64 years since the Cuban Missile Crisis, in an interview conducted by journalist Pavel Zarubin (October 22, 2026) with the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin asked the West, “What don’t you understand? Are we putting missiles near the borders of the US? No. It’s the US with their missiles coming to our home. They’re literally on our doorstep. Is this really too much to ask? No more strike systems on our doorstep.” When the shoe was on the other foot, the US took the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. In the 21st Century, the US and NATO expect Russia to accept the very conditions that were so unacceptable that the US almost began a nuclear war.
Vladimir Putin said that, historically, some regions are not Ukrainian territory; they were the territory of Russia. The people living in these territories voted, first, for state independence; as a second step, they voted for reunification with the Russian Federation. Talking about any “territorial losses” is inappropriate. The anti-Russian campaign in European countries, the constant talk about a Russian threat, and the start of preparations for war with our country are a political schizophrenia. It is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield; inflicting a strategic defeat on it is unrealistic, he added.
Those who have sought the “strategic defeat” of Russia throughout the centuries, and unfortunately, such people still exist today, will come to realize the realities of modern life and understand that it is better to live in friendship with Russia. This is in the interests of their peoples. If you look at the political processes taking place in Europe, it becomes obvious that the people of Europe do not want to fight Russia. We do not want war either, and we are not preparing for any war with Europe. But for some reason, the current Ukrainian leadership has decided that the whole world must pay this Ukrainian leadership, fight for them, supply weapons, ammunition, equipment, and so on.
Some European countries want to fight Russia to weaken it. And how does the Ukrainian leadership itself treat its own citizens? It treats them as expendable material. They are rounded up like stray dogs on the streets and forcibly driven to the front line. Official data indicates that there are half a million deserters and over 300,000 criminal cases.
We have always advocated for a peaceful resolution, from the very first days. In 2014, we offered to help Kyiv negotiate with the southeast of what was then Ukraine. But in response, they used cannons and airplanes against the civilian population, essentially starting a war. Then the Minsk agreements were signed. We have always sought to reach an agreement with that part of Ukraine that did not agree with the State coup in Kyiv. We are still ready to negotiate and seek solutions to this difficult, complicated situation, particularly because these are people who are very close to us. Russians and Ukrainians are one people.
Everything can be agreed upon. In any case, we will accomplish our tasks, and all the goals of the special military operation will be achieved. Regarding our negotiations with a representative of the United States administration, we agreed that we are ready to resume our trilateral contacts. The goal of these negotiations will be to discuss the issue of ensuring the security of Ukraine and Russia after peace agreements have been reached, and not just as a result of a suspension of combat operations for some short period of time. We are ready to resume these contacts to achieve this goal.
The representative of the US administration noted that if we are to discuss issues related to ensuring security in the future for both Ukraine and Russia, then naturally we will also need to talk about the architecture of European security as a whole. And I also agree with this. Let’s see how the situation develops in the coming days. Russia has never been and will never be your (Europe’s) enemy. We do not want European raw materials or wealth; we have our own. Russia is the richest country in the world in terms of raw materials. We want neither your land nor your territory. Look at the vastness of Russia on the map. It is twice as large as all of Europe. What good would your land do us? What would we do with it?
Why do you think Russia is an enemy of Europe? What harm has Russia ever done to you? Did we sell you gas and raw materials at prices lower than those charged by your ‘friends’? Yes, we did. Did Russia sacrifice 20 million people during World War II to get rid of the Nazis? Yes,s we did. Was Russia the first country to help Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic? Yes. Have we helped Europe during fires and natural disasters? Yes. What has Russia done to them for them to hate it so much? Russia is not your enemy. Your true enemies are your leaders, those who govern you, Vladimir Putin summed up.
The Minsk Accords
The Minsk Accords were a series of international agreements signed in Minsk, Belarus, designed to stop the war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The Minsk I (Minsk Protocol), signed in September 2014 by Ukraine, Russia, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and separatist leaders, was a 12-point plan aimed at an immediate ceasefire, prisoner exchanges, humanitarian aid delivery, and heavy weapons withdrawal. It quickly collapsed amid frequent violations. Minsk II was signed in February 2015 by representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE, and the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, with mediation from France and Germany (the Normandy Format).
The core points of Minsk II were an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire. The withdrawal of heavy military weapons to create a buffer zone. Monitoring and verification by the OSCE. A dialogue on interim self-government and “special status” for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions under Ukrainian law. Prisoner and hostage exchanges, plus a pardon and amnesty for combatants. Constitutional reform in Ukraine providing for decentralization. Restoration of full control over the state border by the Ukrainian government, tied to local elections and constitutional changes.
