[pierrem15]

What "provocation"? Did Ukraine invade Russia? Did NATO mass 3 million troops to perform Barbarossa II? Did we put nukes in Ukraine?

No. The premise of your assertion is that Ukraine is in Russia's imperial "sphere of influence," so you are begging the question, because that is exactly what Russia is trying to establish by force.

The US tolerates lots of countries allied with Russia near its borders: Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. Men were hanged at Nuremberg for waging aggressive war, which means for territorial aggrandizement, which is what Putin is doing. I do not think it's prudent to return to the pre-WWII system of empires competing for spheres of influence which produced two world wars.

[Repealthe17thAmendment]

The basis for this was started in 2014 when the Obama administration supported a coup in Ukraine to replace the Russian-leaning president, with a government that was friendlier to the west. The goal was to bring Ukraine in the the EU, and perhaps even into NATO. The eastern part of Ukraine that borders Russia, rebelled against the coup and were engaged in a civil war with the new Ukraine government. A peace deal was supposedly reached in 2015, the Minsk Protocol, but was never enacted, as the fighting never really ceased.

After eight years of this civil war, Russia began defending the people who preferred close relations with Russia and rejected the western influence.

Obviously, Russia escalated the war by attacking Ukraine, but this was hardly a sudden move, and there was a lot of meddling going on by the US.