Russia has a long history in eastern Europe of going into a region, starting shit, deporting a bunch of people who disagree with it and then holding a local election at gunpoint to show public support existed for all the things they did before.
Trying to argue that this is a NATO "aggression" is silly, as they've been doing it since before that entity existed and continue to do so to this day. Eastern Europe has constantly cast a wary eye eastward, and the idea that Ukraine(or any of the other nations in that part of the world) shouldn't have sought NATO's help is hilarious because they just need to look at Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, etc to see what happens when you end up alone, and that's only in the last few decades.
Russian military shows up, fucks your shit up, installs a puppet government that swears it was justified and warns you to fall in line. There exists a complete lack of understanding in the western world of how much crap Russia has heaped onto its neighbours over the last few centuries and continues to do so to this day.