Zelensky advisor Oleksiy Arestovych in 2019 communicating an understanding that Ukraine pushing to enter NATO through conflict escalation via a push into Donbass would result in a 99.9% chance of a major war with Russia, sometime between 2020 and 2022, which would result in Ukraine being turned into a ruined country, a cost they’re willing to pay to enter NATO.
This big brain genius even predicted the exact Russian military operation they’ll face, meaning they knew exactly what they were getting themselves and their people into, but Ukrainian government authorities still opted for confrontation and ruin.
The Ukrainian gamble hinges on Ukraine entering NATO, and so far, it appears that it was a bad gamble, though a pearl harbor level event against NATO could easily change that in an instant.