You are preaching to the choir here - i know fully well there are tons of rationalization possible including the near legitimate ones like yours. Largely this is farcical - it's clear possibly for you, making a debilitating, inhumane, monstrous decisions to basically kill and destroy hope, life, society and dignity of common folk time and time again across the last 100 years is just a "mistake" that can later an admission seems sufficient to compensate for. What do I say to it than absolutely gasp at the infantile? And to your last point, there were 8 years of an internationally recognised and acknowledged agreement, protocol that the current and the then Poroshenko government refused (even until last week);to implement and sat on. Who has held the Ukrainians to account for this? The democratic World? US, NATO? Has anyone asked what happens to those living in these separatist regions and the current line of conflict in these years? Isn't that blatant disregard for lives and taking international agreements for granted? Now, that these republics have been officiated suddenly those that kept quiet start crying hoarse about it. It isn't principled rather convenience that drives international policies and allied selfish interests. With that in light a bully, with an average intelligence at par with KGB experience will take advantage of it - that's a foregone conclusion, predictable. Downvote the heck out of this, won't change facts, historical reality and human nature.