Some quick counterpoints:
– Ukraine was under no risk until 2014. It had a pro-Russian minority who didn’t want EU and NATO (or Russia didn’t).
– A lot of that could be finessed. Grant Sevastopol a 100y lease, maintain Russian language, figure out a trade pact.
– Instead the hard ethno-nationalists of west Ukraine cosied up to the CIA and state department, overthrew the government, and started de-Russifying society and politics.
– Russia seized Crimea with no resistance, since they’re almost all Russians, and a suspicious insurgency started in the Donbas. But again that could have been finessed.
