Editor's note: Christopher Helali is the international secretary of the Party of Communists USA and a PhD candidate in philosophy and China Government Scholar for Sino-U.S. Cultural Communication at Tongji University. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

In the waning years of the Soviet Union, as the Berlin Wall came down and German reunification was all but assured, high level meetings between Western leaders and the Soviet leadership attempted to chart a path through the upheaval that would maintain peace and mutual respect. The collapse of the socialist states in Eastern Europe was a geopolitical catastrophe, yet the Soviet Union needed to ensure that its security would not be jeopardized by the rapid political transformations underway in Warsaw Pact countries.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and other Soviet diplomats and political leaders were led to believe that NATO expansion would not happen. Security assurances and guarantees were given to the Soviets but only verbally, with the written record coming from Soviet notes and reports on various meetings with Western officials. Likewise, former president Boris Yeltsin was also led to believe that a Partnership for Peace would not lead to an expansion of NATO, but rather include Russia in a collective European security arrangement.

In succeeding Yeltsin, Russian President Vladimir Putin sought at first to remain cordial and open to cooperation with the United States and other Western countries. Yet, following 9/11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the unilateralism of the United States as well as NATO's role in the "War on Terror" were troubling. Moreover, NATO expansion rapidly picked up pace in the late 1990s through the 2000s.

This issue reached a head in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference where Putin addressed the issue of NATO head-on, saying, "I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust."

In the following year, the Bush administration pushed for Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO. This provocative act, seen as an escalation by Russia, eventually led to armed conflict between Georgia and Russia in 2008. Once again, Putin made it clear that NATO enlargement "would be taken in Russia as a direct threat to the security of our country." Yet, once again, the security concerns of the Russian Federation fell on deaf ears in Washington and Brussels.

In addition to Russia's security concerns regarding NATO expansion, other issues in Ukraine include the well documented involvement of the United States in staging and supporting the color revolution in 2014. This was followed by a nationwide campaign to destroy remnants of the Soviet past including the removal of statues of Lenin and attacking memorials to the heroic Red Army. Worse is the rehabilitation of Ukrainian fascists, like Stepan Bandera, a Nazi collaborator and vicious anti-Semite who have been praised as Ukrainian nationalists with honors like stamps, statues, and even the attempt to bestow Bandera the title, "Hero of Ukraine."

As a result of this, the people of Crimea and Donbass fought against the new Ukrainian government which they saw as fascist and supportive of an anti-Russian agenda. Russia also had an immediate security need to secure and safeguard its naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, the only warm-water port controlled by Russia.

The Western media's hysteria over Russian forces within Russia's territory is a direct result of the past four years of "Russiagate" and the obsession with Russia as the incarnation of all that is evil for the U.S. ruling class. Yet, Russia's repeated attempts to have the U.S., Western nations and NATO, take its security concerns seriously have been met with deflection, silence, and outright opposition and hostility.

Yet, when the Soviet Union was in the hemisphere, most notably in Cuba, during the Cold War, the United States brought the world to the precipice of a nuclear apocalypse during the Cuban Missile Crisis. NATO's expansion would be akin to Russia expanding to Mexico and Canada where it would place missile systems, advanced technology, surveillance equipment, and eventually have troops on the ground in its own bases. The United States was not pleased by this "gesture of solidarity."

One must ask how the United States can invoke its national security and the Monroe Doctrine and yet finds it unreasonable to take into consideration the security concerns of the Russian Federation? It is because U.S. imperialism and its military wing, NATO, seek to maintain control and hegemony while not allowing a multipolar world to challenge its dominance and security interests.

NATO's role in the world has gone from defending states from Warsaw Pact aggression to securing international energy supplies, combating new "targets" like Russia and China and carrying out military operations demanded by Washington. NATO has also brought in global partners like Australia, Colombia and Japan, to assist in its mission and work. 

Ultimately, the crisis in Ukraine will not be solved as long as NATO continues to expand, testing Russia's commitment to its national defense, sovereignty and security. NATO is a threat to world peace and stability today. 

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