Saying ~"don't take any direct action or he'll nuke us all" is also fear-mongering. He might. From what we've seen recently, we need to understand that
he might anyway.
Sitting on the sidelines and expecting the tiny countries that surround Russia to individually win wars, or expecting the beaten and suppressed peoples of Russia, Belarus, etc to rise up is inhumane… because they will fight. And die.
And say we do sit it out. Do you think the restoration of the USSR is what's going to bring us nuclear peace? Or just another border, more tension, more of this?
We've played this game before. As a European, my life would be extraordinarily different if the world hadn't eventually come together 81 years ago. Just imagine if Europe and the US had drawn together two years earlier.
I don't want nuclear war but holding up the threat of that as a cause for inaction —heaping guns on Ukraine while they're outnumbered 20:1 doesn't count— is the rank cowardice that nuclear dictators count on to get away with murder. It's not good enough.