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The problem with this narrative is that McFaul and Person omit crucial context about those statements that totally undermines the conclusion they draw from them. First, while the statements they quote make it sound as if Putin had no problem with NATO expansion, he made it very clear even at the time that he thought it was a bad idea. For instance, in the same November 2001 interview they quote, Putin also said that he didn’t think that expanding NATO “[made] any sense” because NATO had been created to deal with the threat posed by the Soviet Union and “there [was] no Soviet Union anymore”, so NATO expansion wouldn’t increase anyone’s security. Similarly, during a press conference in 2004 with Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, then Secretary General of NATO, he stated that “Russia's position toward the enlargement of NATO is well known and has not changed” and repeated his view that it wouldn’t increase anyone’s security, but strangely those statements and many others like them didn’t make it into McFaul and Person’s article.

You'd be hard pressed to find a single person in the Baltics who thinks joining NATO didn't increase their country's security. The only difference of opinion is that some soviet Russians living in the Baltics think this is a bad thing, stopping Putin from restoring their rightful place as part of the Russian Empire.

Well, if enough people think it, I guess that must make it true!

In any event, the point of the passage that you’re quoting does not turn on Putin’s assertion being correct.

It's funny to see highly upvoted comments of people arguing "lots of people in X believed Y, therefore Y is true" and downvoting people who write that's not a supportable argument, and then upvoting "lots of people in Russia believed NATO expansion was a threat, but that's not a legitimate belief and they didn't believe it" and then retreat to "okay, maybe they believed it, but it's dumb therefore Russia bad," while downvoting any disagreement.

And then accusing the dissidents of being paid shills.

I didn't say "lots of people", I said "basically everyone actually living in the countries involved". (including security analysts, politicians, pro-Russia people etc.)

Motteposting does have a point, though. Putin's literal words don't actually convey worry, but are also clear bullshit. Therefore more significance should be given to their negative valence, which does indicate worry.

yes, that's the example

"basically everyone actually living in the countries involves" thought X, therefore X is true, and yet making the claim that basically everyone living in Russia having a belief about actions of the US and co is met with downvotes and derision, attacks against the people, attacks against whether this was genuine, and attacks on the legitimacy of the belief itself

and then attacking the people even defending any part of that accusing them of being shills

it's a post about the behavior of the people who are on this forum which make it appear like arguments as soldiers

as an aside, I can't tell you how little respect I would assign to the beliefs of "security analysts, politicians, pro-russia people (whatever that means)" generally