Putin does have a long-standing obsession with NATO, though. Even in his otherwise very festive speech to the German parliament in 2002, which he held in Germa

Putin does have a long-standing obsession with NATO, though. Even in his otherwise very festive speech to the German parliament in 2002, which he held in German and in which he proposed a close alliance between Europe and Russia, he could not help himself and included some out-of-place, acerbic remarks about NATO. In his subsequent speeches, this complaint only began to take more and more space. I agree that Ukraine's NATO membership is of little strategic relevance, but it does seem as if Putin was stuck in some imaginary rivalry, maybe never getting over his KGB indoctrination, or maybe battling some kind of inferiority complex?