AUTHORS NOTE: This article is not intended to be a
justification for the Russian invasion.
Having written
recently that it may be a bad idea right now to keep trying to explain why invading
Ukraine should be understood in context, it is with trepidation that I'm now
going to do just that. The reason is that there are documents
that just came to light which show that those who believed that Russia was
trying to prevent a genocide were correct.
Although you've probably never heard, since it is never reported in American
media, Russia reported that there were as many as 125,000 Ukrainian
troops inside the ethnically Russian Donbass region of Ukraine by December
of 2021, when the 8-year old conflict between Ukraine and the breakaway
Republics was heating up again. These troops had been funded and heavily armed
by the US, which had been encouraging Ukraine to forcibly take them back. On
February 24th, the day the invasion began, Ukraine was clearly
poised to invade the self-declared independent Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The newly revealed records confirm what many of us suspected, that the Ukrainian
invasion was scheduled to occur within days.
It is very likely that this was apparent to Russian military intelligence,
which would provide a totally different explanation for why the invasion
occurred even as Russia was negotiating with Ukraine than the idea that Putin
was simply "mad" and "wanted to restore the long-lost Russian Empire." The claim
that Putin was lying about not wanting to invade was based on the fact that he
was conducting a troop buildup while negotiating, and in the end did invade.
However, taking literally Putin's statement that Russia had "no plans to invade"
is disingenuous. Obviously, the Russian military buildup meant that they had a
plan, but he said repeatedly that whether there would be war depended entirely
on Ukraine's actions. It is entirely possible that he would have preferred to
not invade, as he repeatedly indicated. Unless, of course, you start with
the assumption that he is mad.
Unlike those who believe the US wanted to avoid war, Zelensky understood what
Putin was saying. He called for a halt to inflammatory rhetoric coming from the
US and asked Biden to come to Ukraine underscore the fact that there need be no
war. In the end, Zelensky was put in a position where he had no choice but to refuse
to deescalate the situation by removing troops from Donbass. The video in this article
shows why: When he had tried order troops out of Donbass in 2019, neo-Nazis with much
greater power over the government and military than their numbers would
indicate laughed in his face and sent him away. That's how a Jewish president
came to realize that he had better go along with what these US-backed fascists had
in mind.
So go ahead and hate Putin if it makes you feel better. War is always a choice,
and it is always brutal. Civilians are always killed, even though dead children
make excellent propaganda for those who want to paint a war as one-sided. But
if you want to prevent the next war, for God's sake try to understand the logic
of both sides of this conflict. More specifically, do whatever you can do to try
and get your government to stop constantly provoking a nuclear power, while
denying its legitimate security interests.
Here is the official Russian Defense Ministry announcement (video at the end,
this translation supplied by Konstantin Scheglikov). The cited documents can be
seen here.
Briefing by the Russian
Defense Ministry on the discovery of secret documents indicating that the
puppet Neo-Nazi Ukrainian regime prepared an offensive against the Donetsk and
Lugansk republics with the support of NATO:
"During a special military operation, secret documents of the command of the National Guard of Ukraine came into the possession of Russian military personnel. These documents confirm the covert preparation by the Kiev regime of an offensive operation in the Donbass in March 2022.
The Russian Defense Ministry publishes the original secret order of the commander of the National Guard of Ukraine, Colonel General Nikolay Balan, dated January 22, 2022.
The order "On the organization of training of the battalion tactical group of the 4th Operational Brigade to perform combat (special) tasks in the operation of the united forces as part of the brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine".
The document is addressed to the heads of the northern Kiev, southern Odessa and western territorial administrations of the National Guard of Ukraine.
The order, brought to the command of the National Guard of Ukraine, details a plan for the preparation of one of the strike groups for offensive actions in the zone of the so-called "operation of the united forces" in the Donbass.
The document approves the organizational and staff structure of the battalion-tactical group of the 4th operational brigade of the National Guard, the organization of its comprehensive support and reassignment to the 80th separate airborne assault Brigade of Ukraine.
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