It is no secret that Russian President Vladimir Putin feels provoked by NATO. A partnership of the Russian neighboring state Ukraine with NATO would be an act of aggression. In doing so, Putin likes to remind people of the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960s under then-U.S. President J.F. Kennedy. In his latest video on TikTok, Putin again emphasizes that NATO’s geographic advance toward Russia would be an act of aggression. And Russia’s troop deployment is only a reaction.
Putin uses TikTok very cleverly to create sentiment for his position. His argumentation is very coherent. There is no denying that an expansion of NATO to include Ukraine can be perceived as a provocation by Russia.