Often, both are true. It's perfectly legitimate for anyone (Russian or otherwise) to have geo-political concerns (e.g. NATO expansion, Cuban missile crisis etc), but a Russian concerned about NATO expansion may also be very opposed to the extreme option of war as a solution.

War affects an ordinary Russian in very negative ways: the possibility of conscription (w/ risk of injury/death), complications for travel, sanctions on goods and services, and the economic opportunity cost (money wasted on war that could have gone to productive uses, plus reduced economic output due to drone strikes on yandex, wildberries, refineries).

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killerstorm 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Russia could fully integrate into EU/NATO if it really wanted.

That's just not compatible with ambitions of its corrupt leaders who want to be a root-level player, not "one of NATO countries". And I'm not sure how legitimate is prioritization of wants of corrupt leaders over well-being of your compatriots.

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jacquesm an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Unsurprisingly, the same motivates the current crop of leadership in the US. They stopped teaching history in school I guess.

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RuslanL 21 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

They have asked to be a part of nato twice around 2000th and were both times rejected.

	▲	killerstorm 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		NATO is not something you can just apply to on a whim. The path for a membership was there: e.g. there were some joint exercises, etc. Obviously they also need political integration as well. Russia actually have been a member of Council of Europe (PACE, etc.) since 1996 but it was expelled in 2022. If they had a good record in Council of Europe they could really go for NATO membership eventually.