Against a backdrop of centuries of conflict and struggle, with borders shifting back and forth and back again, current day intrigue and treachery inflamed racial and ethnic hostilities, and led to the modern day conflict.
And yes, The United States played a role after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Obama /Clinton attempted a “Reset” in relations with Russia starting in 2009. You may remember Hilary Clinton’s infamous mislabeled “Reset” button. Obama believed he could charm the Russians as he had the Americans public.
Russia played Obama/Clinton and succeeded in taking advantage of the reset by gaining access to valued US stealth, computer and missile technologies, Uranium One and other prizes, taking full advantage of US naïveté, and actions by US elites to enrich themselves at the expense of US taxpayers expense thru questionable “deals” with Russia. This included the Clinton’s and Biden family, and the infamous Hunter Biden Burisma scandal is just one example.
To push back against Putin during this bobbled reset, Obama and Russian Ambassador McFaul meddled in Russian internal affairs by funding opposition groups and protests.
Publicly, Obama and his diplomats tried to preserve the Russian reset through 2013. Privately, Hillary Clinton and Moscow Ambassador Michael McFaul had begun meddling in Russian and Ukrainian affairs by 2012. In Russia, the State Department funded opposition groups and fomented protests against Putin and his allies (arguably the equivalent of Putin directly funding political groups in the United States).
The Maidan revolution in Ukraine, – which began in late 2013—provided the perfect opportunity for the West to reduce Putin’s influence over his neighbor by showering Ukraine with cash while simultaneously pushing vague “reforms”—alleged anti-corruption measures that the Ukrainians came to see for what they were: ironic at best.
In Ukraine, the State Department sought to oust the Putin-friendly leader Viktor Yanukovych and install a pro-Western administration. The installation of President Petro Poroshenko (with his willingness to accept foreign aid money into his country and his own pocket) alienated Russia and swiftly brought Ukraine into the Western sphere of influence.
As the reset fizzled, the Obama team pivoted toward Ukraine in an apparent attempt to foil Putin’s energy dominance and cyber warfare strategies. Putin sought to counter their efforts, especially in Ukraine. Obama and his top officials had officially botched the Russian reset.
The exact date that the reset completely collapsed was February 22, 2014, with the ouster of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. A proxy war broke out in the Ukrainian ethnic Russian Donbass region shortly after.
Putin and his maneuvers in Crimea would become a scapegoat, but even the architect of Obama’s Russia policy—Ambassador McFaul—knew that the beginning of the end occurred long before Crimea. In fact, two years before war broke out, the reset was in tatters.
Obama and his team blamed Putin’s years of aggressive meddling in Ukraine for the diplomatic breakdown, but the truth is that Obama and his diplomats were meddlers too.
In September 2012, Putin took steps to eliminate their influence.
In response the State Department along with George Soros who had lost major influence in Ukraine and Russia with the failure of the Reset, began an active effort to oust pro Putin Ukrainian President Yanukovych.. Indeed, Soros worked in tandem with Obama’s State Department to help fund the protesters in 2013.
In March 2014 State Department deputy Victoria Nuland had leaked information revealing she and others were orchestrating the installation of U.S.-approved Ukrainian leadership, “ going as far as to “Fuck the EU”, and their interests…The controversial recording was widely condemned as obvious evidence of U.S. meddling in Ukrainian affairs. Their point man to aid insider Soros to “midwife” this plot, Joe Biden…
On February 20, 2014, the violent protests turned deadly as gunshots rang out from the rooftops overlooking the Maidan Square in downtown Kiev. Snipers (whose identity and affiliation remain unknown) picked off anti-Yanukovych protesters and pro-Yanukovych police forces alike. By the time the smoke (and tear gas) had finally cleared, more than fifty protesters and four police officers had been killed. Almost immediately, Western media alleged that the snipers were acting on Yanukovych’s orders and an arrest warrant was soon issued for the deposed leader. The dead—now called the “Heavenly Hundred”—from the mob of irate protestors became martyrs. Within forty-eight hours, the pro-Putin government in Kiev had been overthrown.
