See again AP--absolutely not reading the Washington Post story that triggered the "humiliation" questions leads to many of your comments or lack of answers to many of my questions placed to you.
If you had read the article---then does the following resemble any form of Russian "humiliation"--especially since what the author wrote in her article has been repeated multiple times by Russia just before and right after the Crimea annexation and Putin's Duma speech.
BUT surprisingly Russia has not mentioned any of the same "humiliation" statements since Russian troops crossed into the Ukraine. interesting is it not?
But if you had really understood Putin and all of what he has stated/written since 2002 ---- the "humiliation" accusations are just another Russian effort to define what Putin's geopolitical goals are actually.
1. Putin wants the destruction of NATO thus no longer a perceived military threat to Russia
2. Putin wants the EU split from the US thus the total reduction of US influence in all of Europe
3. Putin wants the EU to be destroyed as an economic/legal power in Europe as he views western liberalism to be an evil thing for the Russian culture ie the EU general legal protection of homosexuals is a massive Russia dislike right now--down to refusing any mail coming into Russia from Finland if the stamp has a nude man on it
If you really took the time to analyze the macroeconomics of Russia's dislike of the EU Association agreements--you will be light years ahead in your thinking-ever wonder WHY?
WHY--because any country that has joined the EU must go through all of their own laws and reform them, cancel them and or rewrite them to match the standard EU legal/economic law requirements WHICH goes totally against Russian State owned enterprises and the Russian oligarchs. The matching of EU laws would effectively limit the Russia gas weapon currently being used by Putin.
Secondly it would force Russia to reign in their old line Soviet current corruption practices which led to the fortune that Putin himself hides.
For the record: No treaties prohibiting NATO expansion were ever signed with Russia. No promises were broken. Nor did the impetus for NATO expansion come from a “triumphalist” Washington. On the contrary, Poland’s first efforts to apply in 1992 were rebuffed. I well remember the angry reaction of the U.S. ambassador to Warsaw at the time. But Poland and others persisted, precisely because they were already seeing signs of the Russian revanchism to come.
When the slow, cautious expansion eventually took place, constant efforts were made to reassure Russia. No NATO bases were placed in the new member states, and until 2013 no exercises were conducted there. A Russia-NATO agreement in 1997 promised no movement of nuclear installations. A NATO-Russia Council was set up in 2002. In response to Russian objections, Ukraine and Georgia were, in fact, denied NATO membership plans in 2008.
Meanwhile, not only was Russia not “humiliated” during this era, it was given de facto “great power” status, along with the Soviet seat on the U.N. Security Council and Soviet embassies. Russia also received Soviet nuclear weapons, some transferred from Ukraine in 1994 in exchange for Russian recognition of Ukraine’s borders. Presidents Clinton and Bush both treated their Russian counterparts as fellow “great power” leaders and invited them to join the Group of Eight — although Russia, neither a large economy nor a democracy, did not qualify.
So AP get back to the actual articles' acutal assumption---there was no Russian "humiliation" which was the core argument presented to the West as the core reason for Russian annexation of the Crimea and the creation of "New Russia".
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