1) Putin was looking for any pretext to attack. He told his people that this war is just a response to Ukraine's aggression (and most of Russian citizens believ

1) Putin was looking for any pretext to attack. He told his people that this war is just a response to Ukraine's aggression (and most of Russian citizens believe that Russian army is protecting innocent children from being killed by Ukrainian Nazis). So Ukraine tried to avoid any aggressive step. 2) They are handling rifles out because they just now arrived from the multiple countries that are helping Ukraine. Before that, they trained with wooden rifles.