....but wait! Didn't Viking king Oleg create Kiev in 879, which preceded the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1283? Couldn't you subsequently make the case that the Ukraine preceded/created Russia?

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kyivan-Rus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia

It would seem that an advantage held by the West is that their influence (at least recently) is dictated by free will (after all, no one is forcing anyone to be in NATO, for instance) while Russia and China actually have quite an iron-fisted imperialistic/hegemonistic recent past (see Tibet, Turkic states, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, SE Asian Hill Tribes, Hong Kong for details). In short, given a choice, no one really wants to be a part of Russia or China so they need to intimidate by force or try to use propaganda/rewrite history.

You get a lot of credit for trying to be fair and balanced on this one, but it seems the more one learns the less one can understand or support anything that Russia does. My father was in WW II prison camp in Poland...there's a reason everyone made a headlong rush westward at the end of the war...the Russians are assholes! (I've heard this account from many WW II eyewitnesses, including many in Eastern Europe/Baltics) Though people in Baltic States hated the Germans, they hated the Russians much more!

This war is also bringing more attention to the mass-rape of Germans by Russians at the end of/after WW II (also referenced in my father's diary). Similar tactics in Ukraine? Have NATO countries ever done that?