What would be the closest historical analogies to the current situation with Russia?

I'm reading the excellent history book of Timothy Snyder called "the Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin". In the book, which is mainly about the events between 1930-1945 in Central and Eastern Europe, he gives a lot of historical analogies to better understand what happened with Hitler and Stalin. <br><br>For example, he has mentioned the similarities between Marx and Sombart, Smith and Sombart, Hitler and Sorel, and many more. It was really interesting to read about.<br><br>And I thought, what would be the closest historical analogies to the current situation with Russia and the war in Ukraine? Some of the analogies that I came up with are the Crimean war (1853-1856), the Russo-Turkish war (1768-1774), the Sino-Soviet split (1950s-1960s) as well the Suez crisis (1956). <br><br>What other analogies could there be?