I don't believe this conflict is on ideological grounds ' democracy vs autocracy ' this current Ukrainian government was doing jailing of opposition, bans and whatnot too.
It's a power status and security issue. Simply put when USSR fell Eastern European states went with West, Central Asian states stayed with Russia. Ukraine was caught in the middle.
Now both NATO and Russia are ok as long it's their advancement towards the other, but big no if it's the other way around and Ukraine is the most substantial of those advancement.