Any idea that NATO or the U.S. “provoked” Russia into invading Ukraine is ridiculous (“Letter to the editor: Think twice before calling Russian invasion ‘unprovoked,'” April 12).

It is Russia that provoked its neighbors into seeking to join NATO. Russia and its predecessor state, the Soviet Union, have repeatedly invaded its neighbors. The Soviet Union invaded and annexed Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in 1940. It invaded Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Russian troops invaded Moldova in 1992, Georgia in 2008, and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. Given that history, Central and Eastern European countries see that joining NATO is their best security against the most likely threat – an aggressive Russia. Every time Russia invaded, it was to suppress the choices and voices of the citizens of the country it invaded. Russia was “provoked” not by the U.S. or NATO, but by the choices of Ukrainians, Czechs, and Hungarians wanting greater freedom and democracy. Russia’s invasion was naked aggression.

The idea that the U.S. doesn’t want a negotiated settlement is equally false. The problem is that Russia is not willing to agree to any negotiation that does not leave them with some of the territory they stole. A world where an aggressor losing a war of conquest gets to keep part of the territory they stole is a world that encourages any aggressive, expansionist country to launch wars against weaker neighbors.

Peace in Europe requires that countries respect the borders of their neighbors.

Sigrid Olson
Cape Elizabeth