Texan, you're not accounting for the advancements in missile technology, satellite technology, and AI defense systems. Putin has made it perfectly clear how dire the threat to Russia and the world is, and yes - when NATO expands directly to the Russian border, it changes the millitary posture that Russia must assume for its own preservation. That is because the U.S. still will not denounce the first-strike nuclear option, and the U.S. under every president since Obama has let expire every nuclear agreement that was in place. Moreover, the U.S. has been consistent in application of sanctions and opposed Russia on the world stage at every instance.
When Putin says that it is an unacceptabe threat to Russia and the world to place NATO missiles close enough to Russia that they can hit Moscow in under 5-7 minutes, he's talking about geographic proximity and the upcoming high-speed systems that the U.S. is working on and will have in its arsenal, probably within 2-3 years. Russia already has these systems, and can obliterate all European capitals in less than 2 minutes. It would take about 15-20 minutes for Russia to vaporize American cities. Why does this matter? He told us why. It matters because the only way retaliatory strike decisions can be made with accuracy, fully confident not to decide in error, or to talk on a line between the Pentagon and the RMD is to try and get that flight time back where it was for all the Cold War years that kept our hides alive. There were a number of false alarms and tense times when cool heads prevailed, and communication facilitated the confidence that ICBMs should not be fired.
If this avenue is lost, as is happening due to NATO geographic expansion and supersonic missile technology, Russia will implement its Artificial Intelligence analytical, automatic response programs. Putin said when the launch-to-impact time is under a certain timeframe, which is where the U.S. is hell-bent on going, Russian A.I. is going to make the choice to respond IN FULL to any incoming missile, without any human decision, military or civilian. The A.I. response will end Western Civilisation. In response to this, the U.S. does not act sensibly. It does not denounce first strike. It does not seek nuclear disarmament or freeze, and it has violated its own treaties with Russia and the world in regards to NATO, nuclear, and space. The Pentagon via Milley and others has made it clear its intent is to advance its AI capabilities, its high-speed capabilities, and to win a war against Russia and China concurrently. Given this situation, NATO expansion is extremely relevant. The American coup d'etat of Ukraine, and its attempted coup in Kazakhstan are examples of NATO expansion efforts, as is the US intentionally working against peace in Ukraine so that NATO can expand along another frontier of Russia. The U.S. is hoping that its NATO expansion, space force advances, laser/microwave advances, etc. will make the war winnable for the entity, altbeit with a greaty reduced population (acceptable to Washington, our deaths are), and then they can finally achieve total hegemony over mankind. Our country's government and our apparent leadership are only a facade meant to fool us into compliance. That is not the case in Russia or China. They are not globalists.
This is why - back to your NATO opinion, that Russia cannot merely accept the independence of Lugansk and Donetsk anymore. Russia gave that option but has been rejected by the U.S. because the U.S. goals is to expand NATO, spend much more on war, draw the Iron Curtain and isolate Russia. You understand, the U.S. is a controlled entity seeking the destruction of Russia. It would rather incorporate China, India, and the others into its New World Order, the One World Government, but it has correctly ascertained the Chinese aren't going along with it, so they must go down also. The U.S. has been placing all the pressures it can on the European leaders, most of them installed puppets, or otherwise not strong enough to resist it. The window the U.S. wants is 2-5 years. It takes the chance that Russia and China won't go to war before that, while they can win. But Russia and China know all this, so if they decide they have to do it now, to increase their chance of victory, they have all the reasons to do so. They don't want war, but since there is nothing they can do to stop it, they won't wait until they are disadvantaged.
