Stoltenberg has now publicly acknowledged that Putin made clear to NATO in a draft treaty before the war that it could avert it if NATO agreed not to keep enlarging. But NATO rejected the offer.
More evidence to contradict the lie that Putin is some kind of random overlord. The ease with which (western) liberals are willing to believe that the war must go on because the enemy is irrational and unreasonable. Jfc. And here we are again seeing that NATO purposely provoked Russia into invading. 'If you do X, we'll do Y.' Do X. 'How could anyone predict that they would do Y?'
It is a pretty clever way to get people to support horrific violence. Putin is the "bad guy" just like in the movies. And what happens if the bad guy isn't dead at the end of the movie? He comes back for the sequel. So there's no negotiation with evil baddie Putin, the west must fight until he is destroyed because killing Putin is the only thing that will end the war, just like in the movies.
Then lastly on Sweden. First of all, it is historic that now Finland is member of the Alliance. And we have to remember the background. The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.
The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
It's funny, because a year and a half ago I got called a tankie and a Russian bot for saying the exact same thing, and now it's on the record from the NATO secretary general.
Crazy how Putin in the words of this ghoul is still more willing to compromise than they are, suggesting at least a less imminently threatening form of membership.