Russian invasion of Ukraine/Reasons

Reviving the Soviet Union

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“ 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

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  Russian T-80BVM, eastern Ukraine

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  Video from the Russian MoD’s Zvezda allegedly showing Russian troops in Ukraine. Note the prominent Soviet flag on the BMP-2. [1]

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  A Russian BTR-80 with a Soviet flag.

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  Soviet Flag on a Russian BTR-82A in Kharkiv Oblast.

“ 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

• Наступление России и нового мира
• Russian news agency deletes victory editorial

«Ты вообще понимаешь, что мы фашисты?»

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

“Putin’s pet propagandists readily embraced his speech about taking back historical territories. They jumped on the bandwagon with gusto, comparing their empire to the Golden Horde and North Korea.”

Destroying the Ukrainian nation

“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.” Что Россия должна сделать с Украиной

Early preparations

• 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” [3] (PDF)