Comments by "" (@titteryenot4524) on "President Biden offers “unwavering support” on surprise visit to Ukraine - BBC News" video.

@1:52 “Unprovoked”. Keep hearing that. I’m no fan of Putin. To the contrary, in fact, as I disdain his illegal invasion of a sovereign, self-governing territory. However, this war was hardly ‘unprovoked’. Post the Cold War NATO expressly promised not to expand “one inch” east towards Russia. For the past 30 years, like a slowly rising tide, it has been flowing towards the east and is now just about lapping onto Russian shores. We need to be honest here. NATO’s pledge not to expand, and the subsequent abandonment of that promise explicitly provoked Putin and Russia. This is an important context (perhaps the key context) to understand the Russian view of US policies, especially so given the ample warnings from US diplomats and foreign policy experts down the years that expanding NATO was liable to poke the Russian bear.
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