The motive behind Schmidts and Schröders support of Russia’s actions may be different in normative as well as political terms (given his age the former may be forgiven to argue as if the Soviet Union was still intact as a predictable adversary embedded in a stable bipolar international order and the latter may not be forgiven for his venal opportunism).
What they have in common is the astonishing unwillingness to differentiate between (a) the quality of justifying interests of one state (or union of states) in other states and (b) the means by which these interests are pursued. A very fuzzy justification of intervention based on protecting the interests of “ethnic” Russians, Russian Speakers, Passport-Russians and “sootechesveniki” has very different implications than internationally accepted security, humanitarian or economic concerns. And intervening with unmarked gunmen backed up by a potential intervening force of some 40.000 soldiers is different from the bureaucratic procedures and political incentives set by a rather transparent EU enlargement policy. This lack of differentiation results in an astonishing contempt for both Ukrainian as well as Russian society.
And justifying Russias actions and interests with reference to the fact that the US also messed up big time while at the same time (rightfully) condemning the mess the US created in Iraq is a contradiction in terms. Soft power and international formal as well as informal rules are not an utopian naive alternative to realpolitik but rather an important aspect of successful realpolitik.
See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/opinion/sierakowski-putins-useful-idiots.html?_r=5
Addition: Looks like some leading politicians not only “understand” but also support Russias position and version of events in Ukraine; interesting but not surprising how left and right fringes of the political spectrum develop a shared apologetic narrative of authoritarian domination over zones of national interest when it comes to Russia.
Further addition on the “useful idiots right and left”:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117692/fascism-returns-ukraine