PJBuchanan, historian and realpolitik guy.
...Between 1989 and 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev let the Berlin Wall be
pulled down, Germany be reunited and all the “captive nations” of
Eastern Europe go free.
Having collapsed the Soviet empire, Gorbachev allowed the Soviet Union to dissolve itself into 15 independent nations....
...Putin, a former KGB colonel, came to power in 1999...
In that year, 1999, Putin watched as America conducted a
78-day bombing campaign on Serbia, the Balkan nation that had
historically been a protectorate of Mother Russia.
That year, also, three former Warsaw Pact nations, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, were brought into NATO.
Against whom were these countries to be protected by U.S. arms and the NATO alliance, the question was fairly asked.
The
question seemed to be answered fully in 2004, when Slovenia, Slovakia,
Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria were admitted into
NATO, a grouping that included three former republics of the USSR
itself, as well as three more former Warsaw Pact nations.
Then, in
2008, came the Bucharest declaration that put Georgia and Ukraine, both
bordering on Russia, on a path to NATO membership....
...Georgia, the same year, attacked its seceded province of South
Ossetia, where Russian troops were acting as peacekeepers, killing some.
This
triggered a Putin counterattack through the Roki Tunnel in North
Ossetia that liberated South Ossetia and moved into Georgia all the way
to Gori, the birthplace of Stalin. George W. Bush, who had pledged “to
end tyranny in our world,” did nothing. After briefly occupying part of
Georgia, the Russians departed but stayed as protectors of the South
Ossetians.
The U.S. establishment has declared this to have been a
Russian war of aggression, but an EU investigation blamed Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili for starting the war....
That would not be the last time 'the West' (USA and its hangers-on) screwed around in Eastern Europe.
...In 2014, a democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine,
Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in Kyiv and replaced by a pro-Western
regime. Rather than lose Sevastopol, Russia’s historic naval base in
Crimea, Putin seized the peninsula and declared it Russian territory.
Teddy Roosevelt stole Panama with similar remorse....
It was Victoria Nuland, "genius" grad of Georgetown--and currently in Biden's* circle of influence--who orchestrated the overthrow of Yanukovich.
PJB goes on to note that Putin has been very, very careful with his bombs and missiles (as of 2/24 anyway,) making him a lot better C-in-C than--say--Bill Clinton, the Bomber of dairy plants and Serbia, and whose "wife" is Hillary Clinton, Russia-hater, liar, and witch.
Remember the facts, not the Globalist/Democrat spin.