But the whole conundrum started much earlier, in my understanding, when western elites realized that Putin is not going to dance to their tune as readily as Eltsin did and wants Russia to be truly sovereign. The timeline of proxy warfare would start with 2003 Rose revolution in Georgia, then 2004 Orange revolution in Ukraine, then Putin's Munich speech in 2007, then Ukraine coup in 2014 and subsequent retaliation of Russia by taking Crimea and then today. In the interim Russia also meddled with Syria but that's far enough from Russian border to disregard as irrelevant to the Ukraine situation where Ukraine is right on the border of Russia. It's the second Cuban crisis basically. USA created a puppet state on Russian border and Russia obviously doesn't want that. Ideas that Russia wants to conquer Europe or restore USSR are idiotic and paranoid. What Russia wants is for US/NATO to get the heck away from its borders -- as was promised when USSR dissolved.
https://www.vox.com/22900113/nato-ukraine-russia-crisis-clin...