Because no one thinks that America is cool.

Don't you know that people routinely lie to pretend to be cooler than they are? People lie and say "America isn't cool" and then they emulate trends they copied from America. Actions speak louder than words. My crazy ex used to say that you know someone is a hipster if they say they hate hipsters.

If Ukraine decides to be the prostitute of the West, then sure Russia gets to change its mind about whether Ukraine is allowed to be independent. The agreement was a Ukraine that was friendly to Russia, and which allowed Sevastopol as a naval base to Russia. Otherwise, it's back to Novorossiya.

Sure, sure. Now Russia can impose that fantasy, of course, as long as it has the military might to enforce it. Does it? Oops, no. You only get to make the rules under "might makes right" when you actually have the might.

Ukrainians are historically known as Little Russians.

Ukrainians don't see themselves as Russian, Russians don't see them as Russians, and nobody else in the world sees them as Russians.

It's funny how you claim that Russia is so weak that it can't even take a puppet shithole non-country, but at the same time claim that it'll be in Madrid next week.

Nope, I don't think Russia could win against NATO, I just think it would keep trying to conquer until it was finally stopped.

but they made major gains by being on the offense - in terms of territory, industry, population and experienced soldiers they captured and killed.

It takes a long time for conquered territory to "turn a profit". It doesn't happen quickly enough to make a difference in a war. Germany conquered some of the Caucus oil fields, for example, and held them for a good portion of 1942, but was never able to extract significant oil from them because of sabotage and repair time. It generally takes years to consolidate and really make any gains from occupied territory. It doesn't work like a video game where the color on the map changes and you suddenly get full use of that land and people.

Usually the occupation costs outweigh any profits for quite a while.

You mean the Siberian divisions? Russian troops were fighting all along... obviously.

No a lot of Russian units were held back and Stalin had a lot of more "expendable" units like Ukrainians at the front to buy time and wear down the Germans. The Russian units were held back and started to fight a lot later in Barbarossa in the Battles for Moscow & Leningrad. Unlike the non-Russian units, they would not surrender after being encircled, and even though the pockets were eventually liquidated, the fact that they fought to the end meant that it tied up a lot of German units and slowed the Germans down.

It lost a weak claim to empty lands primarily populated by Russians, not Ukrainins.

Russia didn't stop at Crimea, though.