This is not good. Nobody is happy, least of all Ukrainians near their eastern border, where it’s all war games all the time, morning, noon, and night. Think listening to that front-end loader’s back-up beeper is annoying at 3 am? Well, just try sleeping with Russian ordnance being ranged a few km’s away. And, unless you’re Ivan on the trigger, it can’t be much fun on the other side of that border either.
Every NATO member with a bit of ocean between themselves and the situation seems to be funnelling arms and boots to the place, and for Putin’s part the (historically recently) Russian side has lots of gear and 127 large in soldiers constantly tossing practice grenades back and forth like they were pysankas. Why? Apparently,
Ukraine must not be allowed to join NATO, ever
-Russia (paraphrased)
because then Russia would be ‘surrounded’.
Yet if Mr.Putin gets what he’s demanding Ukrainians will not be allowed to implement foreign policy of their own choosing, which means they are controlled by Russia. (The) Ukraine then is effectively a part (oblast) of Russia, which means the next country over that is allied with NATO must now be considered the one ‘surrounding’ Russia, and so by this specious line of reasoning also needs to be controlled by Russia…. and so on, and so forth, until oceans are reached all the way around by a Russian border I suppose; though historically such expansionism has never been limited by coastlines.
The fact is that unless it rules the entire planet Putin’s Russia will always be ‘surrounded’, so short of making it to the title of ‘Grand High Exalted Absolute Overlord And Potential Underwear Poisoner of all Earthicans ‘ Putin must learn to accept, and right smartly too, the fact that Ukraine is now a completely sovereign nation whose population will, as they have every right to, make up their own minds regarding their own political mandates, including decisions regarding military alliances.