russian invasion of Ukraine/Reasons
“ Russia’s president invaded Ukraine not because he felt threatened by NATO expansion or by Western “provocations.” He ordered his “special military operation” because he believes that it is Russia’s divine right to rule Ukraine, to wipe out the country’s national identity, and to integrate its people into a Greater Russia.
- — Fiona Hill and Angela Stent, The World Putin Wants
“ The root cause of the war is Russia’s refusal to accept the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its willingness to take its former empire back by force. That problem will be fully solved only when Moscow accepts that its empire is gone for good and readjusts to life as a normal country rather than an international predator.
Since 2003, russia planned the russian invasion of Ukraine [10]. Since 2006, russia infiltrated/trained “separatists” in Eastern Ukraine. Since 2011, it started training its troops for invasion using German provided training center. First invasion happened in 2014 (Russian invasion of Ukraine/2014), second in 2022, with parts of Ukraine occupied by russian troops in-between:
“ Among other things, the Court found that areas in eastern Ukraine in separatist hands were, from 11 May 2014 and up to at least 26 January 2022, under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation.
- — European Court of Human Rights, “Grand Chamber decision Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia - Flight MH17 and eastern-Ukraine-conflict case partially admissible, will proceed to judgment”, January 25, 2023. See: russian invasion of Ukraine#2014. Also confirmed by a russian court [11], see: ru:Вторжение России на Украину#2014.
Below some of the reasons, goals, objectives and enabling factors of the russian invasion of Ukraine.
Prelude: Background and enabling factors
“ if I wanted to, I could take Kiev in two weeks.
- — Vladimir Putin, 2014 [12]
1994: Disarmament
“ The Clinton administration ignored flashing warning signs as it pushed Ukraine hard to accept unilateral disarmament—depriving Kyiv of a deterrent against Russia while providing nothing real to replace it.
“Separatists”
“ Among other things, the Court found that areas in eastern Ukraine in separatist hands were, from 11 May 2014 and up to at least 26 January 2022, under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation.
- — European Court of Human Rights, “Grand Chamber decision Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia - Flight MH17 and eastern-Ukraine-conflict case partially admissible, will proceed to judgment”, January 25, 2023. See: russian invasion of Ukraine#2014. Also confirmed by a russian court [15], see: ru:Вторжение России на Украину#2014.
Early preparations (since 2003)
“ Illarionov was Putin’s chief economic advisor up until 2005. When he resigned, he left the country and became an outspoken critic.
He says Putin has been planning the months-long invasion for years.
“He’s had this idea, this goal for last two decades. Even when I was his advisor, I was able to watch to see myself his intentions,” Illarionov said.
Illarionov says Putin could never accept the fact that Ukraine was its own sovereign nation separate from Russia. He believes the invasion is step one in Putin’s grand plan of reunifying the whole former Soviet Union.
- Russia started training separatists to split Ukraine in 2006 already. Then Russia’s relations with NATO were still excellent. [16]
Coup attempts
- Pekka Kallioniemi, “As a little dessert for today’s rather heavy #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a real coup that was supposed to be done by Yanukovych and his Party of Regions, with the help of Putin. This conspiracy was revealed by a former People’s Deputy of Ukraine, Oleg Anatolyevich Tsaryov.”, March 13, 2023 (thread) (pdf)
Dam construction (2003)
Warning signs
“ “Russia attempts to challenge the territorial integrity of Ukraine, particularly in Crimea, which is 59 percent ethnically Russian and is home to the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, must be prevented,” the memo warned five years before Russian forces would seize Crimea and 13 years before they would invade the rest of the country. The memo added that “Russia will exploit Europe’s dependence on Russian energy” and use political means “to drive wedges between the United States and Europe.”
- — George W. Bush, 2009 memo to his successor Barack Obama, From George to Barack: A Look at Secret Bush Memos to the Obama Team (Bush warned Obama about Russia’s plans for Crimea, NYT reports)
Operation: Novorossiya: The History Behind The Kremlin’s Neo Nazi Psy-op In Ukraine
- OPERATION NOVOROSSIYA: PART 1 OF 6: INTRODUCTION TO GRU (THE NAZI PROBLEM?)
