The U.S. had, long ago, said we would not be involved militarily. With that, they should also know that all the other Western European countries will not be sending troops. Yet, he kept his troops on the Russian enclaves. He was gambling that the Russians would not dare invade and risk sanctions and he lost the gamble. Now he is spinning it as "surprise, no one is helping us". To be fair, it is not clear how much control he has over his own troops. It was said that many commanders have dual U.S. citizenship, so it was basically a U.S. commanded army. Z may not have a lot of real power.