Shifter, yes, Europe (I'm not sure who "we" is supposed to be here) dropped the ball on Crimea, not for the reason you seem to think.
Media has just decided that "the world" is the west and that there are worthy and unworthy victims, that's all. You're also talking about it as if it is a personal thing. It's not personal, it's not YOU being unable to follow all the news. It has nothing to do with you. It has to do with the approach states have taken here. And the war in Ukraine doesn't affect YOU in Australia either. If the west wasn't competing with Russia this would have been a footnote and no one would have paid attention.
How is 'the west' competing with Russia? No one gives a fuck about taking on Russia.
This is just obviously not true. Again, under Yeltsin Russia was largely controlled by the US in many ways. However it had been promised that in exchange for breaking up the Warsaw pact and handing over east Germany, NATO would not expand eastward. Then it did. Putin becomes president and he tries to join NATO. NATO doesn't want that. They increasingly took Russia less and less seriously, like they're just pushovers now. Then Russia actually started becoming somewhat more important in the sense that their natural gas fueled Europe but also China. They also provide other important materials to China, such as oil, uranium etc. So the rhetoric against them grew harsher.
The entire issue started when the west, post USSR collapse, basically told Russia "it's our way or the highway" and despite Russia initially wanting to get closer to Europe and NATO, it was made clear to them that it wouldn't be on their terms. Then NATO agrees to let Ukraine and Georgia join in 2008 again in violation to the promises made to Russia. So Russia sends troops to Abkhazia, making it clear this would not be tolerated. Did they not know something like this would happen? They did, because George Keenan among many others was screaming about it, and intelligence services had published reports that such moves would destabilize the region and possibly result in Russia reacting violently. After a while, the EU started courting Ukraine. They offered a deal to Yanukovych, Putin saw it and offered a better deal because he wanted Ukraine to remain close to Russia. Yanukovych dropped the EU deal and accepted Putin's deal. That's how Euromaidan started, which ended up with Yanukovych getting couped, and the heavily west supported nationalists coming in power. This practically sparked a civil war in some regions, and gave Putin an excuse to invade and annex Crimea (which was autonomous from Ukraine and following recent events largely consented to being annexed). You are right that Europe and the US dropped the ball on Crimea, but it wasn't because they didn't sanction Russia enough or anything like that. It was because they knew what their attempts at expansion would lead to and did it anyways. Again there had been warnings that were ignored due to arrogance.
Europe for some reason shot itself in the foot by becoming entirely dependent on natural gas from Russia while also denouncing Putin left and right. Meanwhile Ukraine and NATO kept trying to figure out how Ukraine would join, and eventually Ukraine decided they would not negotiate with separatist regions any more. Again NATO knew this would push Putin's buttons and kept doing it regardless because they didn't take Russia seriously and had entered a process where they'd aim to weaken Russia entirely as a superpower until they can get a government there which they can control, so that they also have control over the gas reserves and uranium, again because the main competitor is China. But they can't really do shit to China, while Russia is an easier target. Did they expect Putin would lash out so violently and invade Ukraine from all sides? Probably not, but that there would be a crisis and continued instability was absolutely known. There's just so many people who had warned something like this would happen if the EU and the US kept doing what they were doing years ago. So really this crisis is not new, it is years in the making, and everyone who tried to warn about it was ignored.
Again it wasn't expected that it would reach that scale, but it's not like it came out of the blue, and it's not like there was nothing that could have been done to avoid it. Again, see intelligence reports in 2013. See what George Keenan said back in the 90s. See what John Mearsheimer and other American international relations academics in the realist school of thought have been saying for years. So yes it is an issue of competition between great powers, even if one is significantly smaller than the others. And you may insist that it was all just reaction to Putin, but prior to 2008 there wasn't any indication of Russia behaving aggressively to eastern Europe etc. The west didn't even have an indication that he wanted to take over Ukraine or any other place in eastern Europe before 2014.
Also you are again talking about it as if it's certain that he wants to conquer the whole of Ukraine. Let him try, maybe at least that way he's gonna fall sooner. If he is still at least somewhat sane, he won't try to annex the entire country. He'll probably trash the place until they let Donbass go, recognize Crimea and yield to his demands.
Putin is just an authoritatian arsehole.
He is but that never is the point in geopolitics.
They meddle in international affairs.
So? So does every other major power. Do you think there wasn't any meddling in Russia's affairs? It's only an issue when the other team does it.
Doesn't matter if Russia's economy is small. Yes, their economy is small, but it's literally the largest country in the world in terms of area and controls a lot of important natural resources.
Do you think Australia has no stake in this if the security and peace in the EU collapses? Even you cant be that dense.
It's interesting that you don't think Russia had any valid security concerns at all, but Australia has a security concern because the EU (literally on the other side of the world) has a security concern because of an invasion in a country that is even not part of the EU.
No dude, the EU doesn't currently run any meaningful risk of invasion unless the EU tries to go to war with Russia, and Australia even less.
I don't care if you think all this is "Putin apologia", if there hadn't been so much arrogance we wouldn't be in this spot. I do think it's mostly Putin's fault here but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been avoided.