I agree that an important factor in this conflict is the determination of US and NATO policy-makers to strengthen their hegemony over a uni-polar world. It's a global version of the Ukrainian nationalists' determination that Ukraine must be a unitary state, rather than a federal and multicultural one. US and NATO hegemonists are fighting to stop a multi-polar world from emerging, just as Ukraine's nationalists have fought against regional autonomy movements in the Russian-speaking east.