by James Rickards
Daily Reckoning
There’s no need to rehash the sordid politics of the U.S.-Russia relationship since 2014. That relationship became collateral damage to gross corruption in Ukraine.
The U.S. and its allies, especially the UK under globalists like David Cameron, wanted to peel off Ukraine from the Russian orbit and make it part of the EU and eventually NATO.
From Russia’s perspective, this was unacceptable. It may be true that most Americans cannot find Ukraine on a map, but a simple glance at a map reveals that much of Ukraine lies East of Moscow.
Putting Ukraine in a Western alliance such as NATO would create a crescent stretching from Luhansk in the South through Poland in the West and back around to Estonia in the North. There are almost no natural obstacles between that arc and Moscow; it’s mostly open steppe.