Too many here don’t have a broad enough understanding of the Donbass region and their desire to be either given autonomy or becoming a part of Russia. his was actually worked out between Ukraine and Russia in the Minsk agreements had Zelensky not refused to do his part as he agreed in the Donbass and Lugansk areas.... (And the US encouraged him to resist)...Now I don’t think he ever intended to do his part and was using it as a stall for everything we’re seeing being played out now...- - which is why in any negotiations Putin wants agreements, documentation and all parties signitures so that prior road isn’t traveled down again.
14 - 16,000 peoples deaths in Donbass, and increasing, could only be ignored for so long - that degree of tension could not have continued of Ukrainians army killing it’s citizens in that area.
That is one interpretation. IMO however, I have not seen Putin reflecting to adhere to any prior agreements or documents. Putin appears to be quite deceitful.
As Norman Schwarzkopf once said:
“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”
his was actually worked out between Ukraine and Russia in the Minsk agreements had Zelensky not refused to do his part as he agreed in the Donbass and Lugansk areas.... (And the US encouraged him to resist)...
***That stuff all took place only after oil & gas were discovered in those regions. This war is about OIL. https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4050958/posts
The Russians weren’t even interested in western Ukraine until oil was found there. Their interest is simply in raping that country. Russia gets 60% of its revenues from oil exports. Europe gets 40% of their oil from Russia.
In 2012 massive oil and gas reserves were found in Crimea. Crimea signed a $10 billion exploration contracts with Shell and Chevron to develop the new found oil and gas fields. These oil and gas products would compete in Europe with Russia’s oil and gas, reducing Russia’s oil revenues, which we recall amount to 60% of their total GDP. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, cancelling the contracts with Shell and Chevron.
But Ukraine still had massive reserves in, you guessed it, Donetsk and Luhansk, and other areas East of the Dnieper River. In 2019, Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Ukraine, and soon after Ukraine awarded exploration contracts to a consortium of U.S. oil companies. Again, these oil reserves would compete in Europe with Russian oil, so Putin is invading Ukraine to shut down this latest attempt to extract Ukrainian oil and sell it in competition with Russian oil.
This explanation makes more sense to me than the “Putin feels threatened by NATO expansion” excuses for the invasion.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4044221/posts?page=1#1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CmdSzVFSKc
If the Ukes allow some small region in the west to be its own republic, but the OIL belongs to Ukraine, do ya think Pootypoot would allow that? Nope.