The Origins of the Russo-Ukrainian War: My Observations on What Led to the War
Russian President Vladimir Putin was not bluffing when he said that he would invade Ukraine if there were no guarantee that Ukraine would not be annexed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Russo-Ukrainian War officially began on February 24th, 2022. Most analysts, who were not hypnotized by the United States government’s officials or the corporate media that constantly lies about foreign policy and takes any Russian action as aggression, were puzzled by the news of the shelling near Ukrainian cities and the air and ground movements throughout the country. The sight of bombs going off on military targets outside of major cities was reminiscent of the American “shock and awe” campaign against Baghdad, which of course, was acceptable to most Americans at the time. As people change their social media profile pictures to stand with Ukraine, perhaps we should not be so eager to hop on down the war path, given our long list of invasions and coups against many of the world’s nations and the hypocrisy that this represents.
After Russia moved into the Donbass region, presumably to protect the newly recognized Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, it started to bomb military sites outside of Kharkiv (where a large portion of the fighting has occurred), Odessa, Dnipro, Mariupol, Kherson, Lviv, Kiev (or now, Kyiv), and others; and then ground forces captured Chernobyl and have made unsuccessful attempts at sacking major cities across the country and achieving air superiority. Armed Ukrainian citizens (something American liberals that want to ban firearms in the United States could learn a thing or two about) helped keep Russian troops at bay. Peace talks along the border of Belarus, which may now send troops to aid Russia, failed, meaning that the war will continue for some time. President Biden has reassured the United States that American troops will not join in the fighting, but we will see about that one.
Although Putin’s invasion should be condemned, as should any offensive campaign that creates casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure, we should not rush to war. The Russian leader has stated that any military deployments by the West to halt the operations in Ukraine, as well as continued economic sanctions, might be enough to raise the nuclear weapons issue, as he has put his nuclear forces on “high alert.” A World War III or nuclear war would not be favorable towards anyone, even if were to stop New Hitler’s rebuilding of the Soviet Union (a highly unlikely scenario). However, our leaders under the Biden administration, which is itching for another war to feed the military-industrial complex and may have been able to avoid the invasion if it had only pledged to withdraw Ukraine’s application for NATO membership, may make a grave mistake in the upcoming days that could cause a series of events leading to a Russo-American war. Plus, let us not forget that President Franklin Roosevelt’s sanctioning and cutting off of oil supplies to Japan is what led to the Pearl Harbor attack, and the United States and its puppets in Europe have attempted a similar move by cutting off Russia’s access to the global economy and the financial system that Russia and the rest of the world are reliant upon for modern living. Nuclear war is certainly not inevitable, but in order to avoid it, we must have cooler heads prevail.
So, how did we get to where we are today? What is the background of the fighting in Ukraine? Below is a chronological history of the current conflict.
At the tail end of 2013, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych suspended a trade deal with the European Union for fears that it would be detrimental to the economic and financial interests of the country and prevent trade with Russia (which opposed the deal), and although the president was considering revisiting the treaty down the road, protests erupted across Ukraine. The Maidan Revolution of 2014 (Revolution of Dignity) that resulted saw the illegal ouster of Yanukovych, who was forced to flee to Russia, and the formation of a new government led by interim and unelected President Olexander Turchynov (this is not the first time that Yanukovych was deprived of the presidency, as the 2004 Orange Revolution forced a re-election that put in Viktor Yushchenko instead).
But wait, it gets better. The Obama administration supported and helped orchestrate the coup (oh no, not another coup) to bring about a government more friendly to American and European interests. We know that the United States government was involved because we have a leaked phone call between Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt that discussed who was and was not permitted to participate in the newly formed government (Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who became the prime minister after the coup, was one such person discussed as acceptable). In addition, billions of American taxpayer dollars were funneled through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and others over the course of several years to shape Ukraine’s democracy (some of which would have been used to determine the results of the Maidan Revolution).
With the situation spiraling out of control and the Russian-friendly government gone, Putin sent in troops to secure key sites throughout Crimea, and days later, with a roughly four-fifths voter turnout in a referendum, the people of Crimea overwhelmingly voted (to the tune of 97%) in the affirmative for secession from Ukraine and subsequent cession of the territory to Russia. Crimea made a formal declaration of independence and everything, and the results led to Russia solidifying power on the peninsula to keep the Ukrainian government out. The United States and the West condemned the move as an illegal occupation and a violation of international law and territorial sovereignty, but if the people decided that the government of Ukraine no longer had their interests at heart (Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence set the precedent for the right of the people to alter, abolish, or leave an undesirable government), was it really an invasion? Did France invade Great Britain during the American Revolution because it aided the colonists in their efforts to secede from the British Empire?
