You need to look up the phrase "massive popular" and rewrite. There was definitely unrest in Ukraine in 2013. The US, as we have done so many other places, added money and guns to that unrest and "voila" we have another coup.

Prior to the 2014 coup, a majority of Ukrainians did not want to join NATO, and were quite evenly split on whether to be closer to Russia or to the EU. The East of Ukraine including Crimea, are very pro Russian. The West of Ukraine is the opposite.

This is why, post USSR, Ukraine had played both sides and profited well from it.

I have definitely NOT noticed fierce resistance to Russia in the Donbass or Crimea. From Galicia, yeah, but Russia didn't invade there, did they?

There is not immense support from Eastern Europe. There is immense support from the Baltics. CZ, SK, HU, SRB, AT - not so much.

I'm not a war apologist, I'm a realist. Every country has a sphere of influence. The bigger, richer, and/or more powerful the country, the larger the sphere of influence.

Russia is no longer the weak country it was in 1991. They have a huge wealth of natural resources, the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, and a pretty good military. 70 years ago they were invaded by the west through Ukraine. 1 in 7 Russians died in that fight.

Russia made it clear they will not allow Ukraine to be part of a hostile military alliance. The US thought they were bluffing. The US was wrong. The US thought the Russian military was very weak. The US was wrong. The US thought that economic sanctions would crush Russia. The US was wrong.

Since 1991 the US has been working to balkanize, breakup and exploit the massive natural resources of Russia. For a few years we got what we wanted.

Since Putin came to power, Russia has fought back against the US' push to destroy them. The US backed coup in Ukraine pushed Russia into a corner. Russia did not go gently into that good night.

This doesn't make what Russia did "good" or "right." It just points out that when we play with fire, sometimes we're going to get burned.

The most horrible part of this is that the average Ukrainian doesn't have anything to do with these politics. They are paying the price for US global hegemony and overreach.