It could have also been avoided by not offering Ukraine an Association Agreement - or retracting it when it became clear that this was a red line for Russia, and there was a deep societal divide within Ukraine on whether to align with the West or Russia. The Maidan protests had barely 50% support across all of Ukraine (but much higher in Kiev and the western regions of Ukraine). The risk of Ukraine fracturing over this was very obvious, but apparently completely acceptable to European leaders.

> Anything else is just victim blaming Russian propaganda that tries to justify Russia's naked imperialism.

That's such a narrow and poor way to talk about international politics, and it is exactly the reason why we have a war in Europe, and broken countries like Syria and Libya on our doorstep. Even if your intentions are good, it is worthless if the consequences are terrible. In general the "everything that doesn't align with my worldview is propaganda" is a pretty good sign someone loves eating propaganda.