Why else do you think Ukraine sent troops to Afghanistan? It was part of proving it "deserved" NATO membership. So the whole issue of Ukraine potentially becoming a member has been on the table -- publicly -- for well over a decade. This was nothing new.
But despite NATO rejecting Russian's position that those countries should never be admitted, Ukrainian admission to NATO wasn't even close to happening. There was a lot of opposition within NATO, Ukraine still had failed to meet a bunch of benchmarks/conditions set by NATO, and there wasn't any vote anywhere on the horizon. There is no credible claim that Ukraine joining NATO was imminent.
So then why did Putin choose now to attack, when NATO's position was the exact same as it had been for decades? It's because Putin was getting old, wasn't in great health, and thought that his chance to reconstitute the former Soviet Union was slipping away. He attacked not because the Russia itself was threatened, but because of his imperial ambitions of conquest. That's it.
Don’t forget another obvious salient. Russia invaded twice when there were weak-kneed presidents at POTUS, and did nothing while Trump was there. Putin can smell cowardice and acts accordingly.
It’s a well reasoned argument, but I don’t think it will sway anyone. They support Russia simply because Biden supports Ukraine, and they foolishly think, since Biden is their enemy, anything he supports must be wrong. They’re the type of people who, if they opposed FDR, would probably support the Nazis just because FDR condemned them.
What are you talking about? They took Crimea in 2014 and South Ossetia in 2008.
I was very clear that I am not claiming that Russia had the right to invade.
My claim is that the globalists knew exactly what would happen.
As for why Putin decided to invade now....
Since the western-backed coup in Ukraine, there have been numerous actions that could be perceived as moving Ukraine closer to de facto membership. In just the last three years alone, the Ukrainian constitution was changed to codify the aspiration for NATO membership rather than neutrality, over $1 billion worth of weapons were poured into Ukraine since spring of 2021, the U.S. and other countries trained the Ukrainian military to work directly with NATO, more US/UK/NATO exercises were held in the region and US warships increased their time spent in the Black Sea by 150% between 2020 and 2021. There was also concern that missile systems similar to those stationed in Romania and Poland – that are believed by the Russian government to have offensive capability with a change in software – could be installed in Ukraine.
While it may be true that the country was not going to be officially admitted into NATO any time soon, it wasn’t exactly insane from Russia’s perspective to think that de facto NATO membership was an ever-increasing reality.
In June 2020 NATO offered Ukraine "Enhanced Opportunity Partner status". According to the British government report "Military assistance to Ukraine 2014-2021," "this status provides Ukraine with preferential access to NATO’s exercises, training and exchange of information and situational awareness, in order to increase interoperability. In September 2020 Ukraine hosted Exercise Joint Endeavor, with British, US and Canadian troops," which was "the first exercise conducted under Ukraine’s new enhanced status."
A number of other major exercises have been organized since and others, involving tens of thousands of troops, were planned for 2022.
As reported by the Associated Press on November 30, 2021, Putin told the audience at an online investment forum that he was worried about this very thing:
Speaking to participants of an online investment forum the Russian president said that NATO’s eastward expansion has threatened Moscow’s core security interests. He expressed concern that NATO could eventually use the Ukrainian territory to deploy missiles capable of reaching Russia’s command centers in just five minutes.
"The emergence of such threats represents a ‘red line’ for us," Putin said. "I hope that common sense and responsibility for their own countries and the global community will eventually prevail."
Putin expressed similar concerns a month later in a speech to his military leaders:
Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises. The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads….
In fact, Putin tried to explain, in a visibly frustrated tone, to a group of Western journalists during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in 2016 that US/NATO was engaging in provocative behaviors that threatened Russia’s security and that he would eventually be forced to act:
"I must remind you, though you already know this, that major global conflicts have been avoided in the past few decades due to the geostrategic balance of power, which used to exist. So the Iranian threat does not exist. But missile defense systems are continuing to be built. That means we were right when we said they are lying to us. I don’t know how this is all going to end. What I do know is that we will need to defend ourselves. And I even know how they will package this: "Russian aggression" again. But this is simply our response to your actions. Is it not obvious that I must guarantee the safety of our people? And not only that, but we must attempt to retain the necessary strategic balance of power, which is the point that I began with…It was precisely this balance of power that guaranteed the safety of humanity from major global conflict over the past 70 years. It was a blessing rooted in a mutual threat, but this mutual threat is what guaranteed mutual peace, on a global scale. How they could so easily tear it down, I simply don’t know. I think this is gravely dangerous. I not only think that, I’m assured of it.
He said he wouldn't stand by.
The CIA director knew he wouldn't stand by.
The entire western world knew he wouldn't stand by.
Yet we continued to push until he invaded.