China News Service, February 22. According to the Russian Satellite Network report on the 22nd, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out in his speech to the people on the 21st that Russia has been deceived and NATO has completed five rounds of expansion.
On April 21, local time, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his State of the Union address in Moscow.
Putin pointed out: "You can see at a glance at the map today how Western countries keep their promises not to expand NATO eastward. This is deception. Round by round, we have ushered in five rounds of NATO's eastward expansion."
Putin explained that Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary joined NATO in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined NATO in 2004; Albania and Croatia joined NATO in 2009; Montenegro joined NATO in 2017; North Macedonia in 2020 Join NATO.
Immediately after Putin's televised speech at the Kremlin, he signed the order, recognizing the orders of the "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic".
On the 15th of this month, the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) passed a draft resolution with a majority vote, calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine as "independent states".
In April 2014, a large-scale armed conflict between Ukrainian government forces and local civilian armed forces broke out in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Civilian armed forces subsequently announced the establishment of the "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic".
Through the mediation of the international community, the two parties to the conflict reached a ceasefire agreement in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in September 2014 and February 2015 respectively. Since then, large-scale armed conflicts have been brought under control, but small-scale exchanges of fire have occurred from time to time.