Ukraine: The Road to War Pt. II
2010-2022: From the failed "Reset" to the Second Donbass War
In part one, we began with the negotiations which led to the disintegration of the USSR. We analyzed events from NATO’s decision to expand into Eastern Europe in 1997, through the 2008 Russo-Georgian War and its immediate aftermath. These events are crucial to understanding the current geopolitical environment; they clearly show that the Russian Federation was not anti-NATO or anti-west and that, if they have become such in the years since, this change was caused by Western actions and broken promises.
In part two, we will focus primarily on the series of events which led first to the Donbass War in 2014, and ultimately to the Special Military Operation and larger Russo-Ukrainian War.
We will show that since 2014, this conflict, far from being the actions of an Imperialist Russia, was a reaction to clandestine US actions, and meant to bring the West to the negotiating table and arrest their expansionist agenda. We will show conclusively that American claims of Ukrainian NATO membership having been taken off the table - therefore making Putin’s justification for war null and void - is a lie and that, in violation of UN backed treaties Ukraine was already a de facto member of NATO by late 2021.
Lastly, we will show that the invasion of Ukraine was not designed to overthrow and occupy Ukraine, but to negotiate a lasting neutrality; that after Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed the first draft and Russia pulled its forces back from Kiev and northern Ukraine as a show of good faith, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson convinced Zelensky to pull out with a promise of unlimited support until Ukraine’s 1993 borders were reestablished, leading to the current war of attrition.
Timeline of Events
2009: Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, attempts a “reset” of Russo-American relations at Geneva. The “reset button” presented to Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, featured the wrong word.
2010: US and Romania announce plan to place Antiballistic (ABM) Missile systems in Romania.
2011: US State Dept. subsidiaries launch a failed color revolution in Russia
2014: Viktor Yanukovych, President of Ukraine, rejects pathway to EU Association Agreement in favor of joining the Eurasian Economic Union. State Department operated foundations and local partner organizations (made largely of Neo-Nazi and ultranationalist Uniate parties) launch protests culminating in the Maidan coup.
“Little Green Men,” (PMC Wagner) seize Crimea. Crimea joins Russia.
Donetsk and Lugansk Oblast secede from Ukraine, initiating First Donbass War.
NATO-Georgia Package announced, including NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center (JTEC)
2015: Minsk Accords signed by Ukraine, Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics, Russia, France and Germany; Results in ceasefire along the line of contact in Donbass. Minsk II ratified by UN Security Council February 17, 2015, giving it the force of international law.
2016: US places M41 Aegis Antiballistic (AMB) Missile systems in Romania; including Tomahawk missiles capable of delivering Hydrogen Bomb warheads with a yield of 150 Kilotons to Moscow and beyond.
NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center (JTEC) established.
2017: US Congress approves “defensive” weaponry for export to Ukraine.
US establishes military base in western Ukraine in violation of Minsk II. Begins training of Ukrainian Army to NATO standards.
2018: US Congress removes designation of Neo-Nazi battalions in Ukrainian Army (AFU) as “extremist organizations”, greenlighting lethal aid and training by US Special Forces.
2019: (April) Former actor and comedian, Vladimir Zelensky, elected President of Ukraine with 73% of the vote, running on a platform of peace and reconciliation.
(October) Zelensky attempts to disarm Azov and Right-Sector battalions who, with their political allies, threaten to remove him from power and threaten his life.
2021: (September) Ukraine hosts NATO Operation: Seabreeze, the largest NATO exercise in which Ukraine has participated. NATO forces enter Russian territorial waters, ignoring radio calls from Russian vessels.
(December) Russia issues ultimatum on Ukraine, sends documents to US, NATO, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
2022: Russia launches Special Military Operation in Ukraine.
Maidan Coup
To be clear, the 2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine was not a spontaneous movement for democracy, it was a US sponsored and directed coup, an overthrow of the legitimate government of Ukraine for rejecting European integration. They did this because it was highly unpopular with the majority of the Ukrainian population.
