Not that I’m in any way justifying them but Russia’s actions in the Ukraine might be considered to be defensive in nature (from a purely pragmatic real-politik

Not that I’m in any way justifying them but Russia’s actions in the Ukraine might be considered to be defensive in nature (from a purely pragmatic real-politik point of view). Ukraine used to be pretty much a puppet state of Russia until 2014. When pro-western parties cam to power Putin decided to just peel off what he can (Crimea) since they are are gonna loose the rest anyway and start permanent border conflict in Donbas so that the Ukraine would never be accepted into NATO.