Russia: Aggressive or Defensive?

Read: U.S. Wars and Hostile Actions: A List

Is Russia pushing back against western imperialism, fearing that they are gradually being surrounded (see NATO expansion etc) by a very hostile empire that will eventually attempt regime change in Russia? Is their invasion of eastern Ukraine a last resort following many years of attempts at a peaceful solution, that would involve Ukraine agreeing to being neutral and not a US empire outpost on their borders pointing WMDs at them? 

Or, do they have ambitions to re-colonise Eastern Europe, for no reason other than their own naked imperialism?

The western propaganda machine, which played a vital role in creating and sustaining that empire, will obviously state the latter, as fact. 

For any hope of peace, we really need to hope that Russia views their actions - however criminal they are - as defensive, not aggressive. Which is what the evidence actually points to! 

But it seems the west can’t even fathom that. Why? Perhaps because Neocon/Neoliberal westerners are colonising, supremacist globalisers who don't even view western foreign policy as aggressive! It’s just the natural way of things to them. They think the world belongs to them and their ways. They represent ‘progress’. All who resist are inferior, backwards, unpeople, whose perspectives are invalid. 

The collapse of the Soviet Union was The End of History, signalling the beginning of total 'liberal' domination of the world. 

...and also because they and our economic system rely on perpetual conflict/war/expansion for $...

We need to ask: What would the US do if Russia/China were meddling in Mexican/Canadian politics to install an anti-American regime that empowered neo Nazis, and sought nuclear weapons? What would the US do if a hostile military alliance expanded to their borders and pointed WMDs at them?