Countries scared of Russian aggression have been clamoring to join. Russia invaded Georgia and Ukraine twice. They managed to get Sweden and Finland to join up thereby expanding their border with NATO by 1340km.
Truth is Russia could have decided to be Norway if they would have just peacefully stayed in their borders and sold gas/oil to the EU. But instead they decided they would rather be North Korea.
In a decade they will likely be just another client state of China. It is truly sad.
Between 55-80 percent of the people in these regions identify as Ukrainian, according to the most recent census.
They may also speak Russian (to some degree), but that doesn't mean they consider themselves to be ethnically "Russian", or are desperate to be reunited with the Motherland.
It just means that Ukraine is a bilingual country.
You may want to take a serious look at what sources you are pulling such obviously misleading figures from.
And in particular: at who is presenting these misleading narratives to you, and why.
Ukraine begged to join NATO because they saw this coming a mile off.
They’re still begging.
Asking to join the neighbourhood security watch is offensive only to burglars.
PS: If your argument over NATO membership is a valid one, then why is Russia not equally upset about Sweden and Finland joining NATO? Why not invade those sovereign nations on their border as well to prevent their membership? Is it because they don't particularly care about NATO unless it gets in the way of a planned invasion? Could that be it?
I'll close with a quote from former CIA director Bill Burns, who tried to talk the Bush administration out of pushing for NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia (this is from 2008):
"Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests. At this stage, a MAP [Membership Action Plan] offer would be seen not as a technical step along a long road toward membership, but as throwing down the strategic gauntlet. Russia will respond. Russian-Ukrainian relations will go into a deep freeze…. It will create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine."
Burns has changed his mind since 2008 and now advocates for greater military support for Ukraine.
The fact that Burns is hawkish on Ukraine after Putin invaded does not imply that he's changed his mind about what could/should have been done to prevent it.
Ukraine didn't have even that. Prior to the Russia invasion of Ukraine, there were no permanently stationed foreign troops at all east of where they had stood in Europe during the Cold War. Most Cold War era military installations in Western Europe were shut down in the 1990s and no new ones were built anywhere. It's a completely made up grievance.
> The fact that Burns is hawkish on Ukraine after Putin invaded does not imply that he's changed his mind about what could/should have been done to prevent it.
He has completely abandoned the line of thought from 2008 that centers on tiptoeing around Russia. NATO acted as he advised and didn't offer membership to Ukraine, yet this didn't prevent the war. He now accuses Russians of lying about their intentions, warns of ambitions beyond Ukraine, and says that he underestimated Putin's fixation on Ukraine. Nowhere have I seen any mention of NATO or Ukraine being at fault as suggested by those who bring up that old quote.
Russia is only afraid of NATO because they know it will stop them from taking the territory that they want. And it's pretty clear that they're trying to restore the Soviet Union, so they want quite a bit of territory.
"Panama wants to make ties with China"
Let's see... the US is preparing for the invasion next -- checks notes -- oh never. They're not planning to invade at all. Huh. Interesting. Interesting...
Similarly, China has been "courting" Pacific islands that were previously in the "sphere of influence" of Australia. It's been in the news a lot recently over here.
Instead of immediately ramping up military recruitment for an imminent invasion, our government instead sheepishly admitted that it's a bit shameful how we haven't been paying much attention and should be nicer to our neighbours so that they'll ally with us instead.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/resetting-aust...
Love instead of tanks.
Who would have thought such a crazy notion could work!?
You understand that in fact the MAPs to Ukraine and Georgia were never issued -- and hence, that this "strategic gauntlet" (which according you is what really started the war) was never "thrown" -- right?
So again, why did Russia not invade Finland to stop Finnish membership in NATO?
Russia claims this is their casus belli for their invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and tankies accept this at face value.
They also claim that Ukraine deserved to be invaded because they were mis-treating ethnic Russians. Okay, but Ukraine's treatment of ethnic Hungarians near the Hungarian border was virtually identical. So... does Hungary have casus belli to invade Ukraine?
Or if Putin takes all of Ukraine as per his stated goal of "returning" Ukrainian land to Russia "where it belongs", does he also plan on returning the currently Ukranian land back to Hungary that it lost? If not, why not?
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-adm...