Is Russia a threat to Western Europa and the U.S.?

In my article “What kind of a country is modern Ukraine?” I have provided some examples that situation in the sphere of rights of ethnic minorities and in the sphere of freedom of speech in Ukraine has become worse as compared with the situation before the so-called Euromaidan.

That article has been discussed on Internet forums and some American users have written that it does not matter much for them what kind of a country is modern Ukraine. In their opinion, the main thing is that Ukraine is now fighting against Russia and therefore Western Europa and the U.S. must help Ukraine because Russia – as a variant “Russia under V. Putin” is allegedly a threat to Western Europa and the U.S.

And in this article, I am going to consider the question: Is Russia really a threat to Western Europa or the U.S.?

I believe that many people in the West don’t know what Russia is, they don’t know when V. Putin became the President of Russia etc. Therefore, at first I am going to tell basic information about some subjects.

Till the end of 1991 Russia was a part of the Soviet Union and became an independent state only in December 1991. V. Putin was elected as the President of Russia on 26 March 2000.

If Russia or “Russia under V. Putin” had been an aggressive state, the Russian borders would have moved westwards in the period between the end of 1991 and the end of 2013; but on the map above you can see the opposite - the Russian borders did not move westwards, it were NATO borders which moved towards Russia.

Between the end of 1991 and the end of 2013 Russian army conducted two military operations abroad. In 1992 – i.e. long before V. Putin - in Transnistria which had the population of 695.7 thousand at that time and in 2008 in South Ossetia which had the population of 51.6 thousand at that time.

In the same period, between the end of 1991 and the end of 2013, the U.S. together with its allies conducted five military operations abroad.

1994 – in Bosnia and Herzegovina which had  population between 3.4 and 4.4 mil at that time.

1999 - in Yugoslavia (population of 10.7 mil at that time)

2001 – in Afghanistan (population of 19.7 mil at that time)

2003 – in Iraq (population of appr. 23.5 mil at that time)

2011 – in Libya (population of 6.4 mil at that time)

You can see that both the number of military operations of the U.S. and particularly number of people, which were affected by these operations, were much higher than the respective values of Russian military operations.

If Russia or “Russia under V. Putin” had been an aggressive state, Russia would have conducted much more military operations abroad during the first 22 years of its existence or during the first 14 years after V. Putin had become the President of Russia in 2000.

As for events, which took place after the end of 2013, I would like to tell basic information about some subjects related to these events.

At the end of 2013, a protest movement, the so-called Euromaidan began in Ukraine and at some point, the pro-Western protesters began to burn and kill during this Euromaidan; however now nobody in Ukraine can explain why they had begun to burn and kill (please see here).

Therefore, the Russian Government decided to accept the Crimea into the Russian Federation in March 2014; please see my article Was there a threat for ethnic Russians in February 2014 in Ukraine (Crimean question)?

And about further development of situation you can read in my article Has the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine been provoked?

So, Russia was not a threat to Western Europe and the U.S. before 2014, and it is not a threat to them now. The present crisis is caused only by events in Ukraine and therefore it does matter very much what were the reasons of these events in Ukraine, what kind of a country is modern Ukraine, etc.