But the US had a plan b, thanks to its support of far-right ultranationalists factions around Lviv, in western Ukraine.1
Since 1991, the United States has dumped five billion dollars into various political organizations in Ukraine, including these Neo-Nazi organizations. As discussed in part one, the US has been directly responsible for the color revolutions across Europe through the 2000s, including the 2004 and 2014 revolutions in Ukraine. Russia had been aware of this since no later than 2006 thanks to Wikileaks. It was precisely these organizations which led and profited from the Maidan coup.
Any doubt about US involvement was further cleared up when audio was leaked in which Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland speaks openly about navigating “our guy” into the Ukrainian Presidency.
Oddly, the US media was more interested in who leaked the tape and Nuland cursing the EU than the fact that the US was plotting to install a far-right, anti-Russian junta after ousting the lawfully elected president who rejected NATO and EU overtures.
Russia Responds: The Annexation of Crimea
It was crystal clear to Russia that the US was directly and deeply involved in the toppling of the friendly regime in what Russia had, for the last thousand years, considered its separated brethren. Seeing this and fearing that the new regime and its Western sponsors would block their use of the crucial warm-water port of Sevastopol - home of the Black Sea Fleet - Russia made the knee-jerk decision to secure its primary warm water port.
It should be noted that one of Russia’s key strategic weaknesses - and thus insecurities - is its lack of warm water ports. Sevastopol is really Russia’s only warm water port. Even this is easily denied access to oceanic trade routes by the Bosphorus Straits - controlled by Turkey, a member of NATO.
Instead of admitting that the Crimean crisis had been the result of their own attempts to integrate Ukraine into the West, Western politicians claimed the real problem was a resurgent Russia, led by a loyal KGB agent seeking to rebuild the Soviet Empire. Prior to the seizure of Crimea, aside from a new neo-con war hawks who just couldn’t help themselves, no one in the West made claims of Russian imperial revanchism.2
In other words, instead of seeking to diffuse the situation and admit a mistake, they again doubled down.
Donbass Revolts
The ethnic Russians of the Donbass had watched in horror as Anti-Russian protests turned violent across the Ukraine, with many ethnic Russian Ukrainians being murdered and even burned alive.3
While Russia’s seizure of Crimea was certainly an efficient cause of the Donbass rebellions, they did not initiate the independence movements in Donbass; this was a grassroots rebellion of people with legitimate fears about their future in the wake of the US sponsored coup in Kiev.4
In town after town, protests turned into calls for independence. Angry mobs of local residents surrounded Ukrainian army patrols and armories in Kramatorsk, Artemivsk and elsewhere. Overwhelmed, the soldiers surrendered, handing over their weapons and dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in exchange for safe passage.
Volunteer units began to pop up in the Donbass, seizing town and city halls, police stations, and proclaiming independence. Ukraine responded by cutting off water supplies to both the Donbass and Crimea.
Referendums were held and two Republics were proclaimed in the eastern most oblasts of the Donbass: the Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR), and the Lugansk Peoples Republic (LPR). These two would, at times, be known collectively as Novorossiya (New Russia)5 and their forces the Donbass People’s Militia.6
Some of the local organizers in Crimea, seeing the situation in the Donbass, decided to travel to Donbass to help organize efforts there. A handful of fighters led by former Russian war reenactor Igor Strelkov, set out for Slavyansk in the north of Donetsk Oblast.
Strelkov was met by an ever-increasing number of inexperienced volunteers whom he quickly organized into defensive units. Six armored vehicles captured in Kramatorsk were brought up to help strengthen the defenses in preparation for the Ukrainian Response.7
Slavyansk would be a trial by fire of the early forces of Donbass.8
First Donbass War
Fighting under Strelkov were 800-1,000 volunteers with no more than ten tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs). Against them were more than 15,000 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), hundreds of tanks, APCs, and artillery pieces, in addition to 20 attack helicopters. Strelkov’s forces managed to exact an immense toll on the Ukrainian forces, managing to destroy four Mi-24 and two Mi-8 Hind helicopters. After a two-month long siege the forces of Novorossiya, being completely out of ammo, would withdraw.
