The US withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty in 2002 and started placing Aegis missiles in Poland and Romania. Putin expressed concern about the proximity of these missiles to Moscow. The US refused to negotiate with Russia and stated that NATO enlargement was none of their business. Russia's attempts to engage in negotiations were unsuccessful, leading to a military operation and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The situation has resulted in a high death toll, mass displacement, and a significant economic decline in Ukraine.
Speaker 0: Our border. Second, the US had walked away from the anti ballistic missile treaty unilaterally in 2002, and it had basically ended it had base it started to place Aegis missiles in Poland and Romania. Yeah. And Putin said, we don't even know what is in those silos, but it's a few minutes from Moscow. This is intolerable.
You unilaterally left a treaty. Now we are vulnerable. The United States said we don't negotiate with you. And in January 2022, the US gave a formal reply to who? And the formal reply is NATO enlargement is none of your business.
Literally, that is US policy. It's none of your business. Not that we will sit down and discuss, negotiate, try to understand your security concerns. It's none of your business. And on February 21st 20 22, Russia Security Council met.
President Putin asked foreign minister Lavrov, Lavrov, give a report of the status of your discussions with the Americans. Lavrov responded that we have received a firm reply of no negotiation over NATO. We have tried, mister president, but we did not succeed. The US will not engage in negotiations. And 3 days later, the special military operation took place.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are killed. 10,000,000 have fled the country. The economic collapse is probably more than 50%. Ukraine is losing around a 1000 soldiers every day killed or seriously wounded right now. This so called