In 1991, the Soviet Union lost the Cold War, as it could no longer compete either in the economic, political, or military spheres. The Lenin-Stalin empire simply imploded, collapsing under its own weight, ripped asunder by the very contradictions Marxist ideologues claimed would be the West’s ultimate undoing. The West prevailed and was thus positioned to shape the post-Cold War order in ways that favored its interests and priorities.
There is nothing untoward, immoral, or “treacherous” in this simple statement of fact. Had the reverse happened, the Russians would have claimed the right to do the same, i.e., shape the post-Cold War order according to their interests and priorities. Of course, one key difference in 1999 and beyond compared to such a putative Soviet victory scenario was that NATO enlargement (not “expansion” as Moscow prefers to call it) reflected the wishes and desires of the nations finally liberated from under the Soviet yoke.
Simply put, what happened after the Cold War was not a devious US plot to betray Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his successors but a simple consequence of the Soviet Union’s defeat. And the logic of this was perfectly understood by Yeltsin and Putin, notwithstanding the fact that the latter would subsequently bemoan the disintegration of the Soviet empire as the “greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century.” Post-1991, the United States exercised its victor’s prerogative, together with its democratic allies, to structure the post-Soviet space in Central Europe and the Baltics in a way that stabilized the region and served the United States’ interests and those of its European allies.
Entire article here-
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-real-reason-russia-invaded-ukraine-hint-its-not-nato-expansion/I really don't see how you're trying to connect the collapse of the USSR to NATO expansion today.
The soviets collapsing under their internal pressures and structural failing 35 years ago doesn't somehow justify the west in present day trying to forcibly expand into the sphere of influence that Russia retained post-collapse.
The Russians aren't irredentists trying to reclaim the satellite states they ceded after their empire's fall. They are trying to defend an ethnic Russian fringe that exists in border areas that were still in their control up until recent, violent western encroachment.
This is the difference between someone shooting an intruder breaking into their home, and someone shooting a guy because their grandfathers had a quarrel several decades ago.
And that's also why the non-Russian former soviet states aren't being threatened. Russia
might be saber rattling when it comes to defending the enclaves and frozen conflict territories like Transistria, but they aren't trying to retake Moldova or Estonia or Lithuania let alone try to conquer Poland and advance on Germany again. This isn't a hard difference to understand. We invaded Russia's ally and overthrew their government, whether we did it covertly or just coopted the existing revolution, we were definitely the aggressors who upset the status quo and tried to seize their buffer state by force, and we did it with a Nazi vanguard. The ethnic Russians who
want to be part of Russia, who lived in the east of ukraine and used to hold democratic control over the west- we aren't trying to liberate them. At best we're trying to enslave them, at worse we're trying to kill them all. Because what else could they be in that hypothetical scenario where Russia relinquishes the east, it gets folded back into Ukraine, and can't exist as a democracy because they'd win every vote, so all they could be is an occupied slave state for the west to exploit?