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Nato eastward expansion is by definition encroachment. Please don’t play leftist word games.

Then why are you? If my neighbor ten houses down buys two houses next to him, he's not encroaching on me. If he buys every house between us, he's still not. If he starts trying to move the fence into my yard, now he's encroaching.

Ukraine is a sovereign nation, and Russia lost any kind of ownership when Ukraine declared independence from the USSR. Anything that happens solely in Ukraining territory is, by definition, not encroaching on Russia territory. Sure, it encroaches on Russia's desired sphere of influence, but Russia has no right to determine that for another sovereign country outside of military force and lack of international action.

And historically, Ukraine was its own republic under the USSR, it wasn't part of the actual Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Crimea was an autonomous republic under Russia proper, but Ukraine was not.