Thanks Hasbeen,
Finally some sense.

NO
YOU'RE WRONG
So
Just sit there
In Your wrongness
AND BE WRONG!

I say let the Ucraine nation go to the poll and decide if they join Russia - no need of a forced take over by murdering the discenters

Ukraine gained it independence in 1991 following
the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

If Russia had really changed. If the "cold war"
was really over. That is, of there were no continuing
conflicts between capitalism and socialism for the
lands and peoples of Eastern Europe there would be
no need to maintain military expenditures and no
need to protect themselves against Russia's parasitic
greed and might. There would be little need for NATO,
much less NATO expansion.

Don't forget that NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
was the capstone of a policy led and funded by the
United States to contain/encircle Soviet and communist
power in Eastern Europe. NATO did not make any promises
not to expand in Eastern Europe their promise in 1990
dealt only with Germany. Gorbachev has confirmed this.

NATO has an "open-door" policy regarding other nations.
Who are doing everything they can to protect themselves
against Russian might. They can't be blamed for that.

As John Boyd Orr stated:

" The real evil of the Russian communist state is not
communism. It's the secret police and the concentration
camps." Which still exist to this day. As Putin a
former KGB apparachik well knows.

Russia wants/needs something Ukraine has that disappeared when the USSR broke up. It is my understanding that Crimea was occupied because the Russian navy had to have ice-free ports. Whatever Putin is, he is no idiot. Hopefully, something will be sorted out between Russia and Ukraine without bloodshed. In the meantime, the rest of the world should mind its own business. Like it or not, some Russians were not keen to give up their empire. The big problem for the West is China, not Russia.

As stated earlier - a Russian invasion of Ukraine
will have very serious global implications.
Especially if an invasion was seen as successful
and of relatively low cost to Russia it could normalize
inter-state conflicts prompting a return to the
"might makes right" geopolitics of the 19th and early
20th centuries.

China is already watching things closely and Russia's
success might make China feel emboldened to do the
same to Taiwan - and who knows who next?

It could have a domino effect and entice other states to
display force against less powerful neighbours or rivals.

The stakes could not be higher. The Kremlin's dismemberment
of democratic Ukraine would be an unspeakable tragedy for
the Ukrainian people and it would represent a huge setback
for democracy world-wide.