Slavyansk was a tactical defeat for which Strelkov would receive a great deal of criticism. On the strategic level, however, Slavyansk was a win for Novorossiya. Strelkov’s men not only fought bravely and managed to withdraw with their force and equipment intact but were able to effectively stall the Ukrainian offensive for two months. This allowed the two republics crucial time to organize. Strelkov and his subcommanders would use the lessons learned at Slavyansk and their ever-improving logistical support to devastating effect.
Meanwhile, many in Russia, seeing fellow Russians struggling and dying in the Donbass, traveled to Donetsk and Lugansk to help; among them were two former Russian paratroopers whom I personally served with in the French Foreign Legion.
While it has been claimed that the Russian Army itself was involved in the battle of Slavyansk and subsequent fighting, much of this is based on the fact that numerous former Russian paratroopers and Spetsnaz and carried the flags of their former units while fighting in the various volunteer units in Donbass. Some of these Russian veterans were captured by the Ukrainians, who used their former association with the Russian Army - and the Russian Army’s oddly long “inactive reserve” program - as “proof” of direct Russian action.
Russian Support for Novorossiya
While the Kremlin long suspected that the Russian population on Ukraine might rebel in the case of a sharp Westward turn by Kiev,9 it doesn’t appear that they had any real plan or infrastructure in place beforehand. Instead, they made the decision to intervene once events were already underway with what limited resources they could quickly - and legally - deploy; this support was, however, decisive.
This initial aid was accomplished through what we now know as PMC Wagner. Wagner helped to organize the forces in Novorossiya in a few important ways:
Acting as a mediary for the transfer of weaponry from Russian stockpiles to the forces of the DPR and LPR.
Providing DPR/LPR forces with advanced combat training and advising from veteran Spetsnaz and FSB operatives.
Acting as a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) to force key breakthroughs or reinforce in desperate defenses.
Because of its private status, PMC Wagner allowed the Russian Federation to support the forces in Donbass legally under the Russian Constitution. They did not, however, do all the heavy lifting.
The early Donbass forces had some very charismatic commanders who had a natural understanding of battlefield dynamics. Especially notable were the commander of the Somali Battalion, Mikhail ‘Givi’ Tolstykh, and Arsen ‘Motorola’ Pavlov, commander of the Spartan Battalion. Both of these men were subcommanders to Igor Strelkov during the siege of Slavyansk and quickly rose through the ranks to become the most well-known and feared commanders in Novorossiya.
In addition to their battlefield prowess, they made effective use of social media; many will remember the video of the separatist commander who didn’t flinch as his comrades jumped for cover during incoming artillery. This was Givi (pictured below, top-right).
Second Battle of Donetsk Airport
In late September 2014 the Donetsk forces set out to liberate the last Ukrainian stronghold in Donetsk city in what would become the pivotal Second Battle of the Donetsk Airport. Backed by the Vostok Brigade, the Somali and Spartan battalions took on superior Ukrainian forces to win a stunning victory over the Armed Forces of Ukraine. While we still don’t have fully reliable numbers, we know that these three DPR units faced off against the following Ukrainian formations.
Ukrainian Order of Battle:
79th Airmobile Brigade
95th Airmobile Brigade
93rd Mechanized Brigade,
3rd Spetsnaz Regiment
Dnipro-1 Internal Affairs Battalion (Spetsnaz)
Right-Sector Volunteer Corps
other small formations.
The heavily bombed and booby-trapped remains of the Donetsk airport saw some of the most brutal fighting of the conflict. In what can only be described as a post-apocalyptic hell-scape, the two sides made repeated thrusts back and forth under near constant artillery bombardment. Eventually, the DPR forces were able to push the Ukrainian forces out of all but the first floor of a single terminal; unable to storm the first floor, they collapsed the second floor on top of them.
Unfortunately for Givi and Motorola, the Ukrainian SBU was concurrently being trained and advised by the CIA, MI6, American and British special forces. All of these military leaders, as well as the more competent - and moderate - civilian leaders of early Novorossiya were assassinated by the SBU, Azov, Right Sector, and others.
