The Glenwood Springs boys swim team nabbed a respectable fifth-place team finish to conclude the 2021 4A state championship meet in Thornton on Friday.
Tucker Esty’s recent column on the threat Russia poses to NATO and our democracy was well presented and accurate as far as it went. However, it presented only the West’s point of view. There’s also the Russian side of the story.
Since around 1990, when the Soviet Union dissolved, the West has provoked Russia and threatened her security. First, we brought the Baltic and other Eastern European countries into NATO after assuring Russia we would not do so. So now NATO borders Russia’s western flank. Second, we moved elements of our ballistic missile defense system into Eastern Europe under the view that Iran was a threat. Then we waged economic warfare on Russia because of their internal domestic policies with which we did not agree. And, eventually, we encouraged Georgia and Ukraine to sever their ties with Russia and join the EU and NATO. That would have put NATO on Russia’s southern flank. That crossed Putin’s red line.