No, putting a non-hostile (to Russia and to ethnic Russians in Ukraine) government in place both to preempt the country from joining NATO as well as to prevent the Donbas region being compelled to Ukrainize.
A pro-EU government is not inherently 'hostile to Russia', unless you're the sort of paranoid ex-KGB tool who still thinks that Russia is a world force standing against the delinquencies of the West. Ukraine was pro-EU because it was entirely ambivalent about Russia which had little to nothing to offer it - it was approaching the EU because it's successful and developed and progressing, whilst Russia lags further and further behind on virtually every metric.
Ukraine owed no duty to Russia to be 'non-hostile' to an expansionist neighbour with an established history of invading countries, and it also has the freedom to seek to join NATO if it wishes.
It struck me that the same can be said of NATO if you look at its history of attempting to force liberal democracy on countries such as Afghanistan. Why should Russia believe that with Ukraine in NATO, the US will not attempt to block Russia's black sea interests?
Why would the US want to block Russia's black sea interests? With the possible exception of seeing it as a competitor for oil exports, the majority of recent US administrations could really give two figs what Russia is up to, it's an irrelevance on the global scale. It exports cheap, two-generation old weapons systems to African dictators in a desperate grab for any half-way decent currency it can find because the Rouble is roughly equivalent to toilet-paper, and single-ply toilet paper at that. The exception, of course was Trump's administration which was actively in favour of building up Russia as a competeitive near-neighbour to China without the wit or sense to adequately manage either of those relationships, let alone any conflict between them.
Whether it's an incapacity of Russian leadership to accept that or to see it in the first place doesn't really matter.
It seems that both superpowers want hegemony over the territory in between.
It seems you and Russia still think that Russia is a superpower; that's indicative of your failure to realise what's actually happening.
In Russia's case, you can understand it's desire for freedom to access the black sea.
Russia already has Black Sea Ports, already has the Black Sea Fleet (for the good it's doing). Russia didn't need Black Sea access, it needed to try to eliminate competition in the Black Sea region because it can't compete on an even playing field against a Scout Troop, let alone another country.
Maybe in future it will agree that it's wrong for it to force its way to it, I don't think the way to achieve that is blockading it though.
Ukraine, and more broadly the West, attempted to make diplomatic agreements with Putin and Russia following both his invasions of Chechnya, his overt interference with Byelorussia's politics, his first invasion of Ukraine, his barely less overt interference in European Elections and his blatant interference in the American elections. He has consistently either lied, or subsequently changed his mind and reneged on deals. Economic and political sanctions against him, his allies and his country are the next step, let's hope it doesn't get to the point where further countries need to get dragged into open conflict, for the sake of the Russian people who will suffer the worst of it.
O.
