Changes

In 2004 the Baltic states - [[Latvia]], [[Lithuania]], and [[Estonia]] joined NATO in violation of assurances made to Russian leaders when German Unification occurred.  The provocative action created for the first time a common border between the Russian Federation and a NATO state.  Three years later, at the Munich Security Conference, Putin declared, “We have the right to ask: against whom is this [NATO] expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.”<ref>https://aldeilis.net/english/putins-historical-speech-munich-conference-security-policy-2007/</ref>  In 2008 NATO said Ukraine and Georgia would become members.  Four other [[Eastern Europe]]an states joined NATO in 2009.

In 2004 the Baltic states - [[Latvia]], [[Lithuania]], and [[Estonia]] joined NATO in violation of assurances made to Russian leaders when German Unification occurred.  The provocative action created for the first time a common border between the Russian Federation and a NATO state.  Three years later, at the Munich Security Conference, Putin declared, “We have the right to ask: against whom is this [NATO] expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.”<ref>https://aldeilis.net/english/putins-historical-speech-munich-conference-security-policy-2007/</ref>  In 2008 NATO said Ukraine and Georgia would become members.  Four other [[Eastern Europe]]an states joined NATO in 2009.

In the face of the NATO onslaught, Putin repeatedly warned the West with the refrain of a made popular by [[Yulia Chicherina]] during the ongoing NATO-funded [[Donbas war]],<ref>https://youtu.be/HdVkbCGEyT8</ref> "we have nowhere to retreat."<ref>https://youtu.be/i0YqXRPHisE</ref>  Putin told the nation in a televised address on February 24, 2022 “I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border. It is a fact that over the past thirty years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries …In response,  we invariably faced either cynical [[deception]] and [[lies]] or attempts at pressure and [[blackmail]."

In the face of the NATO onslaught, Putin repeatedly warned the West with the refrain of a made popular by [[Yulia Chicherina]] during the ongoing NATO-funded [[Donbas war]],<ref>https://youtu.be/HdVkbCGEyT8</ref> "we have nowhere to retreat."<ref>https://youtu.be/i0YqXRPHisE</ref>  Putin told the nation in a televised address on February 24, 2022 “I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border. It is a fact that over the past thirty years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries …In response,  we invariably faced either cynical [[deception]] and [[lies]] or attempts at pressure and [[blackmail]]."

===Relations with the EU===

===Relations with the EU===