Intro
This is my personal tale of how I slowly came to acquire some understanding of the origins of the conflict in Ukraine.
It was one of those chance processes where some initial enquiries and reading lead to a seemingly endless unfolding of layer upon layer of ignorance and misunderstanding, causing me to be repeatedly shocked at the totality of my original ignorance.
I wanted to share my experience, not to impose on others my evolving opinions on the subject, but rather to expose how poorly we have been served by the mainstream media and to encourage others to look beyond the emotive headline news in order to keep seeking the answer to one simple question, namely “WHY?”.
This is not a rigorous or authoritative analysis of the subject, just a simple tale of enquiry and discovery. I hope that it will encourage others to look beyond the main media narratives that constantly bombard us.
The Beginning – Innocence & Ignorance
When Russian troops entered Ukraine in February 2022 I was pretty much caught off guard.
I had a vague recollection of something happening back in 2014 when there was fighting between what I understood were separatists in the east of Ukraine (with some support from Russia) and the Ukrainian army, with the main publicity relating to the accidental downing of a passenger plane.
I also recalled something about Russian annexation of Crimea following a change of government in Kiev, reported as a popular overthrow of a pro-Russian government.
However, for the last 7 years there hadn’t been much publicity in the mainstream press, and let’s face it I didn’t know much at all about Ukraine so occasional snippets didn’t really register that strongly in my brain. I just had a vague notion that it was an East European country – perhaps formerly part of the Soviet Union.
My instinctive reaction was to hope that, whatever the problem was that lead to the influx of Russian troops, a resolution would be quickly found. I was relieved when I heard in March 2022 that there were peace talks in progress.
What about Crimea?
The early news back in February / March 2022 was awash with extreme outrage directed against Russia. I noted one commentator referring to the illegality of Russia’s annexation of Crimea back in 2014, and their dismissal as absurd the references to cultural and historical links between Russia and Crimea.
That tweaked my interest as I had it in my mind that Crimea had been part of Russia. After all, didn’t the Crimean war (1853-56) involve Britain waging war against Russia in Crimea (aka Kipling’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”)?
It was easy enough to check a few historical facts, which revealed that:
i) Crimea had been an independent Crimean Khanate, but falling under the influence of the Ottoman Empire. Following war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire and the decline in influence of the latter, Crimea was annexed by Russia in 1783 (240 years ago).
ii) It was still part of Russia during the second world war.
iii) Russian troops defended Crimea against Nazi invasion during World War 2. They were unsuccessful in this endeavour and lost three armies (about 160,000 troops) in the process.
iv) The Russian navy had established their Black Sea naval base at Sevastapol in Crimea in 1785, and this has remained their Black Sea naval base ever since (for 238 years).
v) The Nazis completely destroyed Sevastopol during WW2. After the war Russia invested enormous resources (at a time when resources were very scarce) to rebuild the city because of its special significance to Russia.
I didn’t really follow through on the history of the areas west on Crimea, such as Odessa, although understood that they had also been part of Russia and that Odessa was a city originally built by Russia.
Given the above, the question arose as to how Crimea came to be part of Ukraine.
To answer that question, it’s first necessary to find out how or when the nation state of Ukraine came into existence.
It seems that Ukraine came into existence as a nation state at the end of WW2, when Joseph Stalin pushed for and obtained UN recognition of the country. At that point it became one of the Soviet Republics forming part of the Soviet Union. However, Crimea was still part of Russia.
Later, in 1954, it seems that the then leader of the Soviet Union (Nikita Khrushchev) decided to transfer the Crimean oblast (province) from Russian control to Ukrainian control as part of actions to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Ukraine’s union with Russia.
Subsequent to 1954, the navy based at Sevastapol was of course part of the Soviet navy, although almost entirely made up of the Russian navy.
That situation continued until the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. At that time Russia and Ukraine became friendly neighbours and the situation with the navy was resolved by splitting the naval fleet into a Russian fleet and a Ukrainian fleet. Reflecting the contributions of the two countries to the Soviet navy, Russia retained about 80% of the fleet and leased Sevastapol so that its navy could remain at that historical Russian city.
In 1991 the Crimean oblast within Ukraine became an Autonomous Republic within Ukraine. However the Crimean government attempted to break free from Ukraine in 1992 and again in 1995. Opposition to Ukrainian control and western influence was evidenced by anti NATO protests in 2006, when the Crimean parliament declared Crimea a “NATO Free Territory”.
In terms of its historical and cultural ties, Crimea remained closely linked to Russia. A US funded survey of the “Autonomous Republic of Crimea”, carried out in 2013, showed that a majority of the population identified as ethnically Russian, with the balance made up of Crimean Tartars, Ukrainians (only 15%), and others. Russian remained the language of choice and interestingly only about 15% of the population advised that they spoke Ukrainian at home, reflecting much closer evolutionary ties to Russia. Consistent with this a clear majority did NOT support closer ties with the EU (only 17% favoured entry to the EU).
Hmmm? So it seems that the Russian claims of strong historical and cultural ties with Crimea were not absurd after all. So why was this issue so completely dismissed by our western media?
What about Ukrainian History?
From the above it can be seen that some background information on Crimea is relevant in terms of understanding the conflict.
Likewise we need some background information on Ukraine. This is of course more difficult unless we have the time to read a few thousand pages of history books. Suffice to say the history of Ukraine is very long and very complex.
