It seems to me that Russia found a reason to escalate whenever it wanted anyway.

If else, Russians see any restraint by the enemy as a sign of weakness and an excuse to escalate even more.

“You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw” ― Vladimir Ilich Lenin

It does NOT give them reason

It may give them pretext

But when they want to escalate, any convenient pretext they can fabricate will be spewed out

Appeasement ONLY encourages aggressors. They can ignore any statements and rhetoric and correctly conclude: "I did X, no real consequences, therefore I can do more X".

The ONLY language they understand is force or consequences with real cost to them. Vladimir Lenin said it very clearly:

>>"We probe with bayonets. Where we find steel we withdraw, where we find mush we press on."

When delaying reciprocal action, the cost for the next round ALWAYS increases.

Delaying response is a fools' game.

Democracies always play that fools' game because for any one politician, it is easier to kick the can down the road with bad reasoning like you posted.

But when the situation finally becomes unavoidable, it is a deep serious problem. Here we are.

So doing nothing causes escalation and reciprocal action causes escalation.

What’s the answer?

Lack of reciprocal action is called self deterrence. Or in simpler words, it's what happens when you keep doing what the bully at school asks you to do, more and more, because he could escalate, even if you are as strong as him or stronger.

So what?