NATO and Western Cultural Hegemony. Please provide reliable evidence of your own claims that this war is merely "to recapture the former states of the USSR". You ask me for "reliable evidence", yet hypocrite that you are, do not provide a single source of your own.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-...
"I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the nato Summit in Bucharest, where afterward nato issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of nato. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand."
"NATO expansion is the heart of the strategy, but it includes E.U. expansion as well, and it includes turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy, and, from a Russian perspective, this is an existential threat."
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-... "I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the nato Summit in Bucharest, where afterward nato issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of nato. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand."
"NATO expansion is the heart of the strategy, but it includes E.U. expansion as well, and it includes turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy, and, from a Russian perspective, this is an existential threat."