Russia has not been trying to conquer the world, reform the Soviet Union or any other ridiculous BS the neocons habitually accuse it of. It has intervened in Georgia and Ukraine when the governments of each were stomping on their Russian minorities. Other than that, it is not Russia which has gone all over the world getting involved in constant wars. Its the US that has done that at the behest of the Deep State.
Russia was promised NATO would not expand eastward when they let the wall fall and allowed East Germany to reunite with West Germany. Then NATO expanded and gobbled up much of the old Warsaw pact. Then NATO expanded again and even included former parts of the Soviet Union. NATO's air defense systems and others moved eastward with expansion. Who was all of that aimed at? Russia of course.
Russia said over and over again starting around 2005 or so that it could live with the two waves of NATO expansion but Ukraine was a red line. It would not tolerate NATO expansion into Ukraine. Did that stop the West from pushing to get Ukraine into NATO? Not one bit.
Why? Why is it SO important that Ukraine be in NATO? Why is it "necessary" for America's national defense that a country half a world away be included? Why did anybody think it wise to do away with the buffer zone between Russia and NATO? If you take a step back and look, you can see that it is not Russia that has been the aggressor over the last 30 years. Its America/NATO that has done that. I await the inevitable childish namecalling eg "Tool of Putin!!!" etc for pointing out these facts.
I call this BS! Putin is trying to reestablish the old Russian Empire. He has repeatedly said that he does not view Ukraine as a real country, that it is properly a part of Russia. Nor did the present war in Ukraine start because of some mythic oppression of the Russian minority. Its roots are in Putin's attempt to block the EU/Ukraine economic agreement. Putin saw Ukraine acting as a sovereign nation and moving away from Russian domination. This he could not accept.
Russia said over and over again starting around 2005 or so that it could live with the two waves of NATO expansion but Ukraine was a red line. It would not tolerate NATO expansion into Ukraine. Did that stop the West from pushing to get Ukraine into NATO? Not one bit.
The West was not pushing Ukraine to enter NATO. If anything, they were temporizing and putting it off. It was Ukraine that was pushing for it.
Why is it SO important that Ukraine be in NATO?
Because Ukraine was seeking NATO protection from further Russian aggression. Russia had already seized three provinces and was a continual threat. Russia is no innocent victim here. If this is, as some falsely claim, all about NATO expansion, let Russia offer to withdrawal from Ukraine in return for Ukrainian neutrality. But we both know that will never happen.
“Russia has not been trying to conquer the world, reform the Soviet Union or any other ridiculous BS”
No, Putin just wanted and wants to resurect the former Russian empire, which he believes the Soviet Union comprised, took over and expanded, and that event, the end of the Soviet Union Putin has decried many times as a “tragedy” FOR RUSSIA (to hell with the states forcibly pulled into the imperial Russia or the Soviet Union or its forced web (Warsaw Pact) after WWII.
“Russia was promised NATO would not expand eastward when they let the wall fall and allowed East Germany to reunite with West Germany. “
That is a false meme generated from Putin. Baker and Gorby were not discussing NATO in general for all the future. They were discussing NATO in West Germany not moving into East Germnay when Germany redunited. Doing so would have been NATO on the border of Poland wich was still nominally a Soviet bloc State. Gorby has personally admitted as much.
The discussion was never about what former Soviet states or former Warsaw Pact states could or could not do by their own choices down the road.
“Russia said over and over again starting around 2005 or so that it could live with the two waves of NATO expansion but Ukraine was a red line. “
Putin was trying to claim Ukraine was not free, it MUST be a stooge of Putin. Nonsense. He had no authority over Ukraine.
Putin was the first to act B4 that when, in 2004, Yushchenko was poisoned in a failed Kremlin attempt at assassining Ukraine’s leader. That failed and so Putin issued his “red line” statement, because he failed at killing the leader of Ukraine in an attempt for his subversives in Ukraine to get a government that would let itself be Putin’s stooge. Posion and assassinaion tactics are what the “Christian” Putin has used repeatedly with his domestic political opponents.
“If you take a step back and look, you can see that it is not Russia that has been the aggressor over the last 30 years.”
You are “looking back” with only one half of the facts, ignoring many acts and actions of Putin, unprovoked, that contributed to more European countries seeking NATO membership.