In 2004 the Baltic States were granted NATO membership. This put NATO on Russia’s border, something that was promised to never happen. Jame Baker assured Russia they would not pursue moving NATO eastward during meetings after the Berlin Wall fell. This secured Russia’s support for a united Germany. In 2014 the US backed a coup of the democratically elected government. The new government was pro-west and this immediately caused chaos in Crimea and Donbass. Understandably Russia was not happy. Ukraine furthered the insult to Russia by cutting off the fresh water supply to Crimea. This history needs to be understood to cut through the Western bias of most news sources. The West cannot act like they are blameless in the Ukrainian conflict. Jumping forward a bit, we see Putin emboldened by what he perceives a weakened state of Western Nations. When Biden took office he took steps that made America dependent foreign oil again. Biden stopping the XL Pipeline and killing federal drilling leases was a huge blow to American oil independence. Meanwhile Biden also gave the green light to the Nord Steam 2 pipeline. Weakening the West and giving strength to Putin ([something Trump warned about](https://youtu.be/OXqZf72pAhk)) Now Putin did guess wrong at the West’s response to his invasion. He had to have thought he had Germany by the balls and they would continue to buy his natural gas. Surprisingly Germany had other ideas. Putin also likely did not think Biden’s Administration would risk rising oil prices by making meaningful sanctions. Where do we go from here? It is a bad situation on all sides. The US should stay out of it. America has already sent Ukraine over $1 Billion dollars. Dollars that could be better used at home. America needs to focus on energy independence again. Higher oil prices benefit Russia and hurt the US economy. You have to ask why we are allowing that? The question isn’t what we should do to Russia, the question is why should we care? We never should have gotten involved in 2014 or allowed NATO expansion in 2004. We created this mess and now we bitch about Russia responding. It’s just more NeoCon bullshit if you ask me. Biden kills XL pipeline / drilling https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21012021/biden-cancels-keystone-xl-and-halts-arctic-drilling-fossil-fuels/ Ukraine $1 Billion https://www.state.gov/additional-military-assistance-for-ukraine/ Nord Stream 2 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57180674 US broke NATO promise https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shifrinson-russia-us-nato-deal--20160530-snap-story.html 2014 Ukraine Coup https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/06/04/how-and-why-the-u-s-government-perpetrated-the-2014-coup-in-ukraine/ Crimea water supply https://euromaidanpress.com/2021/03/13/water-shortages-in-occupied-crimea-now-so-great-moscow-likely-to-step-up-pressure-on-kyiv-kazarin-says/ @Professor_de_la_Paz @stupidbird @Intrinsic @0K @LakotaPride