties with the EU and reduce dependency on Russia.

The point is exactly that it was disputed. Both "pro-Russian" and "pro-western" candidates could win, and would very likely not win reelection. Before the war Zelensky polled at 20% and if election had been held the "pro-Russian" opposition might very likely have won. But, of course the party leader was put under house arrest for conspiring with Russia (under orders of the Poroshenko government, funnily enough)