What's that got to do with anything? We're not talking ancient history here like in the case of the USA where it was a British colony for a TINY part of its EARLIEST history... The Ukraine was part of Russia from 1686 to 1991, 305 of the last 335 years... 91% of that period.

By comparison, "the USA" was a British colony from 1777 to 1783 or 6 of the last 244 years, or 2,46% of its history. Before that, yes there were a handful of small colonies, all independent, and were in no way any sort of national entity. They were in fact a bunch of small isolated villages.

In comparison, the Ukraine was first settled 32,000 years ago and in 1686 was already an old country of peasants slowly emerging from medieval times. Comparing the two is as different as apples and oranges.

To nail the coffin of your argument shut, the USA are CONSTANTLY encroaching and provoking Russia. How are they to defend themselves against this constant saber-rattling, other than by adding a buffer territory between themselves and the US missile bases?

Using the logic of your arguments, remove US bases from every non-US territory, give Hawaii and other extra-continental territories their independence, remove the bases from there as well, and THEN let's see how much Putin wants the Ukraine.