The significance behind the events in Europe is the West's opposition to Russia.

Sputnik - The current opposition of the West to Russia is a repetition of history and demonstrates a geopolitical constant throughout the centuries.

"The basic and essential significance of the events in Europe at the beginning of this century is the military movement of the European masses from west to east and then from east to west. [However,] the first instigator of this movement was the movement from west to east."

"WAR AND PEACE", LEO TOLSTOY

With the announcement of Russia's suspension from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) during a recent speech by Vladimir Putin, and amidst the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, in which many Western countries (led by the United States) are directly involved in sending weapons and financial support to Kiev in an attempt to provoke a desired military defeat for Russia on the battlefield, the world is once again watching with apprehension the scenario of increasing tension between Moscow and the West.

The blame for this tension is traditionally placed on Russia, whose conduct of foreign policy abroad is said to have first provoked distrust and, subsequently, retaliatory policies from the West towards Moscow in the form of sanctions, attempts at political isolation, and other various threats.

However, since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, Russia has sought not exactly to antagonize the West, but rather to collaborate with it as an "equal among peers," that is, to have its interests and concerns taken into account by Europeans and Americans, which ultimately did not happen over time.

It is worth noting that in the early 2000s, after the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers in the United States, Russia was one of the first countries to express solidarity with the Americans for the victims of the terrorist attack, although this same solidarity was not shown by the West towards Russia in its fight against domestic terrorism in Chechnya. Before the attacks, Moscow's appeals to Western countries were essentially ignored or, at best, viewed ambiguously by the West, which even harbored aspirations for the eventual dismemberment of the Russian state.

Nevertheless, as a gesture of goodwill, Russia consented to the stationing of American troops in Afghanistan to combat Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda, thus becoming considered "an ally of the West" in the fight against international terrorism. That scenario already seemed to demonstrate that relations between the West and Russia would only improve when the West realized that both had a common enemy, which at the time was Islamic terrorist radicalism, and not necessarily because Western leaders took into account Russia's apprehensions expressed years earlier.

Also in the early 2000s, when Putin addressed the Bundestag in Germany in 2001, the Russian president expressed his desire to see a Europe strengthened and politically independent from other centers of power, combining its own capabilities with Russia's human, cultural, territorial, natural resource, and defense capabilities. But for this to happen, it would be necessary to increase the climate of trust on the continent based on a new understanding of security that this time encompassed "all of Europe," that is, it was necessary to think about a project beyond NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), so that Western countries could finally abandon their stereotypes regarding Russia and thus build a common future for all European citizens.

Politically, Russia rightfully harbored concerns about the global dominance of the United States and its leadership in NATO, given that Washington expressed its intention not only to expand the Atlantic Alliance into Eastern Europe, but also to develop and build new missile defense systems on the continent.

Russia rightly wanted to negotiate with the Americans regarding the presence of these systems in European territory; however, once again, its concerns and questions were ignored. It wouldn't be long before, in 2002, the United States announced its unilateral withdrawal from the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (signed in 1972 with the Soviet Union), a decision protested by Russia, which already foresaw the notorious damage that such a measure would imply for the strategic stability that had been so hard-won during the Cold War.

Having freed themselves from this significant limitation, the Americans then launched a second wave of NATO expansion in 2004, proceeding shortly thereafter to install anti-ballistic missiles in countries such as Poland and Romania, claiming that this equipment was intended to protect Europe from Iran, which was obviously not a sincere argument and even less capable of convincing the Russians. Nevertheless, with the accession of the Baltic States to NATO also in 2004, the Atlantic Alliance came to share a direct border with Russia, allowing its fighter jets to patrol Russian airspace around the Baltic Sea, within a few minutes of the country's second largest city, Saint Petersburg.

This was followed by three further NATO expansions (2009, 2017, and 2020) and the unilateral withdrawal in 2019 by the Americans from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in 1987, which eliminated the use of land-based ballistic and cruise missiles (capable of carrying nuclear warheads) with a range of 500-5.500 km in European territory. The Americans freed themselves from yet another limitation, and it was notoriously only a matter of time before such equipment reappeared in European territory, near the Russian borders.

Given this entire context and in the face of repeated NATO attempts to continue its "open door" policy on the continent, which included, as one of its outcomes, the possibility of accepting other post-Soviet states into the bloc, such as Georgia and Ukraine, Russia found itself in a situation that further increased its perception of insecurity and confirmed its concerns, so often repeated and so often ignored by Western leaders.

In short, as Tolstoy might say if he were alive, the basic and essential meaning of the events in Europe at the beginning of this century was the movement of the Euro-Atlantic military infrastructure from west to east. Yes, on February 24, 2022, Russia moved its troops and tanks from east to west, to the surprise of many. However, once again, the main instigator of this movement was the movement from west to east.