Interesting opinion on Trump and Putins current claim that they had no choice but to go to war with Ukraine. It eas out fault because of NATO.
I say “current” because Putins excuse is always changing.
This is from a Ukrainian:
“Interestingly, NATO has been 130 km away from Saint Petersburg for over 20 years, and it has been totally okay all those years.
The half of the Black Sea coastline has been under NATO for decades, and it was totally fine. Russia's Kaliningrad has been surrounded by NATO countries for over 20 years.
Sweden and Finland (with over 1,000-km common border with Russia) join NATO, and Putin couldn't care less - no threat at all, in his words.
But when it's Ukraine, which NATO refused to accept for like 20 years and doesn't want now, it is a "grave existential threat" to the world's biggest nuclear power, because of which it had to unleash the deadliest European bloodbath since WWII involving the North Korean military.
Believe it or not, but it feels like it was never about NATO for Russia.”