So here Putin says he had no choice but to attack Ukraine because NATO (a defensive treaty) was "expanding" into Ukraine. This is false. Ukraine wanted to be in NATO, but its membership request was rejected. And from the start of the war in 2014, it was never on the table - how would a country in a state of war could even dream of joining NATO (which at the time seemed a stable alliance)?
I know some Russians believe in this explanation, it seems very simple: Russia is not setting up nukes in Cuba so from the same PoV Ukraine should not host missiles hostile to Russia. Seems valid, right? The problem here is that Putin, as he admitted in his retracted victory piece[0], wanted to "solve the Ukrainian problem for the future generations" and basically make Ukraine part of his empire just as he did with Belarus. Ukrainians don't want to be his slaves so they chose to fight.
So here Putin says he had no choice but to attack Ukraine because NATO (a defensive treaty) was "expanding" into Ukraine. This is false. Ukraine wanted to be in NATO, but its membership request was rejected. And from the start of the war in 2014, it was never on the table - how would a country in a state of war could even dream of joining NATO (which at the time seemed a stable alliance)?
I know some Russians believe in this explanation, it seems very simple: Russia is not setting up nukes in Cuba so from the same PoV Ukraine should not host missiles hostile to Russia. Seems valid, right? The problem here is that Putin, as he admitted in his retracted victory piece[0], wanted to "solve the Ukrainian problem for the future generations" and basically make Ukraine part of his empire just as he did with Belarus. Ukrainians don't want to be his slaves so they chose to fight.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60562240