Key Points and Summary – At a high-profile summit with Chinese and Indian leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his longstanding grievance that NATO’s eastward expansion is the “root” of the Ukraine conflict.
-Speaking at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting, Putin demanded the alliance rescind memberships to achieve a lasting peace.
-The summit served as a show of unity between Russia and key non-Western powers, offering Moscow an economic lifeline through oil sales that dodge Western sanctions.
-The meeting allows Putin to project strength and test support from allies as he navigates delicate peace negotiations with the West.
Putin Blames NATO Enlargement for Ukraine Conflict
Vladimir Putin has blamed NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe for the Ukraine conflict.
On Monday, the Russian President told a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the defense bloc must rescind members if it wants permanent peace.
At the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Tianjin, northern China, Putin reiterated his longstanding complaints that Western efforts to bring Kyiv into the fold were the “root” of today’s crisis.
Ukraine is not a NATO member, although in 2019, it added an obligation to seek both NATO and EU membership into its constitution.
The NATO Question
Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began back in February 2022 after years of pro-Russian separatists fighting with Ukrainian troops in the Donbas.
More than three years on, Russia holds just under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory and faces a grinding military stalemate. For Moscow, however, the battlefield is only part of the struggle.
The Kremlin continues to depict the war as a civilizational clash with a declining West that, in Putin’s words, “humiliated” Russia after the Cold War by enlarging NATO.
At the Tianjin summit, the Russian leader pressed his case for what he called a “fair balance in the security sphere”- his sly way of arguing for NATO and Europe to make defence concessions to his government.
Putin also insisted that only by addressing such issues could peace talks with Ukraine gain credibility, and that he appreciated mediation proposals from New Delhi and Beijing.
Just Politics?
As is usually the case with such public summits, all the politicians in attendance were clearly keen to get photographed in situations that benefited their global images. Modi was snapped clutching Putin’s hand as they both approached Xi.
The trio of despots was all smiles for the press cameras, but there is no true unity behind the photo-op, with each government scrambling to protect its own interests.
Russia sells a combined 1.3 billion barrels of crude oil to China and India each year, offering Moscow a solid export that dodges Western sanctions. Neither seems interested in U.S. pressure for them to join in on attempts to isolate Moscow.
Alaska Meeting Breakthrough?
Putin also suggested that his August meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska had possibly been a step on the path toward peace.
The Russian dictator boasted to the SCO audience that he had brought his Chinese counterpart up to speed on his “understandings” with Trump, which he claimed included discussions on NATO’s limits and winding down sanctions.
Naturally, the Kremlin has failed to expand on the details.
Regardless, his claims may set proverbial alarm bells ringing among Ukraine and its allies.
There have long been concerns that Russia is keen to encroach upon the sovereignty of its neighbours, demonstrated not merely through the Ukraine invasion but via other post-Cold War military occupations, namely in Moldova and Georgia.
About the Author: Georgia Gilholy
Georgia Gilholy is a journalist based in the United Kingdom who has been published in Newsweek, The Times of Israel, and the Spectator. Gilholy writes about international politics, culture, and education. You can follow her on X: @llggeorgia.
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Swamplaw Yankee
September 2, 2025 at 1:00 pm
Oh, ho, ho, Those old slave-sex traders of Moscow 500 years ago have progeny with big needs to satiate!
Yes, Virginia, there were muscovite peasants that invaded Ukraine monthly to “HARVEST” little Ukrainian children throughout the hinterland of Ukraine. So, in 1614 the deviant muscovite slavers blamed NATO, as the threat to their safe trips to the old Greek fort in Crimea called Caffe.
Yes, tasarling Putin’s forebears, blamed NATO as the psychological threat that caused them unease as their Caravans full of mass abducted Ukrainian children wound their way to the huge piles of Ottoman GOLD awaiting their safe arrival at the vast dungeon depot.
Those upset ukie fathers; it’s NATO’s fault. That threat to our GNP. -30-
Off-CNN
September 2, 2025 at 2:35 pm
Definitely, NATO is fully & totally responsible, for the ukro conflict.
Who dah NATO. An evil outfit.
NATO, supposedly a defensive organization, yet invaded and walloped Afghanistan,Iraq and Libya.And turned them into human abattoirs. For years.
So, in 2013-2024, NATO thought they could do exactly the same with Ukraine.
Hussein Obama’s agents, EU agents and outfits like NED and Soros and allies waded into kyiv and cultivated ties with banderovtsy elements.
Among them, now already quite dead, very dead, were two rabidly-rabid neo-nazi extremists named demyan hanul and andriy parubiy.
Demyan was a leader of Right Sector and personally organized violent killings and street attacks during and after maidan riots.
Parubiy was a top honcho of neo-nazist SNPU, later called svoboda, a total fascist outfit.
Parubiy was responsible, among some other people, for operating and directing the ATO, or the killing of ethnic Russians in Donbass region, where he directed the shelling of ethnic Russian settlements.
Thus, NATO is fully responsible.
The ethnic russians in Ukraine were confronted with a NATO-inspired pogrom, a pogrom carried out by NATO-supported nazi extremists, and were thankfully and finally rescued by Putin with his SMO.
Now, PUTIN MUST FINISH HIS JOB. Destroy all the nazis.
Don’t leave it half-done.
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