I have only managed to read about 600 pages of Ukrainian history and of course for a newcomer to the subject one is overwhelmed with the volume and complexity of the information. I have just tried to cover a few general points which I felt helped me to get a feel for the evolution of the region generally referred to as Ukraine and the nation state of Ukraine which was formed at the end of WW2. So here we go (my apologies to the history boffins who will scoff at my naïve attempts).
i) After Emperor Constantine established the eastern roman empire at Byzantium in about 330 AD and renamed it Constantinople (now known as Istanbul), the city grew to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful cities in Europe and remained significant until its eventual fall to an Islamic army over 1,000 years later.
ii) Situated at the base of the Black Sea with strong trading cultural and religious links across the Mediterranean, it developed as the major centre influencing trade and commerce around and to the north of the Black Sea.
iii) The lands to the north of the Black Sea became known as the Rus Lands, with the term “Rus” referring to the Vikings which travelled down the rivers from northern Europe, capturing slaves and selling these into the market provided by the wealth of Constantinople.
iv) This vast area north of the Black Sea has a turbulent history with invasions from all directions over the centuries which influenced the population and culture of the area, which for many centuries was only lightly populated.
v) Over time centres of power and influence developed at places such as Kiev, Minsk, Novgorod and Moscow. Relative power and influence of the various centres varied over time.
vi) The Catholic religion developed simultaneously in Constantinople and Rome, so that over time differences evolved in the functional manifestations of the religion. The eastern evolution centred on Constantinople developed into what is now referred to as the Orthodox Catholic Church.
vii) The influence of the Orthodox Church spread north from Constantinople and became the dominant religion in the Rus Lands extending into northern Europe.
viii) Of course the Roman Catholic Church spread its influence north from Rome into Europe, and inevitably there developed competition between the two strands of the church in areas where those influences overlapped.
ix) As the nations of Europe started to evolve towards something that seems more familiar to what we now know, a large area of land roughly in the region that we think of as Ukraine found itself falling under the influence of powerful neighbours.
x) Poland in particular exerted influence over a large part of this territory for long periods of time, sometimes as part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. When Moscow developed as a major centre of power it also exerted significant influence.
xi) The influence of powerful neighbours waxed and waned over time depending on wars and economic conditions, and the Ukrainian territory found itself pushed and pulled between these varying cultural economic and religious practices. In particular, the Orthodox Church remained dominant in the east while the Catholic Church came to dominate in the west, and there were also attempts to establish a Unity Church which melded the rituals and dogmas of the two arms of the religion.
xii) As we come to the more recent times (the last couple of centuries) we see parts of the Ukranian territory variously occupied by Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Czechkoslovakia, Hungary, etc. Not surprisingly a yearning developed for a Ukrainian nation able to develop its own culture free from outside influence and control.
xiii) Interestingly, this spark was first lit when a Cossack army from the far east regions joined forces with the Crimean Tartars, defeated the Polish army, and pushed the Poles back into established Polish borders. However, in due course the Polish army returned to occupy a large part of the territory.
xiv) For a long period of time the Ukrainian territories fell under western influence generally west of the Dneiper River, and under Russian influence east of the Dneiper River.
xv) As noted previously, it was only at the end of WW2 that Stalin established the nation state of Ukraine, thus establishing boundaries generally as shown on current maps.
Well, trying to squeeze about 1500 years into a few lines gives plenty of scope for critique and correction. However, the things that struck me as being of most relevance to the current conflict in Ukraine were:
a) That the nation state is so recent, having been created only at the end of WW2.
b) Leaving little time for integration of the disparate cultural and religious influences into coherent and unified national traditions.
c) And in particular leaving a country with an “official” language (Ukrainian) but with the main language of spoken convenience being Russian.
d) Leaving a country with deep divisions between east and west, to some extent exacerbated by events post-WW2.
The Russian Revolution
If the history as outlined above was not complex enough, the entire region was the centre of terrible conflict associated with the Russian Civil War (following the Russian Revolution), which raged throughout the territories now known as Russia, Belarus and Ukraine at the end of WW1. The Red Army finally prevailed over the White Army (which was supported by a range of European and other powers), but only after terrible death and destruction throughout a vast area from the Black Sea north to the Baltic and right across the continent to the Pacific Coast.
Later, in the inter-war period there was a terrible famine and many people starved to death throughout those territories. There is some lingering resentment in Ukraine associated with the transfer of food out of Ukraine in the midst of the famine.
The Legacy of WW2
This is a hugely important topic because of the terrible human losses associated with the Nazi invasion. Figures vary but as far as I can ascertain at least 18 million Russians died, with as many as 28 million people throughout the Soviet Republics having perished. To this needs to be added all those maimed and wounded and otherwise traumatised by the war. This leaves nearly every family with collective memory of members who suffered during that terrible time.
The Nazis had a cruel goal of capturing the rich food producing areas to allow expansion of the German peoples eastward, and allowing the populations elsewhere (dependent on food from those areas) to starve to death. Hitler ordered that the Slavic peoples should not be taken prisoner, intrinsically treating them as lesser humans than the European adversaries.
The physical destruction caused by the war was overwhelming, and the Soviet leadership after the war embarked on massive housing construction with extreme urgency. This was done though-out all territories including Ukraine, giving rise to endless blocks of very drab units which nonetheless enabled the populations to survive the brutal winters.
The important thing to flow from this is an understanding that the Russian people suffered extreme trauma as a result of the Nazi invasion, which absolutely threatened their very existence.
This colours their view of the world, with the highest priority being their security and their ability to withstand threats against their nation (especially from the west).
De-Nazification of Ukraine – What the hell was Putin on about?
One of the justifications for Russia’s entry into Ukraine in February 2022 was reported as being the need to De-Nazify Ukraine. This was dismissed in the mainstream western media as absurd and deranged commentary, and certainly left me feeling quite bewildered. I initially accepted the western media’s view.
As always, some historical background helps to clear the picture (a little at least).
As noted, the area we generally think of as Ukraine was over the centuries occupied and governed by various powers. It’s hardly surprising that over time a yearning for self-government developed. This evolved into a nationalist movement which bubbled along for a long time looking for a chance for the dream to be realised.
Of course, like all such movements this took various forms, from intellectual where academics and writers were attempting to develop a “Ukrainian” language right through to extremes where groups promoted violence as a means of achieving the objectives of the movement.
At the very extreme end of this spectrum were people who adopted ideology with Nazi-like characteristics (such as white supremacy, racial purity, and hatred towards jews, ethnic minorities, ethnic groupings such as the Slavic peoples of the eastern regions, communists, trade unionists, etc). There was a belief in a strong leader and the use of violence to achieve objectives. One such group was headed by a man called Stepan Bandera and is often referred to as the “Banderites”. This movement was based in western Ukraine (centred on Lviv), fascist in character, and extreme in nature.
