Russian invasion of Ukraine/Reasons

25 июня 2014 в Луганск вошла колонна российской техники. На тот момент городские онлайн камеры еще работали и это можно было спокойно наблюдать. Удивительно, но несмотря на очевидное некоторые будут 8 лет рассказывать “при чем тут россия, у вас гражданская война etc” On June 25, 2014, a convoy of Russian equipment entered Luhansk. At that time, city online cameras were still working and it could be easily observed. Surprisingly, despite the obvious, some will tell for 8 years “what does Russia have to do with it, you have a civil war, etc”

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, second in 2022.

Below some of the reasons.

Rheinmetall wins major order in Russia

Prelude

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunn%E2%80%93Lugar_Cooperative_Threat_Reduction#20th_century_outcome

Early preparations

“ 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.

— ‘This should be stopped’: Ex-Putin advisor weighs in on Russia-Ukraine invasion

• 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” [4] (PDF)

• Russia started training separatists to split Ukraine in 2006 already. Then Russia’s relations with NATO were still excellent.

Reviving the Soviet Union

[2]

[3] вернём границы 1945 года! Let's bring back the borders of 1945!

“ 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

Границы России нигде не заканчивается - Russia’s borders end nowhere

“ 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, genocide of Ukrainians

“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

• 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

• Pavel Gubarev, Russia’s “DPR” figure in Donetsk, states their intent towards Ukrainians: “We aren’t coming to kill you, but to convince you. But if you don’t want to be convinced, we’ll kill you. We’ll kill as many as we have to: 1 million, 5 million, or exterminate all of you.”

Resource grab

• If you believed Putin’s lie that Russia wasn’t planning to occupy any of the Ukrainian territories, listen to gov’t official on state TV admit the opposite. Discussing Ukraine’s vast mineral & energy resources Russia wants to pocket, state TV host says she is overcome with pride.

• 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”

• In the Ukraine war, a battle for the nation’s mineral and energy wealth (archive)

Domestic popularity boost

• Putin's approval rating soars since he sent troops into Ukraine, state pollster reports

• Putin’s approval rating ends 2022 at 81%, boosted by support for the war in Ukraine

Fighting the West

• Dmitry Medvedev
• Kremlinism/Threats against the USA

False reasons

• 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)

• Euromaidan

• Ukraine/Antisemitism

• Azov

• FM #Lavrov: Important objective is to ensure that no threats to our security are created or remain on🇺🇦territory. They say that West did not try to urge Ukraine to engage in military action vs Russia, however, I regard oppressing Russian-speaking people in🇺🇦as genuine aggression

2022 Denial

• When’s ‘our upcoming invasions, I’d like to plan my vacation’: Diplomat mocks US-UK media, 16 February 2022
• Dmitry Polyanskiy: Invasion fears are hype and hysteria

“ As for your question about whether we plan to invade other countries, we have no plans to invade other countries. We have not invaded Ukraine either.

— Sergey Lavrov, Russia has not invaded Ukraine and will not invade any other country — Lavrov, March 10, 2022

“ We didn't invade Ukraine

— Sergey Lavrov, Lavrov: Russia is not squeaky clean and not ashamed, 17 June 2022

See also

• Nidheg/Russian invasion of Ukraine, Reasons