This is a complete misunderstanding of warfare. Drones cannot take and hold ground. Without infantry, an external power cannot exert influence over an area. Sure, they can wantonly kill civilians, but that doesn't mean they are in charge. Until and unless autonomous drones with general artificial intelligence can be mass-produced and deployed on the scale of infantry brigades, massed infantry will be required. Even then, an EMP could disable those drones in one fell swoop.

They are absolutely not disposing of obsolete weapons -- and the West has no desire to "carve up Ukraine". How did Washington antagonize Moscow? NATO is a voluntary defensive pact. The Eastern European countries, who all have a long history of being oppressed and occupied by Russian (and Soviet) governments, asked to join NATO. What good would it do for the West to start a war? What is there to gain from brinksmanship when the stakes are a strategic nuclear exchange?

The idea that this war is at all something provoked by the West, or in any way defensive on Russia's part, is pure Russian propaganda. The Putin regime fears the democratization of its neighbors resulting in its own people losing confidence in its ability to lead the country. This phase of the war is merely an extension of Russia's desire to quash any semblance of Ukrainian agency -- this war started in 2014, after the last vestige of Russia's control over Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, fled the country.

Finally, your view actively denies the Ukrainian people their agency. If they did not find this war worthwhile, if they did not think Ukraine as an idea was worth defending, why are they dying in their tens of thousands to defend it?