One can tell that this is 'from far away'. Europe was hoping that Russia, in their own interest would pursue peaceful cooperation, even when Putin was already talking about 'spheres of influence'. When Russia invaded Georgia, Europe turned the blind eye and was still hoping for peaceful relations with Russia. When Russia annexed Crimea, same thing. Even when Russia was pulling together forces along Ukraines border and the US pulled out their personnel from Ukraine, there were still many voices in Europe that Russia would never invade Ukraine. We can all be lucky that Ukraine wasn't as naive and prepared for this moment, otherwise Russia would probably have invaded a couple more countries by now.