In our eyes now

[busker]

A counterfactual comes to mind:  many have chided the US for letting former satellite nations join NATO after at least implying to Russia in the negotiations which denuclearized Ukraine that this would not happen.  But what was the alternative?  Tell the Russians it would happen if the ex-satellites wanted it, or tell the Russians flat out that ex-satellites and ex-SSRs would not be allowed to join, ever?  In the first case, the Russians would have balked at the whole settlement, which is why it was not stated explicitly.  In the second case, all the ex-satellites and SSRs would inevitably have formed an alliance among themselves from the Baltic to the Black Sea, to keep Russia out.  That alliance - CETO, perhaps, for Central European Treaty Organization - would have had the technology and industry to build nukes, and would have, because they needed them due to lack of strategic depth (like Israel).  It might have joined the EU.

Where we are now, Kaliningrad must be reduced to save the Baltic republics unless something very thought-provoking happens to Putin.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, but it's 1939:  the tragedy must be acted out, and nobody is off-stage.  World war is the kind that's been forgotten, and here it is again.

Russia is only 144 million people. It is not China, with 1.2 billion.
There is no reason why 144 million people should be given special rights over other sovereign nations. Not that China should either, but the contrast with Russia is more apparent. 
If the ex Soviet countries weren't to join NATO, it should've been there in a treaty.
Incidentally, the per capita nuclear bomb count for Russia is twice that of the US.

There is no reason why the US or anyone else should be blamed for Putin's hare brained idea to send tanks into Kiev.
Ultimately, it is up to the Russian people or the ghost of Alexander Litvenko, to give it back to Putin.
Like Mussolini and Qadaffi, he might end up at the end of a rope.

Xi Jinping's turn next.