WHEN, HOW AND WHY DID THE WAR IN UKRAINE TRULY BEGIN?
Many have no time to digest information in depth & are inclined to use TV news as their source of information. However, when western interests are involved, this source will rarely remain unbiased.
If westerners rely on western mainstream media news broadcasters such as the BBC, CNN or others, or western political spokespersons for their news they could easily imagine that the Ukraine war began on February 24th 2022. This because western broadcasters and politicians wish to communicate one particular piece of fake news, that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine was completely unprovoked.
In essence what is going on now, and has been going on since 2014 is the denial by an illegal regime in Kiev (with the support of the West) of the ability of the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine to live in peace with full democratic rights, able to self-govern with federalized status, having a high degree of cultural, social and material security.
Underpinning all of the above and perpetually fueling this injustice is the overarching desire of western elites to weaken those powers which threaten their long-held global domination, Russia, along with China, being a primary target.
So. How did this all begin?
And what were the tragic milestones that brought us here to the brink of an all-out nuclear war?
In 2014 a violent insurrection took place in Ukraine’s capital Kiev. The overthrowing of the democratically and constitutionally legitimate president and government of Ukraine brought into power a president and government vetted beforehand by the West, and in particular by the U.S.A. (In reference to this please listen to the leaked phone call between U.S. Ambassador in Kiev at the time, Geoffrey Pyatt and Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland.) This in the context of fears by U.S. and western elites that global western power and influence was declining due to the rise of nations within Eurasia and the Far East.
Recorded conversation between Asst. Sec. of State Victoria Nuland and Amb. Geoffrey Pyatt.
The Maidan insurrection was characterized by months of rioting, arson and innumerable violent assaults on Ukrainian police and security forces. Around seventeen police officers lost their lives at the hands of the rioters. As these events were taking place, with the burning down of government buildings, the use of Molotov Cocktails, handguns and hunting rifles as well as clubs, heavy chains, toxic sprays and even a forklift truck against lightly armed police and security personnel, western politicians and officials supported the ultraviolet insurrectionists 100%, constantly urging them on.
The attempts by the western powers and the USA in particular, to bring down presidents and governments in Ukraine, had been ongoing for many years before the Maidan insurrection. In 2008 at the NATO conference in Bucharest it was stated that both Ukraine and Georgia would at some future date join the NATO alliance. Approximately $5 billion dollars were spent since that time to the successful insurrection in 2014 to facilitate the movement of Ukraine from the Russian to the Western sphere of influence. This is the inherent cause of all that has followed.
The fact that the vast majority of people living in the east of Ukraine including the Crimean peninsula had consistently voted for presidents and governments that favored good relations with Russia, who spoke Russian and annually celebrated their liberation from the Nazis in WWII was clearly completely ignored as irrelevant concerning western plans for Ukraine as a whole. The most virulent, nationalistic section of the Ukrainian population in western Ukraine held the Nazis to have been a liberating force against the Russians. It was this grouping that took over the protesters in Kiev’s Maidan square who had been protesting peacefully until their arrival. It was they that ultimately, through their maximum use of violence, supported fully by the western powers, that eventually brought democratic Ukraine down to the level we have seen since.
As soon as the illegal administration of Ukraine took over in 2014 it began to pass laws banning the use of the Russian language across Ukraine and to proscribe the political parties that had held power previously, later jailing at least one of their leaders, Viktor Medvedchuk. Ukrainian Radio and television stations where the Russian language was used were ordered to close. The Russian Orthodox church had its assets and churches seized with the creation of a Ukrainian church designed to replace it. (This is the so-called democratic state that western state and media propaganda continue to talk of.)
In effect, the takeover of power in Ukraine by pro-western, US-approved politicians, completely removed any hope in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine that their democratic rights would be preserved in future elections. It was without doubt crystal clear to them that unless they did something to reverse the process they would not only be left without any democratic rights they would also be stripped of their right to use the language of their birth, Russian. Not only this, it was also without doubt also clear that they would henceforth be seen as traitors and, in German, ‘Untermenschen’, non-people, an unwanted underclass, second-class citizens in their own land.
The intolerable situation above was underpinned by the large percentage of those in western Ukraine who avowed allegiance to the memory of the Nazis and their ‘Operation Barbarossa’ against Russia. These are those who gloried in having Nazi symbols including the swastika tattooed upon their bodies. These symbols were also used, or symbols almost identical to them by one of the political parties favored by the western powers who had sought the overthrow of successive Ukrainian presidents and governments since at least 2008. The people of Crimea and eastern Ukraine knew these people and their intentions toward them very well. They had seen the rioting in their capital on their TV screens nightly for months and previous to this they had seen them in torch lit parades of thousands in western Ukraine cities such as Lviv.
In the West the almost universally peaceful rising up of the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine against the takeover they had witnessed in their capital was portrayed in a very negative light compared with the generally very positive way the insurrection in Kiev had been. Western news media fell directly in line with western state interests in this respect and so it has been ever since in respect of all subsequent events in Ukraine. Knowing just a few of the actual facts concerning why the people of eastern Ukraine rose up in a display of people power dispels any notion that these events were as simple as portrayed in the West by news media and politicians alike.
In response to the peaceful demonstration of people power (the people in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine took over administration there and sought to have autonomy within Ukraine to preserve their rights, freedom of affiliation and values) the new regime in Kiev sent the Ukrainian military east. This decision to send a military force, rather than engage in negotiations signaled anything but good for the Donbass region and Ukraine as a whole. Initially the people of the Donbass had only gathered on the road standing in front of the tanks sent to intimidate them. They attempted to talk to the tank commanders and persuade them to return to their bases in western Ukraine. Inevitably, before long with Ukrainian troops setting up roadblocks and checkpoints violent incidents began to occur. This is where all that occurred subsequently had its genesis.
