NATO expansion

“The polling on this showed that the Russian people by two to one were in favor of basically taking this kind of military action against Ukraine to prevent NATO expansion, but they were not in favor of doing it purely for reunification.”

“They've chose to fight an optional proxy war of choice that was easily avoidable if they'd just taken NATO expansion off the table because they thought it would weaken Putin”

“So no, I wouldn't have been willing to do it in 21 in order to avoid it because quite frankly, I don't believe that it would have avoided it just would have forestalled it.”

“I think it's really clear that we could have avoided that war if we had taken NATO expansion off the table.”

“There was a deal on the table to shut the war down. We just would have had to agree to make Ukraine neutral. And of course the Biden administration told them not to this war is and has always been about NATO expansion.”

“And in fact, there was still an opportunity before this war to prevent the war by taking NATO expansion off the table.”

“I said the Biden administration provoked the war with talk of NATO expansion.”