We fomented a Ukraine revolution/coup in 2014, caused a civil war and sided with the neo-Nazis and Ukrainian nationalists that wanted to exterminate the ethnic Russian population.
We encouraged Ukraine to ignore the Minsk Agreement it signed that would have brought peace to the region.
We armed Ukraine with offensive weapons, teased NATO membership for Ukraine and opened biological weapons labs there.
Then we built the Ukrainian army into the largest army in the NATO zone besides us, and massed it for deployment in the area of the Donbass in obvious preparation for an attack.
And finally, when Russia responded to all that, we claimed they invaded Ukraine for no good reason to annex territory.
New year, new lie from the Putin Fanbois.
Really? Really? Ukraine was preparing to invade Russia, a power with a population, army, navy, air force and industrial base that is orders of magnitude larger?
Oh yeah, and then there is that other thing that Russia has that Ukraine does not. To quote Denis Leary "Two words. NUCLEAR F'ING WEAPONS!" Even by the very low standards of Putin Fanbois that is nonsensical.
But hey, thanks for playing. I'm sure you will have ample opportunity to spout more ill conceived falsehoods in support of Putin during the upcoming year.
(And don't go whining that the Donbass isn't Russia, so Ukraine wouldn't be invading Russia. It isn't Russia, but Putin would have reacted as if Russia had been invaded.)
Finally, someone had to give FR another history lesson. These new freeper’s are the scourge of the website. It is sickening to watch the daily posts on Ukraine and find that no one supporting Ukraine has any knowledge of what you’ve written. Now they can either go google what you posted and find the truth or they can support Biden’s corruption and spreading homosexual assault on the Western World.
No, it was the culmination of Moscow’s failures 1919 to 2014 that brought about the 2014 situation. Blaming the West for Moscow’s failures is absurd. If they had done right for Ukraine then the Ukrainians would want to be strongly allied with Moscow.
Here is the quote - “Merkel said that the Minsk agreements had been an attempt to “give Ukraine time” to build up its defenses”
As you can see - there was nothing about agreement being a sham - in fact Russia broke the agreement first by recognizing the separatists proxy republics.
When Minsk-2 was signed the idea was to re-integrate Donbass back in Ukraine as per Ukrainian law (see p.4 of Minsk agreements with increased cultural and financial autonomy (+greater economic ties to Russia).
Instead Russia insisted to legalize the proxy-officials that were installed by Russia (instead of running free and democratic elections in Donbass as it required by the agreements).
As Surkov (who was appointed by Russia for Minsk implementations) said - Russia goal is symbolic sovereignty of Ukraine over Donbass.
As you can see there is nothing trustworthy coming from Russia here as it completely sabotaged making compromises over the implementation of agreement (instead Russia pressured Ukraine to agree to its maximalist demands under the threat of invasion).
1. There are two Minsk Agreements, not just one. The first “Minsk Protocol” was signed on September 5, 2014. It mainly consists of a commitment to a ceasefire along the existing line of contact, which Russia never respected. By February 2015, fighting had intensified to a level that led to renewed calls for a ceasefire, and ultimately led to the second Minsk Agreement, signed on February 12, 2015. Even after this agreement, Russian-led forces kept fighting and took the town of Debaltseve six days later. The two agreements are cumulative, building on each other, rather than the second replacing the first. This is important in understanding the importance, reflected in the first agreement, of an immediate ceasefire and full monitoring by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), including on the Ukraine-Russia border, as fundamental to the subsequent package of agreements.
2. Russia is a Party to the Minsk Agreements. The original Minsk signatories are Russia, Ukraine, and the OSCE. Russia is a protagonist in the war in Ukraine and is fully obliged to follow the deal’s terms. Despite that, however, Russia untruthfully claims not to be a party and only a facilitator — and that the real agreements are between Ukraine and the so-called “separatists,” who call themselves the Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples’ Republics (LPR and DPR), but are in fact Russian supplied and directed.
3. The LPR and DPR are not recognized as legitimate entities under the Minsk Agreements. The signatures of the leaders of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples’ Republics were added after they had already been signed by Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE. They were not among the original signatories, and indeed Ukraine would not have signed had their signatures been part of the deal. There is nothing in the content or format of the Agreement that legitimizes these entities and they should not be treated as negotiating partners in any sense. Russia alone controls the forces occupying parts of eastern Ukraine.
4. Russia is in violation of the Minsk Agreements. The deals require a ceasefire, withdrawal of foreign military forces, disbanding of illegal armed groups, and returning control of the Ukrainian side of the international border with Russia to Ukraine, all of this under OSCE supervision. Russia has done none of this. It has regular military officers as well as intelligence operatives and unmarked “little green men” woven into the military forces in Eastern Ukraine. The LPR and DPR forces are by any definition “illegal armed groups,” that have not been disbanded. The ceasefire has barely been respected by the Russian side for more than a few days at a time.
5. Russian-led forces prevent the OSCE from accomplishing its mission in Donbas as spelled out in the Minsk Agreements. It is an unstated irony in Vienna — understood by every single diplomatic mission and member of the international staff — that Russia approves the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine when it votes in Vienna, but then blocks implementation of that same mission on the ground in Ukraine. Because Russia is a member of the OSCE, and the SMM wants to preserve what little access it has to the occupied territories, the mission is guarded in what it says about ceasefire violations and restrictions on its freedom of movement. Privately, however, they acknowledge that some 80% of such violations and restrictions come from the Russian-controlled side of the border, and those that occur on the Ukrainian side are largely for safety reasons (e.g., avoiding mined approaches to bridges.)
6. Ukraine has implemented as much of Minsk as can reasonably be done while Russia still occupies its territory. The agreements require political measures on Ukraine’s side, including a special status for the region, an amnesty for those who committed crimes as part of the conflict, local elections, and some form of decentralization under the Ukrainian constitution. But the form of these measures is not specified, and Ukraine has already passed legislation addressing every point. It has passed – and extended with renewals – legislation on special status and amnesty, and already has legislation on the books governing local elections. It has passed constitutional amendments. The Minsk Agreements do not require Ukraine to grant autonomy to Donbas, or to become a federalized state. It is Russia’s unique interpretation that the measures passed by Ukraine are somehow insufficient, even though the agreements do not specify what details should be included, and Ukraine has already complied with what is actually specified to the degree it can.
What is lacking in Ukraine’s passage of these political measures is not the legislation per se, but implementation — which Russia itself prevents by continuing to occupy the territory. For example, international legal norms would never recognize the results of elections held under conditions of occupation, yet that is exactly what Russia seeks by demanding local elections before it relinquishes control. Moreover, the elections would not be for positions in the illegitimate LPR and DPR “governments” established under Russian occupation, but for the legitimate city councils, mayors, and oblast administrations that exist under Ukrainian law. Who would vote in such elections? Ukrainian law says all displaced citizens should vote. But would Russian occupation authorities allow this? These are matters for resolution under international supervision – not for Russia to dictate terms.