We don’t know what an eventual outcome will be right now and it would be… weird to talk about help financing “defense” for years and then actually negotiate for concessions.

It’s an open secret that if all Russian nukes would disappear over night, the other members of the UN security council would probably party for a week. The US (and the EU) is supporting Ukraine because that’s the right thing to do AND it is in their interest because who knows what a bigger Russia will do next. But they’re also doing it because it’s weakening Russia and that’s also in their interest, even though they would never publicly say it or not with the intensity that they actually think that way.

Long story short, if the absolute optimal (for Ukraine and “the west”) thing happens:

• the war exhausts Russia more than Ukraine + supporters
• the timing for negotiations is chosen in a way that is extremely bad for Russia, to the effect that Russia doesn’t have to just apologize, return territory, pay reparations, and all that, but ALSO give up other things.
• like UN observers and limits to their military.
• nuclear disarmament
• ???

It would look extremely badly if politicians, actual leaders of nations, were to talk about “defense” for years and then actually ask those things in the end. Which they want to.

So it’s preemptive PR management that leaves room for that asking for more things than would be justifiable with “defense”.

tldr: it’s a defensive war, for now.