Sorry for overlooking your sources, but if you have to respond to a handful of threads alone, mistakes will happen, the amount of time and attention I have available is limited.
"Tens of millions of our citizens and fellow-countrymen found themselves outside the Russian Federation."
There is nothing in the quoted sentence or the rest of the speech that implies expansionist tendencies, quite to the contrary I would say.
Meanwhile, the horrible lessons of the past continue dictating their imperatives to us today. Russia, with its ties to former Soviet republics, states that are independent today, ties of common destiny, ties through the Russian language and a great culture, cannot stand apart from the universal aspiration for freedom. Today, when independent states have formed and are developing in post-Soviet space, we want to aspire together to meet human values, to embrace broad opportunities for personal and collective success and to achieve standards of civilization gained through suffering. These are the standards that can give us a single economic, humanitarian and legal space.
And the Russia Matters article quite nicely illustrates the deteriorating relationships between Russia and the West. Initially, I think, Putin really [wanted to] believe that everyone will cooperate and follow international law, but over time he became disillusioned. There is this theme of the shared Russian history that Putin repeatedly talks about, but this is always balanced by statements about the rights to sovereignty. He mostly talks about cooperation between states with a common history but he never says that anything has to be incorporated into Russia. Which is a really stupid idea to begin with, just imagine the amount of resources it would take to force a country like Ukraine into Russia when the population is categorically opposed to this.
Besides that, this is not really what I was asking for, I was thinking of political or military analysts or even just the media stating that Putin wants to conquer its neighbors. We can of course now look over all the things Putin said and cherry pick those that could be interpreted this way. But where are the statements like »For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.«?
So for moving the goalpost, I just want something concrete, not vague statements where I have to read something into it. Either, like in the case of Trump, from Putin itself, or in case he never said something like this, I am also happy with some analyst saying before the invasion, we have looked at what Putin says and does and we think he wants to conquer some of his neighbors in the future. Because that is exactly the story the media tells since the invasion, now he wants to take over Ukraine and then he will go for the Baltic states. Quotes expressing that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation can mean all and nothing - you read into that your point of view, I see it as a harmless statement.
"Tens of millions of our citizens and fellow-countrymen found themselves outside the Russian Federation."
There is nothing in the quoted sentence or the rest of the speech that implies expansionist tendencies, quite to the contrary I would say.
Meanwhile, the horrible lessons of the past continue dictating their imperatives to us today. Russia, with its ties to former Soviet republics, states that are independent today, ties of common destiny, ties through the Russian language and a great culture, cannot stand apart from the universal aspiration for freedom. Today, when independent states have formed and are developing in post-Soviet space, we want to aspire together to meet human values, to embrace broad opportunities for personal and collective success and to achieve standards of civilization gained through suffering. These are the standards that can give us a single economic, humanitarian and legal space.
And the Russia Matters article quite nicely illustrates the deteriorating relationships between Russia and the West. Initially, I think, Putin really [wanted to] believe that everyone will cooperate and follow international law, but over time he became disillusioned. There is this theme of the shared Russian history that Putin repeatedly talks about, but this is always balanced by statements about the rights to sovereignty. He mostly talks about cooperation between states with a common history but he never says that anything has to be incorporated into Russia. Which is a really stupid idea to begin with, just imagine the amount of resources it would take to force a country like Ukraine into Russia when the population is categorically opposed to this.
Besides that, this is not really what I was asking for, I was thinking of political or military analysts or even just the media stating that Putin wants to conquer its neighbors. We can of course now look over all the things Putin said and cherry pick those that could be interpreted this way. But where are the statements like »For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.«?
So for moving the goalpost, I just want something concrete, not vague statements where I have to read something into it. Either, like in the case of Trump, from Putin itself, or in case he never said something like this, I am also happy with some analyst saying before the invasion, we have looked at what Putin says and does and we think he wants to conquer some of his neighbors in the future. Because that is exactly the story the media tells since the invasion, now he wants to take over Ukraine and then he will go for the Baltic states. Quotes expressing that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation can mean all and nothing - you read into that your point of view, I see it as a harmless statement.