You need to rethink your information environment, you are repeating many false claims that I recognise from past propaganda.
For instance your view of NATO membership is fundamentally flawed as it assumes a NATO push to take on more members, when in reality even the most shallow research shows that it was actually based on a pull from countries who lobbied to be able to join NATO and had to jump through hoops to qualify.
Why did those countries want to join NATO? Because they recognised that, alone, they were vulnerable to what’s clearly a revanchist Russia looking to annex or otherwise control other countries in the region. By being part of a broad security alliance like NATO those countries made themselves safer from Russian attacks.
As for Russian speakers in Ukraine, I know many Ukrainians, most of whom from the east who learnt Russian as a first language. All but one of them absolutely detest Russia, have nothing good to say about Russians in general, who they see as complicit, and have become even more fiercely pro-Ukrainian and patriotic than they were before the war. Many have chosen to speak Ukrainian primarily, despite it being their second language.
And why wouldn’t they? Russia’s invasion destroyed their homes and their way of life, levelling entire cities, and killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians. The idea that all of this was done in their name or to their benefit is insulting.
For instance your view of NATO membership is fundamentally flawed as it assumes a NATO push to take on more members, when in reality even the most shallow research shows that it was actually based on a pull from countries who lobbied to be able to join NATO and had to jump through hoops to qualify.
Why did those countries want to join NATO? Because they recognised that, alone, they were vulnerable to what’s clearly a revanchist Russia looking to annex or otherwise control other countries in the region. By being part of a broad security alliance like NATO those countries made themselves safer from Russian attacks.
As for Russian speakers in Ukraine, I know many Ukrainians, most of whom from the east who learnt Russian as a first language. All but one of them absolutely detest Russia, have nothing good to say about Russians in general, who they see as complicit, and have become even more fiercely pro-Ukrainian and patriotic than they were before the war. Many have chosen to speak Ukrainian primarily, despite it being their second language.
And why wouldn’t they? Russia’s invasion destroyed their homes and their way of life, levelling entire cities, and killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians. The idea that all of this was done in their name or to their benefit is insulting.