Do not forget that Crimea was part of Russia until 1954 when Nikita Khrushchev gifted the land to Ukraine, that almost two-thirds of the peninsula is ethnically Russian (Russian is the primary language), and that Crimeans secured decentralization under Ukraine’s unitary government to create the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (special status under Ukrainian law). Plus, from a geopolitical position, Russia was able to regain the all-year-round port at Sevastopol (Russia did not have a warm water port prior to this).
Later on in 2014, the eastern oblasts (provinces) of Donetsk and Luhansk (the majority of the people there speak Russian too, and a little under half of the people are ethnically Russian) followed in Crimea’s footsteps with a referendum that overwhelmingly voted in favor of declaring independence from Kiev, forming new governments under the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic (they briefly formed a confederation called Novorossiya, or New Russia, but abandoned the idea). Russia covertly sent in troops, supplies, and weapons, but, under international pressure, it was unable to recognize either oblast as independent.
The Donbass republics were ready to do their own thing, outside of the pressure of the unitary government in Kiev, but it was not long before the Ukrainian military, with the aid of financial backing from the United States, moved in to quell the “rebellion” and force the separatists back into the union. The Ukrainian campaign was brutal, and there have accounts from people living in the Donbass that the government and neo-Nazi vigilantes and militias (yes, Nazis worked with law enforcement and security forces, though the West disputes how widespread and how much of a problem it really was) indiscriminately killed protesters and civilians (a café bombing set by Ukrainian troops in 2018 led to the death of Donetsk’s leader Alexander Zakharchenko), amounting to possible genocide (this could be exaggerated).
Although, it is difficult to verify these accounts, outside of propaganda from both sides, the will of the people should matter (and only does to the U.S. government when it is convenient). The fighting continued on and off for several years (both sides blamed the other of initiating violence and violating human rights), resulting in thousands of casualties. The Minsk Accords (I and II) largely failed at keeping a ceasefire in place and did not grant the requested federation status to Donetsk and Luhansk (similar to the special status granted to Crimea years earlier), though the agreements did likely prevent some deaths. Over the course of the last eight years, the United States has provided billions of dollars in aid, supplies, and weapons to the presidencies of Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky to combat the Russian-backed separatists.
In 2021, Russia began building up its forces along the Ukraine border, and by February 2022, sources claimed that 190,000 troops were getting ready for an imminent invasion. Russia condemned the United States’ NATO exercise, while it participated in its own in Belarus. A transfer of weapons and troops into the neighboring country sparked concerns in the West, since Russia then had Ukraine largely surrounded, and the United States began to ready its forces and deploy more troops to NATO countries. Putin put forth a proposal that would guarantee that NATO would not expand any further (particularly Ukraine, which was always considered a red line) and that troops in countries bordering on Russia would be moved elsewhere. Of course, the Biden administration flat out rejected the proposal as a non-starter and demanded that Putin withdraw his troops, accept that Ukraine would eventually become part of NATO, and that troops would remain in place, or grow even stronger in Russia’s backyard.
A flashback to the early 1990’s will reveal that the United States led Russia to believe that it would not move NATO (an alliance meant to combat the Soviet Union that was no longer relevant after the Cold War) any further to the east, but the United States forgot the promise when it annexed Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria (all former Soviet or satellite states). Then in 2008, President George W. Bush pushed for Ukraine and Georgia to join the alliance, leading to hostilities that caused the Russo-Georgian War (Russia recognized the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and defended them from the Georgian military).
In addition to the expansion of NATO, the United States has put Tomahawk missiles (which could be nuclear-converted) in Romania and Poland (another Cuban missile crisis?). Putin is nervous about having American forces near its borders, and since the United States has consistently overthrown unfavorable governments, including Ukraine’s, why would he not be (this is not to say that his invasion is justified, or that he is anything but a power-hungry and self-interested politician, but we can still condemn his actions and understand his concerns at the same time)?
It is easy for Americans to dismiss Putin’s fears, but if Russia created an alliance with Central American countries and staged a coup against Mexico to bring it into its sphere and potentially deploy troops there, the United States would probably not be too happy and may want to put troops in Texas or California as deterrents and to secure the borders (maybe even invade parts of Mexico). Diplomacy requires hearing others’ concerns and compromising in order to avoid war, and the Biden administration does not seem to understand that, as this conflict may have been avoided if Russia’s proposal was considered.
Just before Russia recognized the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic on February 21st, 2022 and the upper house of the Russian legislature approved Putin’s ability to use military force in Ukraine, skirmishes broke out between the Ukrainian military, which had been amassing on the militarized border (possibly to wage another brutal campaign against the separatists), and forces in the two breakaway oblasts. When Putin moved into the Donbass, it was not too unexpected, but what came next, was a mystery. Did he move into Ukraine in order to purge Nazis, destroy chemical and biological laboratories, prevent genocide, break up corruption and global money-laundering, halt NATO expansion, cause his own genocide against Ukrainians, or prove to the West that Russia is now a superpower not worth fighting? It is difficult to know at this point, but as the events of the war in Ukraine wage on, the world will be watching to see if Putin and Biden can work out their differences.
