Quote (Black XistenZ @ Dec 23 2022 04:43am)
When the Orange Revolution of 2004 occurred in Ukraine, it was peaceful and didn't harm or threaten any ethnic Russians in Ukraine. But it caused Russian control and influence over the country to slip. So what was their reaction? They literally tried to assassinate Viktor Yushchenko, the presidential candidate and leader of the pro-Western side...
Russia's inaction in the face of the early phase of NATO expansion (to Poland, the Baltics and Romania) was most definitely a result of their weakness during the 90s and early 2000s, rather than a sign for their supposed benevolence and indulgence. Even during the 90s, Putin made repeated statements about how he considers the dissolution of the Soviet Union to be "the biggest political catastrophe of the 20th century". Not the second world war and the 15 million dead Russians it caused, not the cold war, not the first world war, no, the loss of key parts of Russia's empire, that is what Putin considered the biggest catastrophe. From Putin's own, public statements, we can quite clearly conclude that he was seething at the eastward expansion of NATO and the EU, but he wasn't in a position to do something about it. As soon as Russia had recovered economically and politically (as a result of the oil boom of the mid-2000s), he started fighting tooth and nail against it. (See, e.g., the Russo-Georgian war of 2008.)
How exactly is Russia encircled when 3400 kilometers of its 22400 kilometers of international land borders are with EU states?
Of course it was because they were weak, I mean they had just balkanized and collapsed. Geopolitical events and pieces on the chessboard aren't moved around by benevolence or good will, they are subject to the interests and limitations of world powers. And it was notable that in the aftermath of the fall of the USSR, the NATO expansion policy was creepingly slow- because we had little interest in them- and also peaceful and democratic. We took satellites and vassal states that were only behind the iron curtain post WW2 because they had been seized in the war, and without that military power they could join us freely. All the sphere of influence that Russia lost while they were crippled, wasn't due to us rushing in forcefully and seizing it.
Ukraine in 2014 did not follow that pattern. Russia had already reasserted itself under Putin. Ukraine was right in their back yard and their biggest buffer against NATO and of great strategic importance, which they would not part with so willingly. And we did not entice Ukraine to join NATO democratically. They rebuffed our diplomatic advances, so we overthrew their government by force and sparked a civil war. And then we laid siege to ethnic Russians who identify as legacy members of the USSR.