Before they were able to do that, however, the combined forces of Lugansk, Donetsk, and PMC Wagner10 were able to force the Ukrainian Army (AFU) into a pocket at Debaltseve in early February 2015.
Fearing the total destruction of the Ukrainian forces in Debaltseve, the AFU withdrew, and the Minsk (II) Accords went into effect. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that upon entering the city during the evacuation of AFU forces, the bodies of 500 executed civilians were discovered by the DPR authorities.11
War Crimes
Civil wars are always the most bloody and brutal of conflicts and to be sure, both sides committed war crimes. As with the current conflict in Ukraine, both sides report evidence of war crimes committed by their opponents while denying such activity being carried out by their own forces. Video footage of Givi forcing POWs to eat their Ukrainian flag patches and smacking them around were widely disseminated in the media. What was not widely reported were the actions of Azov, Right-Sector, and the SBU. While all engaged in torture during interrogations, summary executions, etc.. Azov was particularly brutal, and openly so.
For a time, there were multiple videos easily found on YouTube, showing members of Azov crucifying DPR/LPR prisoners of war, and even Christian clergy. These videos have been scrubbed by Western social media companies, search engines, and ISPs since the start of the war. One in particular - taken down last in March 2022 - showed, up close, members of Azov nailing a POW’s hands and feet to a cross, before lifting and dropping the cross into place. They went on to mock him, set him on fire, and after a minute of sheer horror, they shot him in the head.
Vox News tried to claim that the footage was not actually of Azov because “The patch in the video is not the patch of Azov,” providing a photo of the newer Azov patch.12 But the patch Azov members wore in 2015, when the footage was recorded and released by hackers, is clearly, irrefutably the patch worn in the video. Mind you, this is one of the trendy Leftists news outlets who claim to be fighting fascism and the patriarchy…
Minsk II
Minsk II was implemented February 15, 2015.
The agreement was shaky and while it mostly held for seven years, there were near daily violations both in shots fired, and use of banned weapons. These violations were most often committed by Azov fighters around Mariupol and Right-Sector Volunteer Units along the line of control.
This is not to deny violations by the forces of Novorossiya, but it is clear that these Banderists volunteer units wished to continue fighting until the “complete liberation of Ukrainian lands by all Russians... Death to all Russians.” - Dmytro Yarosh, leader of Right-Sector Banderists Paramilitaries.
One of the important provisions of the Accords was line ten.
Pullout of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, and also mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine under OSCE supervision. Disarmament of all illegal groups.
Post-Minsk
In 2017, the US and NATO began to sell lethal weapons to Ukraine. It was said at the time that only “defensive” weapons could be sold to Ukraine. But when we’re talking about weaponry, defensive is not an inherent quality or attribute of the weapon, but of its intended use by the operator. Therefore, there is no such thing as a defensive weapon; this is a subjective designation. There is nothing inherent in the design of a Tomahawk missile which makes it a defensive missile instead of an offensive.
US Military Training facilities were established in Ukraine just ten miles from the Polish-Ukrainian border in the city of Yavoriv.
The 151 square mile Yavoriv base had hosted a NATO partnership for peace training facility since 2003 in order to train forces going on peacekeeping operations. The US exploited this facility in order to train one Ukrainian battalion to NATO military standards every six weeks, in flagrant violation of Minsk II.
Additionally, Ukraine has regularly been invited to participate in NATO training exercises.
How was Russia to view this if not a provocation?
In 2018, Congress passed legislation authorizing US military aid to pass to the Azov Battalion and Right Sector Volunteer Battalions.
Up to this point they had been designated Neo-Nazi paramilitaries responsible for systematically carrying out war crimes in the First Donbass War.
Azov received extensive training from US Navy SEAL and US Army Special Forces (ODA) and was upgraded to a regiment size formation. Again, much of this has seemingly vanished from the internet since 2022. I know three members of Azov, all of whom scrubbed their social media of all military related content prior to February 2022. You can easily find them on Instagram and confirm this if you are so inclined.
2019: Zelensky elected President of Ukraine with a mandate for peace.
