That's a fair point, considering their links to Serbs, and that Milosevic thing. Serbia's still salty about NATO being involved in their shenanigans in the 90s but they still do business with us.
The Russian Empire attempted to get Crimea in the 1850s as well but that put everyone against Russia, LOL nope they said.
Adding to this, the reason russia always interviend in the balkans is because they assumed the title of protecting christians in the ottoman empire.
Change that over to "russian" and you've got a direct model for russian foreign policy that has been in place since the 1800s