The definitions of whiteness, Christendom and Europeanism are not set in stone - for example, quite a lot of pro-Western Ukrainians think that Russians are actually Mongoloid Finno-Ugrs with a slave mentality. By applying some appropriate media coverage, any opposition to the war with Russia on the grounds of Russia being white, Christian and European can be easily dealt with. It has already happened at least twice during the past 200 years.
And this is the problem - "200 years" is a very long time. Public opinion regarding an open war with Russia in 2014 would be very different to the 1800s and 1900s and so on. The problem here if I can see it Guardian is that you have a tendency to bang on about the past as if it relates 100% directly to the future (e.g. NATO in 2014 is actually Nazi Germany in disguise) rather than looking for parallels that we can learn from e.g. how countries/states work, how colonialism works, how people control us and so on.
I should also add - do you think people in Britain in 2014 will flock to support Ukrainians in a land invasion/bombing campaign of Russia in a situation where the West is the aggressor? People over here, if they have an opinion at all, think the Ukrainian government are Nazis. They think Putin's a gangster, sure, but they're not backing any horse in this race and considering the response to Iraq in 2003 I can only imagine what kind of protests we'd see.
Being white didn't save USSR from being demonized as the spawn of hell.
Indeed it didn't, but 2014 is not 1954, nor is modern Russia red in any way.
If NATO can stop the perceived threat of Russia for good, it will do that.
And do you think starting a war with Russia, killing thousands of people in the process, would stop the perceived threat for good better than international sanctions will?
In my opinion by trying to crush the movement of the Ukrainian people towards their national self determination by intentionally embroiling them in a bloody ethnic war between Russo-Ukrainians and Ukrainians, Russia under Putin has signed its own economic death warrant. The greatest threat to Putin's grip on power was the notion of Ukraine, economically secure and successful and in the EU with vast Russian-majority districts in the country. Then Russians could look at the Russians living in a European Ukraine and their lifestyles and either move to Ukraine (it's just like Russia but because of EU freedom of movement you get to go and live in London without being an oligarch!) or ask the very good question "why can't we have that lifestyle?"