I once assumed that small incremental environmentally conscious steps in how people lived, worked, and played were inevitable. I'm talking smaller, more energy efficient, and safer vehicles, vegetable protein substitutes in place of industrialized meat products becoming generally accepted and even the norm, and I even had naive presumptions about some imminent expansion of mass transportation because it simply made more economic sense.
But that was all before I learned the power of 
I was expecting maybe some escalation like sending some troops in Donetsk and Luhansk but not full scale war.
In hindsight I think leftists give anti-US powers like Russia too much credit sometimes just for being anti-US, they're just awful bougie states in the end and are gonna do evil bougie shit.