Vladimir Zelenskyy won the Ukrainian Presidency over and against Petro Poroshenko for one clear reason: he campaigned on peace and reconciliation. Poroshenko, contrary to what Western media has said, is a vile Russophobe and racial supremacist.
Poroshenko’s government instituted a national holiday for the birthday of Stephen Bandera - the leader of Ukraine’s Nazi collaborators during the Second World War, personally butchering Jews, Poles, and Roma with a machete. Poroshenko’s regime implemented programs in schools for children to write poems to Stephen Bandera and brandish the Red and Black “Blood and Soil” flag. Poroshenko is not only largely responsible for the Ukrainian Church Schism but for the failures to implement the reconciliation policies outlined in the Minsk Accords.
Because of this, Zelensky won the second round of voting with a broad mandate for peace; winning in both Ukrainian and Russian territories. In spite of this there is no evidence that he received even a shred of support for his peace agenda, either from the US government or from the largely Banderist establishment in Ukraine.
A Mexican Stand-Off
Zelensky, in an effort to diffuse tensions, went to the town of Zolote, a town on the ceasefire line, in October of 2019 in an attempt to disarm the Azov Regiment for their near daily violations of the Minsk ceasefire.
He arrived, initially, to demand they withdraw further from the line of contact, but was then informed that they had illegal weapons, violating another tenant of the Minsk Accords. When he ordered them to give up their weapons, the commanders of Azov refused his orders. An argument broke out and Azov commanders and allies threatened Zelensky’s career, personal safety, and to send thousands more fighters to the town of Zolote to launch attacks against Novorossiya. Zelensky relented.
From this moment forward Zelensky has been little more than a front man for the Banderist junta in Kiev.
2021: Operation Sea Breeze
In September 2021, the United States and Ukraine co-hosted Operation Sea Breeze, a major 32 nation naval exercise in the Black Sea.
During the exercise, a British Destroyer intentionally entered Russian territorial waters, ignoring the requests of the Russian Navy to change course. Remember that this is just five months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Operation Seabreeze was one of many NATO exercises carried out right on Russia’s borders with the express purpose of simulating a war with Russia within the sight of Russia. Of course, when Russia started holding similar exercises in response, it was called “aggression.”
What made Seabreeze unique was that NATO military forces, while training for war with Russia, actually invaded sovereign Russian territory. They did so by exploiting the territory of a nation whom Russia explicitly said it would forbid, by force, from joining NATO because of the direct threat it poses to Russian national security.
Ukraine has a 1,200-mile border with Russia; from some points it takes less than eight hours to drive to Moscow. The West was explicitly, repeatedly warned of how far Russia would go to prevent Ukrainian NATO membership.
This is when Russia began issuing ultimatums and building up forces on Ukraine’s border. When they were, again, ignored, written off as saber rattling, Russia felt it had exhausted its options and planned a limited incursion into Ukraine. All the while, our government was mocking Putin and saying that he was “all talk” and wouldn’t dare risk war…. Weird things to say about a guy you were simultaneously calling a totalitarian war monger bent on European domination.
2022: Special Military Operation
The media narrative from the start was the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was a full-scale invasion meant to seize Ukraine.
The facts don’t support this narrative.
All military action is proportionate to the political aims it seeks to accomplish. Russia’s operation was intended to rapidly approach Kiev and large cities while locking the bulk of the Ukrainian Army in place in the Donbass both by re-engaging the AFU along the line of contact, as well as advancing to their rear from Kharkiv and Crimea. It was hoped that this show of force would bring Kiev to the negotiating table. Which, it did.
Some have said Russia overestimated its own capabilities and underestimated Ukraine. But I don’t think this is the case.
I think the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) was fairly well planned and executed; its objectives were reasonable and based on reasonable assumptions.
The main assumption was that the West would want to negotiate. What they didn’t account for was the absolute absence of any appetite among Western nations to allow Kiev to negotiate.
Perhaps this was a miscalculation on Putin’s part, but I think he truly believed the West would see that they were serious and come to the negotiating table. One has to wonder how much the “Russian election interference” narrative played into the US decision to push Kiev to fight. This will be something for historians to decide years from now when they dust has settled.