Putin’s disbelief could hardly match his fury. The ouster of the democratically elected Yanukovych was the final straw. From fury, action soon followed from Moscow. Russians had always fretted about the future safety and independence of their ex-patriates in Ukraine’s semiautonomous and strategically important Crimea region.
Soon Putin would act to change the balance of power. He refused to recognize the new Western-backed government in Kiev, seeing it as the offspring of an “unconstitutional coup.” Instead, he plotted with his Siloviki (security service chiefs) through the night of February 22, 2014, to rescue Yanukovych and whisk him to safety in Russia. Yanukovych was in mortal peril, he believed, and was grateful that Putin “saved [his] life.” By 7:00 a.m. the next day, Putin—no doubt weary from the all-nighter—had decided, “we must start working on returning Crimea to Russia.”
On February 27, Putin dispatched thousands of heavily armed troops—“little green men”—to the capital city of the Black Sea peninsula called Crimea (a move he initially denied, but later acknowledged).
Putin’s little green men stormed the Crimean parliament building and raised the Russian flag—a universal declaration of capture. Crimea was a strategic outcropping of land in a sea that borders Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Through the Bosporus Strait, the Black Sea connects to the Mediterranean and thus all of Europe and the Western world. Once under Soviet control, the Crimean Peninsula remained majority Russian-speaking and hosted the ex-Soviet Black Sea Fleet.
For years a series of treaties governed Russia’s and Ukraine’s claim to the Black Sea territory and, in 2010, a partition treaty guaranteed Russia’s use of the Sevastopol port and the right to station up to twenty-five thousand Russian troops there. The 2010 treaties re-upped Russia’s claims to Crimea through the year 2042 and allowed 24 artillery systems, 132 armored vehicles, and 22 military planes in addition to the troops. In exchange, Russia paid the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain the fleet and offered Ukraine discounted natural gas.
But by early 2014, Putin apparently felt that the rapidly Westernizing Ukrainians could no longer be trusted and the treaties were as good as ancient history. He thus signed a reunification treaty with the Crimean city of Sevastopol on March 18, 2014, and the so-called annexation of Crimea was officially underway.
War between Russia and Ukraine seemed imminent. Indeed, a firefight broke out in the Ukrainian ethnic Russian Donbass region less than one month after Putin signed the reunification treaty in Crimea.
And this was the beginning of the real war in Ukraine. Once talk of Ukraine joining NATO commenced the hostilities were assured…
To Putin, NATO troops and missiles in Ukraine was the same as Russian troops and missiles in Canada or Mexico. Unacceptable.
Zelensky ran as the “peace” candidate in 2019 elections and initially sought to ease tensions with Russia. Zelenskyy promised to end Ukraine’s protracted conflict with Russia, and he has attempted to engage in dialogue with Russian president Vladimir Putin.[9] His administration faced an escalation of tensions with Russia in 2021, culminating in the launch of an ongoing full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. Zelenskyy’s strategy during the Russian military buildup was to calm the Ukrainian populace and assure the international community that Ukraine was not seeking to retaliate.[10] He initially distanced himself from warnings of an imminent war, while also calling for security guarantees and military support from NATO to “withstand” the threat.[11] After the start of the invasion, Zelenskyy declared martial law across Ukraine and a general mobilisation of the armed forces. However, he only added to the turmoil by cancelling elections, outlawing the use of Russian language and prohibiting celebration of Orthodox Christmas. All of which only agitated the eastern Russian ethnic provinces.
To summarize, Obama and Clinton fumbled the Russian Reset, lost control of valuable US technology, spent $billions deposing a democratically elected Ukrainian regime, and their treachery, in league with George Soros of all people, and talk of NATO in Ukraine, was all the justification Putin needed for the attempted takeover of the Russian speaking eastern provinces of Ukraine…the war was on..
Accreditation to John Solomon book FALLOUT for much of this information.