In reality that phase of the war started before. Russia did not improvise this war. They started disrupting the supply in 2021 to ensure that Europe would not fill their strategic reserves / winter storage during the summer, thus insuring maximum leverage when they needed it. This is well documented [1]
Note that this is just talking about this phase of the war. Hostilities started in 2014 when parts of Ukraine "suddenly self-liberated" themselves. Helped by mysterious soldiers in professional but unmarked uniforms.
[1] https://www.banque-france.fr/en/publications-and-statistics/...
And Europe is not a single country. My country still happily digs out and burns tons of coal (annoying our neighbors in the process). I hope you're proud of us.
But you are right otherwise.
(Russia got into more trouble than it was worth it, even by their own standards, I'd say. And that's not even getting into the moral dimensions.)
This is also a big reason why Crimea, by and large, supported annexation - it has very large proportions of the population that are either active or retired Soviet/Russian navy.
Virtually the entire indigenous and otherwise non-Slavic population (some 30 percent of the total population of the peninsula) to be precise, according to this graph:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_P...
On what basis is this claim made?