Thank you for reading, and please check out my book, The Global Bully, and website.
After Russia moved into the Donbass region, presumably to protect the newly recognized Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, it started to bomb military sites outside of Kharkiv (where a large portion of the fighting has occurred), Odessa, Dnipro, Mariupol, Kherson, Lviv, Kiev (or now, Kyiv), and others; and then ground forces captured Chernobyl and have made unsuccessful attempts at sacking major cities across the country and achieving air superiority. Armed Ukrainian citizens (something American liberals that want to ban firearms in the United States could learn a thing or two about) helped keep Russian troops at bay. Peace talks along the border of Belarus, which may now send troops to aid Russia, failed, meaning that the war will continue for some time. President Biden has reassured the United States that American troops will not join in the fighting, but we will see about that one.
Although Putin’s invasion should be condemned, as should any offensive campaign that creates casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure, we should not rush to war. The Russian leader has stated that any military deployments by the West to halt the operations in Ukraine, as well as continued economic sanctions, might be enough to raise the nuclear weapons issue, as he has put his nuclear forces on “high alert.” A World War III or nuclear war would not be favorable towards anyone, even if were to stop New Hitler’s rebuilding of the Soviet Union (a highly unlikely scenario). However, our leaders under the Biden administration, which is itching for another war to feed the military-industrial complex and may have been able to avoid the invasion if it had only pledged to withdraw Ukraine’s application for NATO membership, may make a grave mistake in the upcoming days that could cause a series of events leading to a Russo-American war. Plus, let us not forget that President Franklin Roosevelt’s sanctioning and cutting off of oil supplies to Japan is what led to the Pearl Harbor attack, and the United States and its puppets in Europe have attempted a similar move by cutting off Russia’s access to the global economy and the financial system that Russia and the rest of the world are reliant upon for modern living. Nuclear war is certainly not inevitable, but in order to avoid it, we must have cooler heads prevail.
So, how did we get to where we are today? What is the background of the fighting in Ukraine? Below is a chronological history of the current conflict.
At the tail end of 2013, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych suspended a trade deal with the European Union for fears that it would be detrimental to the economic and financial interests of the country and prevent trade with Russia (which opposed the deal), and although the president was considering revisiting the treaty down the road, protests erupted across Ukraine. The Maidan Revolution of 2014 (Revolution of Dignity) that resulted saw the illegal ouster of Yanukovych, who was forced to flee to Russia, and the formation of a new government led by interim and unelected President Olexander Turchynov (this is not the first time that Yanukovych was deprived of the presidency, as the 2004 Orange Revolution forced a re-election that put in Viktor Yushchenko instead).
But wait, it gets better. The Obama administration supported and helped orchestrate the coup (oh no, not another coup) to bring about a government more friendly to American and European interests. We know that the United States government was involved because we have a leaked phone call between Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt that discussed who was and was not permitted to participate in the newly formed government (Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who became the prime minister after the coup, was one such person discussed as acceptable). In addition, billions of American taxpayer dollars were funneled through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and others over the course of several years to shape Ukraine’s democracy (some of which would have been used to determine the results of the Maidan Revolution).
With the situation spiraling out of control and the Russian-friendly government gone, Putin sent in troops to secure key sites throughout Crimea, and days later, with a roughly four-fifths voter turnout in a referendum, the people of Crimea overwhelmingly voted (to the tune of 97%) in the affirmative for secession from Ukraine and subsequent cession of the territory to Russia. Crimea made a formal declaration of independence and everything, and the results led to Russia solidifying power on the peninsula to keep the Ukrainian government out. The United States and the West condemned the move as an illegal occupation and a violation of international law and territorial sovereignty, but if the people decided that the government of Ukraine no longer had their interests at heart (Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence set the precedent for the right of the people to alter, abolish, or leave an undesirable government), was it really an invasion? Did France invade Great Britain during the American Revolution because it aided the colonists in their efforts to secede from the British Empire?
Do not forget that Crimea was part of Russia until 1954 when Nikita Khrushchev gifted the land to Ukraine, that almost two-thirds of the peninsula is ethnically Russian (Russian is the primary language), and that Crimeans secured decentralization under Ukraine’s unitary government to create the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (special status under Ukrainian law). Plus, from a geopolitical position, Russia was able to regain the all-year-round port at Sevastopol (Russia did not have a warm water port prior to this).
