One mans view of hos this has all played out
Ukraine - Four Oblasts Join Russia
In 1922 Vladimir Il'ich Lenin, head of the revolutionary Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, decided that several regions which for centuries had been Russian and under Russian rule were to be put, for reasons unknown, under the administration of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine. In 1954 a similar decision was taken with regards to autonomous republic of Crimea.
biggerThe sudden disintegration of the Union in 1991 led to unruly phases in the newly created republics. Ethnic Russian people suddenly found themselves in territory that was no longer ruled by Moscow. In several of the new countries ethnic non-Russian majorities started to suppress the Russian minorities. Today's Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, are to various degrees prime examples for this.
Before 1991 the Ukraine had never existed as a state or independent entity. The early Cossack tribes in the yellow part and green parts of the map had asked for Russian protection against attacks from Poland, Lithuania and other neighbors. In the new Ukraine ethnic Russians were nearly half of the population and the parties they supported managed to win several countrywide elections. Big voting differences werevisible along regional/ethnic lines. The country had strong economic relations with Russia. Its industry depended on Russian gas while nearly all its machine and steel exports went to Russia.
The U.S. did not like that. It wanted to control rule the Ukraine to be able to put pressure on Russia. It twice, in 2004 and in 2014, organized 'color revolutions' to overthrow elected Ukrainian governments which, for mostly economic reasons, tended to favor relations with Russia.
The 2014 color revolution was exceptionally brutal. The U.S. had organized extreme right wing groups to take the lead in violent protests. (The same groups were in the early 1940s allied with German Nazis and, between 1948 and 1952, were waging a CIA led guerrilla war against the Soviet Union.) The street fighting ended with an unconstitutional change of the government of Ukraine.
The first law that the new coup government implemented was a rejection of Russian as one of Ukraine's state languages. For some 50% of Ukrainians Russian is their daily language. Ukrainian itself is a Russian dialect. Nearly 100% of Ukrainians understand Russian.
The ethnic Russian people in Ukraine feared being canceled. Crimea, which in 1991 had voted for and declared its independence before the Ukraine did so, voted, under Russian protection, to join Russia. Moscow accepted the move.
People in other former Russian parts of Ukraine protested and a some in the east took up arms. They twice defeated the Ukrainian army and volunteer formations sent against them. The Minsk I and II agreements that followed required Ukraine to give those Donbas oblasts significant autonomy. The United Nations Security Council acknowledged and supported the agreements. But any attempts to implement them were sabotaged by the U.S. via the armed right wing movements that had control over the government in Kiev.
For eight long years the people in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics defended their borders against constant Ukrainian attempts to solve the conflict by violence. While the people in those republics had voted for the independence of their republics, and to become a part of Russia, the Kremlin did not want to accept that. It wanted that those republics stay within Ukraine and insisted on the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
In 2015 the U.S. and NATO started to build a new Ukrainian army. They succeeded. By 2021 it was larger than most armies of NATO countries. Plans were made to invade the Donbas republics. In 2021 Russia became aware that a first attempt was soon to be made. It launched large maneuvers of its own military near its western border to deter such attempts. The situation settled down.
Any attempt of the Ukraine to overwhelm the Donbas, and the likely progroms that were to follow, would have created a situation in which the Russian government would be pressed very hard by its own people to intervene. Russians see the inhabitants of those areas as part of their own people.
When the Kremlin learned of new plans to attack the Donbas republics in 2022 it took a stand. It send quasi ultimatums to the U.S. and NATO and requested security agreements that would deny NATO membership to Ukraine. The ultimatums were rejected. The U.S. wanted war in Ukraine to a. 'weaken' Russia and to b. get stronger control over its European 'allies' and economic competitors.
On February 17 the Ukrainian armylaunched artillery preparations for an all out attack on the Donbas republics. Over the next days the shelling increased from some 40 artillery explosions per dayto over 2,000 per day. Russia had to act. On February 22 it recognized the independence of the Donbas republics and signed defense agreements with them. On February 24 it send its troops to defeat the Ukrainian army and to make any future attacks on the Donbas impossible.
Since then Russia and its allied local forces have gained control of all of Luhank, 60% of Donetsk and most of the southern oblasts Kherson and Zaparozhia. But Russia also learned that the very limited forces it had sent were unable to fulfill its aim of disarming Ukraine. To call up and use reservist required a legal change. Local officials in the Russian controlled oblasts organized referenda for the people to decide if they want their become independent of Ukraine to then join Russia. Large majorities voted for the proposals.
Today the President of the Russian Federation signed agreements with the republics for them to become part of Russia.
Any attempt to attack them is now an attack on Russia. They are under full protection of the Russian Federation, its military and those of its allies.
For Ukraine to continue the war will mean the assured defeat of its army and further dismemberment as more regions will join Russia and Poland, Hungary and Romania will try to take the regions of Ukraine they previously controlled.
'Western' propaganda calls the votes for to join Russia a 'sham' and the process an 'annexation'. But the votes were very real. The very high results for joining Russia are understandable Ukraine rejected these people and as those who oppose Russia have long left those regions.
The UN Charter acknowledges a right to self determination. The U.S. is itself (ab)using that right whenever it isin favor of its political aims:
APreportson today's ceremony:
I have not yet heard of new Russian plans for the war. But I expect that Russia's reaction to Ukrainian attacks, as well as to NATO support for them, will soon become way more severe. Previously Putin had said about the war "we haven't even started yet."
I advice everyone to take that seriously.
