Tracks very well with my read of the situation. Yeltsin believed that NATO expanding towards Russia[1] was a bad thing. His successor Putin has been warning for

Tracks very well with my read of the situation. Yeltsin believed that NATO expanding towards Russia[1] was a bad thing. His successor Putin has been warning for a long time that this was not acceptable to Russia. There is an interesting color map that shows the global reaction to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. This map is also, essentially, a map of US client states.[2] Small countries that fall within the sphere of influence of Great powers need to be mindful of the sentiments of those powers towards them as well as economic and military repercussions of any perceived slights. The tragedy of Ukraine is that it tried to become a client state of Washington without verifying whether Washington had any intention of securing its borders against its neighbor.[3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Adriatic_Charter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Adriatic_C... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:International_reactions_to_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:International_reactions_t... [3] Blinken: Ukraine has all tools to move towards NATO membership (https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/blinken-ukraine-has-all-tools-to-move-towards-nato-membership.html https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/blinken-ukraine-ha...)