We tend to think of the aggressor when we say war is bad. It makes sense, they're the ones who initiate the conflict and make the war exist.
Defending yourself in a war though is, well, defensible. Being anti war can never be an absolutist position. Otherwise, those who are fine with war only need threaten war to get what they want. Do you truly live in peace if it's because you give the aggressor everything they want? I'd argue no.
Gotta love when the Subjectively Objective Academic says it's all NATO's fault because they expanded too close to Russia and there was an agreement during the Cold War to not expand into Ukraine.
Which ignores the very simple fact that NATO is application based. Countries apply to join and then the member states have approve it in a vote. It's ironically imperialist to have an agreement with Russia that Ukraine can't join, because it strips away all sovereignty and self determination from Ukraine.
This type continues to forget that. They only see the world as the US and Russia. They don't consider that Ukraine has autonomy.
I can hear all the hexbears stroking out as they furiously type five paragraph replies on why this is NATO propaganda, followed by an essay on why Tiananmen Square never happened, and even if it did it wasn't that bad.