TL;DR: Russia was apparently made promises, now they are slowly surrounded by NATO and the UN has stopped being relevant reducing Russias ability to project its concerns.
> Since the era of German reunification, Moscow had been repeatedly assured that there would be no enlargement of Nato beyond a united Germany. Then in 1999, the alliance brought in the former Soviet countries of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Five years later came the ‘big bang’ enlargement, encompassing another seven former communist countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia). In February 2007, Putin condemned the dangers of establishing a ‘unipolar world’ and listed a range of strategic and security concerns, including the marginalisation of the UN, the installation of ballistic missile defences in Eastern Europe — and above all Nato enlargement. He stressed that Russia ‘with a thousand years of history’ did not need to be instructed on how to behave in international affairs. How did the West respond? With the accession of Albania and Croatia in 2009, Nato membership rose to 28. The addition of Montenegro and North Macedonian in the last five years has brought that number to 30.
Is a just and logical response is to invade ukraine? They have already annexed crimea illegally, but ukraine is vastly adament they do not want to be a part of russia. Eastern european countries including ex soviet are choosing nato and the eu over russia, why? Why should small countries not get to choose defence alliance if russia says no?
And Ukraine had been repeatedly assured that there won’t be violation of its territory and sovereignty if it gives up the nukes.
Ukraine never wanted to be in nato before russia annexed its part and started the war on the other part.
No, no he doesn’t. Not only those ‘promises’ were verbal at best, if they even existed, but before 2008 Georgia conflict and 2014/15 Crimea/Donbass/Luhansk NATO was an entity with little actual presence in Eastern Europe. Only after Putin started his saber rattling did the NATO start putting troops and serious infrastracture in place.
Also, please remember that every time he or other Russian official complains about missiles that are ‘targeting Moscow’ the issue of Russian military infrastracture in Kaliningrad is strangely ignored, despite weaponry put there being able to reach many European capitals.
Lastly, Russia broke Budapest Memorandum, an actual political agreement signed by them, so any argument Putin wants to make about breaking agreements rings hollow.
Lol, love this article, pure joy to read.
Swap Putin with Hitler, and Ukraine with Poland. For maximum enjoyment.
Of course it’s the spectator, Anti-EU, Pro-Russia colour me shocked
> But Russia is acting because its leadership feels threatened.
The whole article, like many idiotic and awful articles I’ve read recently on this issue can be summed up as follows:
Russia with the highest number of nuclear weapons, Intercontinental ballistic missiles, and militarized completely to the teeth, feel rather threatened and therefore have god given right to occupy neighboring countries to ease their fear, meanwhile neighboring countries with their small militaries, who are already occupied or were invaded at some point by Russia, have actually no right to feel threatened, because people in these countries are merely untermenschen who exist solely to be raped by Russia. Everyone in the world should first and foremost respect the worries and phobias of Russian people, for they are the only nation who possess these unique human feelings in Eastern Europe, which gives Russia complete justification to act aggressively and violently against neighboring countries.
It almost convinces you that Russia is the poor kid that was bullied out of the cool kids’ club and is now just trying to cover its back.
Until you remember literally all of Russian history.
11 comments
TL;DR: Russia was apparently made promises, now they are slowly surrounded by NATO and the UN has stopped being relevant reducing Russias ability to project its concerns.
> Since the era of German reunification, Moscow had been repeatedly assured that there would be no enlargement of Nato beyond a united Germany. Then in 1999, the alliance brought in the former Soviet countries of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Five years later came the ‘big bang’ enlargement, encompassing another seven former communist countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia). In February 2007, Putin condemned the dangers of establishing a ‘unipolar world’ and listed a range of strategic and security concerns, including the marginalisation of the UN, the installation of ballistic missile defences in Eastern Europe — and above all Nato enlargement. He stressed that Russia ‘with a thousand years of history’ did not need to be instructed on how to behave in international affairs. How did the West respond? With the accession of Albania and Croatia in 2009, Nato membership rose to 28. The addition of Montenegro and North Macedonian in the last five years has brought that number to 30.
Is a just and logical response is to invade ukraine? They have already annexed crimea illegally, but ukraine is vastly adament they do not want to be a part of russia. Eastern european countries including ex soviet are choosing nato and the eu over russia, why? Why should small countries not get to choose defence alliance if russia says no?
And Ukraine had been repeatedly assured that there won’t be violation of its territory and sovereignty if it gives up the nukes.
Ukraine never wanted to be in nato before russia annexed its part and started the war on the other part.
No, no he doesn’t. Not only those ‘promises’ were verbal at best, if they even existed, but before 2008 Georgia conflict and 2014/15 Crimea/Donbass/Luhansk NATO was an entity with little actual presence in Eastern Europe. Only after Putin started his saber rattling did the NATO start putting troops and serious infrastracture in place.
Also, please remember that every time he or other Russian official complains about missiles that are ‘targeting Moscow’ the issue of Russian military infrastracture in Kaliningrad is strangely ignored, despite weaponry put there being able to reach many European capitals.
Lastly, Russia broke Budapest Memorandum, an actual political agreement signed by them, so any argument Putin wants to make about breaking agreements rings hollow.
Lol, love this article, pure joy to read.
Swap Putin with Hitler, and Ukraine with Poland. For maximum enjoyment.
Putin has a minion in the author.
>[spectator.co.uk](https://spectator.co.uk)
To the surprise of absolutely no-one.
UK press is so low level it should get banned.
Of course it’s the spectator, Anti-EU, Pro-Russia colour me shocked
> But Russia is acting because its leadership feels threatened.
The whole article, like many idiotic and awful articles I’ve read recently on this issue can be summed up as follows:
Russia with the highest number of nuclear weapons, Intercontinental ballistic missiles, and militarized completely to the teeth, feel rather threatened and therefore have god given right to occupy neighboring countries to ease their fear, meanwhile neighboring countries with their small militaries, who are already occupied or were invaded at some point by Russia, have actually no right to feel threatened, because people in these countries are merely untermenschen who exist solely to be raped by Russia. Everyone in the world should first and foremost respect the worries and phobias of Russian people, for they are the only nation who possess these unique human feelings in Eastern Europe, which gives Russia complete justification to act aggressively and violently against neighboring countries.
It almost convinces you that Russia is the poor kid that was bullied out of the cool kids’ club and is now just trying to cover its back.
Until you remember literally all of Russian history.