this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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Russia tried to negotiate with the west for 8 years. Then they almost made a deal within the first two months of the war that the west sabotaged. It's pretty clear that the west wants the war to go on as long as possible.
I will still never understand Putin turning on nearby brothers as a way to hurt the west. He throws his own into the same meat grinder. Why? It's not even a thing that registers on the average American's radar, but Russia is now on a war footing to fight old allies? It makes no sense.
That's not what happened though. Donbas rebelled against the regime that came into power in Ukraine in a violent coup, and there's been a civil war since then. Here's CNN coverage of what Ukraine has been doing to people of Donbas since 2014 https://twitter.com/paulius60/status/1611148483859255296 and here's a French documentary https://yewtu.be/watch?v=bN68OfFKaWs
Russia tried to work with the west to stop that through Minsk agreements, and now the west admitted that the plan was to just buy time for the regime in Ukraine to arm further.
It's also very illustrative to look at a few slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and a proponent of US global hegemony. First, here's the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
here's how the election in 2004 went:
this is the 2010 election:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:
Hey, so I side with Ukraine in the current conflict, but in general I'm somewhat of a NATO sceptic and really not a fan of US foreign policy. I was curious about the information you provided, but honestly, in contrast to what you claim, it seems to me that you have not explained most of your points. Yeah there's been a clear political divide in Ukraine, but it requires an enormous leap of logic to see that as justification of the Russian invasion. Yeah NATO sucks in many ways, and it and Ukraine too have done some shitty things, but again, there seems to be absolutely no sensible argument for any of that to have justified the invasion.
I haven't watched the French documentary yet, in case any of your arguments relied on it. A quick online search on the journalist does mention several untrue pieces of Russian propaganda that seem to be mentioned in the documentary, though. Any chance you could explain more, or is this lack of explanation all there is for someone curious to understand why the war is happening?
Did you bother watching the lecture from Mearsheimer that the slides are from? It provides a lot of background and explains why Russia took action. The French documentary details what was happening since 2014, but I've also linked a CNN clip saying the same things more briefly. Hopefully you'll agree that CNN isn't spreading Russian propaganda.
Fundamentally, the explanation Russia gives is precisely the same that NATO had for intervening in Yugoslavia, and is in fact directly modelled on it. Just as NATO did, Russia recognized independence of the separatist regions, then these regions asked Russia to intervene on their behalf, which Russia did.
Prior to taking action, Russia tried to work with the west and Ukraine to implement Minsk agreements for 8 years. Western leaders have now come out and openly said that these were never intended to be implemented faithfully, and were used as a delaying tactic to arm Ukraine. Stoltenberg has now publicly admitted that NATO expansion was a major factor in the start of the war as well:
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm
Finally, we now know that Russia and Ukraine had a draft peace agreement first two months into the war that the west sabotaged. The agreement effectively amounted to Ukraine staying neutral and actually implementing Minsk. The fact that the west refused to go along with that makes it pretty clear who actually wanted the war all along.
In fact, RAND famously published a study titled 'Extending Russia' that outlines how Russia could be goaded into a conflict in Ukraine, and why that would benefit US interests https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html