Tsar Nicholas starts an imperial war of aggression with Japan to obtain a warm-water port, while the Japanese Navy (supplied with last-generation ships from the British Navy) surprises the world and proves to be able to fight the Russians on the world stage.
Turns out that those old British ships were still pretty good, and the Japanese have learned how to use Western guns and tactics by the early 1900s (despite being a Samurai/Sword society just 40 years prior).
Even on paper the match between Japan and Russia was much more evenly matched. Japan was balls deep in their whole "speed run European history" phase at that time. Russia didn't care about the territory in question nearly as much and it was more of a "fisticuffs between two people who already are predisposed to fight each other" war.
Ukraine isn't that big and isn't developing like that right now and the Russian motivation is very different.
Japan started the war with a surprise attack, but Russia intended to go to war with Japan and everyone knew it. Japan just figured that, as the smaller country, it ought to try to seize what advantages it could
Hmmm. Politics of the 1800s are weird. Both sides were imperialists, expanding their domains far beyond their historical norms.
Russia expanded eastward. Japan expanded westward.
You're right that Japan ultimately was the one who started the attack though. But I'm also looking at Russia's expansion to seek a warm-water port on the Pacific Ocean and connect it up with the Tran-Siberian railway.
Russia definitely was encroaching upon the East. But Japan also was encroaching upon the West, with the 1890s Sino-Japanese War. Soooooo... both are kind of imperialistic assholes on this event, now that I think of it.
Tsar Nicholas starts an imperial war of aggression with Japan to obtain a warm-water port, while the Japanese Navy (supplied with last-generation ships from the British Navy) surprises the world and proves to be able to fight the Russians on the world stage.
Turns out that those old British ships were still pretty good, and the Japanese have learned how to use Western guns and tactics by the early 1900s (despite being a Samurai/Sword society just 40 years prior).