Trump has said that the maiden protests were U.S. government involved. I guess it's down to whether you believe Trump or not. I've heard no other government officials say the U.S. was involved in it. While I'd give it a 70% chance that he was actually telling the truth in this instance, I do like to be more certain. In either case I have large doubts that even if the U.S. did encourage the protests that they wouldn't have happened anyway. Much of middle and Western Ukraine was against getting closer to Russia and disapproved of the Ukrainian President. Also of note is that Russia during the maiden protests were caught funding pro Russia rallies. Who is antagonizing who?

As for which nation is worse. There have been protests against the war in the U.S. There have not been in Russia. Because it's illegal. Only individual bloggers and such can disagree. No press can. While in the U.S. you have press that disagree. I think saying this is the same is taking it way too far.

Also I doubt Russia would just not invade Ukraine otherwise. They've been taking chunks off of Georgia for a while. Took Crimea. And had defacto control of large areas of Dunbas and Luhansk anyway.

Also note that France supplies many of the weapons in Europe. They were selling billions to Russia before all this went down. If NATO is so dictatorial as you say they would not have been allowed to sell those weapons to Russia. And while the U.S. protested. They were still sold.

On the other end with China we see kind of the same thing. In Taiwan and the United States you can post pro Chinese messaging. And many have. In China you cannot post pro Taiwan message period, and there is very little I could find from China on social media with anything nice at all to say about the United States. In a country of over a billion that's impossible. Some idiot would say something just to be different. In Taiwan you can find tens of thousands of social media being pro China.

China is also building many artificial island fortresses in the South China sea, which is antagonizing even some of their soft allies like Vietnam.

I wish Taiwan and China would just both give up their claims on each other and leave it that. Same thing for Ukraine, pro Russian areas should just move to Russia and pro Ukraine should move over to Ukraine. Anyone finding themselves in the wrong territory should move. Just like the Turkey/Greek peace treaty did.

In the end we have a lot of incomplete information. To what extent if any did America support the protests? Did America blow up the Nordstream pipeline? Even if those things are true would Russia still have invaded Ukraine? If NATO had not helped Ukraine like it did would Russia like Nazi Germany keep pushing until they are stopped?

In the end I don't buy the equivalence even if all those things landed on your side, simply because in NATO countries and the U.S. you can criticize the U.S. government and NATO. In Russia and China it's limited to non-existent.'

Either way McCarthy has announced he will strip funding from Ukraine and stop weapons shipments. If he follows through you end up getting your wish. It will just be whatever Biden can still get through based on executive power which will be more limited.