Russia/Muscovy also started their long imperial expansion in the mid-1500s, with the wars of Ivan the Terrible. A well-known CIA plant, of course. /s
Most of Europe east of the Elbe has personal experience with Russian imperial rule, and 90%+ people will tell you "never again". The rest are mostly traitors hoping for jobs under a new occupation regime.
Calling what happens in Ukraine an "ethnic conflict" is like calling the genocide and deportation of American Indians "a heated dispute over lucrative real property" or calling the Atlantic slave trade "movement of affordable workforce". It is a freaking war of conquest motivated by sense of entitlement of a rotten empire which hasn't yet fully understood that its heyday is long gone and now is learning the hard way.
The German imperial madness took two massive military defeats to dissipate. Let us hope that the Russian imperial madness will finally suffer the same fate in front of our eyes. At this point of history, having New Tatarstan there instead of Russia would bring Eastern Europe a lot more peace and prosperity. We could call the new entity a Silicon Horde.