Before the intervention of Biden and Boris Johnson, Zelensky had already signed a preliminary peace arrangement with the Russians.
As a condition of signing the preliminary agreement, Russia promised to immediately withdraw her forces north and west of Kiev. This is why they pulled their forces back from Kiev and Kharkiv, not because they didn’t have the forces to maintain their advances. But this is precisely the moment when the West told Zelensky to pull out, promising to rebuild their army and support them until Russia was completely expelled from Ukraine.
In spite of this, Russia was slow to reorganize and reinforce its forces, still believing Ukraine would negotiate. This led to disaster when, in September of 2022, much of their initial invasion force was withdrawing after their six-month contracts for the invasion were coming to an end.13 As Russia rushed both to bring in reinforcements and return the contracted forces home, their lines in Kharkiv thinned significantly.
US intelligence picked up on this and informed the Ukrainians, who pushed forward in the Kharkiv region. Knowing they didn’t have the forces to hold without the possibility of encirclement, the Russians withdrew.
This is the “successful autumn offensive” of September 2022… Less a smashing Ukrainian victory as it was a Russian withdrawal.
Ukraine’s Army missed a huge opportunity to encircle Russian forces and take more defensible positions, but their lack of battlefield experience - and sufficient training for their officers - resulted in little more than some strategically unimportant territorial gains. The moment Russian reinforcements moved up the battle was over.
From this point on, what truly began as a limited military operation evolved into a full-scale war. Strategy shifted as lessons learned from the initial fighting led to changes in force structure and posturing. But a deeper analysis of the war itself will have to wait for another time.
Politics and Paranoia
While by no means exhaustive, the events we’ve discussed show the absurdity of the mainstream Western narrative of Russia as a pseudo-fascistic state bent on building a new empire.
While there are certainly key moments among those we’ve discussed, it’s hard to look at any one event and say, “here is the event which led to war.” One can easily see how had one or two of these key events not happened, war may have been avoided. Perhaps that is the most tragic part.
In light of what we’ve seen it is absolutely clear that Vladimir Putin was not, at least prior to 2008, an “authoritarian KGB agent bent on rebuilding the Soviet Empire,” but was eager to work with and integrate into the West.
If he has become for the West a Bond-like villain as we’ve claimed since 2008 - which is yet to be determined - this transformation happened as a direct result of the deliberate actions taken by the US and NATO.14
Double Standards: The Monroe Doctrine
Some might say in light of the events we’ve discussed, “those nations have a right to self-determination, they can ally with whomever they please…” But the same can’t be said for America’s own neighbors.
The Monroe Doctrine states that the whole of the Western hemisphere is our sphere of influence; we retain the right to take military action against any power who attempts to place military assets or influence political affairs in the Western hemisphere.
This was our justification for the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Spanish-American War, the half dozen governments we toppled - installing military dictatorships - in South America during the Cold War, among other conflicts.
… We cannot hold other countries to standards which we ourselves refuse to abide by; to do so is a shameful act of hypocrisy.
We have to remember that Russia lacks an ocean between them and any potential enemy; they have no defensible geography. The states of Central/Eastern Europe have always acted as a buffer for Russia, and any time this buffer has been removed it has led to disaster.
This was the case in the Nineteenth Century, when Napoleon invaded Russia; as well as in the Twentieth Century when Germany invaded. Russia doesn’t want to dominate these countries; they have learned that imperialism is expensive, and breeds resentment. What they want, is a buffer of neutral nations who they - and the West - can openly trade with.
What Must Change?
I want to be clear: by highlighting these events I am by no means justifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine or attempting to absolve them of responsibility.
However, it must be understood that the Russian intervention is a response to the clandestine intervention of the United States in Ukraine. It was crystal clear to Washington that a Western armed, trained, NATO integrated Ukraine on their border was something Moscow could never accept.
While it is too late to go back and change the events we’ve discussed, it is by no means too late to chart a better course. In order to do this, we must be willing to understand how we got here. That is the purpose of these articles. There’s an old Russian proverb which says, “the truth has seven sides.” Only by understanding events from the Russian perspective can we determine how to bring an end to the conflict.