When the Nazis invaded during WW2, this group collaborated with the Nazi occupiers, acting as police, enforcers, organisers of pogroms, and carrying out terrible acts of violence against sections of the populations. Supporters also formed two battalions to join forces with the Nazi army in its attack on Russia. Hence the “Banderites” are often referred to as neo-Nazis.
After WW2 many of these people were brought to justice for the atrocities committed. The question is, did the ideology simply disappear once Ukraine became a nation?
It seems not. Prior to 2014 (see later regarding the events of 2014) there were various articles in the western press raising concerns about the rise of neo-nazi groups and militias. Some groups were specifically identified by western governments as actual or potential terrorist risks. There was some political representation, although on a percentage basis this was at a relatively low level.
Bandera himself is a divisive figure, revered by some for his drive to establish a Ukrainian nation, but despised by others for the violent crimes he encouraged.
The events of 2014 seem to have provided this extreme sector of society an opportunity to establish a level of power disproportionate to their popular support. So, what happened in 2014?
2014 – Was it a Violent Coup or a Peaceful Overthrow of the Government?
Going into 2014 the President of Ukraine was Viktor Yanukovitch who, along with his party, had been democratically elected by the people of Ukraine in an election which was confirmed as valid by international observers.
The government was a moderate one with its main support base in the east and south (reflecting the strong east-west divide of Ukrainian society). Its policy was to remain neutral and hence to not join NATO, but it was interested in commercial ties with both the EU and Russia.
When the government accepted an assistance package from Russia rather than the EU, there were peaceful protests particularly in the western areas which were more closely aligned with Europe.
However, from there the picture becomes darker. A few bits of information:
i) An intercepted phone call in 2014 between Victoria Nuland (US State Dept) and the US ambassador in Kiev revealed a plot to overthrow the government of Viktor Yanukovitch.
ii) It was clear from the phone call that the US was heavily involved in the coup plot, with Nuland seemingly deciding who should lead the new government post-coup.
iii) When the ambassador raised concerns about the consequences (of the coup) for the Europeans, Nuland simply replied “#$&% the EU”. This was an indication of the US’s attitudes towards their European “allies”.
iv) Nuland in Senate testimony later confirmed that the US had invested approx. $5 billion into Ukraine in the lead-up to 2014 to “promote democracy” (which in fact meant to promote the US’s interests - which in this case were clearly anti-democratic).
v) Despite the plot being exposed the coup went ahead during a large peaceful protest, with snipers first killing police then killing protesters. More than 40 people were killed.
vi) The government fled to Russia in fear for their lives.
vii) The remaining members of parliament elected a new government, obviously drawing on the opposition members (government members not being present). The chosen leader was the person nominated by Nuland in the phone call. Clearly the new government was not democratically elected.
So, to answer the question, the change of government in 2014 was a violent coup, with the USA heavily involved in orchestrating the coup. We will address the issue of the USA’s motivations later.
2014-2022: The Civil War
With the change in government and in particular the shift in power balance to those in the west and in particular the more extreme elements which were strongly anti-Russian, there were major changes. The new government sought to enforce concepts of nationality (for instance by suppressing the Russian language (the main language of convenience) culture and religion, outlawing the teaching of Russian in schools, etc. Symbols favourable to Russia (such as monuments celebrating the Russian victory over the Nazis in WW2) were removed, and Bandera was elevated to the status of a national hero.
This of course brought to the surface many of the historical and ethnic divisions within Ukraine, which was dominantly European in the west and Russian in the east. It also brought to the surface a more purist approach which was intolerant of cultural and ethnic diversity.
There were incidents of violence by those emboldened by the new circumstances, especially extremists. For instance, in 2014 the trade union building in Odessa (originally a Russian city) was set on fire by anti-Russian extremists, killing about 40 people.
Of course, the political and physical attacks on Ukrainians identified as having Russian ethnicity prompted a reaction, in which the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk declared independence from the anti-Russian government in Kiev. This initiated a civil war as the Kiev regime sought to crush the independence movement and as Russia provided some support to help the eastern (dominantly ethnically Russian) areas defend themselves.
All we heard in the western media was outrage at Russian meddling, but with no context which would enable an understanding of events.
The Minsk Peace Agreement
Peace talks were initiated in an attempt to stop the violence. The Kiev government and the breakaway republics entered into negotiations which were sponsored by Germany, France and Russia. These resulted in the Minsk 1 and subsequently the Minsk 2 agreement.
The Minsk 2 agreement (2015) provided for the breakaway republics to remain as part of Ukraine, but with an enhanced degree of autonomy. In return Kiev would cease the persecution of ethnic Russians (the dominant ethnicity in the east). The agreement was signed by all parties, with Germany France and Russia effectively providing assurances that they would act to ensure respect for the provisions of the agreement. The agreement was ratified by unanimous vote of the UN Security Council and thus legally binding.
However, Kiev never implemented its part of the bargain, and instead proceeded to build up and modernise its army in order to be able to invade and subdue the eastern regions by force. This was with the active encouragement of the USA which poured in money and arms for this purpose, established military training facilities in western Ukraine to facilitate the modernisation and expansion of the army (training about 10,000 men a year for the period 2015-2021), and provided additional CIA training in the USA in insurgency operations.
It was eventually revealed that Kiev never had any intention of honouring the terms of the Minsk agreement, and was just using it as a means of buying time while it built up its armed forces. That is, from Kiev’s point of view the agreement was always a sham.
In the meantime shelling continued across the border of Luhansk / Donetsk until the events of 2022 (the Russian incursion).
During this period the western media reported only from the Ukrainian side. As a result, we were all unaware of the relentless shelling of civilian areas in the breakaway regions (still continuing), with large numbers of civilians killed and maimed. Thousands of complaints to the UN were lodged but met with total silence. That is, there was massive bias in the western media and by western institutions, seemingly orchestrated and co-ordinated by the US.
