“They [Russians] lost 22 million people in World War Two, defeating the Nazis, and for them looking out and seeing more unfriendly countries on their border than any time since May of 1940, that's a problem, that's a red line for them, and they kept saying ‘stop, stop, stop.’ This idea of making Ukraine a NATO member is a bad idea. It shouldn't have been on the table beforehand,” Prince said in a podcast with Patrick Bet-David.
According to Prince, the West could have handled the situation around Ukraine much differently given the existence of all kinds of assurances that NATO would not extend eastward following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ties between Russia and NATO remained strained after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The growing tensions were primarily driven by NATO's eastward expansion despite Russia's warnings that steps to include new states close to or on its borders directly threaten its national security.