NATO exists to prevent Russia from doing exactly what it did. Ukraine didn't join NATO soon enough. Don't believe Putin's talking points about NATO building up having anything to do with this war. He was talking about removing fascists from Ukraine too. He will use whatever justification he wants to invade and conquer. He's ex-Soviet, a dying breed.
He always lamented it's dissolution and thinks Ukraine is still Russian and not a sovereign nation.
Ukraine has the oil, fertile land and access to the Black Sea that Putin desperately wants. He figured with Biden in office it was the perfect time to take as much as he could. He did it in 2014 and no one opposed him. Give a man like that a taste of what he can get away with and he's guaranteed to do it again. We saw that in the 1930s. Neville Chamberlain proclaimed about peace in our time but giving someone like Hitler or Putin what they want without opposition, or in the name of peace, only justifies their pursuits.
Promises are worth jack squat on the geopolitical stage when someone like Putin is in charge of Russia.
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