In fact after the NATO summit of 2008 where Bush said Ukraine should be a NATO member, Putin who was at that NATO summit said he didn’t want that (same for Georgia).
After that NATO didn’t push membership further and Putin attacked and claimed parts of Georgia anyway.
About a month after Putin said he had no plan to attack Ukraine he took Crimea.
I know people from both Ukraine and Georgia and they always tell me that Russia has been an agressive neighbor forever and they really don’t want to be Russians.
I’m not saying the west it perfect and we definitely did things wrong. But the invasion of Ukraine is 100% Putin, he did this, there was no war, nobody was threatening Russia. In fact the EU was slowly getting a better economic relationship with Russia.
But in the end all of this doesn’t matter, it’s not about NATO, or the west. If you listen to what Putin is actually saying, he thinks Ukraine and Georgia both are not counties. In his view they have always been part of Russia, so he would have invaded them at some point anyway.
Was Ukraine actually added to NATO? No
Do Ukrainians want to be Russians? No
In fact after the NATO summit of 2008 where Bush said Ukraine should be a NATO member, Putin who was at that NATO summit said he didn’t want that (same for Georgia).
After that NATO didn’t push membership further and Putin attacked and claimed parts of Georgia anyway.
About a month after Putin said he had no plan to attack Ukraine he took Crimea.
I know people from both Ukraine and Georgia and they always tell me that Russia has been an agressive neighbor forever and they really don’t want to be Russians.
I’m not saying the west it perfect and we definitely did things wrong. But the invasion of Ukraine is 100% Putin, he did this, there was no war, nobody was threatening Russia. In fact the EU was slowly getting a better economic relationship with Russia.
But in the end all of this doesn’t matter, it’s not about NATO, or the west. If you listen to what Putin is actually saying, he thinks Ukraine and Georgia both are not counties. In his view they have always been part of Russia, so he would have invaded them at some point anyway.