We can start by not overthrowing governments - European or otherwise - who don’t bend to our will!
Just over the Christmas holiday, the US tried to launch yet another Color Revolution in Serbia. Fortunately, the lawfully elected Serbian authorities were able to put down the thugs attempting to storm government buildings in Belgrade. I can tell you as someone who knows dozens of Serbs, both in the US and abroad, that this isn’t making them friends of the US. This must stop…
We must affirm that Russia’s national security needs are legitimate, and their grievances justified.
Ideally, we should just dissolve NATO entirely. At the very least, we must revoke the NATO membership of former Warsaw Pact member-states.
This will re-establish the crucial buffer zone between the two sides. Unfortunately, none of these things are politically expedient for US politicians, the legacy media, and even less so for the US Military-Industrial Complex who is profiting massively off this conflict.
Only when we are willing to put peace first, money second, and ego last, will we be able to negotiate an attainable, mutually beneficial, and sustainable peace. It will take time to rebuild trust between Russia and the West. But it can be done if we have the will to follow through and be consistent.
Lviv and western Ukraine are part of ancient Galicia, who had been under the Catholic Poles and Habsburgs for centuries. These areas are largely Uniate and were a center of power for Stephen Bandera. These were the peoples who welcomed Hitler’s Wehrmacht with open arms when they rolled into Ukraine.
These same neo-cons, as Kennan predicted, were quick to say, “told ya’ so!” after they themselves had orchestrated the very causes of the Russian response.
The Burning of the Odessa City Hall; https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27275383
See “Torch of New Russia,” by Pavel Gubarev
Novorossiya (New Russia) was the name given to the territories of eastern Ukraine when they were annexed by Russia in 1764 - with Zaporizhzhia added in the 1790s. These lands had long been inhabited by Cossacks loyal to the Russian Tsar, but it was not until they were seized from the Crimean Khaganate that they came under direct imperial rule. To be clear, these lands were never ethnically “Ukrainian,” and had mostly been inhabited by various steppe tribes since the days of the Roman Empire.
There were attempts to unite the two republics into a proper state of Novorossiya. This was short lived. It certainly would’ve made administration, defense, social aid, et al easier; but between widespread SBU assassinations and internal divisions, this never really materialized.
Igor Strelkov himself has taken credit as the man who tipped over the first domino saying, “no one here wanted to fight before I showed up.” Western commentators have latched on to this, but, looking at the timeline of events this isn’t the case. It could be said that the arrival of Strelkov led to those in Donbass taking themselves more seriously and giving them courage that they may have broader support than they initially thought. It’s certainly the case that successful revolutions have been made or broken based on the confidence of those carrying it out.
See “85 days in Slavyansk,” by Alexander Zhuchkovsky .
Nyet means Nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines. February 2008; Cable: 08MOSCOW265_a (wikileaks.org)
As PMC Wagner forces were an unknown entity at the time, Ukrainian and Western analysts mistakenly believed these to be Russian Special Forces who simply refused to use unit and nation of origin identifiers. The bewilderment of Western analysts at who these guys were shows that Peter Zeihan’s claims that the CIA knows everything going on in the Kremlin at all times, is patently false. In fact, US intelligence analysts have been wrong on every major global crisis and shake-up of the post-cold-war era.
Press release; United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 27 February 2015.
Deceptive Vox News article trying to cover for Ukrainian war crimes: FAKE: «Azov» Fighters crucified and burned alive the fighter of so-called «DNR» (voxukraine.org)
This reinforces that Russia did not intend to conquer Ukraine, quickly or otherwise. They expected the Ukrainians to negotiate, and to withdraw their forces to Russia in a short period of time. If they had any thought of occupying Ukraine, the six-month contract would be counter-productive to this end.
This is not to say he’s some model leader or even overly moral, only that he’s not the boogeyman. Furthermore, he is now essentially a moderate compared to other prominent Russian politicians. The hope that we can have him removed from power and replaced with a pro-Western liberal is the height of ignorance. Whomever replaces Putin will be far more conservative - potentially a monarchist, far more anti-west, than Putin.