[Magnum44]

to protect Russia's naval base in Crimea from being cutoff by NATO aggression.

He's not so bright then. If that were true, he's had Crimea for a decade. He should have left things alone. Now he's got a fraction of the Black Sea fleet, unless you count whats in Davy Jones locker.

Nope, nice try though. Nobody was bothering with Crimea until Putin decided he needed more.

[Kazan]

Apparently, you missed the fact that Ukraine cut the water off to Crimea after its citizens voted to leave Ukraine. And, to this day, still refuses to acknowledge Crimea as part of Russia.

And, Putin had more of more high ground in protecting the ethnic Russian population in Donetsk and Lugansk than we ever did in either Iraq war.

NATO funding, training and building a 600,000 man army after the illegal coup in 2014 installed a puppet government hostile to Russia was most certainly a national security threat to the Russians.

If China or Russia had done something similar in Mexico, we would have, justifiably, invaded.