The March to War
We need to look at why Russia was concerned about developments in Ukraine, if we’re to understand anything at all. A few points:
i) As noted previously WW2 left Russia a deeply traumatised nation, carrying the scars of massive destruction and human loss on a scale not matched by any of the western powers.
ii) The Nazi plan was effectively to exterminate the Slavic peoples of Russia. Russians knew that they were indeed fighting for their very existence.
iii) It should always be remembered that it was Russia that sacrificed the most to defeat the Nazi armies, and through that sacrifice achieved the major critical victories without which the western powers would never have prevailed. The west has never properly acknowledged the debt owed to Russia for that sacrifice and determination.
iv) Of course WW2 was followed by the cold war – essentially a standoff between the Soviet Union and the USA.
v) The formation of NATO as a mutual defensive alliance between the USA and a group of European nations reflected concerns about the challenge of the Soviet Union (and the Warsaw Pact alliance) and of communism. The west of course feared the spread of communism as a threat to their social and economic structure.
vi) The challenge of the cold war was epitomised by the Cuba missile crisis, which brought the world to the brink of full scale nuclear war. When the USA installed missiles in Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union, the leadership of the Soviet Union reacted by installing missiles in Cuba.
vii) Luckily war was avoided because the leaders of both nations did not want mutually assured destruction through war, were in regular contact, and were both willing to compromise. As a result the Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba and the USA withdrew their missiles from Turkey (but with a lag and in secret so that the American public did not know and hence would believe that the USA had prevailed over the Soviets).
viii) In the period leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, improved relations between east and west (in combination with an understanding that nuclear war would result in mutual annihilation) enabled some meaningful progress to be made on nuclear disarmament including agreements to reduce nuclear stockpiles and to eliminate intermediate range nuclear-capable missiles.
ix) After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the cold war had in theory ended. The economic collapse of the Soviet states meant that they were no longer a threat to the west, with the main worry instead being that societal collapse would allow nuclear weapons to be lost or stolen by bad actors.
x) At this point in time the original basis for the NATO alliance ceased to exist and the alliance could have been dissolved (just as the Warsaw Pact had been dissolved).
xi) However, massive institutions, bureaucracy, and vested interests always act to preserve themselves, and thus it was with NATO.
xii) In effect, the purpose of NATO was gradually adjusted to become a means of maintaining US influence in Europe including large US military bases (especially in Germany), and also as a means of ensuring that NATO weapons systems and protocols were co-ordinated with the USA.
xiii) Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, assurances were given to both the Soviet Union (prior to formal dissolution) and to Russia that, in return for the withdrawal of troops eastwards and for agreeing to the re-integration of East Germany with West Germany (to make a very large and powerful nation), NATO would not be expanded (“not one inch eastwards”).
xiv) This was recognised as being of the utmost importance to Russia, for whom sovereign security was paramount given the prior experience of German invasion.
xv) However, the west did not honour this agreement, with the 16 member states as at 1990 expanding to 19 states in 1999, to 26 states in 2004, to 28 states in 2009, to 29 states in 2017 and to 30 states in 2020.
xvi) Rather than “not one inch eastwards” NATO was expanded dramatically to the east including to the Russian border in places. That expansion was accompanied by militarisation of multiple states based on NATO protocols.
xvii) It was clear that NATO had progressively transitioned from what was originally intended as a purely defensive alliance to a dominant alliance able to contain and threaten Russia.
xviii) Russia endlessly objected and complained about these expansions to the east, but were ignored by in particular the USA (the main driver of expansion) because quite simply Russia was weak and could do nothing more than object. In short, Russia was treated with complete contempt and their quite valid concerns completely dismissed.
xix) Adding to Russian concerns was the deployment of NATO (effectively USA controlled) military facilities and weapons systems throughout the NATO nations, disregarding the objections of Russia.
xx) In essence, the USA through NATO, imposed a new arms race on Russia.
xxi) Of critical importance was the decision to install missile systems in Poland and Romania that could house and launch nuclear missiles (as well as non-nuclear missiles).
xxii) This was an enormous concern to Russia. As Putin noted, if a missile left one of these sites and headed towards Russia he would have no way of knowing whether or not it was nuclear armed and have only about five minutes to make a response decision that could end humanity. The installation of these facilities by the USA quite frankly seems to me to be an act of complete insanity.
xxiii) At the NATO conference in Bucharest in 2008 the administration of George Bush Jnr pushed through a decision to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, despite advice by the US ambassador to Russia in his famous “Niet means Niet” memo that such action would be completely unacceptable to Russia and (in diplomat speak) that it would inevitably result in war.
xxiv) Polls at the time showed that a large majority of Ukrainians did not want to join NATO.
xxv) However, the USA had a plan to constrict and weaken Russia, and bringing Ukraine into NATO was part of that plan. They had become used to completely ignoring Russia’s concerns, and against their own professional advice carried on.
xxvi) This brings us closer to 2014 and the coup that toppled the democratically elected government of Ukraine and replaced it with a government willing to impose the USA agenda on the population. As noted, the State Dept advised in Congressional hearings that they had invested US$5 billion into political influence in the lead up to the coup.
Of course the full detail of the twists and turns both public and clandestine will eventually fill thousands of pages of history books.
The key takeaway is of course that it was the USA marching to war, as part of a project to suppress and contain Russia, and ideally cause the collapse and breakup of the nation so that it could no longer develop as a military competitor to the USA. In the words of Lloyd Austin (US Secretary of Defence) immediately after the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine: “our aim is to damage Russia …”.
A Final Attempt at Peace
After the coup of 2014, the subsequent civil war and apparent stalemate (relatively static boundaries between the breakaway republics and Ukraine), and the Minsk 2 agreement of 2015, it slowly became apparent as the years went by and the shelling of the Donbas continued that the Ukraine government was not going to implement the Minsk agreement.
Instead it became apparent that the expansion, funding, arming and training of the Ukrainian army was for the purpose of waging war against the ethnic Russians of the Donbas. By late 2021 war seemed inevitable but Russia tried one last time to broker a peace agreement. Draft treaties were prepared proposing a settlement along the lines of the Minsk agreement together with a European security architecture aimed at avoiding east-west conflict in Europe. This required recognition of Russia’s valid security concerns as well as those of all other countries in Europe.