- OPERATION NOVOROSSIYA: PART 2 OF 6: SEPARATION OF DIGNITY: THE RISE OF WAGNER
- OPERATION NOVOROSSIYA: PART 3 OF 6: THE GREY CARDINAL (AND THE NEW GRU)
- OPERATION NOVOROSSIYA: PART 4 OF 6: STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
- OPERATION NOVOROSSIYA: PART 5 OF 6: AZOV: THE RUSSIAN MIRROR
- OPERATION NOVOROSSIYA: PART 6 OF 6: AZOV: THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE BOATSMAN
- thread
Invading army preparation
“ “We had no hypersonic weapons back then, but now we do have them,” Putin replied to a Russian propagandist Pavel Zarubin who asked why Russia did not start the so-called special military operation in Ukraine earlier. “Now we have other modern systems, apart from the hypersonic weapons. But there was nothing like that in 2014,” Putin added.
- Kamil Galeev, “Daily reminder that Putin’s army of invasion was trained on the Rheinmetall-built training centre Mulino. In 2014 they ‘left’ and construction was finished by ‘Гарнизон’ company, probably a proxy. 100% of its imports came from Germany, last Rheinmetall shipments coming in 2019”, July 13, 2022 (thread) (pdf)
- “WAR IN UKRAINE : How France delivered weapons to Russia until 2020”: “Between 2015 and 2020, France delivered state-of-the-art military equipment to Russia.This equipment has enabled Vladimir Putin to modernise 1,000 tanks, fighter planes and combat helicopters, and could be used in the Ukrainian conflict.”
Militarization of society
- “The Long History of Russia and War”: “Russia has always been a militarized country”
Military parades (2019)
- Sergej Sumlenny, “OTD four years ago, in a small town of Sibay, Russia-occupied Bashkortostan, I saw these hundreds of perfectly drilled school kids marching in perfect groups, and said: “in top 5 years, many will return home in body bags, but before they will kill a lot of civilians”.”, April 30, 2023 (thread) (pdf)
russian invasion of Georgia, 2008
- Natia Seskuria, Russia Is Reenacting Its Georgia Playbook in Ukraine, February 22 (!), 2022 (archive)
Territorial expansion, imperialism, domination
“ The root cause of the war is Russia’s refusal to accept the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its willingness to take its former empire back by force. That problem will be fully solved only when Moscow accepts that its empire is gone for good and readjusts to life as a normal country rather than an international predator.
Reviving the Soviet Union
“ Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.
- — Vladimir Putin, “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation”, April 25, 2005
“ In essence, Ukraine’s ruling circles decided to justify their country’s independence through the denial of its past, however, except for border issues. They began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united us, and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation.
- — Vladimir Putin, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, July 12, 2021
- Петр Акопов, Наступление России и нового мира
- Russian news agency deletes victory editorial
- The advance of Russia and The New World Order
- “The article “The Advance of Russia and of a New World” by Petr Akopov was briefly published in several Russian state news sites on 26 February 2022, two days after Russian forces openly invaded Ukrainian-controlled territory, but was soon deleted. Its original publication on RIA News at precisely 8:00 a.m. suggests it may have been automatically published by mistake.”, Wikipedia: On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians
- Petr Akopov, The new world order
- Video from the Russian MoD’s Zvezda allegedly showing Russian troops in Ukraine. Note the prominent Soviet flag on the BMP-2. (thread) (pdf)
- “Russian memorials to victims of Stalin vanish”: “Memorials to victims of Stalinist repression in Russia are disappearing or being vandalised amid increasing attempts to rehabilitate the Soviet dictator.”
Expanding the russian empire
“ Peter the Great ... was returning and reinforcing, that is what he was doing.
