WCH, I indeed follow the "news" (most of which, in the corporate media, is pro-Establishment propaganda, but I digress), and you are flat-out wrong in accusing Putin of "invading Crimea".  Invading!  Honestly, have YOU been paying attention to the news?!  Just exactly how does Russian annexation of Crimea, after the residents there overwhelmingly (97+%) voted to return to Russia, constitute "invasion"?  That is just a neocon talking point, as patently false as it is.

Oh, and about Syria, how has the US creation of and support for ISIS, among others, make us any holier  than Russia?

Putin is nobody that I admire, believe me --- he is an authoritarian pure and simple, and no friend of liberty, at home or abroad.  But the same is true of most world "leaders", many of whom are FAR worse in that regard than Putin.  It is also quite beside the point --- as long as they are not meddling in OUR affairs, or threatening us, which they are not, then we have no business doing the same to them.