Why did the situation in Ukraine come to this step?

The long-term accumulation of security contradictions in Europe is the root of the Ukrainian crisis. In particular, the unrestricted eastward expansion of NATO led by the United States has seriously squeezed Russia's strategic security space and pushed the contradiction between Russia and Ukraine to the crater step by step, which has become the direct cause of the current Ukrainian crisis.

Great changes have taken place in Ukraine for some time. This major international conflict, known as the first "live broadcast on the whole network" in the social media era, has attracted the attention of all parties. The evolution of the Ukrainian issue has a complicated historical latitude and longitude. The development of the situation to this point is the comprehensive effect of various factors and the outbreak of contradictions accumulated over the years.

The long-term accumulation of security contradictions in Europe is the root of the Ukrainian crisis. In particular, the unrestricted eastward expansion of NATO led by the United States has seriously squeezed Russia's strategic security space and pushed the contradiction between Russia and Ukraine to the crater step by step, which has become the direct cause of the current Ukrainian crisis.

NATO is a product of the Cold War and should have been dissolved after the end of the Cold War. However, the United States strives to maintain unipolar hegemony, continues to use NATO as a strategic tool to control Europe and contain Russia, and constantly promotes NATO's eastward expansion under the guise of "consolidating democracy", "expanding stability" and promoting the same values.

As early as 1997, George Kennan, a former American diplomat and Soviet observer, wrote in The New York Times that NATO's continued expansion to Russia "will be the most fatal mistake of American policy in the whole post-cold war era".

In fact, after the end of the Cold War, Russia was once committed to improving relations with the West, and Putin even applied to join NATO three times. However, after a brief relaxation, the United States still regards Russia as its main competitor and suppresses it.

From 1999 to 2020, NATO led by the United States carried out five rounds of eastward expansion, and its eastern border pushed to Russia for more than 1000 kilometers, and its member countries increased from 16 to 30. Its sphere of influence gradually expanded from Western Europe, Southern Europe and Central Europe during the Cold War to Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe, and from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, forming a strategic encirclement of Russia.