I think this haterred towards Putin blinded most of us to let governments increase their authorariansim. Like in US after 9/11.
Of course Putin is dangerous, but he can't even win a war in a small country right next to his. Lost more troops then Ukraine.
Meanwhile NATO expansion across the World and US influance is truely scary and unprecedented.
Most of the wars in World are started by NATO counties and here we don't hear about is as much.
All the invasions of Iran, Afganistan, Vietnam, Syria, etc where unjustfied invasions just like Ukraine and in case of Palestine, far worse. Yet, media successfully is pointing our focus on a single war in Ukraine where Russia has made no advencments and is clearly inferior military power.
It reminds me of 9/11, when fear from a small group of terrorist gave the government power to spy on all of its citizens, run torture camp in Guantanamo and remove citizens rights one by one.
In is defensive only on paper. In reality it is NATO weapons that supply wars in Middle East. Joining NATO isn't just mutual defense, you need to sign a lot of other requirements that inevitably gets you under strong influance of US military and finances. Check out military intervantions of NATO, they are all offensive, no one ever attacked a NATO country, they are too strong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#Military_operations
None of these counties they invaded where part of NATO, Iraq, Afganistan, Kosovo, Bosina, Libya.
Laws don't matter when you have the military power. Laws only apply to the weak. Powerful countires (and people) don't protect them selves with laws, since they have the military. When Assange and Manning published US war crimes, militry officials didnt go to jails, but they, whistlblowers and journalists did. Don't fall for the laws for a second, they don't apply to them.
Sweden officially joins NATO, ending decades of post-World War II neutrality ( apnews.com )