[hraedon]

The point is that international affairs are complicated enough to make any principled stand difficult, and the world should be commended for rallying behind the idea that unprovoked wars of conquest are enough to get you excluded from global society. The sanctions are going to cause a lot of pain in the countries leveling them, so it is an even less straightforward calculus.

Russia was able to invade Ukraine and annex a big chunk of its territory in 2014, and the idea that Ukraine was less our "friend" then than it is now doesn't hold water to me. What was different about the 2014 invasion if it is strictly realpolitik friends and enemies?

[sinyug]

> 2014 invasion

Was in response to a US-supported coup against a president friendly to Russia. What are a US Ambassador and a US Assistant Secretary of State doing at a political protest in a foreign country?[1]

> U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland arrived on Wednesday morning at Independence Square in Kyiv and began speaking with protesters rallying in support for Ukraine's integration with the European Union, an Interfax correspondent reported from the scene.

> Nuland is treating protesters with cookies, biscuits and bread from a big package. She is being accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. Demonstrators are cheering Nuland with joyful shouts, some are chanting "God bless you."

> Nuland also approached Interior Forces troops deployed at the square and also offered them cookies, which the soldiers accepted silently.

[1] U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Nuland arrives at opposition rally in Kyiv (https://web.archive.org/web/20220228205358/https://en.interf...)

[boardwaalk]

Voting somebody out is not a coup.

[hraedon]

Responding to huge events that were unfolding in eastern Europe? I get that the Euromaidan protests are inconvenient to Russian propaganda efforts, but why is it at all sinister that a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs was present at a protest? Why is it suspicious that the US' Ambassador was present at protests that were protesting what amounted to Putin vetoing a very popular effort to deepen ties between Ukraine and the EU?

None of that, of course, is responsive to the original question of why Ukraine wasn't a friend in 2014 (in your narrative, this follows a coup and the installation of a friendly, western regime) but seems to be a friend now. Why Russia was able/allowed to annex Crimea with minimal international outcry is obvious—he either had or successfully fabricated a plausible enough claim—but doesn't fit in with the idea that all rules of conduct are applied only against enemies and not to friends.