Putin has put the marker down finally, openly challenging and changing the geopolitical reality ..Russia has amassed about 150,000 troops near Ukraine’s border while demanding that the United States provide guarantees that Ukraine will never become a NATO member, the Russia and Ukraine conflict is extremely complicated, it’s not just about one thing but a plethora of factors, it’s about illegal NATO expansion, exacerbating abuse of Russian speakers in Ukraine, it’s about the rise of nazi ideology, neo-nazism, and violence. It’s a serious phenomenon, with the European Union, NATO, and its members ignoring these crimes, and normalizing this in the region. Arnaud Bertrand wrote a thread on Twitter saying, the most fascinating thing about the Ukraine war is the sheer number of top strategic thinkers who warned for years that it was coming if we continued down the same path.
When the media is portraying to the world, Russia as an aggressor and Ukraine as a poor victim. But we mustn’t rush to decide until we see both sides of the picture, If we begin with NATO, what do we call an ostensibly defensive military Alliance, which lies about its intentions to expand in the post-cold War era? who went on to offensively bomb the European capital of Belgrade? Or when NATO bombed Yugoslavia. While in 2022 when everyone is screaming oh Kiev is being bombed, why did we overlook when NATO bombed Belgrade, without any authority from the Security Council in violation of international law? Now when NATO tells Russia you cannot create these independent states of Luhansk and Donetsk, NATO created the independent state of Kosovo, right out of Serbia, against international law.
Furthermore, several NATO members broke the international laws, and continued doing so, when they invaded and destroyed Iraq, NATO legitimised the illegal occupation of Iraq when in 2004 they created NATO training missions, or when NATO members destroyed Afghanistan. How did a North Atlantic Treaty Organization end up in Afghanistan? NATO bombed Libya for the sole purpose of toppling the government there. Now NATO moaning about Russian crimes is the pot calling the kettle black. , If there were global justice, NATO would be in the dock over Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen.
A NATO member, the United States of America, has a criminal record spread all over the world, without impunity, American CIA has huge involvement in Ukraine and fuelling the Ukrainian propaganda, following their tactics of cunning interventions USA is using Ukraine against Russia, provoking the conflict, and Ukraine has always been the muppet on the strings of NATO and USA, played for their political ambitions, In 1983, President Reagan received OUN-B leader and war criminal Yaroslav Stetsko at the White House, pledging, “Your struggle is our struggle. Your dream is our dream.” Immediately after World War II, the American secret service and military began recruiting high-ranking Nazis and Nazi collaborators for the ideological, political, and military struggle against the Soviet Union. Fascists and war criminals from Germany and Eastern Europe who had been directly involved in the Holocaust and the murder of millions of Soviet civilians were utilized for covert activities by the US intelligence agencies or worked for propaganda outlets like Radio Free Europe.
It is a proven fact that the U.S. Government Perpetrated the 2014 Coup in Ukraine. A news story revealed that the agency has been training Ukrainian special forces and intelligence officers at a secret facility in the U.S. since 2015. One former CIA official familiar with the program put it more bluntly. “The United States is training an insurgency,” adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.”
In 2021, almost 20,000 NATO troops were on Ukrainian soil, dozens of American aircraft rotating through, hundreds of American military personnel had established a permanent mission, where they trained the Ukrainians the NATO tactics of war, using NATO pieces of equipment, the Ukrainian army dressed like a NATO army, organizing them in an image of NATO army. One mustn’t forget that Ukraine is not a NATO member, but a de facto member of NATO, the Ukrainian army was deployed in support of NATO missions, the Ukrainian troops get trained along with the NATO forces in exercises held in Europe, which is not less of a threat.
Therefore, now Russia is looking at this existential threat, and seeing NATO spreading on its borders, so Russia is standing up and telling NATO to back off and return back to 1997 borders, dictating American, Polish, French, British troops, etc to move back, who is currently deployed in Poland, into the Baltic states, they need to go home away from the Russian borders. Unlike the US and British politics and military, which flies miles to invade and destroy foreign lands, Russia is in their brother’s house, protecting their borders, Ukrainians and Russians love each other, they share the borders, language, and culture, there are families who are a mix of Russia and Ukraine.
