How are you still denying that a covert military operation to seize land from another country is the very definition of an unprovoked military invasion.
Unless "provocation" to you includes "they started to like America?"
Unless "provocation" to you includes "they started to like America?"
I don't see this as unprovoked in the same vein as the invasion of Iraq, for instance.
The Ukrainian conflict is ineffably more complicated than they "started to like America." This sort of thinking is not productive when trying to make sense of world events. There are lots of factors at play here, economic, cultural, historical, political, and so forth.
This has been my only thesis from my OP. If you disagree with me, you're saying the Ukraine situation is as simple as Putin being an evil invader. I think that is a flawed, incomplete, and unproductive analysis of the situation. If you are interpreting me as defending Russia you are totally missing the point.