> so they're preventing Ukraine joining NATO.

It already was the case since 2014, NATO wouldn't accept a country which isn't at peace because they'd be forced to intervene and that would mean a war between Russia and NATO, Russia didn't need further intervention for that

So what about prior to 2014? NATO first pitched the idea in 1997, but hadn't actually given Ukraine any guarantees... It feels a lot like the west has been using Ukraine to poke at Russia versus simply integrating Ukraine.

Ukraine didn't want to join NATO until 2014.

Ah yes, when the EU forced Ukraine to choose between Europe and Russia for economic cooperation (Yanukovych wanted both, FYI) which led to protests that put a literal CIA asset (Poroshenko was, it's not a secret) into power...

Ukraine got played by the West... Even Zelenskiy realised it... Where did any of this lead? The West didn't give any actual guarantees but kept forcing Ukraine to choose between the two...

The West is determined to fight to the last Ukrainian!

I thought this part of Putin's address on the 21st was surprising and interesting if true

> "Moreover, I will say something I have never said publicly, I will say it now for the first time. When then outgoing US President Bill Clinton visited Moscow in 2000, I asked him how America would feel about admitting Russia to NATO.

> I will not reveal all the details of that conversation, but the reaction to my question was, let us say, quite restrained, and the Americans’ true attitude to that possibility can actually be seen from their subsequent steps with regard to our country. I am referring to the overt support for terrorists in the North Caucasus, the disregard for our security demands and concerns, NATO’s continued expansion, withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and so on. It raises the question: why? What is all this about, what is the purpose? All right, you do not want to see us as friends or allies, but why make us an enemy?"

https://web.archive.org/web/20220224100924/http://en.kremlin...

It is true. Anyone who followed Russian politics from the mid-late 90's to ~2004 remembers Russia trying to "join" the west. Geroge Bush famously talked about looking into Putin's eyes...

But the west was more concerned with encircling them and "winning" the Cold War than actually having good relations...

Being of Ukrainian descent and interested in where I come from, I've followed the politics there (Russia and Ukraine) since the late 90's... I remember when Putin and Bush cooperated after 9/11 too. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/09/08/t...

Getting to where we are today was a long road where the US chose to antagonize Russia many times...

Don't you need to be a democracy to really integrate with the west and they are scored squarely as authoritarian in the democracy index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

Considering that Putin came to power in Russia's first (and possibly only) democratic election, I'd say a lot hinged on his view of how the West would treat them. Sentiment at the time was that he enjoyed an unfair media and power advantage due to his former position within the government as Prime Minister and then acting President but it was still a remarkably open election for a formerly autocratic state. From reading his rationalization of his actions in Ukraine, it seems to me that he is motivated by his perception of the US and NATO as an ever encroaching threat to Russia. He likely believes he is effectively a war time president and sees it as his duty to remain in office until he has secured his country against her enemies.

These are the sections of the address that back up this view:

"they are trying to convince us over and over again that NATO is a peace-loving and purely defensive alliance that poses no threat to Russia. Again, they want us to take their word for it. But we are well aware of the real value of these words. In 1990, when German unification was discussed, the United States promised the Soviet leadership that NATO jurisdiction or military presence will not expand one inch to the east and that the unification of Germany will not lead to the spread of NATO's military organisation to the east. This is a quote."

The quote referenced is by U.S. Secretary of State James Baker speaking to Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...

"There can be only one answer – this is not about our political regime or anything like that. They just do not need a big and independent country like Russia around."

"its military infrastructure has reached Russia’s borders."

"positioning areas for interceptor missiles are being established in Romania and Poland as part of the US project to create a global missile defence system. It is common knowledge that the launchers deployed there can be used for Tomahawk cruise missiles – offensive strike systems."

He is referring to the Aegis system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Ballistic_Missile_Defens... He is correct that Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles can be part of that system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Combat_System

"It is like a knife to the throat."

No one can know if history would have played out differently after that meeting in 2000 if he had been assured that Russia could join NATO if it worked towards meeting the requirements. We also cannot know his true motivations, perhaps all of this talk of the West as a threat to Russia is simply a ploy to justify their actions. His statements are consistent with reality though and so this could actually be the way he feels about the relationship between Russia and NATO. If that is true, then his actions in Ukraine would be motivated by a now or never viewpoint. If he does nothing and Ukraine eventually joins NATO, they will have two fronts placed very close to Moscow and Belarus will be held in a pincer rendering it next to useless. His gambit seems to be to secure the breakaway republics as a buffer and perhaps extend them to the Dnieper or even further creating a more advantageous position when Crimea, Moldova, and Belarus are considered.