This interesting perspective is from Democracy Digest:

Ukraine is a front-line state in the struggle between European rule-based order and Russian kleptocratic autocracy. Since the Euromaidan Revolution in 2013–14, Russia has deployed a range of measures – short of an open declaration of war – to undermine Ukraine’s aspirations to build an independent democratic system of governance and integrate into the Euro-Atlantic community, say analysts Mathieu Boulègue and Orysia Lutsevych.

Russia is waging a full-spectrum war against Ukraine, exploiting domestic vulnerabilities to sow
chaos and challenge the state. In this sense, Ukraine can be considered a political ‘laboratory’
of Russian influence on a large scale. Because of its proximity to Russia, the widespread use of the Russian language and Russian infiltration of its security forces, Ukraine is often used by the Kremlin as a testing ground for various coercive measures, they write in Resilient Ukraine: 
Safeguarding Society from Russian Aggression, a new paper for Chatham House, the London-based foreign policy think tank:…

Read the full perspective here.