1. You think that escalating conflict with Russia is too dangerous
2. So you must tolerate Russia’s behaviour no matter what
3. Saying this out loud makes you look bad
4. So you invent a special set of standards for Russia according to which its behaviour will be tolerable

That’s normal btw. For the most part, ethics serve to justify what is convenient not the other way around. The problem here is that people tend to hugely, enormously exaggerate Russia’s power. It’s a giant on a 24/7 life support