In 2007, at the 'Security Conference' in Munich, and multiple times after that, Putin said that NATO-expansion into Ukraine would not happen without a fight. 'No is No!', was what the American ambassador in Moscow wrote back to Washington. The man subsequently served as the head of the CIA under Biden, overseeing many of the operations the CIA had going in Ukraine after 2014, when NATO regime-changed Ukraine. The CIA had multiple forward coordination and 'listening' posts close to the Donbas and Russia since 2015 in preparation for the 'rematch' after the 2014 operation went South.
First of all Russia silently took control over the Crimea peninsula after the Victoria 'Fuck the EU' Nuland coup in Kiev, making use of an ill understood legal 'loophole', likely purposefully created when the Soviet-Union broke apart. Crimea was divorced from the Ukraine Oblast, undoing the administrative addition of that strategic piece of real-estate by Khrushchev in 1954 for strategic, or sentimental reasons, before it was handed its independence. Khrushchev was a staunch communist from Kalinovka, Ukraine, and transferring the Crimea peninsula to Ukraine from Russia was his parting gift as the governor of that Oblast under Stalin when he became president. As a result of this last-moment decision to divorce Crimea from Ukraine it had its own formal 'Rada' (parliament), and as it decided to join Ukraine when it got its independence, the pair formed a federation, bound by a common constitution. The constitution which was shoved aside by Victoria 'Fuck the EU' Nuland's 2014 bloody coup. Freed from that binding contract Crimea voted to leave the new, illegal, NATO-controlled regime in 'Kiev'.
The Donbas did not have that luxury, but that region had no appetite to serve the Nuland hand-picked crew setting up 'elections' which left the people a choice between two flavors of 'Tom & Jerry', and their open rejection of that unsavoury way to gain control over Ukraine led to civil war. Though the Russians offered assistance, while NATO supported her freshly appointed Chocolate oligarch, through NATO in Germany, it was a civil war, which the 'Donbas-Rebels' won conclusively at Debaltseve. Germany and France rushed in to save their beloved Chocolate president, counter-signing the 'Minsk-Accord', which they had no intention whatsoever to honour. But Putin didn't know that. He truly felt he had saved the day, and prodded the 'Donbas-Rebels' to stay the course, which would lead to a neutral, federalised Ukraine, including the Donbas, but excluding Crimea, because that peninsula voted overwhelmingly for joining the Russian federation in a referendum.
We need to conclude that NATO didn't take 'No' for an answer, and obviously it was prepared to strangle the concept of democracy to make Ukraine theirs. Now, to what end? Not to bring that thoroughly corrupt country into the EU, or it would have happened already. And not to bring it into NATO, but to stuff it with weapons and ideas to take the Donbas and Crimea by force, and use it as a proxy to 'Overextend and Unbalance Russia', and get rid of Putin. The country was knowingly used as bait, despite the evident risk. The 'Rand Report' stated:
'This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace.'
They knew, but did it anyway. The plan included multiple options for the US-Warparty (NATO) to destroy the Russian economy, and make the Russian people suffer economically, again, like in the Nineties. The authors of the 2019 strategy, the follow-up of the largely failed, improvised 2014 attempt to isolate Russia, gave multiple options which we've all witnessed with little or no success since then.
'This chapter describes six possible U.S. moves in the current geopolitical competition: providing lethal arms to Ukraine, resuming support to the Syrian rebels, promoting regime change in Belarus, exploiting Armenian and Azeri tensions, intensifying attention to Central Asia, and isolating Transnistria (a Russian-occupied enclave within Moldova)'.
What is an interesting turn of events, from a geostrategical point of view, is Trump making the Europeans pay, even beyond the already on-going destruction of their economy on the back of blowing up 'NorthStream' and killing its access to affordable energy, while severing the European car-market from its client base outside the EU. Not merely the German car-manufacturers, but the French giant Stellantis (Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat) is posting a record loss of 2.3 Billion, just as the French government is looking for ways to avoid bankruptcy. Merz in Germany created a loophole so as to remilitarise the country in ways which look a lot like what Hitler did in the Thirties, and his recent 'We'll never give up!' did sent a shiver down my spine, I must admit. Dormant for Eighty years, and here we go again! This time openly supported by the UK and France, whereas the UK thought they could use Germany to crush the Soviet Union back in the Thirties, financing Hitler's effort, and come walking in right behind them to take control of what they call the 'Heartland', so as to control the world. The three of them want to avoid misunderstandings this time around. But I have some serious doubts about the feasibility of their plan. Are the Europeans *really* that stupid?
Don't say 'No' to that question, because if that were the case, wouldn't they have called 'FAUL' the moment NATO responded to Putin's warning with further expansion? There are different kinds of 'No'. You have the Russian 'No', which means 'No'. And the NATO 'No', as in 'not an inch', which means absolutely nothing. I do understand it when people say that the Europeans are not *that* stupid, but then I read what Goering had to say about that, and I lose trust in my fellow men.