Its hard to not get 'stuck in the cross-fires' when one side is very directly aiming right at you, wants to kill you, steal your house (or wristwatch like in WWII in massive scale), maybe have fun with your wife and enslave your kids and their kids.
We in western Europe (where I moved just to clarify) are closely aligned with US values and way of life, which russian elite sees as direct attack on their comfy stealy mafia way of life and existential threat. What general russian population thinks is unfortunately irrelevant here, it doesn't manifest in anything concerning rest of the world.
Also look at end of Soviet union - every single member state ran the fuck away from russians with 99.99% speed of light, and will do just about anything to resist being forcefully merged back, including Belarus with lukashenko, or Kazachstan with quite recent demonstrations and subsequent shooting of protesters also helped by russian special forces (friend of ours from there witnessed it firsthand, executions on spot of cca 2,500 protesters one after another, whomever they caught in the streets). They know darn well what they reject and fear, no 'panslav' bullshit made up lies is ever changing that.
Don't think for a second that one can be some really impartial and respected 3rd side, even ultra-neutral Swiss are now much more aligned with west than east (politically, values, but also militarily - check whether their guns work with NATO ammo or russian ones - thats 101 of waging a war and picking up side well before that). There are cca impartial sides out there, but not in Europe or anywhere else near russia.
/rant, I could go on like that for a very long time
We in western Europe (where I moved just to clarify) are closely aligned with US values and way of life, which russian elite sees as direct attack on their comfy stealy mafia way of life and existential threat. What general russian population thinks is unfortunately irrelevant here, it doesn't manifest in anything concerning rest of the world.
Also look at end of Soviet union - every single member state ran the fuck away from russians with 99.99% speed of light, and will do just about anything to resist being forcefully merged back, including Belarus with lukashenko, or Kazachstan with quite recent demonstrations and subsequent shooting of protesters also helped by russian special forces (friend of ours from there witnessed it firsthand, executions on spot of cca 2,500 protesters one after another, whomever they caught in the streets). They know darn well what they reject and fear, no 'panslav' bullshit made up lies is ever changing that.
Don't think for a second that one can be some really impartial and respected 3rd side, even ultra-neutral Swiss are now much more aligned with west than east (politically, values, but also militarily - check whether their guns work with NATO ammo or russian ones - thats 101 of waging a war and picking up side well before that). There are cca impartial sides out there, but not in Europe or anywhere else near russia.
/rant, I could go on like that for a very long time