1999, 2004, -- NATO pushing east Is not a provocation from Ukraine. If China signed an alliance with Cuba, Venezuela and Guatemala would that be a provocation for the US to invade Mexico?
Also all the countries that joined have a right to their own foreign policy and to assure their security interests which were at risk from Russia. What NATO expansion has done is not present a serious threat to Russia (who no one was interested in invading and who has about 5000 nuclear weapons) but rather kept Russia from being able to push around some of its neighbors.
If we did not have so much hubris and backed Ukraine being neutral Once Ukraine was attacked in 2014, it being truly neutral was pretty much out the window (and 2022 confirmed that for generations). It could have been nominally neutral, but it already was. It was not part of NATO, its people did not want to be part of NATO until it was attacked in 2014, and at that point since it was in the middle of a conflict with foreign forces on its territory it moved further from being in a situation where NATO would accept it.
In any case there was no movement towards NATO membership leading up to Feb 2022, and Russia's demand before the attack did not just include not just a ban on Ukraine entering NATO, but a veto of any new NATO members and for non-local forces to be pulled out of NATO's eastern members (compromising their security). Before the 2014 attack there was also no meaningful mover toward NATO, only toward the EU. The EU membership that Ukraine had been moving toward, and which Russia threatened Yanukovych in to abandoning along with his agreement with the opposition, causing his power to collapse as his own supporters abandoned him.
Basically Russia didn't want "no NATO for Ukraine", it wanted a minor degree of control over NATO combined with Ukraine effectively abandoning much of its sovereignty. No ability to join alliances, or trade pacts without Russia's blessing, loss of control over Crimea, and effective loss of control over the occupied areas in Donetsk and Luhansk, plus (because it can't get support or protection from other countries) the ability of Russia to dictate other terms of Ukraine going forward. |
