Judging by the destruction of US puppet Georgia last summer, it seems to me that it is Russia that is not afraid.
War is merely politics carried out by other means. The Chekist Putin can't remove America's ally through politics so he attempted to do so by force. He failed to achieve his objective and so the whole invasion was therefore a failure.
If you think that Russia's action prove their bravery, then you have severely misjudged them. Russia's action are all due to their paranoid fear of encirclement, their schizophrenic delusions that everyone is out to get them.