and they're happy to be annexed by Russia.

Sorta like if a lot of our southwest suddenly got tired of Republicans treating them like crap and decided they wanted to reunite with Mexico, and take all the land with them.

That at least explains why what's going on is going on.

When the government was handed over to Republicans by the Republican SCOTUS?

Our 'leaders' are more slick than those in Ukraine. They do their subversion of the will of the people via gerrymandering and disenfranchisement most of the time.

Or are we reliving some work of fiction for the umpteen millionth time?

The problem in this are some assumptions that are made. The assumptions are just plain wrong, and there are good data that show those are wrong. If you only see some of the data, the data you like, you've already decided on your answer.

This is considered best practice in education, and it's okay in some social sciences. It's wonderful in politics and in discussing over shots of vodka the true causes of colony collapse disorder, autism, the details of GMO arugula, Area 51, and other such burning issues of the day. The more narrow the blinders, the more excellent the analysis. But in things that are usually considered science, this is considered horrible research and, well, delusional fantasy.

One can utter only truth and yet speak only lies. But for that, you need to know what's left out.

Far more often people utter truth and yet speak only falsehoods--the difference being that they don't know that their intended inferences are in error.