I can certainly appreciate your perspective, especially given your own country's historical experience with Russia and the Soviet Union - but Ukraine and the western powers did nothing to provoke Russia in this instance?

You think killing 14,000 ethnic Russian Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine had nothing to do with this?

I don't know enough about the situation in Ukraine to take any strong stand on what is going on there, and regardless of the circumstances I feel for the ordinary people of all ethnicities who have been caught up in this conflict without their consent, but to say that Russia has not been provoked at all makes me think that you have allowed your personal feelings and your own country's history with Russia to affect your thinking on this.