Commentary Feb. 24 was the day Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale military assault on neighboring Ukraine and many lives have already been lost. In recent weeks, the U.S. and UK administrations had been warning that an attack was imminent, but was this situation avoidable? The seeds for it may have been planted in 2014, when then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who wished to strengthen ties with Russia, was overthrown and replaced by the pro-Western Petro Poroshenko. Many accused the European Union of some involvement in that bloody uprising, which also suited NATO’s eastward push. Putin referred to this incident when he addressed his citizens prior to the current Russian attack. “We see that the forces that carried out a coup in Ukraine in 2014, seized power and are holding it through sham electoral procedures,” he said. Or was it further back, in 1954, when then-leader of the Soviet Union Nikita …