Vladimir Putin says that Russia helped make Belgium an independent state. In reality, Russia, and especially Tsar Nicholas I, was very unfavorable to Belgian independence.
Several conflicts, religious, financial and linguistic, led to a revolution in 1830. Tsar Nicolas I, nicknamed the “ policeman of Europe ” sees this revolution as a personal offense. Ultimately, the Russian army will crush the Warsaw Uprising in Poland and will not march to Belgium. The United Kingdom wanted to avoid, a constant British policy, that France controlled the port of Antwerp.