This was dismissed out of hand by both NATO and the USA, with no preparedness even to discuss the matter. In effect, Russia was given the option of surrender (allowing the transfer of its Black Sea navy in Crimea to NATO, the persecution of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, almost certainly widespread slaughter of ethic Russians in the Donbas, and massive refugee flows out of the Donbass into Russia), or war. They were caught between a rock and a hard place.
Russia Enters Ukraine
In February 2022 as Russia built up forces on the border of Ukraine (as monitoring showed developments in Ukraine consistent with Ukraine’s invasion of the Donbas provinces), a massive escalation in shelling along the border regions by the Ukrainian army prompted action.
Of course there was much emotion at the time as the west branded Russia as a monster and a crazed imperialist planning to conquer Ukraine. Ukraine on the other hand was portrayed as pure and saintly.
What was not told in the western media was that the people of the Donbas had been asking the Russians to come to their aid.
This was a period of extreme propaganda and massive filtering and distortion of information. Only one side of the story was conveyed, with most western news sources staying well away from the Donbas and hence unable to report on the effects of the Ukrainian military assaults, including actions against civilians.
So, WHY did Russia roll into Ukraine?
The most obvious place to go to understand why Russia intervened is the statements made by the Russian government (including Putin). Of course, in the west any statement by Putin tended to be summarily dismissed as absurd propaganda, but actually listening to and reading what is said is quite fruitful in terms of establishing at least some understanding.
A few points that the Russians have made:
i) Ukraine MUST NOT JOIN NATO because that would represent an existential threat to Russia (in reality as well as in their mind). This has been repeated again and again and again and again by Russia over the last 2 decades.
ii) Ukraine must be demilitarised and remain neutral. The huge build-up of the Ukrainian military with the help of the west (mainly the USA) posed a threat to Russia, especially given the anti-Russian sentiment of the new post-coup government.
iii) Russia seeks the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. As discussed previously, the coup gave power to many extreme ultra-nationalist groups with close links to Nazi ideology and attendant hatred of ethnic Russians.
iv) Russia could not from a humanitarian point of view stand by and see ethnic Russians together with their language, culture and religion erased from Ukraine.
It is worth noting that Russia’s description of the incursion as a “Special Military Operation” rather than as an invasion matches the assessment of military analysts to the effect that the Russian force was only a fraction of the size that would be needed for an invasion of Ukraine.
Hence it’s clear that the aims of the mission were much more modest that the invasion of Ukraine as a whole. More likely was some sort of attempt to enforce a resolution along the lines of the Minsk agreement. As Russia discovered, the Ukrainian army had been developed and armed to be much more capable than they were probably expecting, and the rest is history. I won’t try to cover the twists and turns of the military aspects (thousands of pages would be needed, to be written by others).
Yet Another Attempt at Peace
In March 2022 Russia and Ukraine entered into peace talks and these carried on into April 2022. The talks were carried out in Istanbul.
Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli Prime Minister, was involved in this process. He later referred to the breakdown of the talks, and in particular noted that both sides had made major concessions such that a peace agreement appeared to be on the cards. This is consistent with a draft agreement of principles for peace, signed by the negotiating teams on both sides.
However, Naftali Bennett also later stated, after the peace talks broke down, that the USA had “vetoed” any peace agreement. This is consistent with reports about the USA’s reaction to the draft, after which Boris Johnson acting as an emissary for the USA went to Ukraine to convince Zelinski to abandon the peace process.
After initially making statements about Ukraine never joining NATO (consistent with the agreed principles for peace), Zelinski suddenly made a 180 degree U turn and insisted that Ukraine would fight to the end in order to recover all territory including Crimea. This dramatic reversal of position accords with information from Naftali Bennett and others.
Another strand to this story relates to one of the chief (Ukrainian) negotiators at the peace talks, who had close business links with Russia. At some time after the draft had been signed he was summoned to Security Headquarters and was found the next morning in a street in Kiev with a bullet in the back of his head.
The Security Service simply stated that they considered him to be too close to Russia and hence a traitor. However, Military Intelligence came out and stated that as far as they were concerned he was a national hero, because he had been working with them and through Russian contacts had got wind of the proposed Russian attack on the airport near Kiev. They stated that this information was provided just in time to enable them to act and defeat the attack.
The assassination may have been a message to Zelinski that any concessions to Russia would see him suffer the same fate. His views have certainly been absolutely rigid ever since.
Suffice it to say that there are various stories of people who have been jailed and in some cases assassinated simply on the basis that they have been considered anti-Ukrainian. The extreme nature of some elements in Ukraine was illustrated recently when the Pope was put on a Ukrainian “kill list” (a website listing alleged enemies of the state – in the opinion of unknown parties – there have been several assinations of people on the list) because he spoke to an audience of young Russians and told them to be proud of their nation and culture. When this blew up politically his name was quickly removed.
The outcome of the failure of the “final” attempt at peace?
Well, Putin stated that there was no point thereafter in talking with Ukraine as they obviously were not in control of their own destiny and were unable to make binding decisions on their own behalf. He assessed that they were clearly controlled by the USA (and to a lesser extent by other NATO and European sponsors).
Furthermore, the US had very clearly rejected all approaches by Russia aimed at a negotiated settlement. Lavrov as a consequence stated that one big lesson that Russia had learned was that they could never again trust the west.
So:
1. The final attempt at peace had failed, and
2. All options for negotiations had been cut off by the USA and NATO.
Leaving an incredibly fraught and dangerous situation.
The failure of the peace talks and the manner of their failure made it clear that the conflict had been engineered by the USA with Ukraine acting as the USA’s proxy (and of course sacrificing its people and country in the pursuit of the USA’s objectives).
That is, it is a proxy war between the USA and Russia, with Ukraine as the USA’s sacrificial lamb, and the other NATO countries as collaborators (to varying degrees). This is unbelievably dangerous with a high risk of nuclear confrontation as we see never ending escalation – I think probably far more dangerous than the Cuba missile crisis (if that’s possible) as this time around no-one is talking to one another and all trust and goodwill have been totally destroyed.
