The White House, USA. File photoMOSCOW, May 11The United States ignored Russia's concerns about NATO's eastward expansion, which led to an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, columnist Andrew Day wrote in an article for Week magazine. according to which the North Atlantic Alliance is «purely defensive».
"Whether NATO threatened Russia or not, Putin believed that he was threatening, and this conviction influenced the decision to launch a special operation. Moreover, these fears were quite predictable, and the conflict could have been avoided if Washington had taken them seriously,” Day noted.
The publicist recalled that on the eve of the military operation in Ukraine, the White House refused to discuss with Moscow questions about the expansion of the alliance. He considers this fact «mysterious» because Western leaders have privately told the leadership in Kyiv that «you will not be a member of NATO.»
" Russia's doorstep, but without NATO's security umbrella,» the author of the article believes.
Day concluded that the United States should work to make Ukraine a neutral state. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. According to the Ministry of Defense, the Russian military strikes only on military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops, nothing threatens the civilian population. The agency called the liberation of Donbass the main goal of the operation.