Part of the reason Russia’s intentions are not well understood, in my opinion, is that after Russia composed a detailed report documenting their concerns and requesting a UN investigation, the UN refused to address it, claiming the concerns in the report were ‘baseless’ and not worth investigating. I did find a related report, a civilian summary, but not the original report. Of course, no MSM will touch it.
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Clandestine wrote about that iirc - I remember the Russian ambassador or representative (?) to the UN asked to present the above evidence at a meeting of the Security Council. The US vetoed it. Any member of that council can veto and that’s it.
Russia has been rightly concerned about the goings on underground in Ukraine. Everything from smuggling to bioweapons creation. They don’t want any of that coming their way.