It’s guilty

At the NATO summit in Warsaw, the theme of the Russian threat will be one of the main ones - along with the fight against ISIS and international terrorism. Putin's propaganda, of course, hasten to name the decisions of the summit on the strengthening of the military presence in the east of Europe, the help of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia by the next proof of the "aggressiveness" of the alliance. And again it will lie.

For a quarter of a century after the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO tried to be a friendly partner of Russia. Yes, the desire to respect the sovereignty of countries that wanted to join the Alliance always dominated the desire of Moscow to prove that the entire former Warsaw Treaty and the former Soviet Union - the Russian "sphere of influence" and there is nothing to climb there. At the same time, in NATO they tried to limit themselves to a symbolic presence in Central Europe and the Baltic - even now, when the Kremlin, one might say, breathes in the back of the Alliance, it is only about additional battalions.

The Red lines, which were not going to cross in NATO, also always existed. These lines concerned almost all the former Soviet republics - with the exception of the Baltic countries occupied in 1940. In 1997, when the first expansion of the alliance took place, at the NATO Madrid Summit, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma signed the Charter about a special partnership with the then leadership. I want to remind you that the agreement between NATO and Russia, concluded in the same year, is called the fundamental act. We will not argue that it is more important - an act or a charter. It is important that NATO and Ukraine agreed not to enter the possible entry, but about partnership, which seemed to many in the alliance exhaustive. But with Russia, NATO took on serious obligations - in particular, about the non -allowance of troops along the Russian borders on an ongoing basis.

Russia called NATO herself. She herself announced the organization as her opponent. She herself several times stopped cooperation with NATO under far -fetched reasons. She herself sent to Brussels the pompous Dima Rogozin - this is the diplomat so a diplomat! She herself began wars against her neighbors. She herself took up the systematic provocation of the alliance. Under Putin, NATO was again remembered that this is an alliance created to protect against a probable aggressor, and not just to exchange opinions.

Russia managed to achieve impressive success in strengthening NATO positions in eastern Europe. When Kuchma signed the charter about a special partnership, a meager number of his compatriots was conceived about joining the Alliance. Now in Warsaw, President Petro Poroshenko will represent the vast majority of his fellow citizens who would like to join NATO. They want this everywhere - both in the West, and in the center, and in the south, and in the east of Ukraine. A couple of years of occupation - they will want both in the Donbass and in the Crimea.

And what is indicative - there are no disagreements about strengthening positions in the east of Europe in NATO. The leaders of the same countries can advocate the weakening of sanctions against Russia and at the same time have no doubt the need to strengthen the role of the alliance. And there is no paradox in this. Because the softening of sanction is just the salvation of money. And the strengthening of NATO is a salvation of life.