Pretty much. It's pretty hilarious (if also terrifying, and sad)- western ~~diplomats~~ handlers are basically wandering across the world, looking for whoever's willing to sign themselves up to take the unenviable position as the "next Zelensky..." whoever's willing to take one for the team, with perhaps the possibility of getting a nice mansion in Miami or London at the end of it all... if they get out of their countries alive when it's all over (easier said than done, as the Ukrainization process also requires cultivating and arming all sorts of fascist maniacs like the Banderites as a support base for this sort of blatant self-destruction), and if the west decides they have enough use, rather than backstabbing them once they become an inconvenience...

They really have nothing better to offer. You can see it with the client-states, but you can also see it with their own domestic policies- they have nothing to offer their citizenry either (or rather, they do, but the contradictions are such that it's essentially impossible without a significant change to the system). Only the most hopelessly compromised of countries, with the most deluded and cartoonishly corrupt of regimes in power will sign up for this, and even then - with the example of Ukraine in particular, they'd also have to have at least a bit of a death wish to boot.