It's interesting to read you. Where did you get that idea that OTAN is menacing Russia? OTAN is a defensive coalition only. If the USA had the very unlikely idea to attack Russia, do you think that most of other NATO countries, situated in Europe, will join??? You think that OTAN as an empire, and more specifically as if it was the name of the American empire. It is not.

OTAN was a coalition built to protect its members from the USSR. After 1991, it had no real use until September 11. And then it was again there without true need. Last year, the French president publicly wondered what was OTAN was for... Well, "thanks to" Putin, we all know for sure that we need OTAN to protect us from Putin's imperialism. Otherwise, this costly organization would have slowly sunk into limbs.

If Ukraine wanted to join NATO, it was for protection after Russian's grabs of parts of its territory. Ukraine was obviously right to ask to join. The NATO members were far from wanting that, because they did not want to be directly implicated in an Russia / Ukraine war.

The whole notion that Russia would need buffer countries between itself and NATO is ridiculous. Russia has had several direct frontiers with NATO (Poland, Baltic countries) for the last 30 years (!) without any threat.

The EU was build to avoid wars between its members. We don't want wars anymore, hot or cold. Russia has absolutely nothing to fear on its western frontier. Which European country would be nowadays stupid enough to try to invade Russia??? As if France or Poland would by itself try to attack Russia? Oh, the USA? Well, I can't imagine it but even so, that would not be coming from Europe. Don't think for one second that other European countries would join a common attack from the USA allied to Poland. I'm trying here to find a plausible scenario that could justify your fear to be attacked on its western frontier. None is plausible.

This "Russian fear" has no rational ground. Citing Napoleon and Hitler doesn't work either. They both failed, remember??? The one lesson from History is "do not attack Russia in any case, you will be defeated". To retain from the past that an invasion from the West is always possible is just a justification for prevention attacks TO the west. What about Germany, you could ask. Well, precisely: 9 out of 10 Nazi soldiers were killed by the Red Army. Yes, sorry John Wayne and valiant Englishmen, but most of the work was done by the USSR.

The two last arguments are just atrocious. So Ukraine has found fossil fuels and you fear competition. Poor you... France produce only 1% of its petrol and 3% natural gas'/consumption. But France GDP is the 6th or the 7th in the world and Russia is only 12th with many more people. So... get to work and stop thinking like Putin that you are all like Emiratis that are rich without working. And please stop crying about yourselves: your school system is at least as good as the French one. You are not an African country. Russia was flying in space and exploding nuclear bombs ten years before France. Your problem is Putin and his kleptocracy. It's time to stop fantasies about a nonexistent threat from the West and start a revolution: it's time for democracy in Russia, so that you can develop your economy properly. If your leaders stopped stealing hundreds of billions from the Russian people and making wars without reason, Russia's economy would grow very fast. Look at South Korea: in 50 years they went from poverty to super high way of living. Russia is today far far more advanced than South Korea in 1953 (e.g. after the Korean war). In 20 years, Russians could have the same GDP per inhabitant as France or even better (thanks to fossil fuels, huge agriculture, super good IT sector etc).

Your fear of the West is a way to hide the terrible reality: Russians are afraid of Putin and his regime. I would be too, if I was Russian, believe me. Stop deflecting your internal issues into aggressiveness towards the West.

And, by the way, Russia has the nuclear bomb! Well, more exactly about 4,000 nuclear heads (like the USA more or less). And you need Ukraine to protect your territory? This is so ridiculous in all cases because there is absolutely no military threat from European countries. The only threatening power to your territory is ... China.

Do you still think the USA is interested in invading Russia? What for? California alone as the same GDP as France. They have plenty of petrol and natural gas, plenty of land. Nothing to gain. The USA is in competition with China in the middle term. Yesterday, Russia asked China for military assistance... meaning that the invasion of Ukraine is:

1/ a military failure already (Russia may win the battles but its military weakness has been proven: 17 days into thr war and you don't own the air yet? Nobody could have imagined Russia army being so little operational, and today everybody knows.

2/ OTAN is revived for the next 50 years and will probably enlarge to Sweden and Finland. And also Ukraine when Russian troops will finally retreat, having totally erased all Ukraine's cities, making Kiyv and Karkhiv look like Grozny or Alepo, a large cemetery of concrete. You'll call that a victory, because you'll keep some parts of it (maybe) but without seeing the contradiction of calling Ukrainians your own blood and killing a few tens or hundred of thousands of them - and erasing from Earth some of the most beautiful cities in the world. But victory it is, yeah.

3/ Russia will become a vassal of China or... will lose the Ukrainian war. Because that war is going to last not months but years, simply because the Ukrainian people won't submit and that the West will provide them with weapons and money. Like we did in Afghanistan. Like the USSR and China did in Vietnam to defeat the US army. No army can defeat a people that won't submit. That's one of the few things that History teaches.

So China will become your first client for petrol and natural gas, and agriculture etc. And everything you'll want to import from the West will have to come through China. And as China is more and more on an imperialist path, you'll have to fight along them in wars that are no direct concern to you.

So keep on fantasizing on the western threat and keep lying to yourselves that you are your own enemy. Putin and his regime are of course responsible for this war. I don't think that the Russian people wanted this war, even if I have doubt's after reading you, really. In all cases, at the end, one people is responsible for not revolting against its dictators. Democracy is a never-ending process. Historians say that the French Revolution started in 1789 but really reached its goal, a parliamentary democracy, in 1875. So start organizing and demonstrating in the streets of Moscow. We French are still very regularly demonstrating against our government. The USA's democracy is in a poor state, with a very polarized society - and yes, Trump almost succeeded in its coup, and he will try again, with Russian money once again (and Chinese in 2024 for sure).

Democracy is not a well of petrol you find one day. A political regime is possible only when democratic values are really deeply integrated in a people way of thinking. The Maidan protest had shown that Ukrainians are globally a democratic people ; whatever happens in this war won't change that because it takes tens of years. That's why the USA failed very predictably in trying to impose democracy to Iraq. The Iraqis are not a democratic people yet. We thought that Russia was on its way, then Putin came to power.

So no, Russia and Ukraine is not a "divorce", that is stupid, but finding rationality to Ukraine's invasion in security reasons and petrol & water reasons is just ... I don't have words, really. My point is not to vex you by using bad words - just to try and make you understand that your perception of reality is very difficult to understand for a French American living in France for most of his life.

To tell you the truth, I'm ashamed by my own French president, the young and bright and good-looking Macron. To me, he is not a true democrat. He has not defended democracy in the French political system but has rather diminished it - making it much more like a presidential regime than a parliamentary regime. More like the USA except that the Congress has much much more power in the USA that the French Congress (meaning House + Senate). The police in France has turned violent, racist. About two-third of the police force vote for the far-right. Democracy is not going that well in France either.

You have to fight for democracy in Russia. You should let Ukrainians decide for themselves what is good for them, even if you don't like it: that's the basis of democracy. And I have to fight for democracy both in France and in the USA - by democratic means of course.

To each his own fight. Stop deflecting your collective weakness towards Putin's regime into fear and aggressiveness to Central and Western Europe - and even the USA (which military hubris is a problem, I reckon). Do your "homework". Leave other countries, especially infant democracy like Ukraine alone. Most of European countries have no issues with the Russian people. Really. Well, there is resentment in Central Europe that was jailed by the Soviet Iron Curtain, of course. But time goes by. Look at us, French and German: there is no resentment anymore. It has taken 40 years after WWII.

History teaches the lessons you decide to retain from it.