Ukraine and Russia have been intertwined for centuries. Since the Kievan Rus, the Ukrainian and Russian peoples lived under the same rule. Not much changed centuries later when they were both member states of the USSR. Ukraine was almost never independent 1/6 Ukrainians are Russian and 1/3 Ukrainians speak Russian. Ukraine was Russified under Catherine the Great and Ukrainians killed during the Holodomor were replaced with Russians. Later the ethnic Tartars were relocated. Putin obsesses over Holy Rus and that Moscow is the true successor to the Roman Empire, not the adultered West that promotes anti-Abrahamic beliefs.
Ukrainian attitudes towards Russia have changed a lot over the years. Early in Russian history, they banned the Ukrainian language in Russia and occupied Ukraine. Russia ended the ban on the Ukrainian language during Korenizatsiya to integrate non-Russian territories into the USSR. Later, Khruschev gifted Crimea to Ukraine to bolster relations and Ukrainian-Russian relations were at their strongest. After the fall of the USSR, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear arms to Russia in exchange for recognition of sovereignty in the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. Russia later wanted control of Crimea once more but in 1997 came to an agreement to handle the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol in the Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet and the Friendship Treaty. At this point, many in Ukraine had Russian sympathies.
In 2004, many former Soviet Bloc countries joined NATO and Russia was deeply against it (as well as against Georgia’s bid for membership). Foreign NGOs funded pro-West messaging calling the government corrupt and protests calling the election won by pro-Russia Yanukovych fraudulent because the results deviated from exit polling data by 14% (sound familiar?). Pro-West Yuschenko (also corrupt) was also financed by US-backed organizations which some in Europe claim was to weaken the EU and strengthen NATO. Reelection was held and this bloodless governmental change was dubbed the Orange Revolution. Regardless of the legitimacy of the election, there was a clear split in Ukraine: the South and East (especially Luhansk and Donetsk collectively the Donbas region) were pro-Russia, the other half of Ukraine was pro-West.
In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia and despite lackluster pushback from Georgia and the West, Russia halted short of the capital Tbilisi hoping the political shock would be enough to bring down the government as invasion, occupation, and annexation, are expensive and difficult. In fairness to the West, relations with Russia had deteriorated so much the West had very little leverage to curtail Russian aggression. It may have gone better if we had better relations with Russia and had more leverage stopping Russian expansionism early in its tracks.
In 2009, Russia fomented anti-Ukrainian sentiment by portraying Ukraine as an aggressive and greedy state that wanted to ally with Russia's enemies and exploit cheap Russian gas. Since then, an anti-Ukrainian sentiment only grew.
In 2010, Yanukovych won the election by over a 3% margin once more but the election was ruled fair despite his opponent’s protests of fraud. During his tenure, he improved relations with Russia and even rejected EU offers and instead went for a $15 billion bailout from Russia (to some Ukrainians this felt like they were getting sold out to Russia) which sparked the 2013 Euromaidan protests.
In 2014, in the same Maidan square where the Orange Revolution protest happened, even more fervent protests happened in the violent Maidan revolution. There were many horrific things done during this but what stuck out to me was the Odessa Clashes. The entirety of the protests and riots were heavily funded by the Open Society Foundation for which Soros was awarded Ukraine’s highest honor: the Order of Freedom.
To salvage the situation, Moscow annexed Crimea. The West’s soft response (albeit harder than with Georgia earlier) let Putin know there would be no consequences for his actions. Russia already had a military presence in Crimea due to the earlier agreements with Sevastopol and Cold War remnants. Later, Crimea voted to join Russia on March 16th, 2014. Russia was removed from the G8 after this.
Russia then backed separatists in the Donbas in the Donbas War. These separatists were the same people who downed Malaysian airlines flight 17. Remember earlier that Donbas states of Donetsk and Luhansk voted overwhelmingly in favor of pro-Russia Yanukovych? Russia now recognizes the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic as independent states while Ukraine regards them as terrorist organizations. The DPR started issuing passports even though only Russia recognized them as independent, so Russia started issuing Russian passports to the DPR residents. The Minsk (and Minsk II) agreements were signed to end the Donbas War (though as of February 21st, 2022, they are void as Russia recognized DPR and LPR and Ukraine believed this to be an attack on its sovereignty.
In 2019, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky amended Ukraine’s constitution that it is on an immovable trajectory to join NATO. In response, Putin started providing more support to the DPR and LPR in the economically strategic and resource-rich Donbas region. Russia also started amassing troops and military equipment in 2021 (and apparently they telegraphed their invasion plan enough that Alex Jones predicted it months in advance) until December 2021 when Russia gave an ultimatum to NATO demanding NATO to redraw European Security Architecture by not enlarging further to the East as well as by prohibiting NATO from deploying military forces or weaponry in member states that joined after 1997. With no de-escalation from either side (NATO conceding or Russia reducing troops), Russia officially recognized DPR and LPR, and three days later on February 24th, 2022, Russia officially declared war.
The Donbas War had already claimed over 13,000 lives since 2014. This current invasion is likely to be similar. The goal of both is the same: recognize the independence of all Russia sympathizing territories in Ukraine—especially in the resource-rich Donbas Region (DPR/LPR).
