From the article: “Kyiv’s aspirations for integration with the West trigerred [sic] a major stand-off with Moscow earlier this century.”
What a quaint way of putting it. How about “American aspirations to integrate Ukraine into the West (and turn Sevastopol into a NATO base) failed to materialize after a American-orchestrated armed putsch ousting the democratically-elected leader of Ukraine sparked off a bloody civil war in that nation and Russia reclaimed Crimea.”
As for US and British blustering: all hat, no cattle — and everyone knows it.
Hey! ... You’re not supposed to see any of that!