He moved on Georgia in 2008. Crimea in 2014. Belarus throughout 2021, and now he's invaded Ukraine in 2022. The pattern is repetitious and obvious.
these are all nothing countries not worth a squirt of piss nor worth the US's time, energy or effort.
He moved on Georgia in large part because of the NATO issue. There was huge tension because of this. Georgia participated in NATO's illegal Iraq war in 2003 by sending troops, and was invited in 2008 to become a future member of NATO and were actively pushing to join NATO/EU. Their president at the time was very pro NATO/US/EU- and obviously Putin or any leader of Russia would not like this. The conflict did not go hot until
after President Mikheil Saakashvili sent troops into South Ossetia. And you can blame Russia all you want for stoking those flames of separatists- but the fact is the fighting in Georgia goes back to the early '90s right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A civil war erupted in Georgia when two provinces- South Ossetia and Abkhazia sought to declare their own independence and it wasn't until a ceasefire in 1994 which caused the hostilities to end- but tensions in those separatists regions never went away.
Again, he didn't move on Ukraine (Crimea) in 2014 until
after a
US backed coup (which had elements of neo-nazism in leadership roles btw) toppled Yanukovych's
democratically elected government. And while he technically invaded Crimea - they had thousands of troops already there as Russia has military bases there which were leased until 2042, they just took Crimea with the forces that were already there. And this did not happen until
after the overthrow of Yanukovych.
And I don't know if would call him recognizing the separatists regions of Ukraine as independent and then sending forces into those separatists regions as invading to be honest with you. Ukraine doesn't and hasn't controlled those regions for almost a decade. If tanks start rolling and he bombs and holds Kiev- then I'm with you.
My whole point is- why the f**k is the US putting these countries in these situations continually? Why do we even want to pick them off from Russia and pull them out of their sphere of influence and into ours? And why are we doing this when we know it will inflame and piss Russia off and cause them to respond- and then when Russia responds we don't really do a god damn thing to help these stupid countries that fall for our bullshit hook line and sinker? Like did piss ant Georgia or broke ass Ukraine really think the US was going to come to their defense? LOL.