Poland in particular knew exactly what would happen. And it did. They were disregarded as Russophobes with legacy baggage. Turns out they had valid reasons all along, the west just thought that they can trade around those issues, but they failed to understand that Putin does not think like a trader. He thinks like a dictator.

to clarify, "thinking like a trader" means Putin ought to tolerate continued NATO expansion, with American missiles placed on Russia's front porch, just because the west is a buyer of Russian gas?

The western politicians and the public acting surprised after ignoring all the warning signs all these years is truly amazing to watch.

Russia is literally surrounded by NATO in Kaliningrad and I’ve only seen it mentioned once somewhere on Twitter, and not by Russians. This is Russian propaganda to make westerners feel guilty and blame their politicians.

Even Russia itself is "surrounded" only because they threaten the countries around them and NATO is a defensive force to protect those adjoining countries. The only reason not to join NATO is the possible and totally inappropriate Kremlin response.

Saying "look at the map, NATO surrounds Russia" is sort of akin to looking at a map of city lights on the earth and calling it a heat map of murders. Not the greatest analogy, but hopefully gets the point across.

Interestingly, Kaliningrad is also brought up every single time in order to dismiss the argument raised in the parent comment. I wouldn't call your comment US propaganda because it's such a throw-around these days that one could automatically use it to dismiss people that don't share your view.

The crucial difference, in case is not clear, is that a missile placed in Ukraine would hit Moscow, the capital of Russia, in minutes. This is much more threatening to core Russia interests and Putin would not live with it.

Before rushing to putting all the blame on Russia just because "Putin-bad": I would strongly encourage people who are interested to know more to watch the following talks, from ages ago, given at reputable US universities because let's be honest, none of us is geopolitical historian two weeks ago on this topic so why don't we all do a bit more research.

[1] A good overview of the history, 7 years ago from a talk @ U Chicago. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4)

[2] Another one from a talk @ Yale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ

Kaliningrad has also been 'purged' of its German population. There are no Germans in Kaliningrad today.

In Crimea and in some parts of Donbas the inhabitants identify as Russian.

> The crucial difference, in case is not clear, is that a missile placed in Ukraine would hit Moscow, the capital of Russia, in minutes. This is much more threatening to core Russia interests and Putin would not live with it.

So what? So could one from Latvia or Estonia. (Not to mention Leningrad.) So you're saying that justifies him invading and subjugating those countries too, aren't you?

Somehow this Russian propaganda has been parroted by every Western expert to the left of Hitler for the last couple of decades. Putin is clearly playing the long game.

I heard many of these arguments along the lines of "NATO is responsible for the war in Ukraine because they shouldn't expand" - like prof. John Mearsheimer's famous video.

The point is, these experts may understand geopolitics, but they don't understand people. These countries don't join NATO because the USA pushes them or because "NATO wants" to expand. They do it because they're afraid of an aggressive state with a history of offensive wars. They don't want to became Putin's vassals like Belarussians who recently tried to decide about themselves and met with violent terror. So yes, in the mind of Putin it's the fault of NATO, but it is a very sick point of view.

in bulgaria there is a saying: only nato can save you from nato

you are in misunderstanding why countries join the alliance

I don't know about bulgaria, but this is absolutely, categorically not true in the Baltics and in Poland. The primary motivation is to not become a russian puppet state... again.

> These countries don't join NATO because the USA pushes them or because "NATO wants" to expand.

Of course smaller countries with less security guarantees want to join NATO! It's the most powerful military pact and once you are in you can go around punching up against much larger countries! Who wouldn't want to?

Even Russia wanted to join NATO, an idea floated after WWII when the Russians fought against the Nazis alongside the allied forces. Of course that was dismissed as a pipe-dream because the existence of NATO was to contain Russia to the east.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#...

> Of course that was dismissed as a pipe-dream because the existence of NATO was to contain Russia to the east.

Ironically, you have just confirmed what Russia believes justifies its actions in Ukraine.

not trying to "confirm" anything here... if you actually look at any of Putin's interview this is basically the only thing he kept on blabbering about... of course nobody in the west should or care to listen to the "madman" but the warning sign has been flashing all along.

AFAIK Chechnya did not aspire to NATO and still Grozny got leveled.

> Who wouldn't want to?

Nobody sane.

Perhaps if Russia's neighbours didn't feel threatened by Russia they wouldn't want to join NATO?

It's not so easily to transport gas from western russia to china though. Russia can't just build a pipeline overnight to china.