This is wrong and cynical.

1) The issue of 'NATO Aggression' vis-a-vis Russia is propaganda.

The Russians are not 'afraid of NATO' - we know this, they know we know this, we know they know we know - and yes it goes on. Notice that they now have 1000Km of 'NATO Border' with Finland, does that change the equation?

'Oh, that's fine' Putin said a few days ago.

2) That NATO Article 5 has not been used is more or less evidence that it is working.

3) Iraq War 1, which might arguably be a NATO-driven war, was utterly justified, Saddam invaded Kuwait, it was bad.

4) Intervention in Afghanistan of 'some kind' was also justified, and initially there were hardly any serious military action, it was a mess, and therefore probably a mistake, but that's very different than Soviet involvement there.

5) Iraq War 2 was an American, not NATO enterprise.

Russia's conquest of Ukraine is blatantly Imperialist, this is Putin's quest to reclaim the USSR, it's not even something he really hides.

He says 'NATO expansion' as a convenient excuse for the 'useful idiots' (that is a term coined by Stalin for this exact situation), and of course this repulsive fantasies about 'Ukrainian Nazis' all over Ukraine.

FYI - should not that Putin was behind 'both side' of the conflict of 'football hooligans with AK47's' in 2014 Donbas, using his GRU to funnel money to the supposed 'Nazi Azovs' (many of whom were even Russian) fighting against 'victim loyal Russians'.

The 'future' of Ukrainian acquiescence to Putin is evident in Belarus as an example: a laughable stooge of a corrupt bag of lard, verbally farting his way through nonsensical press conferences, while doing the bidding of Putin, repressing those around him etc..

The Ukrainians as a whole have the right to fight if the want, so long as they want we should support them, and frankly, we should likely have a material presence on the ground, just not quite up to the point of direct face offs between NATO and Russian forces.

And the same for Georgia, and whoever else.

Literally today, the Kremlin was threatening the 'End of Human Existence' if NATO continued to interfere with Russia's genocidal murder [1]. These are psychopaths with nukes, and we probably cannot afford to exist with them, something likely has to be done, or, they can be little hermits like North Korea.

The Russians don't bother to hide their real ambitions, they can do this because when asked in a public forum, they give the 'NATO' and 'Denazification' excuses willy nilly out of the other side of their mouths - because our system of information isn't competent enough to call it out for what it is contextually.

We far too often just take their words at face value. We know what their foreign policy textbooks require, and in their purview 'public communications' don't have to have any bearing whatsoever on reality, ergo, we should assume that whatever they are saying is just a constructed lie with the truth occasionally thrown in.

Read Putin's own words on how 'Ukraine is not a country or a people' and how that area of people 'naturally belongs under his power'. [2]

Russia has nothing to say about Ukraine - either from a 'security' or 'cultural' perspective - they are the antagonizing force in all of this, and have been for 20 years.

[1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1636688/putin-russia-uk...

[2] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181