- Nov 11, 2009
- 12,276
Really - I would have thought that a bigger fear would be the possibility of Ukraine joining Nato which would leave just Belarus alone on its Western border as a non-member. Belarus in turn would be surrounded by NATO countries were the Ukraine to join.
I don't understand the need for a military alliance to expand its borders in the way NATO has - especially as most of this expansion has occurred following the ending of the Cold War. A great deal of money, military spending and propaganda was expended by the West to stop the expansion of the Soviet Union, indeed to faciltate its break-up - I find it less surprising than some that Russia is reacting in the face of Western military and political 'expansion'.
Creaky, you are right of course, however the Russian Enclave on Kaliningrad is surrounded and what? whilst there have been some like Yulia Tymoshenko who have called for NATO membership in the face of moscows invading crimea and ongoing destabilisation, generally their has been no official call to join..... and prior to all this shit, the general public concensus was against it........ if anything, Putins actions have been counter productive on that front, the % who want NATO membership has increased..... but it always was and always will be unlikley to happen and is not a genuine reason for Putin's attempted dismemberment of Ukraine.......... Putins is a died in the wall Stalinist, soviet expansionist with delusions of restoring the russian dominated empire, if you read the actual "Eurasian" doctrine Putin believes in by Alexander Duggin, its pretty mad stuff, a Moscow dominated empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok controlled by russia.
We saw far right parties prosper in the euro elections, the Kremlin is one of the largest sponsors of EU far right and opposition parties..... probably not so much because of ideology, Kremlin simply has a policy of trying to divide and weaken the established EU order...... for the full Eurasian dream to become a reality the EU would have to be weakened and its stage 1 proposed start date of jan 1st 2015 (the soviet union 2 in all but name) without a Ukraine is a lame duck. I can only imagine how seething Putin is his grand plans of restoring and expanding the former soviet empire could be disrupted by insolent little brother ukraine trying the break free from his shackles.
interesting article http://anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/pro-russian-network-behind-anti.html