Later on in 2014, the eastern oblasts (provinces) of Donetsk and Luhansk (the majority of the people there speak Russian too, and a little under half of the people are ethnically Russian) followed in Crimea’s footsteps with a referendum that overwhelmingly voted in favor of declaring independence from Kiev, forming new governments under the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic (they briefly formed a confederation called Novorossiya, or New Russia, but abandoned the idea). Russia covertly sent in troops, supplies, and weapons, but, under international pressure, it was unable to recognize either oblast as independent.
The Donbass republics were ready to do their own thing, outside of the pressure of the unitary government in Kiev, but it was not long before the Ukrainian military, with the aid of financial backing from the United States, moved in to quell the “rebellion” and force the separatists back into the union. The Ukrainian campaign was brutal, and there have accounts from people living in the Donbass that the government and neo-Nazi vigilantes and militias (yes, Nazis worked with law enforcement and security forces, though the West disputes how widespread and how much of a problem it really was) indiscriminately killed protesters and civilians (a café bombing set by Ukrainian troops in 2018 led to the death of Donetsk’s leader Alexander Zakharchenko), amounting to possible genocide (this could be exaggerated).
Although, it is difficult to verify these accounts, outside of propaganda from both sides, the will of the people should matter (and only does to the U.S. government when it is convenient). The fighting continued on and off for several years (both sides blamed the other of initiating violence and violating human rights), resulting in thousands of casualties. The Minsk Accords (I and II) largely failed at keeping a ceasefire in place and did not grant the requested federation status to Donetsk and Luhansk (similar to the special status granted to Crimea years earlier), though the agreements did likely prevent some deaths. Over the course of the last eight years, the United States has provided billions of dollars in aid, supplies, and weapons to the presidencies of Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky to combat the Russian-backed separatists.
In 2021, Russia began building up its forces along the Ukraine border, and by February 2022, sources claimed that 190,000 troops were getting ready for an imminent invasion. Russia condemned the United States’ NATO exercise, while it participated in its own in Belarus. A transfer of weapons and troops into the neighboring country sparked concerns in the West, since Russia then had Ukraine largely surrounded, and the United States began to ready its forces and deploy more troops to NATO countries. Putin put forth a proposal that would guarantee that NATO would not expand any further (particularly Ukraine, which was always considered a red line) and that troops in countries bordering on Russia would be moved elsewhere. Of course, the Biden administration flat out rejected the proposal as a non-starter and demanded that Putin withdraw his troops, accept that Ukraine would eventually become part of NATO, and that troops would remain in place, or grow even stronger in Russia’s backyard.
A flashback to the early 1990’s will reveal that the United States led Russia to believe that it would not move NATO (an alliance meant to combat the Soviet Union that was no longer relevant after the Cold War) any further to the east, but the United States forgot the promise when it annexed Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria (all former Soviet or satellite states). Then in 2008, President George W. Bush pushed for Ukraine and Georgia to join the alliance, leading to hostilities that caused the Russo-Georgian War (Russia recognized the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and defended them from the Georgian military).
In addition to the expansion of NATO, the United States has put Tomahawk missiles (which could be nuclear-converted) in Romania and Poland (another Cuban missile crisis?). Putin is nervous about having American forces near its borders, and since the United States has consistently overthrown unfavorable governments, including Ukraine’s, why would he not be (this is not to say that his invasion is justified, or that he is anything but a power-hungry and self-interested politician, but we can still condemn his actions and understand his concerns at the same time)?
It is easy for Americans to dismiss Putin’s fears, but if Russia created an alliance with Central American countries and staged a coup against Mexico to bring it into its sphere and potentially deploy troops there, the United States would probably not be too happy and may want to put troops in Texas or California as deterrents and to secure the borders (maybe even invade parts of Mexico). Diplomacy requires hearing others’ concerns and compromising in order to avoid war, and the Biden administration does not seem to understand that, as this conflict may have been avoided if Russia’s proposal was considered.
Just before Russia recognized the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic on February 21st, 2022 and the upper house of the Russian legislature approved Putin’s ability to use military force in Ukraine, skirmishes broke out between the Ukrainian military, which had been amassing on the militarized border (possibly to wage another brutal campaign against the separatists), and forces in the two breakaway oblasts. When Putin moved into the Donbass, it was not too unexpected, but what came next, was a mystery. Did he move into Ukraine in order to purge Nazis, destroy chemical and biological laboratories, prevent genocide, break up corruption and global money-laundering, halt NATO expansion, cause his own genocide against Ukrainians, or prove to the West that Russia is now a superpower not worth fighting? It is difficult to know at this point, but as the events of the war in Ukraine wage on, the world will be watching to see if Putin and Biden can work out their differences.
Thank you for reading, and please check out my book, The Global Bully, and website.
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