You don't seem to know Russian history at all. If you'd live in the Baltics or Finland you'd hear about Russian warplanes, sometimes nuclear bombers (supposedly unarmed) deliberately flying into the countries' airspace in order to provoke a response. Threats of invasion have been made in the Russian Duma long before Ukraine happened to other countries, often credible threats.
The response of Germany, France was always to do nothing but talk with Russia, admirable approach but shows they don't understand Russia or have other priorities. Talking with the likes of Putin is cheap and in Russian culture if you want dialogue then you're just a weakling waiting to be beat up.
The "monsters"
@terr is talking about are very real and the only thing keeping it under control right now is NATO and its key countries. It's of course easy to sit in Switzerland and talk about neutrality since you're far from the actual crisis.