Thread by @AlexanderGRubi2

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐖𝐚𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐔𝐤𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞

1/27 If there's one kernel of wisdom history should have imparted to the people and powers of the West, it ought to be that nothing is simple in Eastern Europe, in every meaning of the phrase. And so it is with the present conflict in Ukraine.

2/ One problem of the post World War II world view, both on the liberal and communist side, was that history was reduced to a morality play. History, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., or his speech writers, now had an arc.

3/ That arc, by the immutable laws of the universe, coincidentally, bent towards whatever goal the elite of society shared. They all fundamentally subscribed to the so called Whig View of History, in which thing naturally developed from primitive to advanced, wretched to good.

4/ The result has been "historical" levels of cant, where every aggressive measure was taken in defence of higher universal values, and any opposition, by definition, are objectively villains, bent on bending the proper arc of justice off its ordained course.

5/ Having "won" the Cold War, the US and collective West were confirmed in their belief in, not only the justness of their cause, but its predetermined triumph. Francis Fukuyama heralded "The End of History". Neoliberalismus victoria, tuba insonet salutaris.

6/ The defunct Soviet superpower was split into a number of revived countries, or even completely new ones. But, like African colonies, their borders were not defined by national or ethnic ones, but the administrative borders within the USSR.

7/ After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in '91 the now independent Ukraine tried to do a balancing act, doing deals with the west and Russia both, with its leaders skimming a percentage; basically playing both sides for profit.

8/ Real power was in the hands of billionaire oligarchs, who ruled their local provinces as personal fiefdoms and took turns having their sponsored puppets as presidents and prime ministers in Kiev.

9/ In 2014 the then president of Ukraine Yanukovych was tempted by a lucrative trade deal with the EU and gave it the thumbs up. But Russia said this deal would harm their market, so "if you sign, trade with us is off the table."

10/ Well, Ukraine's industry was still completely dependent on exporting to Russia. So Yanukovych got cold feet and called off the deal. This enraged the EU and US, who saw this as their chance to pull Ukraine out of Russia's orbit for good.

11/ The US, spearheaded by the current Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, set about organizing protests in Kiev, which escalated into the Maidan revolt and the overthrow of the president.

12/ The hawkish neoconservatives and the closely related Liberal Interventionist group in US intelligence and foreign policy establishment had long-standing ambitions to undermine Russian power by way of Ukraine. But not everyone saw the wisdom of this project.

13/ In return for allowing the peaceful unification of Germany and liberation of the countries behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe, then US Secretary of State, James Baker had given Mikhail Gorbachev guarantees that NATO would not expand to the Soviet border.

14/ Declassified documents show assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from NATO leaders. nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/… And foreign policy experts cautioned Clinton that NATO expansionism was a "policy error of historic proportions" armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/ar… but to no avail.

15/ While Russia could do little more than protest, William Burns, US ambassador to Moscow, warned in 2008 that, “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite", and would “create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.”

16/ Now, Ukraine is roughly split in half by the Dniepr river. West of it are ethnic Ukrainians, some of whom speak Ukrainian, and some of whom are Catholic. East of the river people mostly spoke Russian, were Russian orthodox, and identified ethnically as Russian.

17/ The president who'd been overthrown, and replaced by the oligarch Poroshenko, Yanukovych, had his main base of support among the Russian people in the east. They were not happy about this turn of events at all.

18/ At the same time alarms were blaring in the Kremlin in Moscow. Russian populated Crimea, conquered from the Turks by Catherine the Great, was administered by Ukraine during the Soviet era and become part of independent Ukraine. But in Crimea was the port city of Sevastopol.

19/ This city had been the main, and for a long time only, warm water port and home to the bulk of the Russian fleet. After '91 Russia had just leased it from Ukraine. But now Poroshenko was making noises about taking it away and allowing NATO to set up shop there instead.

20/ This whole thing was now looking like a Cuba Crisis times ten for Russia. They stood to lose their main fleet base and have NATO and US rockets a stone's throw from the heart of Russia. It was as if China had overthrown the government of Mexico and were moving in.

21/ So Putin and the Russian leadership decided they had to do something and moved into Crimea (well, strictly speaking they were already there). "Inspired" by this revolts against the new government in Kiev also began in Donbas, and Kiev sent in troops to strike it down.

22/ Laws intended to suppress everything Russian were enacted. The Russian peoples in the East were none too pleased, and now wanted out. Fighting began in earnest. Civil war was brewing. Local militias in Donetsk and Lugansk were organized.

23/ This civil war was sort of stabilized by the so called Minsk agreements negotiated by Poroshenko, Putin and Merkel og Germany and Hollande of France. The deal was that Donbass would remain Ukrainian, but get a measure of internal autonomy and constitutional guarantees.

24/ But Ukraine never fulfilled their end of the deal. And both Merkel and Hollande have recently stated in interviews that they never intended for it to BE honoured, but was just a ruse to give the west time to arm Ukraine to take back the Donbas, and Crimea, by force.

25/ And Russia claims that was precisely what Ukraine was mobilizing to do when they beat them to the punch and sent their own forces across the border. Which brings us to the present awful situation.

26/ The victims in all this is of course the common Ukrainian. If you're a patriotic ethnic Ukrainian, your country has been invaded by Russia, and you fight, all too often, to the death for it. Ethnic Russians may fight what they see as occupiers from the West.

27/ And all too many wanted no part of any of it, but are still compelled to join the ranks of men marching toward the muddy trenches at Bakhmut or the mine strewn pock marked fields at Ugledar, listening for the incoming mortar shells.

Addendum: Due to the potentially controversial nature of the topic, I want add that, although I prefer not to block people, neither will I engange with obvious trolls, bots, and people arguing in bad faith.