Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine came as a shock to people around the world, but

historically speaking, it's nothing new.

Under Soviet leadership, and now Vladimir Putin, Russia has frequently terrorized and invaded

sovereign states, violently attempting to force its will on neighboring countries and

countries all over the world.

On this special edition of Hold the Line, we'll take a look at Russia's history of aggression

from Afghanistan to Ukraine.

Welcome to the special edition of Hold the Line.

I'm Buck Sexton.

Look, the Russians are not new to military incursion, invasion of other sovereign countries.

We understand that this is something they've done numerous times.

They've gone into Georgia.

They've already taken Crimea and much of the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

They've also had a military intervention in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime.

They've gone into Afghanistan back in the end of the Soviet era as well.

You'd think they might have learned a very painful and high casualty lesson from that,

but it turns out their imperial ambitions continued even after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Let's take a look at current NATO nations and Russia to get a sense of where we stand

here.

As you can see, Russia still views itself as under threat from NATO and therefore wants

to expand territorially and also in terms of its military and economic influence in ways

to counter what's happening here.

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