Neither agreement achieved a permanent peace. Ceasefire lines were repeatedly violated over the years, and deep disagreements remained, particularly over the sequencing of local elections versus the return of border control to Kyiv, and Russia’s insistence that it was a mediator rather than a party to the conflict. The breakdown of the framework preceded Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Russian or Soviet Territorial Expansion in the last 300 years
Over the last nearly 300 years, Russian territorial expansion transformed a northern European state into the largest land empire in human history. In the 18thcentury,y Peter the Great and Catherine the Great began Baltic and Black Sea Expansion. After defeating Sweden in the Great Northern War, Peter the Great acquired Estonia, Livonia, and parts of Finland, moving the capital to St. Petersburg. The Russian Empire pushed south, defeating the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate. Russia annexed Crimea (1783) and gained vast southern steppes (Novorossiya). Through the partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795, Russia absorbed large swathes of modern-day Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine.
The 19th Century saw expansion in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Far East. Russia annexed Georgia (1801), Dagestan, and parts of Azerbaijan and Armenia following wars with Persia and the Ottomans. Throughout the mid-to-late 19th century, Russian forces conquered the Kazakh zhuzes and the Uzbek khanates of Khiva, Bukhara, and Kokand.
Under the Treaty of Aigun (1858) and the Convention of Peking (1860), China ceded the Amur and Ussuri river basins, establishing Vladivostok. Russia colonized Alaska in North America before selling it to the United States in 1867. Finland and Congress Poland remained core parts of the empire through much of the 1800s.
The 1917 Russian Revolution and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk temporarily cost Russia Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, and parts of Belarus and Ukraine. After the formation of the USSR (1922–1930s), the Bolsheviks reclaimed much of the former empire, organizing Ukraine, Belarus, the Transcaucasian republics, and later Central Asian republics (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan) into Soviet Socialist Republics.
Following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and World War II, the USSR annexed the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), eastern Poland, Bessarabia (Moldova), and parts of Finland. In Asia, the Soviet Union regained the southern half of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands from Japan. During the Cold War, while not direct internal annexation, the USSR established a belt of satellite states across Eastern Europe through the Warsaw Pact. In 1991, after the Collapse of the USSR, the Soviet Union dissolved into 15 independent nations, causing Russia to shrink back to its post-imperial/Federation borders.
Post-1991, during the Caucasus Conflicts, through brief wars and interventions, Russia recognized or occupied the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and claimed additional regions in eastern and southern Ukraine during the ongoing conflict starting in 2022.
World’s Greatest Conquerors, Colonizers, and Empires
Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great are widely recognized as the greatest conquerors in history due to the immense scale of their territorial expansions and their lasting impact on world civilizations. Genghis Khan (1162–1227) created the largest contiguous land empire in history, spanning nearly 13 million square miles across Eurasia. Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) conquered lands stretching from Greece and Egypt through Persia all the way to northwestern India by age 30. Cyrus the Great (c. 600–530 BC) was the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, covering over 3 million square miles. Tamerlane / Timur (1336–1405) conquered vast swaths of West, South, and Central Asia, establishing a formidable Turco-Mongol empire, as he tried to claim the legacy of Genghis Khan. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) exercised direct or allied control over major portions of Central and Western Europe through the Napoleonic Wars.
The British Empire is the most extensive colonizer in human history, covering about 35.5 million square kilometres or roughly 26% of the world’s total land area at its peak around 1920, as it claimed territories across every time zone. The Spanish Empire, ~13.7 million km² (Peak: ~1810), dominated vast regions of the Americas and the Philippines. The Second French Colonial Empire, ~11.5 million km² (Peak: ~1920), held major territories across Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Americas. The Portuguese Empire, ~5.5 million km² (Peak: ~1820), pioneered early global maritime routes with holdings in Brazil, Africa, and Asia. The Dutch Empire had significant holdings including modern-day Indonesia, parts of the Caribbean, and South Africa.
Christopher Columbus, an Italian-born navigator, initiated large-scale European exploration and colonization of the Americas through his voyages. Cecil Rhodes, a British imperialist and financier, shaped British control in Southern Africa through his ambitions. Robert Clive, a key soldier and administrator for the East India Company, laid the groundwork for British rule in India.
Since World War II, the USA has behaved like a global policeman. It is the only country with Combatant Commands that cover the entire planet. The United States operates approximately 750 military bases (ranging up to over 860 depending on how smaller sites are classified) spread across roughly 80 to 95 countries and territories worldwide.
