Don't forget that Russia has been doing this for a long time. Chechnya, Georgia. Always the civilian population was brutely oppressed and murdered. He's always got some former USSR republic to exterminate. If anything it would be weird if he hadn't picked on the next one. The only difference is that Ukraine is a little bit closer to Europe than the others.

I'm not saying this means we shouldn't defend Ukraine. We should. But I am saying the outrage from the international community is a little hypocritical considering what Putin has been doing for decades. It's either because it's a little closer to our borders (and thus Europe is more worried about itself) or because they have valuable resources that our politicians suddenly care. I find that very sad. We should have cared before. Then we'd have saved many lives and this wouldn't have happened.

It's really got a very strong smell of "let's bring freedom to the middle east! Of course only where they've got lots of oil for us".