While the Ukrainian army increased its presence and attempted to intimidate the people of the Donbass into accepting their new status as de facto enemies of the new Ukrainian regime, the politicians in Kiev began calling them terrorists. As the days and weeks of violence by the Ukrainian army increased, supplemented by the modern day Nazis who had brought down the president and government in Kiev, more and more civilians began to die. As this continued the new authorities in the newly setup republics of Donetsk and Lugansk put together a self-defense force. Many veterans of the Russian army arrived in due course to supplement their ranks. The merciless pounding of Donbass apartment blocks, schools, hospitals, kindergartens, village, town and city town centers in the years 2014 and 2015 by the Ukrainian army and its extremist militias was a constant. This resulted in the increased development of the self-defense forces within the Donbass. By mid-2015 these forces were strong enough to start defeating Kiev’s forces within the Donbass.
The increasing number of defeats suffered by the Ukrainian army in 2015 and in particular a large number of its forces being caught in a pocket around the town of Debaltsevo brought the western powers in the name of Angela Merkel to Vladimir Putin’s door to plead for a halt to this situation. Thus began the talks between the Russians, the Ukrainians and the leaders of Germany and France that became known as the Minsk Accords or Minsk Agreements.These were meant to find a pathway to peace and reconciliation between the people of the Donbass and the Kiev regime. The aim was to provide a framework for peace whereby the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass would have a high degree of autonomy as they wished and that subsequently the government in Kiev would once more regain control of Ukraine’s borders in the east. All the required agreements were signed off on to achieve this. These were then ratified by the United Nations. However, the Kiev regime failed to bring any of its promises into being.
For over six years, from 2015 to 2021, meetings to try to implement the Minsk Agreements took place. Ultimately however, in late 2021 Zelensky stated that he was no longer going to take the agreements seriously. Some time after both Angela Merkel and Petro Poroshenko (who had been Ukraine’s illegal president in 2015 when the Minsk talks began) said that the talks and subsequent agreement had been a sham, only engaged in by them to allow the Kiev regime to re-arm its army to NATO standards. They had succeeded in stalling Russia in its attempts to assist the people of the Donbass in establishing their right to freedom from the murderous onslaught from Kiev. So it was that it was made plain to the Russians that Minsk was dead and that there never had been any sincere with by the Ukrainian regime or the western powers to reestablish peace or to find a way toward reconciliation.
While this knowledge was being digested as to its future significance in Moscow Zelensky began talking of reestablishing Ukraine’s nuclear status. NATO continued to state that Ukraine had every right to join NATO. Russia’s pleas to negotiate a new security architecture in Europe including Russia fell on deaf ears at this time along with a separate plea to the U.S. president to find a way to establish peace in the region. Then, just at this point in late January, early february 2021 a significant uptick in Ukrainian missile and mortar attacks on the Donbass population began. This is noted precisely in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) reports of the time. (The OSCE had been engaged in detailed monitoring events in the Donbass since 2015.) In addition documents were discovered that indicated the Ukrainian military was planning a large attack upon the Donbass region.)
In light of all of the above and in particular the increased shelling by the Ukrainian army and revelation that a massive attack upon them was planned the two republics of Donetsk and Lugansk appealed to the Russian Federation for help. (In 2014 they had asked Russia to incorporate them into the Russian Federation. This had been refused with a reiteration that they should remain within Ukraine but that Russia would seek, through diplomatic means, to persuade the Ukrainian regime to give them federalized status whereby they would be guaranteed security via a high degree of autonomy). However, by early 2021 it was clear that there was no hope whatsoever that Kiev would countenance anything of the kind and that instead it was intent on resolving everything in their favor by military means.
So it was that, with no good options remaining for Russia, a relatively small number of Russian troops and military vehicles crossed the Russian-Ukraine border on 24th February 2021 seeking to pressure the Zelensky regime into implementing the Minsk Accords. A few weeks later with Russian troops in position around Kiev and other areas within Ukraine Russia called for talks to work out a peace plan whereby Ukraine would remain a neutral, non-NATO state and that all hostilities would cease. Substantial progress was made in the subsequent negotiations, once again in Minsk and later in Istanbul. Such progress was made (with Ukrainian officials surprised at how modest Russia’s requirements were) that a draft document of the progress that had been made in the hope of a full agreement to be agreed later was initialed by all parties. It was subsequent to this extremely hopeful development that the tragic path we are now on began.
In response to Ukraine’s willingness to engage in peace talks Russia removed its troops from their locations around Kiev. Very shortly thereafter Boris Johnson, then Prime Minister of Britain, arrived in Kiev. This fateful visit set in motion the all that we have subsequently seen with the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the total destruction of all trust between the warring sides. With his visit where he clearly promised Ukraine massive financial and military support for the Ukrainian regime if it abandoned the peace process and instead continued its pursuit of a military solution against Russia. Though there have been many milestones along the way that led to this continuing tragedy of war, the visit of Boris Johnson, carrying the joint message of all western powers, is surely the most crucial and reprehensible of all, marking as it did the beginning of the most horrendous loss of life since the end of World War Two.
Good Summary.
Typos:
"ultraviolet insurrectionists" ultraviolent
"there never had been any sincere with by the Ukrainian regime" will
You might be interested in my “course” because it gets to the root of the problems that generate the kind of strife which is caused by those who are shortsighted and engage in power struggles for all the wrong reasons.