It was the people of Ukraine who overthrew him because he broke his election promise and moved to make Ukraine a vassal of Russia. That is absolutely the last thing the people of Ukraine want, so they had no choice but to overthrow him. I don't think the US had anything to do with it.

The only reason NATO says that some day Ukraine can become a member, is because Ukraine keeps asking about it. Constantly. They desperately want to join NATO, and while they don't and didn't meet NATO's criteria, it's not impossible that some day they will, and then they can join.

And considering the consequences of not being in NATO, I think it's clear that Ukraine is absolutely justified in wanting to join NATO. Things would look very different if they had indeed joined in 2008.

you seem to be pretty keen to excuse anything nato does. i think nato purpousefully did a series of things to piss russia off and ukranian people are suffering as a result, being stuck between two imperialism. also are you aware that in 2008 the vast majority of ukranian population opposed joining nato. had ukraine joined then the war would have really been over in three days, i think

I'm not excusing NATO, I'm just explaining what happened. Putin fanboys love to pretend that NATO is aggressively expansionist, but it's not. Most of eastern Europe begged to join NATO, to the point that Poland practically blackmailed Clinton into letting them join (which Clinton originally wasn't a fan of).

NATO extended its mutual defense to these countries. The only reason why that should piss off Russia is if Russia had plans to conquer those countries. Turns out they do. But that's not NATO's fault. Don't try to shift the blame to NATO here; this war is entirely, for the full 100%, Putin's fault.

you obvioisly drank the nato coolaid but please tell me whats wrong with my understanding. here goes

1990. nato makes the not one inch eastward promise

1999. nato bombs russia ally yugoslavia and takes over its southern teritory

1999. nato expands into poland and several other ex warsaw countries

2004. nato expands into ex-ussr, taking baltic states as members

2008. april. nato said it will take in georgia and ukraine

2008. may. us and majorotynof nato countries recognize the unilateral declaration of kosovo, in complete diregard of previous un agreements

2008. august. georgia tries to retake control over autonomous ethnic-minority regions. russia stops this. georgia looses any chance of becoming part of nato

2010. ukraine government abandons plans to join nato

2014. people from west ukraine are driven by busses into kiev to overthrow an elected government. us publically supports the coup. elected president flees to russia. the goverent is overthrown. east ukraine opposes the overthrow and begins to rebel against the new government.

2014. crimea seceeds from ukraine becoming part of russia

2014. civil war accross eastern ukraine, centering around donbas

2014. minsk agreements signed

2016-2019 nato suffers from being perceived as irrelevant.

2018. nato requests substantial funding to improve its information campaign. huge effort to rewrite the history of 'not an inch eastward' promise

2022. january. ukranian government publically states it has no intension of fulfilling minsk agreements

2022. february. russia invades ukraine

> 1990. nato makes the not one inch eastward promise

Never happened. In fact, Russia and NATO have explicitly in writing (1997 treaty) that they respect the right of third parties to seek security as they see fit. Nor did Russia ever bring it up until Putin needed a justification for invading Georgia.

Even any notion of such talks is absurd, given that you place it a year before the USSR collapsed. Collapse of the USSR and parts of it applying for NATO (and eventually becoming members) was inconceivable at the time. As participants have recollected, the context of talks at the time was German reunification and stationing NATO forces in Eastern Germany. Nobody could imagine that the USSR itself would soon cease to exist.

This directly ties to another point:

> 2004. nato expands into ex-ussr, taking baltic states as members

(1) NATO didn't "expand", but those countries were hell-bent on seeking security to protect themselves from getting occupied ever again through cooperation in international organizations. That was set as a foreign policy goal in 1993.

(2) How did Putin react to that in 2004 when he met Schröder days after the Baltics became full members of NATO? He said that it's fine, never brought up any alleged promises. http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/30678

cool story bro. russia bad nato good. if nato do something bad it is for good reason or it didnt happen or russia was behind it

some people just cant shake totalitarian frame of mind

Yup, pretty hard to come up with a meaningful reply when Daddy Putin said at the time that it was fine. Even hardcore Russian nationalists have grown tired of Putin's constant whining how the whole world has now wronged him: https://youtu.be/DRE8f5JzDAE

apparently unlike you, i dont pay much attention to what putin says. all you said in your last post is that something which clearly happened didnt in order to more nicely fit with your world view. hard to argue with that so i will leave it at that. an internet discussion is highly unlikely to change the course of events. my reason for posting is just to show that there exist people who think differently. but i guess to people like you i must be a paid foreign agent. uncle joe taught you well

Well, even your main propagandists had a healthy frame of mind some years ago:

https://twitter.com/Biz_Ukraine_Mag/status/15801244656647905...

It's not that Russia was always bad - there was a period when people really hope we could all live together in peace, Scorpions even recorded a song about it.

> 1999. nato expands into poland and several other ex warsaw countries

And the people in these countries (almost half of Europe!) still celebrate this day, just like the day they managed to liberate themselves from Russians. No wonder it makes Putin mad.

i think most people accross eastern europe have bigger problems than nato celebrations or russia hating. like for example, making ends meet. i wonder how many people in eastern europe would have a home today had it not been for the socialist period

This makes no sense, the opposite happened: in 2008 NATO refused to take Ukraine in. And a certain lady seems still proud of it.[0]

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220404-merkel-defend...