russian invasion of Ukraine/Reasons
Since 2003, russia planned the russian invasion of Ukraine [4]. 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, 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
Below some of the reasons.
Prelude (1994)
The inside story of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, when Kyiv returned its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for ‘assurances’ from Moscow and Washington. "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."
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.
- 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” [5] (PDF)
- Russia started training separatists to split Ukraine in 2006 already. Then Russia’s relations with NATO were still excellent.
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
- https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1501469696150880256 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1501469696150880256
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
Destroying the Ukrainian nation, genocide of Ukrainians
- 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)
Resource grab
- 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”
Domestic popularity boost
Fighting the West
False reasons
“ Does the right to sovereignty also mean for Georgia and Ukraine, for example, that Russia would have nothing against their accession to the EU and NATO?
Sergey Lavrov: That is their choice. We respect the right of every state - including our neighbors - to choose its own partners, to decide for itself which organization to join. We assume that they will consider for themselves how they develop their politics and economy and which partners and allies they rely on.
- — “Russland öffnet Ukraine den Weg in die Nato”, 2. Januar 2005
- 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)
