Your backhanded passive-aggressive insult at the end didn't go unnoticed.

I've been in Europe permanently since just after the Iron Curtain fell, literally 30 minutes by car to the border of an ex-Warsaw Pact country.

I've been following East-West relationships closely since then, and very closely since all those countries just to the East of Austria joined the EU.

Vienna has been neutral by constitution since WWII. Not part of NATO. Very much a meeting of East and West. During the cold war it was "neutral ground" for spies. One result of that neutrality is that there are a huge number of international organizations that straddle East and West located here (e.g. OPEC and the IAEA).

Three generations of post-WWII neutrality has made it part of the Austrian, and particularly Viennese culture, where 50% of the population is 1st or 2nd generation immigrants. My wife, ex-Warsaw Pact, and myself (US) included.

In ZERO of my comments did I write that the faults of the west is a valid defense of Russia.

The situation in Ukraine is the same as is documented all throughout, particularly since WWII and particularly in Latin America, the Mid-East and Europe. The US does not recognize that other countries have a sphere of influence like the US does.

My greatest hope is the clearer heads in the US will prevail and accept that a multipolar world exists again without escalating to the point of the US again dropping nukes.