Part 2:
So NATO is expanding eastward, but they have Belarus and Ukraine they had Yanukovych who was the leader of Ukraine until 2014 - He's pro-Russian he crushes NATO/EU membership for Ukraine in 2014. Then there's a color revolution and the American intelligence agencies overthrow Yanukovych in Kiev. They sponsor these protests (like they did in many Eastern European countries) and they installed Poroshenko who's a Pro-NATO/Pro-EU leader. And this opens the door for Ukraine to join NATO/EU.
This is unacceptable for Russia because Ukraine becoming part of NATO puts NATO’s border right up against Russia's and it puts NATO a hundred kilometers from Moscow - which is just an unacceptable posture. It strips Russia of its ports, strips them of the Black Sea fleet, they can't access the Black Sea in winter… To give you an idea, this is like if Russia invaded Mexico or Cuba or Canada. Like that's the equivalent threat. So Russia then, in 2014 invades Crimea to secure their port, And by the way, Crimea is ethnically Russian. They speak Russian, they’re historically part of Russia, and they also sponsored the separatists in Donbass in Eastern Ukraine. They did this because as long as there's a war going on, investment companies can't come in and invest in shale oil in Ukraine. Also Ukraine can't become part of NATO and EU (too unstable). So they're destabilizing Ukraine, and then finally Putin makes these demands here in 2022.
Putin says “look just promise that Ukraine will never become part of NATO, stop doing drills in Eastern Europe, and stop expanding - freeze NATO membership where it is. You're trying to destroy Russia”. Remember what happened? USA would not even come to the negotiating table. So Russia invaded. I think that, all things considered, when you look at it with that longer view of history, it’s clear NATO is the aggressor here. NATO will not allow Russia to have a reasonable security posture. Russia doesn’t want world domination like we do. They want to defend their borders. They want to have a reasonable sphere of influence. Frankly it's just not statesmen like what we've been doing. It's like this hubris - we're trying to keep control of the world like we had 30 years ago but it's not 30 years ago. America's not as strong (relatively) in the world as we once were and so we need to negotiate with China and Russia and India and Brazil. Things are moving towards a more multi-polar world order. That's the direction the world is going in. If we are going to try to defend every last inch of land that we thought we controlled after the Cold War ended, we're going to cause World War 3. That American unipolar moment where we controlled everything was an anomaly. NATO has been the aggressor when it comes to Russia.
Now this meatgrinder of a conflict has been going on for four years and here we are. It would’ve been over a while ago if he hadn’t poured so much money into it and continued down this path. And now half of you midwits sit around and talk about Russia or sanctions without realizing what led us here.