A noticeable point is, If Russia has intended to cause mass destruction in Ukraine just like the USA and Europe has caused collateral damage, murdered civilians with impunity, Russia would have used massive preparatory fires if they intended to damage, but they’ve not even shut down the internet, which would have sent Ukraine into black, cutting the source of the Ukrainian army to communicate and organise, it shows that the Russians don’t want to kill the Ukrainians but simply surrender. Unfortunately, western media is refusing to put all facts on the table, we have seen the US army rolling down civilians on the roads under their vehicles, emptying their guns, mocking and slaughtering the armless children and women from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria to Yemen …No one is saying that Russia cannot be brutal, yes! they can be, but let’s see the whole picture before making up the mind with all facts.
Let’s move to Ukraine now, which has been Ignoring international agreements and treaties, starting from April 2014, the Ukrainian security forces have used force in Donbas which caused casualties and injuries among thousands of civilians not involved in the military conflict. Ukraine used lethal weapons indiscriminately in the Donbas region that are banned under international humanitarian law. These are weapons designed to kill people and destroy infrastructure as efficiently as possible. Many settlements, primarily those located close to the contact line, were left without water, gas, and electricity, the mobile telecommunication services were interrupted, access to food and medicine was cut off. People were killed by artillery shells fired by the Ukrainian army, died from famine, lack of water, and medicine. Ukraine is undeniably one of the most corrupt states in Europe, where every member of parliament has a villa, a mansion, cars and staff, private jets, the oligarchs stealing their own people, and this is paid by the US taxpayers.
In addition, everything the scenario they’re deliberately forcing to create now that they deserve nuclear weapons, by forcing the narrative of the Russian threat when they’re getting money from NATO members and want to step up their game by getting the nukes as well. Ukraine is a member of the nonproliferation treaty, they want Europe to declare that Ukraine “need” the nukes, which is actually pushing Russia towards a nuclear threat that’ll end up in a nuclear war eventually. Furthermore, Western media refuses to speak about the far-right militias, Neo Nazis forces, the Azov battalion in particular, and their role in the coup against their own government and in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Since the war started in 2014, a huge number of people have been killed in Donetsk, including civilians. The first thing US-backed Nazis did was pass laws that outlawed the Russian language and began brutalizing the significant pro-Russian population, in Odesa, a town with a significant pro-Russian population, where activists got together for a peaceful protest against the nazis, and the Ukrainian government responded by pushing them into a building and setting it on fire killing them inside. A couple of months later when Luhansk and Donetsk declared independence, saying that they don’t want to be part of Ukraine that burns Russian speakers alive, so they turned to Russia for support, and instead of taking advantage of the situation, Putin responded by saying that he respects the integrity of Ukraine and refused to accept their decision, which led to the Minsk Accords, It was a deal to end the conflict, ensure peace and security and ensure to protect Russian culture and language in the region. Unfortunately due to the continuation of aggressive activities, now in 2022 Russia accepted its declaration of independence “Those who took the path of violence, bloodshed, and lawlessness did not recognise and don’t recognise any other solution to the Donbas problem besides the military,” Putin said. “Therefore I believe it is necessary to take a long overdue decision to immediately recognise the independence and sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic” –
Where the Ukrainian war crimes are ignored by BBC, CNN, fox, etc, they’re covered by an independent journalist Patrick Lancaster, trying to show the other side of the crisis as well, it is noted that the Russia and Ukraine conflict has prompted a flurry of activity among far-right European militia leaders, who have taken to the internet to raise funds, recruit fighters and plan travel to the front lines to confront the country’s invaders, according to a research group.
As an independent and unbiased observer, here are some facts stated above, their links shared as well, for the readers to decide, we are living in the times when creating a lie is much easier, while the truth is confused and silenced.
By Khush Beyg
Editor-at-large
WEDA
WEDA Coalition 