[blub]

Disagree on the US following the EU lead. Yes, the EU sanctions have perhaps more bite because of closer relations to Russia, but the EU required a lot of convincing and internal discussions to reach this point. There are important differences of opinion within the EU on how to handle Russia, whereas the US is fully behind its current course.

The seeds of today’s conflict had been planted one by one in the past 22 years and even beyond. What started as a an ambitious goal of an undivided Europe from Vancouver to Vladivostok ended because of inertia, decisions with unforseen consequencss and a level of mistrust into stark divisions between Russia on one side and the EU and US on the other.

This was not inevitable and indeed not the intention. 2011-2012 and the Western support for anti-government and anti-Putin protests in Russia marked a sharp deterioration of relations and the 2014 Maidan uprising, annexation of Crimea and Donbass war cemented the course we see today.

That the president of Ukraine indicated his willingness to forego NATO membership did nothing to change the above. Ukraine was training with NATO, receiving support and fighting an indirect war with Russia, so it seems unlikely that the words of the president were given much weight in Russia.