Completely and utterly agree! Russia is not our "vital ally" and they haven't been since WWII. They are in the exact same class as France and should be handled as such. To help them rebuild the Soviet empire is completely against U.S. interests! Remember the Cold War? It could happen again in a heartbeat.
Perfectly true: Russia is neither an ally, nor particularly vital.
Thanks! And they weren't a US ally in WWI either. :') Russia is a smallish successor state to a vanquished enemy, which has delusions of grandeur -- just as its predecessor did. It is just another shoddy, doddering Old European state to be managed and herded toward a democratic future. :') Divide and rule, divide and rule.
Ukraine declared independence after Russia quit World War I. Somewhere I've got a big coffee table book on Leon Trotsky (gotta wonder who pitched that idea to the publisher), which has a photo of Nestor Makhao, leader of "the Ukrainian anarchists". Makhao signed a treaty with the Red Army, but the truce fell apart (as the Bolsheviks planned all along) and after that breather, the Red Army destroyed his forces, and took over. Makhao fled into French exile.
By the time Stalin had ruled Ukraine for over a decade, the Ukraine welcomed the invading Germans -- at first.
If Russia feels it must someday take up arms against the long-occupied Ukraine, it won't come as any surprise to anyone familiar with Russian history. Russia is and always has been a brutal conqueror and occupier of foreign lands; Lenin's message of a vision of world domination and hegemony grew from that history.