Clearly, it fell to our lot to return and reinforce as well. And if we operate on the premise that these basic values constitute the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in achieving our goals.
- — Vladimir Putin, “Meeting with young entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists”, June 9, 2022
Cultural domination
- Kamil Galeev, “War of memes: why Z-war won’t end with peace Some Western analysts unfamiliar with Eastern European cultural context perceive Z-war as an accident. They presume that Russian invasion results from some sort of “misunderstanding” or mistake which can be resolved via negotiations🧵”, April 18, 2022 (thread) (pdf)
Preventing democratic concurrent models
“ At a basic level, Russia likely fears that an economically prosperous, democratic Ukraine might offer the Russian population the prospect of an alternative political and economic system other than an authoritarian-ruled kleptocracy. This might be partly why Russian President Vladimir Putin tends to characterize the war in Ukraine as existential in nature, which in turn enables the Kremlin to further mobilize the population against what it claims are the military and cultural threats of the eastwardly expanding NATO and EU.
After failing to subjugate the country completely, this then appears to be Russia’s principal political objective in Ukraine: keeping it from becoming an example of what an alternative political and economic path might bring the Russian people.
“ Here’s why I believe Ukraine was, and remains, such a threat to Vladimir #Putin: In 1989, Putin was a KGB officer in Dresden when the Berlin Wall fell and communism collapsed. How did that collapse happen? East Germans who were (illegally) watching West German TV saw that their neighbors to the West had a life, and lifestyle, far superior to the one in East Germany. More freedom. More income. More opportunities. Better quality of life. So, East Germans voted with their feet and fled. Putin soon experienced the collapse of East German firsthand.
Today, Putin’s worst nightmare is a #Ukraine that holds free and fair elections, and has a free media, human rights, freedom of speech and religion. Ukraine, Russia’s neighbor, already has a higher standard of living than Russia. Ukraine has not yet reached its potential, but unlike #Russia, they’ve already made some significant strides in that direction. (Compare the respective trajectories of North and South Korea since 1970 if you want to see a historical precedent.)
A successful #Ukraine is simply a ticking time bomb for an autocratic revanchist Tsar in the Kremlin, plain and simple. So yes, you could say that Ukraine was an existential threat to Putin’s kleptocratic regime. But not for the absurd reasons the #Kremlin has claimed.
- — Fred Hoffman, D.Sc. [18]
Forced russification
Genocide
“ Владимир Путин взял на себя —без капли преувеличения —историческую ответственность, решив не оставлять решение украинского вопроса будущим поколениям.
Vladimir Putin has assumed, without a drop of exaggeration, a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations.
- — Петр Акопов, Наступление России и нового мира [ Petr Akopov, The new world order ], February 26, 2022
“ я думаю убивать, убивать и убивать. Больше разговоров никаких не должно быть. Как профессор я так считаю.
We must kill, kill and kill Ukrainians. No need to talk to them. This is my opinion as a professor.
“ Украину надо очистить от идиотов. Геноцид кретинов напрашивается сам собой. Кретинов злобных, закрытых для голоса Логоса, смертельно опасных и… при всем этом неимоверно глупых. Я не верю, что это украинцы. Украинцы прекрасный славянский народ. Это какая-то появившаяся из канализационных люков раса ублюдков.
Ukraine must be cleaned of idiots. The genocide of these cretins suggests itself. Evil cretins, closed to the voice of the Logos, mortally dangerous and... for all that incredibly stupid. I don’t believe they are Ukrainians. Ukrainians are a wonderful Slavic people. This is some kind of bastard race that emerged from the sewer manholes.
Destroying Ukraine as a nation, genocide of Ukrainians
- Françoise Thom, “Russian Ideologues Aim to Liquidate the Ukrainian Nation”, April 8, 2022
- “Russian state-owned propaganda outlet RIA published the new programmatic article with the title ‘What Russia must do with Ukraine’. The article reveals a detailed plan for a genocide, starting from full elimination of Ukrainian state.”
