Civil War in Ukraine.

It is clear that there are no russian troops in Ukraine. Yes, I am aware that the Kiev government and the West are talking about thousands of soldiers and hundreds of tanks, but there is no proof of that, just propagandistic fervor on their part. Putin did not walk into the trap, avoiding the situation where the hatred level towards Russia would be off the charts. The Russian president has been provoked to intervene militarily but he knows better : Russia is not like the US or NATO and cannot simply intervene  without a just cause and without a western condemnation.

Russians have to feel that justice in order to stand up for their own dignity and for the dignity of their wayward brothers in Ukraine. Right now Russia is on a higher moral ground because of the humanitarian help and settlement of the refugees everywhere in the country, regardless of the hardship caused by the economic sanctions and the oil prices. One's inner peace and morality is more important.

Unfortunately, Russian government have been forced , in a sense, to sacrifice thousands of people, including many children, to horrible violence and death in Ukraine. That is why it is posible for Russia to fight for the liberation of Ukraine and it is harder to identify Russia as the aggressor.

Similar development  happened in Ossetia in 2008 and at the outbrake of the Great Patriotic War: there was a real threat of Russia being labeled as an agressor and in both cases the true evil stroke first, allowing the Russian response to be justified and to be victorious.

There are well-known conspiracy theories about FDR allowing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941. It's a similar story with little conspiracy, just some logic. The President needed a moral superiority to rally the nation. He did not willingly hold back the intelligence reports or the armed response. There are such things as a fog of war and an afterthought. Pearl Harbor allowed Americans to "be on the right side of history".

As of right now, Russia is still taking in the refugees by the hundreds of thousands, including the ukrainian mobilization evaders. The world barely notices the Donbass bleeding and I cannot stand the carnage anymore.

No society wants to be a victim, yet allowing it to happen  can build a just cause and response.