(the difference being that Western Sahara was not properly recognised internationally, and that Israel occupied part of Syria after winning a defensive war - both still bad, but they don't come close to an aggressive annexation of a densely populated and internationally recognised foreign territory)

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The only other countries that have annexed another country's territory since WW2 are Morocco with Western Sahara and Israel with Golan Heights, and both scenarios are still different from what Russia has (repeatedly) done. Amazing how this is treated as a small deal and a non-factor.

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I would consider myself moderately well-informed about history, but a lot of the history of ie the Russian Emprie was from reading books in my 20s. I sort of abstractly knew about the Empire and the history of the Soviet Union, but all the gory details were not known to me and I think many the same

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I do think there is a genuine ignorance regarding the history of Russian imperialism among Brits though. Especially because it was a form of imperialism that was pretty different in how it was carried out compared to ie British/Spanish/French

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If you extend into the 1900s I'm not sure this is true tbh. Not saying we didn't do horrors but the death tolls from the Russian Empire and Soviets are astonishingly high

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