Comments by "Sean Cidy" (@seancidy6008) on "Russia has lost ‘strategically, operationally and tactically,’ top US general says" video.

It may have been illegal and brutal but it was not unprovoked. Russia warned they would not stand for Ukraine getting close to the American led anti Russian military alliance known as Nato, and the top US diplomat in Moscow (now head of the CIA) told the White House that Russia was serious. The US and Ukraine knowingly provoked a response from the Kremlin, which set out to show that Russia was not a country that could be treated like that.
4
@colbyharris1985 Being provoked (even walking on on your wife with another man) is not a legal defence and Russia acted illegally, but not unpredictably; there is the 'unwritten law' in respect to adultery and the international system has unwritten laws too'. The Code Of the Streets is if you are 'dissed' you must put a stop to that right away. Ukraine was being insolent. So they were an innocent victim in terms of explicit international law, yet they were certainly provoking Russia and understood they were doing so.
1