Is it weird that this ramping up appears to be happening at a snails pace. Is the pace conditioning people to tacitly accept the inevitability of this escalating into a wider war.

Or, was it inevitable since March of last year that it would lead to larger conflict.

I'm leaning towards the latter as there just never was a question of leaving Ukraine up for grabs to the Russian megalomaniac as it's a given he won't stop there.