Comments by "Tomas Vrabec" (@tomasvrabec1845) on "UN chief urges Russia to end 'absurd' war in Ukraine" video.

Have we though? While it might be true Napoleon did but who else even tried? For most of European History where Russia existed the great European Empires barely cared as it wasn't their neighbor and it was more.. Backwards (in terms of modernity for each time... Hence you got Peter the Great who tried to advance it. But that is also a bit far on the timeline to have conscious effects on people in terms of fear of outside conquest. When you look at the last 150 years or so... It gets a bit reversed.... Namely with the Russian humiliation as it lost lands due to the end of the Empire and latter USSR... Making the distance of Moscow to anything smaller than ever. But during these years it was Russia who attempted to conquer and control countries to its west. Look at the Ex Iron Curtain now. USSR suppressed them and when it collapsed most ran to NATO as it was a alliance of well known democratic nations, it opposed Russia (so russia would not attack) and it overlapped well with the EU. So really Russia's fear of NATO expansion is just because there were several nations Scared of Russia in the first place. (An uno reverse card if you want). I also have to call out the use of NATO as European (from your context) as it is primarily a US alliance if you look into the funding and ext, and prior to the war in Ukraine Europe even had a gradually smaller and smaller military. So rather than Russia being scared of Europe, it seems Putin simply refound the Soviet-US tensions.
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