[higgmeister]

It was the same choice that JFK had regarding nuclear missiles in Cuba.   President Putin had a Hobson's choice.

[lump in the melting pot]

Ukraine was never any threat to russia (other than showing ordinary russians it was possible for a slavic people to live in a normal country and not under a kleptocracy). Your comparison is invalid. Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland is more apt. Or in pedestrian terms, "Ukraine's skirt was so short, russia was forced to rape her..."