[bandushrew]

I find it interesting that your language implies it is the responsibility of the west to persuade Russia to back off?

Surely the responsibility for the actions of Russia rest on the Russian leadership?

Russia has decided to invade Ukraine. Russia needs to decide to stop doing that.

Where does it become the responsibility of the west?

[rixed]

Because of the extension (if not the very existence) of NATO after 91?

[prox]

Russia was invited to NATO in the Partnership for Peace program.

And invading a country without provocation and which was elected democratically is kind of the reason for a defensive alliance in the first place.

Furthermore with Russia being a defacto dictatorship it becomes hard to deal with the actual position of the Russian people (who aren’t allowed to protest or have free media or vote)

After all that, there is still the Russia–NATO Council that was established in 2002 for handling security issues and joint projects.

[rixed]

I believe you, yet western countries refused to discuss that very topic few weeks ago when Russia demanded that NATO was not extended further. Frankly, as a mere western Europe citizen, arguably living far away from russian borders, I could not care less about NATO extension. I feel more threatened by the war mongering in the west than by the russian army, and I suspect many other people feel the same. Yet this opinion is not represented at all in the western "democracies".

edit: removed emotional part