It is quite obvious any problem between Europe and Russia is entirely the result of NATO, without which, Europe and Russia are each other's natural economic partners, thus Russia and Europe should naturally be as close as Russia and China. NATO is an American instrument to project power to Russia's borderlands. This has unsurprisingly resulted in strong Russian reaction to American intrusion into Russia's legitimate sphere of interest.



Regarding Crimea, the West really has no one to blame but itself. Ukraine had a democratically elected pro-Russian President. The West instigated Euromaidan protests in order to oust Yanukovich with the aim of drawing Ukraine into NATO. Naturally, Russia cannot sit quietly and let the West stage a coup in its neighbor, and replace it with a pro-American/anti-Russian regime. The annexation of Crimea, which is supported by an overwhelming majority of Crimeans (unsurprising since they are ethnically Russian), would never have happened had the West not interfered in Ukraine.



NATO should have been disbanded at the end of the Cold War. Today, NATO is not so much an asset but a deadly liability for all Europeans. The Trump regime has shredded a nuclear missile treaty with Russia. Europe should realise that in America's dangerous and irrational saber-rattling against Russia, driven but such nutjobs as John Bolton, European countries are on the front line. Do Europeans want to be mere pawns of American foreign policy, to be sacrificed in a great sea of fire should America successfully instigate a nuclear war with Russia? Or do Europeans have more to gain to be independent countries able to assert their economic and geopolitical interests? Remember: Europe and Russia do not threaten each other. Indeed, France and Britain together have 600 nuclear warheads of their own (more than China) and are capable of deterring a mere 140 million Russians. Europe, by itself, prefers to mind its own business, and is not the entity with designs to "contain" Russia. The whole fiasco is an American scheme. Europe has far more to gain from mutually beneficial trade with the Russians than to allow itself to be American vassals.



It is time to disband NATO!