- Tim Snyder , Russia’s Genocide Handbook: The evidence of atrocity and of intent mounts
- Sergej Sumlenny, “Russia is insane about renaming streets of the occupied territories. They always massively rename everything, including the cities and towns after occupation. Here is an interesting example of their logic: re-naming list for Ukrainian Melitopol, occupied by the Russians”, February 1st, 2023, (thread) (pdf)
- Біографія Тандиру, “Thread about genocide in Ukraine Genocide cannot be strong, weak or “halfway”. It’s not a literary term; it has specific characteristics. It either exists or it doesn’t. It’s happening in Ukraine. The word “genocide” shouldn’t be used to reinforce smth.” (thread) (pdf)
- Kremlin propagandist explains how good it feels to see images of dead Ukrainian families and their destroyed homes in Dnipro and that completely destroyed Mariupol (87,000 dead) should be the model for Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities. (Mariupol)
- See also: russian invasion of Ukraine/Torture, Kremlinism/Torture, russian invasion of Ukraine/War crimes, Kremlinism/War Crimes...
- [20][21][22]
- Pekka Kallioniemi, “In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Russian political scientist and head of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov. He’s best-known for his imperialistic policies since the early 1990’s, and for calling the destruction of the West and of Ukraine.”, September 20, 2022 (thread) (pdf)
Occupation and concentration camps
- “good old GULag”
Castrations
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a genocidal war. This is just another example of how
- “Hundreds” of prisoners of war had been returned, alive, but castrated.
- “She thought she was unshockable, then two castrated Ukrainian soldiers arrived” (archive) “The Russians told them, ‘We are doing this so you can’t have kids.’ To me this is genocide.”” “Doctors at the maternity hospital in Poltava said they had been consulted about women from occupied areas who had been raped by Russians then had their vaginas injected with window sealant so they can never have children.”
- See also: russian invasion of Ukraine/POWs, russian invasion of Ukraine/Torture, russian invasion of Ukraine/War crimes, Kremlinism/Torture, Kremlinism/War Crimes...
Genocide of minorities from occupied Ukraine
“ Crimean Tatars enjoyed an autonomy within Ukraine. But since Russia annexed Crimea the deportation of Tatars resumed.
- — Mikhail Svetov, “An appeal to western libertarians about the war in Ukraine”, August 19, 2014
Genocide of minorities from russia
“ Putin cannot announce a general mobilization, since that would be an admission that he is losing the war. It would too overtly break the social contract according to which the poor, the Asians, and forcibly mobilized Ukrainians do the dying.
Deportations
- “Putin signs decree greenlighting deportation of Ukrainians who refuse to renounce their citizenship from Russian-occupied territories”, April 27, 2023
Demographic decline / kidnapping children
“ Mr Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, born on 7 October 1952, President of the Russian Federation, is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute). The crimes were allegedly committed in Ukrainian occupied territory at least from 24 February 2022. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, (i) for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute), and (ii) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts, or allowed for their commission, and who were under his effective authority and control, pursuant to superior responsibility (article 28(b) of the Rome Statute).
- Pekka Kallioniemi, “In this thread I’ll be discussing 🇷🇺 genocide in Ukraine. I’ll focus on the child abductions & will be providing evidence that 🇷🇺 has planned this for a long time and that their intent has been announced in the state-owned media at least since the beginning of April, 2022.”, November 7, 2022 (thread) (pdf) (website)
Secondary reasons
Resource grab
Gas
Neon
Lithium
- Ukrainian lithium, another cause of the Russian invasion? “The discovery of reserves of more than 500,000 tonnes of lithium, one of the key metals in the energy transition, could have amplified Putin’s interests in Ukrainian territory”
- See also Elon Musk
Domestic popularity boost
Fighting the West
- See: Dmitry Medvedev (playing bad cop, so that Putin can be good cop)
False reasons (excuses, pretexts, artificial reasons)
Some of these reasons are relevant, but not as primary reasons. Ukraine potentially joining NATO, and Euromaidan, impeded russian plans of controlling Ukraine. But they were not reasons for the initial goal of controlling Ukraine and putting an end to its independence and democratization —one way or another. If the Kremlin had no such plans to begin with, none of this would have been relevant. Note also the direct russian involvement behind some of those “reasons” (e.g. the consequences of the 2014 russian invasion/russian-led separatism, russian nationalists/extremists, etc.).
