Putin tried everything anybody in Russia could think of to avoid this conflict. Nobody in the west would listen....
“Putin tried everything anybody in Russia could think of to avoid this conflict.”
You mean, like invading Crimea in late February, 2014, and illegally annexing it three weeks later? You mean, like fomenting civil war in the Donbas region and arming and supplying separatists there, and even sending in Russian forces (the Little Green men)? You mean, like saying Ukraine isn’t a legitimate, independent nation?
No he didn’t.
In 2020 he applauded Zelenskyy for the progress towards peace... then set about preparing for invasion.
In 2021 he severed all communication with Ukraine and started drafting his final demands to NATO, to the effect of “give us a free run at invading the Baltic countries or we’ll invade Ukraine”. We’ve all read the December 2021 shitpost from Russia to NATO, we all know what the implications would’ve been if we’d agreed to those terms.
Months before February 2022 Shiogu let the cat out of the bag, and as if that wasn’t convincing enough Zhirinovsky stood in front of the Duma to gloat about the invasion that was planned.
Putin wanted peace, oh my days. That’s why he passed laws that could send anyone protesting the war to the gulags, I suppose.
A Russian guy got collared because his schoolgirl daughter said war is wrong. She’s been forced into their foster care system.
Kids got arrested for putting flowers down at memorials.
Putin is not interested in peace, and never has been. The only thing ever staying his hand was knowing that Eastern Europe, the USA and the UK NATO weren’t going to stand idly by for ever as he repeatedly violated the UN Charter, Belovezha Accords, Budapest Memorandum and Helsinki accords.
He’s on a crazy mission to rebuild a new gangster Reich on the footprint of the old Soviet side of the Iron Curtain. It’s in his own writing. The mission has been explained by Dugin and by the “what Russia should do with Ukraine” editorial.
All the rest, denazification and NATO expansion, is bullshit bullshit bullshit.
For some reason, possibly terminal illness or COVID paranoia, Putin decided what the hell, despite the USA and UK and Eastern Europe all saying “F around, find out” he’d go ahead and do it anyway and damn the consequences.