You have provided me no new information about what the CIA has done.
You also assume that any diplomatic solution with Putin is not just a temporary measure as, from his own mouth, he is really intent on empire building, and tells organizations like the future entrepreneurs of Russia that they should be building their lives towards these goals. Russia attacked Ukraine for their own interests. He has been preaching that since 2000, and one of his most pushed messages for why the law should be changed to make him president for life is that the restoration of the empire is not a plan that can survive through numerous elections.
So, NATO seeing this, over and over, while some leaders had reservations, they also had legitimate security concerns about Russia adding the Black Sea, and a huge amount of new borderland that connected to the Shenzhen Economic Zone. To add more to the picture: Life long leader from the secret police of the previous empire, and the contemporary Russia, with known power over their most prominent oligarchs, can’t shut-up about expanding their empire, for over a decade. Then, when the re-ratification of the CFE was hinged on Russia pulling it’s illegal military bases from Georgia, and Moldova, something both countries had been making clear they want gone since they were established, Russia completely withdrew. They then started a military build up, and began running advanced forces training in the caucuses, while giving more strength to boarders with Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Then they had those bases break away from their respective countries, and began defending them from being re-absorbed. Do you not see how the EU/NATO, could have legitimate security issues with Russia, keeping this in mind? Do you just paint the western hegemony the way many in the US just go around saying “dur hur Russia evil”? Because that is what a lot of people on lemmy do. Then demand nuance because the picture is more complicated than that, but only for non-western aligned countries.
This is all capitalist empire building bullshit. There is not one major economic power on Earth not participating in this shit in one form or another. While the west is the empire of establishment, the newer ones growing are committing a lot of the same horrors. The only difference I see, is that that they are restrained from just going on bombing campaigns, like the US, because the old empire is still there, and the consequences of dealing with that, as they are still extremely powerful, regardless of what is being said about the collapse of the west, will be extreme, and dire for everyone. Not just active warring empires, the entire world. As western influence over sphere in places like SEA, eastern Europe, central asia, etc, wain, you will see hostilities from other major economic powers grow in their regions. They are all hyper-nationalistic, and spending time on their social media reveals annexing countries, especially their neighbors, is very popular.
No, my point is that nothing in this situation was justified. None of it. If, however, you feel the long term meddling in Ukraine, and invasion, by Russia is justifiable, not to mention the corruption it openly participates in that are classical empire bullshit, like having a prominent leader of your empire collateralize a billion dollar loan by a political figure, who used a lot of that money to finance their campaign, when every bank on earth had blocked his credit, and many other things, like almost completely funding mainstream popular right wing new media networks, who are all now failing when one Russian finance source got cut, you need to be seeing the nuance of the bigger empire too.
You are also skipping a number of things I brought up that signal security issues towards the EU, and just focused on what they leader of the country says. This makes me suspect of your good faith. After the fall of the USSR both Georgia, and Moldova, had infighting as new nations were being formed from the collapse. Russia then sent their military in to forcefully establish permanent military bases as a “peace keeping” operations, and violently crushed all descent to this with their military, and began propping up unrecognized “state governments” they owned as thin excuses to legitimize their actions. Now tell me, who does this sound like? Had we had not been having this conversation, and I were to tell you and unnamed country was doing this to two other unnamed countries, who would you have immediately thought I was walking about?
When faced with having to pull out, per request of the states they were occupying, in order to continue with the CFE, Russia backed completely out, and immediately began preparing their military for invading from the caucuses, and went into discussions of passing their forces through Belarusian borders. These are not just words, nor are they insignificant. This is what sparked the CIA to ramp-up efforts in those countries. They allowed the first annexations because it would hand Russia strategic resources they had long wanted. They hoped that would be the end of it. However, countries from central Asia, to Europe, warned Georgia, that Russia was preparing to move forward again. That is what ended up happening, but this time NATO had been preparing Ukraine, and began supplying them, so it wasn’t successful. This time NATO saw an opportunity to not only bleed Russia, but to also field all sort of new weapons systems, and ideas they had been practicing in theory.
This is not the story of a country who never operated its military outside of its borders, nor one who’s only evidence of threats of expansion are words. Bringing up that Russia has lost trade deals without killing everyone is dumb, the US has done the same. Russia has to be far more selective in how it exercises its hard power, because it is poorer, and less advanced in regards of military production, than the established empire.