- Pekka Kallioniemi, “In today’s #vatnik soup I’ll discuss Russia’s disinformation and propaganda campaigning in more detail, and go through four of the main ”big“ themes around which most of their propaganda is based on.” (thread) (pdf)
- Right so, let’s talk debunking russian nonsense. This thread will be long but I hope you stick with it. I will go through propaganda claims and debunk them and explain how best to do so. In following threads I’ll explain how better to bonk and argue. Have to walk before you run. (thread) (pdf)
- Randy Mott, “This is a list of things that many Republicans believe on Ukraine that are totally wrong. But some are so convinced of their opinion that they refuse to listen to any facts at all. Please get smarter”, July 18, 2023 (thread) (pdf)
NATO
“ I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.
- Note also: that NATO is not a threat to russia, no matter how many borders it has with russia, should be obvious by now, as NATO is not invading russia despite the ongoing russian invasion of Ukraine [23], which would both provide a reason for invading russia and has shown russia’s weakness. NATO is a “threat” to russia only in the sense of preventing russia from invading its neighbors —not a threat to nuclear-armed russia’s internationally recognized territory itself.
- Steven Pifer, “One. More. Time. It’s not about NATO”
Denazification
- «Девочка спрашивала танкиста: «Вы и правда верите, что освобождаете нас от фашистов?» Исповеди свидетелей российской/советской оккупации —“A local girl asked: ’Do you really believe you’re liberating us from the Nazis?’” Confessions of Russian and Soviet Occupation Witnesses
- Получи, фашист, гумпомощь. Как немецкие «благотворители» через неонацистов снабжают российскую армию —Killer aid. How German “charities” supply the Russian army through neo-Nazis
- Где нацификация? Как неонацисты при поддержке губернатора Беглова учат российских детей убивать —What denazification? How Governor Beglov helps Neo-Nazis teach Russian children to kill
- See also: Kremlinism/Terrorism/Wagner, Kremlinism/Nazism, Kremlinism/Fascism, Ukraine/Antisemitism, Ukraine/Racism and Azov
Desatanization
- See: Desatanization. This one didn’t quite catch on...
Ukraine/Biolabs
- Randy Mott, “As NATO ramps up UKR army heavy weapons and Russian losses grow in UKR, the Russian social media propaganda claim on #Bioweapons has re-emerged. This thread dismantles the claim in detail w/ direct links to facts. ZERO evidence has been produced since the claim ”, February 10, 2023 (thread) (pdf)
- See: Ukraine/Biolabs
Euromaidan
- See: Euromaidan
Donbas
“ to claim that the setting up of ‘independent’ republics in 2014 in Donetsk and Luhansk, and their annexation by Russia in 2022 following fake ‘referenda’ under brutal military occupation, was “the right to self-determination of the ethnic Russian population of Donbas,” is a statement of extraordinary ignorance.
- Let’s talk about the hoax that’s been perpetrated daily for 9 years and that was key to for this illegal invasion and its atrocities: Russian assertions that Ukraine has committed “genocide” against “ethnic Russians” in Donetsk and Luhansk. (thread) (pdf)
- Tymofiy Mylovanov, “Prigozhyn claims the ministry of defense of Russia made up the reasons for the war in Ukraine. He also accuses various Russian officials of corruption in Donbas”
- Nikolay Mitrokhin, “For Eight Years They Sat There in Cellars Under Fire!” — On One False Narrative About Ukraine
- See: Donbas and Russian invasion of Ukraine/War crimes (list of “liberated”, i.e., destroyed, Ukrainian cities)
