Their green light was NATO encroachment.Russian Imperialism is not justified by Western Imperialism, it is obvious that corporations in the US have great influence over state governments and the federal government, albeit many americans seem to think this is not the case, and many. if not most, are too uneducated about politics in the US, and no i am not looking for a good guy, the reason i do not support russia is because they did in fact start this war and i am against any aggressor, Ukraine did have plans to join NATO and they did become more pro western, but that does not give the greenlight to just invade and start a brutal war where both most likely by this point, a million ukrainians and a million russians have died