NATO has invited Montenegro to join the alliance. In case you never heard of Montenegro – and who has? – it’s a tiny little country in the Balkans with only about 650,000 people.
Normally, nobody would notice because the country is way too minuscule for anybody to care. But Russians, in accordance with the tradition started by their dearly beloved Stalin, consider Europe their property and are now freaking out.
Russia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Lavrov has been raising a huge stink, calling the invitation “irresponsible” and “a provocation.” Russia is promising all kinds of sanctions against Montenegro if it exercises its sovereign right to accept the invitation.
Why these people can’t just mind their own business for once is a mystery. In the meanwhile, in the Russian – occupied Crimea, people are exhorted only to use public toilets in groups of at least 3 and flush once, after the last of the group is done. As we say in Ukraine, these are the people who want to lecture us on how to pick our noses.
Clarissa's Blog 
And expect to see a few articles from Putin’s useful idiots decrying the possibility of Montenegro joining NATO. Of course, some of them are probably cheering Assad’s interview where he claimed that Russia had done more to fight ISIL in a few weeks of military action than a whole year of Western airstrikes.
No mention of the fact that Russia’s been attacking the anti-Assad rebels much more than any strike on ISIL.
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It is not even about the territories under anybody’s control. What Russia/Putin want is to be truly and unquestionably in the “big boys club”. The club of the “old” European countries (plus USA) who a) fought many wars with each other, while still preserving some sort of gentleman code in the process and then made peace and b) who can bomb others and make order in their former colonies, and this is not the grounds for the expulsion from the club, but perhaps even one of the membership conditions.
Thus, admitting Montenegro, that was bombed by NATO just 15 years ago (as part of Yugoslavia) into NATO is a signal that tiny Montenegro is closer to that big boys club than Russia. The only worse thing that could happen from this Russian perspective is accepting Serbia into NATO.
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“It is not even about the territories under anybody’s control. What Russia/Putin want is to be truly and unquestionably in the “big boys club”.”
“Thus, admitting Montenegro, that was bombed by NATO just 15 years ago (as part of Yugoslavia) into NATO is a signal that tiny Montenegro is closer to that big boys club than Russia. ”
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