Comment by wqaatwt

> Russia did not want NATO parked in their Achille's heel of the Ukrainian flatlands

Russia (i.e. Putin but also Russians in general) wanted to rebuild their empire from the beginning. Anything else is just an excuse.

> interests between them and the West

Of course this conflict has been mostly one sides till the 2014, with Obama and Merkel bending over backwards to appease Putin.

Also the implication that Russia has some God given right over dominion of half of Eastern Europe is a bit appealing..

> our will on Russia and establishing a hierarchy of dominance.

That is a very Ruso-Imperialist mindset. A society pretty permanently stuck in the 1800s politically and psychologically… e.g. Germany, France, Britain were somehow able to step over their ambitions and are doing relatively fine (even without having millions of foreigners subjugate)