this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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You're not thinking forth dimensionally, Marty!
Putin feared the EU because it was expanding far faster than NATO. EU expansion offered valuable trade links to former soviet countries and in turn required they implement anti-corruption legislation, and in the words of NATO secretary general Robertson above "changed every aspect of society". That's what Putin was afraid of.
Look at what happened to Georgia.
Old soviet regime runs economy into the ground. In 2003 pro-democracy NGOs help organise a peaceful student protests that culminates in the Rose Revolution. Autocratic government out, democratic government elected for first time, immediately start plans to align with EU to recover the economy.
2006 signs joint statement with EU on economic cooperation. Also opens pipeline cutting out Iran and Russia and delivering Azerbaijan oil directly to EU friendly Turkey.
So in 2008 Russia invades Georgia's Tskhinvali and Abkhazia regions in an attempt to destabilise the country. Fortunately this fails.
2013 Georgia signs deeper level of EU cooperation. Ukraine parliament makes legal guarantees it'll start to align with EU.
Putin was out of time, his Caucasus route to the middle East was closing forever, economic influence via the black sea was closing off, so he grabbed Crimea. It was the EU not NATO that surrounded him.
And that's what the NATO secretary general said.
Yeah like with rapists, I don't really care for their reasoning. NATO is a military alliance, EU isn't, so even if we assume that worrying about nearby military alliances is a "justified" reason to, idk, invade your neighbouring country, it still isn't a justification, as EU is not a military alliance.
In terms of Moscow's loss of control, the EU was proving far more effective than NATO. Like the NATO secretary general said, the EU spread represented the start of the crisis, but the invasion was Russia's fault. Because they're belligerent assholes..