Progression of the Conflict
After commencement of the “hot war” in 2014 (the civil war) and progressive escalation to a critical juncture in early 2022 at which the Russian intervention began, the current phase of the conflict has been going on now for 18 months. I have no desire to try to talk about all the twists and turns of the last 18 months. However, I think it is important in terms of gaining a better understanding of circumstances to note the following.
There are in effect three wars in progress, as follows:
i) The physical war,
ii) The economic war, and
iii) The propaganda war.
It is mainly the third one that I want to talk about. Before doing this, I will mention just a few things.
The Physical War:
Of course, the shooting war began in 2014 with the coup, and the consequent conflict between the Ukrainian army and the Donbas separatists.
The shooting war has continued uninterrupted ever since, although it faded from the attention of the western media for long periods of time.
There was intense escalation in Ukraine aimed at producing a much stronger military capable of invading and conquering the separatist republics and of defeating an expected Russian intervention on their behalf.
As this part of the war came to a head in early 2022, Russia intervened on behalf of the ethnic Russians in the separatist republics.
The Russian force was not well prepared and seriously underestimated the level of Ukrainian capability.’
The Russian force was not an invasion force, being only a small fraction of the size needed for full invasion.
There were obvious military deficiencies associated with the Russian military, suggesting that they had not prepared as well as would be expected if a large scale conflict had been envisioned.
Some had suggested that Russia’s main aim was to force a negotiated settlement, and in March / April 2022 that strategy looked like succeeding.
However, a potential peace deal was scuttled and since then there has been an endless cycle of escalation on both sides with no end in sight.
The results of the war have been terrible for both sides, with massive losses of men and equipment. Losses for the Ukrainians appear to have been much higher than for the Russians, especially since they began their counteroffensive on 5 June 2023.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive has largely been unsuccessful, but as they say “it ain’t over yet”.
The Economic War:
This has involved the freezing and/or seizing of Russian assets by the USA & EU, a vast array of economic sanctions, and the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines.
While all of these factors have hurt Russia, it’s fair to say that they have caused much greater damage to several European countries. Russia’s economy has grown relative to other European economies and is still growing slightly with moderate inflation while several European countries are in recession or are stagnant, and are grappling with high levels of inflation.
From the European perspective the sanctions appear to have been a case of shooting themselves in both feet. Germany (formerly the economic powerhouse of Europe) in particular is facing significant de-industrialisation and large scale job losses due to the loss of access to low cost Russian energy.
The USA either carried out or approved the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines, and has been a major beneficiary of the resulting change in energy flows, jumping to become the world’s largest exporter of LNG on the back of these changes.
Overall the sanctions imposed by the USA and EU seem to have helped the USA, only damaged Russia a little, and seriously damaged Europe. It looks like the original dream of the EU, to become a powerful economic block of similar scale to the USA, is fast fading (remember that statement by Nuland when discussing the coup arrangements: “#$&% the EU”). It seems that they certainly did #$&% the EU, and that the EU even helped #$&% themselves.
In passing, sanctions are just a nice name for the old fashioned siege warfare. The aim is to cause such extreme economic harm to the target that ruin and starvation cause the populace to overthrow the leadership of the target and surrender. It is a brutal and violent form of war which directly targets the innocents rather than the leadership.
While the USA on the surface seems to have benefited greatly from the economic war (at the EU’s expense), war always has unintended consequences. The USA has had the enormous privilege of having the world’s reserve currency. This was cemented in the 1970s when the US did a deal with the Saudis to sell all oil only in US dollars (the petrodollar).
The US has used its position as the wealthiest and most economically powerful nation on the planet, in combination with the role of the US dollar as the global reserve currency, to greatly benefit itself. As the US dollar has been seen as a “safe haven” currency and as nearly every country in the world has to hold US dollars to facilitate trade, the US has been able to raise money by selling treasury bonds (IOUs) on a seemingly endless basis. This has enabled the US to spend much more than it raises in taxes, and thereby fund its many overseas operations (including wars).
However, it has progressively become more and more addicted to using economic sanctions as a means of imposing its will on other countries, to the point where a large proportion of the earth’s population now lives under the shadow of US sanctions.
The confiscation of Russian foreign currency reserves held in US dollars was perhaps the culmination of this increasing aggressiveness of the US. It has had major ramifications in that suddenly the whole world woke up to the realisation that US treasuries were NOT a safe haven asset (they could be “disappeared” at the whim of US politics).
There has been a massive shift since that event involving countries all around the world seeking to protect themselves by getting out of US dollar holdings, at least in relation of sovereign reserves. The US effectively trashed the standing of the US dollar as a safe and reliable asset.
The long-term effects of this are uncertain, but the ease with which the US could fund operations through endless borrowing is certainly in decline. We will see where it all leads. Looking back, the US’s theft of Russian sovereign assets may prove over the long term to be a very big mistake.
The Propaganda War:
This is the area that in a sense I have found most shocking. I was born post WW2 and brought up believing in the virtues of honesty, decency, trust, and of course the western democratic system.
This meant that I was inclined to believe the flow of information that arrived through the normal channels, although recognised that there were specific issues where things went somewhat astray. That meant that I was well ensconced in a natural pro-western bias (and still am).
However, as I started looking for facts to support the views flooding through the media, I started to struggle with a few things that didn’t add up, and this problem grew and grew.
The first problem was the “shock and awe” emotional nature of the news coverage which at every turn raged against some alleged atrocity by Russia, Russians, and Ukrainians from the Donbas, while heaping copious and endless sympathy and praise on the Kiev regime. Putin was comprehensively demonised while Zelinsky was comprehensively eulogised.
It all just seemed completely over the top in terms of emotional content, and short on factual information.
It all reminded me too much of the lead-up to the Iraq war, where the media was saturated with demonisation of Sadam Hussein and his monstrous weapons of mass destruction, evil intentions, and even links to Al Queda. All of this of course turned out to be not only completely false, but as we now know, deliberately fabricated to deceive the public audience.
I guess this is what set me on the path of trying to establish at least some relevant facts. Again, this topic alone could fill thousands of pages. I’ll try in the following discussion to disclose some of what I have established.
