Ukraine was doing fine straddling the East and West and profiting from both. Particularly transporting Russian gas to Europe and earning about $6 billion per year in fees for that one business between east and west.

That position of "in the middle" was fine with Russia, but not with the US. The US overthrew the election in 2004 because they didn't like the results. Ukraine still elected a neutral gov't.

In 2014 the US got tired of electoral politics and when Ukraine's democratically elected government chose a deal with Russia over a deal with the EU, the US backed a coup, installed a pro-US gov't and has run the country as a vassal state ever since. Listen to Victoria Nuland's call BEFORE the coup laying out who the US thinks should run Ukraine. That is exactly who was installed - not elected.

There was no military response from Russia until the US helped overthrow Ukraine's democratically elected government.

IMO if Ukraine wants lasting security, it needs to get its sovereignty back from the US. I don't see that happening anytime soon. So I don't condone the violence by Russia, but looking at US military actions in the last 20 to 60 years and that we (the US) were following the same pattern leading to invasion of Russia through Ukraine, Russia's actions are understandable.