Why is Putin jealous of Ukraine joining NATO? The historical entanglement of Russia and Ukraine at one time]
Russian President Vladimir Putin today recognized the two separatist republics in eastern Ukraine (Donetsk and Luhansk) as independent entities and sent Russian troops to carry out "peacekeeping." The root of the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine is actually the competition between the border and the strategic influence of the East and the West. Moscow saw Ukraine as a buffer between Russia and NATO, and Kiev became increasingly seen as an aggressor after the seizure of Crimea.
Since last year, the Russian army has deployed more than 100,000 troops on the Russian-Ukrainian border with Crimea, and even deployed through Belarus to exert pressure around Ukraine. The West has always insisted that Moscow will invade with its weapons and warned Russia that it will be severely punished once it invades; Moscow has always denied that it wants to use force, and regards Western support for Ukraine as NATO's eastward expansion again, and it has been invaded and trampled on to the point that there is no way to retreat, and it can only save itself.
Ukraine was once a Soviet agricultural and arsenal
According to the Washington Post and CNN, the historical connection between Russia and Ukraine dates back to the 9th century, when the ancient East Slavs established a nation-state in Kiev, which is why Russian President Vladimir Putin often said that Ukraine and Russia are of the same origin.
Ukraine was one of the republics until the collapse of the Soviet Union in August 1991, and ukraine has been an important strategic component of the Soviet Union due to its huge agricultural industry, important Black Sea ports, and a large number of nuclear weapons and high-end military manufacturing. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the declaration of independence, Ukraine maintained close energy and security ties with Russia.
For Russia, Ukraine has important geopolitical and Black Sea access status, and has been attracting Ukraine to its own customs union. At the end of 2013, however, the situation in Ukraine and Russia was increasingly tense over the Kiev authorities' decision to sign a landmark political and free trade agreement with the European Union.
Ukrainian President Yanukovych, who was pro-Russian at the time, was rumored to have suspended negotiations with the European Union under pressure from Moscow, and a series of mass demonstrations were immediately launched by Ukraine's pro-Western camp.
• Proximate causes of the standoff between the two countries
Ukraine's pro-Russian government collapsed in February 2014 following a wave of demonstrations, but the pro-Russian militias in Uganda were at war with the new pro-Western regime in Kiev, leading to the declaration of independence of Donetsk and Luhansk on the border between Ukraine and Russia, and since then there have been clashes between the pro-Russian militias and the Kiev government forces. In the same year, Crimea voted to break away from Ukraine, and Russia included Crimea.
According to the United Nations, the conflict in Eastern Ukraine has so far claimed some 14,000 lives. Since the Conflict between Eastern Ukraine, Kiev has sought to join NATO and strengthen military and economic ties with the West, positioning Moscow as a "security threat to all in Ukraine and Europe."
Moscow believes that in September 2014, under the mediation of France and Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Donetsk, Luhansk and other parties signed minsk agreements, promising to grant greater autonomy to the residents of Eastern Ukraine, but Kiev has never complied with it, and even repeatedly suppressed the Russian-speaking residents of Eastern Ukraine, and Kiev is like "genocide" in Eastern Ukraine.
Why is Putin so jealous of Ukraine's joining NATO?
The NATO organization founded in 1949 was the product of the confrontation between the United States and Western Europe during the Cold War, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it not only did not disband, but also gradually eastwards to include Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and other countries, and the current membership is expanded to 30 countries.
NATO stipulates that when members are invaded by a third party, all members will fight together, and the US military can also station troops in NATO allies and deploy weapons. According to the Polish Ministry of Defense, there are currently about 4,000 U.S. troops and 1,000 other NATO troops stationed in Poland; there are also about 4,000 NATO troops stationed in the three small Baltic states.
If Ukraine and another former Soviet republic of Georgia join NATO, Western allies and U.S. troops can directly border Russia, Moscow regards this as a matter of survival, demanding that NATO must not be included in Ukraine and Georgia, and to issue binding legal guarantees, but the United States and allies adhere to NATO's principle of openness, refuse Russia's demands, and also have great power prestige and game elements behind them.
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