Early on I stumbled on a couple of examples of pure propaganda. A UK fact checking organisation raised concerns about extreme propaganda distortions and two examples related to footage I had seen on TV (probably the ABC or SBS but I can’t recall for certain).
The first was footage of a Ukrainian man in tears as he put his wife and child on a bus to be evacuated while he stayed to fight the invading army. This was presented as a person staying to fight with the Ukrainian army against the invading Russian army. However, it turned out that the footage actually showed a person living in the separatist region of the Donbas, staying to fight with the Donbas militia and the Russian army against the Invading Ukrainian army.
Another was footage of the Russian attack on the Azovstal steelworks showing what seemed like an impossibly intense rain of missiles. It turned out that this had been lifted from a video game with the UK group having been able to exactly match the footage with the relevant game screen.
Another example that I saw was footage by an independent journalist that related to shelling by the Ukrainian army of civilian areas of Donetsk. He later saw this footage being shown on TV, but with the commentator describing it as shelling by the Russian army.
What rapidly became evident was that there a complete absence of balance. In terms of information from the other side of the fence there was simply no information at all. All bad things were attributed to the Russians and all good things were attributed to the Ukrainians. There was a massive campaign for all nations to pledge support for Ukraine, and anyone daring to even raise a query was vilified. It’s like a wall of steel had gone up to prevent any counter information from getting through.
As it turns out, the media war has been a big part of the long term campaign. Part of the US$5 billion that the US pumped into Ukraine prior to the coup went into funding pro-western media outlets and campaigns. One of the conduits is the NED (the National Endowment for Democracy) which is closely linked to the CIA. There seems to be little doubt that just as the Ukrainian military has been heavily funded armed and trained by the US, so too has their propaganda infrastructure.
There is a group in Ukraine called the Ukrainian PR Army. This group has established protocols for how the war should be described. For instance, these require that the war always be referred to as “Russia’s war” or “Russia’s war on Ukraine”. A journalist was recently excoriated for daring to refer to it as the “conflict”. The group also seeks to manage the media exposure. In Ukraine access to the front line by journalists is heavily constrained and much of the information is fed to journalists by the PR Army. This is promoted simply as helping western media outlets, and the group boasts links with effectively all of the main western media outlets.
This was illustrated by a post by a Ukrainian trying to rescue people in Kherson affected by flooding when the dam failed. The rescue teams were prevented from accessing an area because a Ukrainian government PR team was staging a fake rescue to obtain the sort of TV footage it needed for media distribution, while the people in actual need were left stranded.
Exposing facts not favourable to the Ukrainian government position can be a very dangerous proposition. An example is a joint US / Chilean citizen who found himself in Ukraine when the latest phase of the conflict started and was arrested for some posts exposing publicly available factual information that did not suit the government. He was arrested and has subsequently disappeared (possibly dead).
There is a web site generally referred to as the “kill list”. I don’t know who controls it, but people are added to the list if they do or say something unfavourable to Ukraine. Several people who have been added to the list have been assassinated. Requests for the government to take the site down have been denied on the basis that enemies of the state must be exposed. There seems to be tacit permission for such “enemies” to be killed.
The example of the Pope being added to the list (albeit temporarily) illustrates the extreme nature of the ideology behind the web site.
It seems that any journalist that goes to the separatist regions of the Donbas and reports on the Ukrainian shelling of civilian targets or any other topic adverse to Ukraine ends up on the kill list, even though they are doing nothing more than reporting factual information.
It gets even more sinister. A Dutch journalist who went to Mariupol after occupation by the Russians and reported on some prior atrocities by neo-Nazi extremists had access to banking and other services cancelled by the Dutch government, and so has been unable to return home.
While access by journalists to the war zone is heavily controlled in Ukraine, the situation seems to have been much more open in Russia. Russian war correspondents seem to have had much more open access (and some have been killed as a result). There has also been some access to the front line by western independent journalists who have recorded events as they happen. There are however no official or corporate media outlets with any representation on the Russian side of the conflict line.
Of course, the independent journalists have been able to document civilian attacks by the Ukrainian military, such as the shelling of a market in a residential area of Donetsk during a busy period, and the use of cluster munitions on a civilian area shortly after the US made these available to Ukraine. There is extensive evidence of atrocities, but all hidden from western audiences.
A British journalist who had merely provided some factual reporting from the other side of the “fence” was detained at a UK airport for a period under terrorist legislation, and is under investigation. This appears to be deliberate intimidation by the UK government, which is heavily invested in the war.
This sort of suppression / intimidation seems to extend across the full spectrum of Ukraine’s sponsors, although to varying degrees. It is not consistent with our claims to be nations which are simply helping Ukraine, and our claims to be free and open societies.
In the US, various social media platforms (eg Meta, Utube, etc) have clearly been under pressure to shut down any contrarian voices. For instance, Scott Ritter’s Utube channel was suddenly taken down with no reasonable explanation. His main message had been that the war is unnecessary and that we need to understand Russia in order to resolve the war. Hardly a controversial message but it seems not as per the official script.
There have been recent revelations about government censorship through these platforms, such as “The Twitter Files” where Elon Musk released the formerly confidential correspondence between government agencies and Twitter. Likewise a recent court case exposed an army of FBI personnel sending “requests” to Meta to remove various posts and accounts. While these processes start with some legitimate concerns, bracket creep inevitably takes place and extends the scope to anything that doesn’t suit the government agenda.
The other part of the propaganda campaign has been the suppression of factual information about the progress of the war. Instead, most information flowing through formal channels had been heavily curated to suit the official narrative. As a result we were being told that Ukraine was winning when it was losing, that Russian casualities have been much higher than Ukrainian casualities when the opposite was the case, that Russia was running out of ammunition when it was Ukraine that had ammunition problems, and so on.
This is of course normal in a war situation. However, some independent observers had been making assessments so different to what has flowed through the media that I had thought for a while that they must have been complete nut-cases. Slowly of course the facts emerge and it seems that information from the Russian side, although also propagandised, has overall been less manipulated and more reliable than information from the Ukrainian / Western side.
