[hardspunned]

Precisely. The number of dead Russians due exclusively to US supplied weaponry, tens of thousands and counting rapidly. There is NO comparison between Russian involvement in Afghanistan and NATO’s in Ukraine. I believe you also mentioned Viet Nam. We sent 2 1/2 million men 10,000 miles, got 56,000 killed, responsible for the deaths of a million innocent locals and ravaged three countries for 13 years to prevent the first domino from falling. The Russians can’t react when the largest offensive military machine the world has ever seen is parked on their border, preaching Moscow regime change, a days tank ride from Moscow. You are surprised when the Russians make a move to prevent the VERY LAST domino from falling. That type short sightedness has brought us to the brink of a nuclear war.

[pierrem15]

Russian fears of NATO would be justified if and only if NATO had kept its full complement of troops in the 2000s and moved them to the new members in the east. In fact, the opposite happened: no troops were permanently stationed in any of the new NATO members and NATO militaries were downsized enormously. The Bundeswehr was effectively reduced to a border guard service and the US removed its last armored units from Germany.

It was precisely this weakness that induced Putin to attack in 2014 and again in 2022. Luckily for us Putin was deluded about Russia's military capabilities.