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It's implausible to you and I from our vantage point, but not to Russians, who still celebrate VG day as one of their biggest holidays. Having a buffer between Europe and Russia has been doctrinal in Russia since at least Peter the great. Ukraine was supposed to be neutral after the USSR split. It wasn't until The EU and US started treating it like they were going to extend it membership in the EU and/or NATO that Russia stepped in. The amazing thing is that our diplomats didn't foresee the result. Or maybe they did, and their great game style thinking wanted to provoke Putin as a way to try to get his citizens to turn on him. That clearly hasn't worked. Yet.