The Ukraine issue has triggered a backlog of contradictions between NATO and Russia for many years, and Putin bluntly said that NATO has brazenly deceived Russia, and it has carried out 5 eastward expansions. Putin said that missiles deployed in Ukraine can only fly to Moscow in four or five minutes, which shows that Ukraine is Russia's last strategic buffer zone, so it cannot accept NATO to absorb Ukraine to join.
Trooping in Crimea, supporting armed forces in eastern Ukraine, and the 2008 war in Georgia were Russia's response to NATO's eastward expansion, but that localized conflict sparked tensions that continue to this day, and even Sweden, which considers itself a neutral country, has expressed its opposition to Russia.
Mikkar Biden, commander-in-chief of Sweden's three armed forces, told the media that Swedish servicemen "will not stand idly by" and are prepared to react quickly to what happens near the border. But after looking at the map, it can be found that Sweden has no common border with Russia, I don't know what the commander said about "what happened near the border", it should be an allusion to the Russian-Ukrainian border conflict, according to Kyle Biden's voice, neutral Sweden may send troops to support Ukraine's resistance to Russia, which means that Sweden, which is not a member of NATO, will also join the anti-Russian camp, which has the meaning of taking advantage of the fire and looting.
(The Swedish armed forces are only the size of more than 50,000 people.)
Today's Sweden, like Switzerland, is a permanent neutral country, but 300 years ago, Sweden was a well-known hegemony in Europe, its ruling area spanned the entire Baltic Sea coast, today's Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Russia's St. Petersburg, Karelia, once part of the Swedish Kingdom, the Swedish standing army at that time was the most modern military force in all of Europe, the number of up to 120,000, but in just over 10 years of war, Sweden exhausted the strength it had accumulated for many years. Having lost all of the territory outside of today's Swedish territory, and the largest number of Swedish lands stolen was Russia, and the entire eastern shore of the Baltic Sea and most of Finland were occupied by the Russian army, and Peter I moved the capital to St. Petersburg as he wished, and the seeds of hatred were sown.
(Peter I)
Sweden, of course, was not content to lose, and took revenge on Russia at every opportunity throughout the 18th century, especially when Russia went to war with Ottoman Turkey, often stabbing it in the back. From 1741 to 1809, there were three Russo-Swedish wars, the main battlefield was in Finland, each time Sweden targeted St. Petersburg, although the Swedish Army never took advantage of Tsarist Russia, but the Navy once achieved a brilliant victory in destroying and capturing 53 Russian warships. However, Russia's huge population and rich resources led to a growing gap in strength between Russia and Switzerland, and finally in the early 19th century, Sweden was completely defeated by Tsarist Russia, and its territory shrank to what it is today, reducing it to a second-rate country.
It can be seen that Sweden and Russia have a feud for hundreds of years, and now Sweden is using NATO and Ukraine to oppose Russia, in fact, it is to avenge the snow and hatred.
Sweden's statement is undoubtedly very encouraging for Ukraine, Ukraine also has a shame for Russia, Crimea was taken by Russia in 2014, the 2 states in eastern Ukraine are still in a state of civil war, Ukraine has been unable to recover the lost land for more than 30 consecutive years, but after 5 years of repairs, the Ukrainian armed forces have recovered their vitality and began to attack Russia.
Since the second year of the Crimean crisis, that is, since 2015, the Ukrainian army has been receiving integration training from NATO military instructors, ranks, logistics structures, chains of command and even military uniforms have adopted NATO standards, the existing T-64, T-72, T-80 tanks and MiG-29 fighters and other equipment have also been improved and upgraded to a certain extent, and nato-aided "Javelin" anti-tank missiles, and most importantly, many European countries have cheered for Ukraine, including Sweden, which has just expressed its position. This has made Russia's situation worse and worse.
But Putin is as tough as ever, drawing a red line for NATO, demanding that NATO promise not to expand further eastward, otherwise Russia will respond appropriately militarily, although Germany's new defense minister, Lambrecht, dismissive of Putin's words, responded that Russia cannot give orders to NATO, but NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg and US Secretary of State Blinken unanimously decided to engage in meaningful dialogue with Russia, which at least shows that the United States and NATO upper echelons do not want to overly provoke Russia.
The reason is very simple, although Sweden, Ukraine and other European countries want to take advantage of Russia, but the strategic focus of the United States has shifted to the Asia-Pacific region, the country has fallen into zero-dollar purchases, black life, the new crown epidemic, political correctness, etc. Who is inexhaustible trouble, it does not have enough strength to win the two wars between the Asia-Pacific and Europe at the same time, and does not want to shed blood and sacrifice for European countries, not to mention that Russia is still a country with strong nuclear forces, the United States even hopes to win Russia together to squeeze the opponents who rise in Asia, Putin is very clear about this, So he still has the courage to continue to be tough.