While we should help American citizens in Ukraine to escape and be wary of what happens there, it should not be the number one priority. People will try and integrate whatever their agenda is with the Ukraine situation or ignore it entirely saying to focus on more important issues (COVID/Climate/Souther Border/etc. depending on political affiliation).
Are sanctions effective? Probably not. Every sanctioned country by the West becomes a customer for China. This could damage the US Dollar's supremacy as Russia removed the US Dollar from its sovereign wealth fund in response to sanctions prior. Even Russian empathetic countries such as Romania are appalled by Russia’s actions but what can we do (even if we could do something, should we trust the circus that led to Afghanistan to enact that hypothetical strategy)? Nonetheless, I do believe discussion can quell the problem as just 2 months ago they were willing to talk. I would assume their demands would be more than just stopping Ukraine from joining NATO and would also include recognizing LPR/DPR, maybe installing a puppet leader (at least as sympathetic to Russia as Lukashenko is in Belarus) or more. As it stands, that end result might happen either way; the way with less bloodshed is probably preferable. If negotiations were to happen, our leadership needs to be more competent and not make grade school geography mistakes such as thinking Russian-owned territory is disputed and in Ukraine.
Neighboring countries are fortunately accepting Ukrainian refugees, however, men aged 18-60 are banned from leaving the country. Likewise in Russia, anti-war protesters are imprisoned.
News from Ukraine is flooding in at an unbelievable speed.
Location-based news maps: https://liveuamap.com/
Addressing some other things:
Corruption: Hunter Biden and many other children of incompetent diplomats and dignitaries are getting paid through corrupt dealings in Ukraine. While that may increase the want to defend the Ukrainian regime, it has 0 effect* on Putin’s invasion.
*The corruption is a contributor to Ukraine’s stagnation and Russian media laments that 30 years of independence and no progress is due to the west and it is their duty to liberate Ukraine from being a vassal state (quoted from Tucker that was then repeated on State TV) of an exploitative west. The US is hypocritical. Why can the US invade other countries (Vietnam, Iraq, Falkland Islands, Afghanistan, etc.) but Russia cannot enter into a super strategic asset and friend that is Ukraine.
Putin’s Reasons: Putin claims there is a genocide in Donbas and they are flushing out neo-Nazis in Ukraine (Ukraine has a national guard unit that is internationally acknowledged as neo-Nazi). While Trump was in office, neo-Nazis doing war crimes such as forced starvation in Ukraine were a common story not considered Kremlin propaganda.
The mass graves found in Ukraine are according to the west improper burials according to Russia it’s evidence of slaughter. Impossible to say the truth, but I did want to mention there is another side. Consider if there were missiles in Canada pointed against the US, would we be upset? NATO was not supposed to creep east but it did; what if the CSTO expanded into Sweden?
Maybe to revive the USSR as he called the collapse a genuine tragedy. Though Russian Foreign Ministers claim Russia doesn’t need more territory. The example in Kazakhstan a few months back goes against the idea of Russia wanting to recreate the USSR.
Ukraine as a US strategic interest? Obama doesn’t think so. Carter’s national security adviser Brzezinski claimed Ukraine was in a strategic interest just to undermine the resurgence of a Russian Empire. Even as the architect of the plan, he was against NATO admission.
Clearly, Europe doesn’t care too much about human rights violations either.
Because Trump isn’t in office? While I would argue that autocrats value strength and Trump was a stronger leader than Sleepy joe, what would Trump have done as a reaction? Russia seems like they would go insane if the US intervened and the wrong response from us would end up with an attack on our soil. We needed to have drawn a line in the sand much earlier (Georgia-Russia under Bush or even not giving up the nuclear arsenal in 1997), conceded a lot in diplomatic negotiation, appealed for the ICC to investigate the alleged genocide in Donbas and then solve that problem ourselves, etc. After February 24th, 2022, no one could do anything to prevent that one-day tragedy. Russia claims they are still open for talks so we might be able to prevent the situation from worsening. From Russian propaganda agency TASS, Putin lists out his demands.
Timing?
Weak Western leadership, a reduction in the appetite for war (after the Afghanistan debacle), violations of Minsk II, neutering of European energy independence, enough time to gather sufficient forces.
Biolabs
While they are hitting Biolabs, I don’t think it’s by design. Instead, I think it’s because Biolabs are going to be near military bases but Putin does believe that the US is making bioweapons near Russia.
Minsk Agreement Ukrainian Violation
Ukraine was the first to violate Minsk II (the ceasefire to end the Donbas War) and Russia claims they only violated it after it was already void.
Don’t trust your eyes:
From the unbanned Twitter account of Putin (facetious since Trump still had his @POTUS)
Fake stories to support their side, gloss over any unfavorable stories: par for the course. Hard to know what’s real what’s fake. The first casualty of war is the truth.
Anyway, even if I was 100% in support of Russia, I would not be in support of a fucking invasion just as I'm not in favor of the US invasion of Iraq Afghanistan Falklands Vietnam, etc.