Here was the what was almost certain to happen.
1. Kiev troops were amassed on the Donbass, shelling greatly increased, and a Mar 2022 attack on the Donbass was going to happen.
2. When #1 happened Russia would attack and come in heavy as is their way.
3. When #1 and 2 happened millions of refugees would flood the west and Russia. This would also interfere with this bread basket region and likely also interfere with shipping.
#2 did not happen exactly as Russia attacked per-emptively and tip toed in.
Knowing all this the EU leaders did nothing. The exact date of the Kiev offensive was not known in the yearts before but the US built up the Kiev forces.
Knowing that their people would freeze in the dark the EU leaders cut off much Russian gas. The EU leaders did nothing to prevent this.
Around 2015 at least France and Germany tried to intervene and the Minsk agreements were hammered out. They did not want all this crap to happen. This time they did nothing. IMO the US wanted war and EU were cucks. In Dec 2021 Jeffrey Sachs said he got through to the White House and argued for negotiation about Ukraine not joining NATO to prevent the upcoming war and was told this was "off the table."
German will be de-industrialized and descend to third world status.
Most of what happened and will happen is as predictable as Newtonian physics. The EU leaders are insane.
IMO Russia initially hoped for negotiations. Now they switched to historical Russian doctrine and attacked civilian infrastructure as the US has done and would have done the first days. I recall the US bombed Yugoslavia for almost 3 months.