Russia and Ukraine

[Angrboda]

1997 and 2009 are a long way away from 2014 or 2022. Neither of the events you mentioned are good evidence for your claim. And note, both predate Kissinger and Pilgers remarks, and so are fulfillment of neither.

If NATO expansion were truly the trigger, why did Vladimir Putin wait until 2022 to invade? Why not in 2008, when Ukraine first sought membership, or in 2014, when NATO discussions resurfaced after Russia seized Crimea

The truth is that Ukraine was nowhere near joining NATO. There was no Membership Action Plan, and key NATO members had made it clear they were unwilling to admit Ukraine any time soon.

Ukraine’s NATO aspirations were not a provocation. They were a response to Russian aggression: the illegal annexation of Crimea, the Russian proxy war in Donbas, and Moscow’s long-standing efforts to control Ukraine politically, economically and culturally.

In his Feb. 21, 2022, speech justifying the war, Putin barely mentioned NATO. Instead, he fixated on Ukraine as an artificial state, an accident of history, a wayward part of the so-called “Russian world.” His argument had nothing to do with military threats or self-defense; it was an assertion of imperial entitlement. It echoed his 2021 essay, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” which outright denied Ukraine’s legitimacy as a sovereign nation.

Russia’s pre-invasion demands further expose the hollowness of the NATO excuse. Moscow didn’t just insist that Ukraine never join the alliance — it demanded NATO withdraw from Eastern Europe entirely, rolling back security guarantees for Poland, the Baltics and other frontline states. This was never just about Ukraine. It was a broader push to reassert Russian dominance over its former empire.

Russia’s pattern of aggression is the clearest refutation of the “NATO expansion” myth. Georgia, attacked in 2008, was not on the verge of NATO membership. Ukraine, invaded in 2014, had no realistic path to joining the alliance. Russia was not and is not defending itself against NATO — it is targeting neighbors seeking independence from its grip.

https://thehill.com/opinion/internationa...ovocation/