Clearly, the Europeans who accuse Russia of an expansionist mindset were the world’s greatest colonisers, and the USA is poking its nose all over the world.
Warsaw Pact Folds NATO Expands
The USA-led NATO was founded on April 4, 1949, in Washington, D.C., as a collective defence alliance to deter communist Soviet expansionism after World War II. The Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact was formed on May 14, 1955, in Warsaw, Poland. It was created by the Soviet Union as a direct military counterbalance to the Western NATO alliance, specifically prompted by West Germany joining NATO in May 1955.
The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the subsequent expansion of NATO marked the defining geopolitical transition of post-Cold War Europe. With the Soviet Collapse (1989–1991), the pact began to unravel with the Revolutions of 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the reunification of Germany in 1990. It was formally declared non-existent on July 1, 1991, during a final summit in Prague. Normally, with the annulment of the Warsaw Pact, NATO should have also been dissolved, but NATO chose to expand. Founded in 1949 with 12 members, NATO expanded during the Cold War to include Greece and Turkey (1952), West Germany (1955), and Spain (1982). Post-Cold War eastward waves added Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary in 1999. In 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined in the largest single wave of enlargement. Albania and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017), and North Macedonia (2020) joined. Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024) abandoned historical neutrality to bring the alliance’s membership to 32 countries.
The eastward movement of the alliance remains a central point of debate regarding post-Cold War security architecture and relations with Russia. One wonders who is expansionist, Russia or Europe.
In Ukraine West Created Russia’s Cuba Moment
The comparison between NATO’s eastward expansion toward Ukraine and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is a key framework used by political scientists, historians, and Russian officials to explain the geopolitical tensions leading to the 2022 war in Ukraine. Proponents of this view argue that Russian leadership viewed a potential NATO-aligned Ukraine as an existential, non-negotiable security threat similar to how the United States viewed the placement of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba just 90 miles off the Florida coast in 1962.
In April 2008 at the Bucharest Summit, NATO declared that Ukraine would eventually become a member, prompting strong warnings from Moscow that a Western military alliance on its direct border crossed a “brightest of red lines”. Analysts drawing this parallel suggest that just as the US demanded the removal of strategic threats in its immediate sphere of influence during the Cold War, Russia acted out of a perceived imperative to block an adversarial military bloc from absorbing a neighbouring state.
Critics of the “Cuba moment” analogy, including many Western officials, Eastern European nations, and regional analysts, argue that equating NATO expansion to the Cuban Missile Crisis denies sovereign nations (like Ukraine, Poland, or the Baltic states) the fundamental right to freely choose their own alliances and foreign policy. This perspective emphasizes that countries joined or sought to join NATO not due to Western imperialism, but out of fear of Russian aggression based on Moscow’s historical and contemporary interventions in neighbouring non-NATO states.
The Russian officials frequently claim the West broke a verbal promise made in 1990 not to expand NATO “one inch to the east” past a reunified Germany.
Europe-Russia Friendship can be Win-Win for Both
A Europe–Russia partnership could be win-win due to mutual economic complementarities, such as Europe needing stable energy and raw materials, and Russia needing European technology, investment, and markets.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, European nations have actively decoupled from Russian energy and imposed severe sanctions. But this has happened at huge cost to them. Animosity with Russia also requires huge increases in European defence spending at the cost of social security and national development. European leaders largely view a return to business-as-usual or a simple “reset” as a form of dangerous appeasement rather than a stable solution.
Analysts note that these two worldviews often act as a zero-sum game. If Russia secures its desired security buffers or spheres of influence, Eastern European sovereignty is compromised; conversely, if Eastern European nations integrate fully with the West, Moscow perceives an existential threat.
Rather than pursuing friendship, European institutions (such as the European Commission led by hawkish Ursula von der Leyen) are focused on reducing vulnerabilities, diversifying supply chains away from single-supplier dependencies, and strengthening defence and deterrence.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that official, business, and public ties are at a historic low, while European policy briefs emphasize long-term strategies to resist and constrain rather than embrace cooperation. Geography and economics dictate eventual pragmatism. Vladimir Putin’s recent interview has tried to assuage all fears. Will the Western Military-Industrial Complex let such a bonhomie be pursued at the cost of company top-lines?
Author: Air Marshal Anil Chopra X: @Chopsyturvey
Header Picture Credit: Representative Image Generated using AI
Twitter: @AirPowerAsia
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So nicely summarized.