What has not come through our media, apart from Russia’s entirely reasonable attempts to avoid war (making this an entirely unnecessary war), is the full extent of the Ukrainian tragedy as a consequence of the 2014 coup. It brought to power extremist elements in Ukraine that had had only limited traction through the democratic election process, and this in turn amplified ethnic and cultural differences, lead some large sectors of the population to feel that they were being persecuted, and this in turn lead to civil war, and eventually to a full scale proxy war forced by the US on Russia by a total refusal to even discuss the possibility of a negotiated resolution.
Some figures suggest at least 70,000 Ukrainian dead and 30,000 Russian dead and many times those numbers maimed and injured (there is wide variation in numbers, but the above seem to be in the sensible category). The true numbers are almost certainly much higher, indicated by protests in Ukraine by people wanting some information about their menfolk who have been taken by the military and have simply “disappeared”. These are almost certainly dead (there are reports of large numbers of bodies unable to be retrieved from the battlefield). It is likely that the Kiev authorities are withholding information because it does not want to admit to the true extent of the losses that have been sustained (most Ukrainian official figures have been quite absurd).
Ironically, the main information on Ukrainian losses has come from the Russians, who monitor the daily reports of Ukrainian commanders. Likewise, the figure for the Russian losses comes from the BBC which has used a data mining service to collate information in Russia about deaths, burials, obituaries etc etc.
There have been some sick comments from some US congressmen (and women) which reflect the obscenity of the US position. Lindsay Grahame for instance told Zelensky in one meeting that the vast investment by the US in the war was money well spent because lots of Russians were dying. Another congressman boasted that it was a great war because the US was achieving its objectives (damaging Russia) without any casualties (obviously all those dead and injured Ukranians are of no importance), and Mitt Romney (and others) recently made public statements to the effect that it was actually a cheap war for the US because after all no Americans were dying and Russia was being damaged (no sense of humanity there).
It's interesting to see how propaganda and censorship is working in western society. Effectively, the old-fashioned concept of fearless journalism determined to get to the bottom of things and expose the truth is completely dead. Since the arrival of social media platforms much of the advertising revenue has shifted away from the mainstream media. As a result, they are no longer prepared to invest in investigative journalism, which is too expensive and too risky (in terms of upsetting the wrong people). Instead they have become conduits for media feeds that say what they believe their audience want to hear, all at minimal cost.
Corporate censorship is also at play. An example would be a network silencing a presenter who criticises the war, because of pressure on the board by large shareholders with interests in one or more of the large military supply companies (which have been making extraordinary profits from the current war). This happened in the lead up to the Iraq war and has likely occurred in more recent times.
And the next layer is of course government censorship of the more diffuse social media landscape by introducing restrictions on “misinformation” or “disinformation”, which quite quickly is being redefined as anything contrary to the government’s preferred narrative.
Well, I think that’ll do me for the propaganda side of things. New things are coming to light all the time which highlight how extreme the propaganda and deceit have been. It’s all looking like a re-run of the invasion of Iraq (we eventually found out that all the justifications were false, and then much later that they were always known to be false – it was all about oil and control of the middle east). In time we will eventually discover the full extent of current deceits.
In Conclusion
Well, I started off trying to make this very short (10 pages max) so that it would not get too boring to read. I bombed out – it has ended up about double that.
Where did the journey take me? Well, I travelled down the road from more or less accepting the narrative flooding across the media landscape (in a very co-ordinated way across the whole of the western world), to a realisation that maybe that wasn’t the whole story, to a realisation that it wasn’t even half the story, and that the part of the story that it did tell was manipulated and distorted to suit particular objectives.
I have come to the point where rather than the conflict being just the manifestation of an evil Russia seeking to invade and conquer Ukraine and perhaps the whole of Europe, I realise that Russia has been searching for a peaceful resolution of its primary and legitimate security concerns for the last couple of decades, only to be dismissed out of hand by the west (in particular the US).
I have also discovered that everything that Russia has said was not absurd and deranged propaganda, but rather that a search of what has actually been said (as opposed to what was reported in the west) indicates at least a reasonable level of validity.
I have also discovered that Russia was trying to avoid war, but the US’s refusal to contemplate even discussing peace proposals, and later sabotaging the peace agreement emerging in April 2022 between Ukraine and Russia, wedged Russia into the war that is now ongoing.
We have also discovered that Russia was not weak and incompetent (although definitely unprepared at the beginning of 2022), would not collapse under the weight of the most severe sanctions in the history of the planet, that despite its small economy (~$1.5 trillion cg the USA at >$21 trillion GDP) it still makes things and has responded to the sanctions with a boom in domestic manufacturing, and that its military could rapidly innovate and match the western armed and trained Ukrainian military (the largest army in Europe at the time).
I have also discovered that this is a proxy war being waged by the USA against Russia in order to damage Russia, so that it cannot be in any meaningful way a military competitor to the USA. The USA has used Ukraine as the sacrificial lamb, with the country and its population devastated beyond imagination to further the USA’s objectives. The USA has also dragged the NATO countries and the rest of Europe into the conflict demanding support even though this is crippling the European economies.
Nulands comment “#$&% the EU” stands as an enduring symbol of USA’s consideration of its allies interests.
As for the future, we can just keep our fingers crossed. However, we should all fear the prospect of direct war between the USA and Russia (now starting to be predicted by some), which could easily occur given the toxic internal conflicts that afflict US politics (causing emotion to rule supreme, rather than any balanced or reasoned assessment).
As stated at the beginning, this is just a diary of my own personal journey. Please don’t simply accept what I’ve said (ie trust no-one, especially the media). My aim is to get people to keep asking WHY? so that they are not lead up the garden path. I’m sure I’ve got some things wrong along the way (especially the finer details) but my journey has at least prised open my moribund eyelids and enabled me to see some things that I could not previously see. Good luck with your journey.
Thanks for this historical perspective on what's going on in Ukraine and Russia. My question is why? And why the constant vilification of China as well? The deeper reasons for this, and their consequences, are really interesting to me.