Here I’ll collect points why Russia is pretty much solely responsible for the war and why I have came to that conclusion based on history, researching the current situation and understanding Russian culture. I also analyze some disinformation points claimed by Russians and other useful idiots.
Reasons why the Russia initiated the war:
The timing of the war. It is the one of the last possible times to conduct such an attack.
a) Ukraine was slipping out of Russians control
Russia’s sphere of influence was weakening, which does not fit well in the Super Power culture of the Russian empire. Russian culture has always viewed its neighboring countries as its domain where Russia should be able to interfere and influence their decision making to its benefit. Ukraine’s intentions of moving closer to west and increasing democracy posed a threat to this control.
b) Europe was still reliant in fossil fuels provided by Russia
Resistance to a quick war from Russia would be weak and disjointed (like we have seen). *Also 1 of the reasons why this is Russian manufactured war and not wished by Nato or Europe etc.*
Europe aiming for greener energy would weaken the Russian “energy weapon” if this attack would have been delayed.
c) Natural resources (valuable metals, natural gas and oil) discovered near Donbass and Crimea in Ukraine.
These natural resources would weaken Russia’s control over Europe and Ukraine as the “energy weapon” would be even less effective if Ukraine managed to harness their resources. Also the main source of Russian income (crude oil and natural gas accounted for 26 % and 12 % and metals 10 % of exports) would have to compete against the middleman Ukraine.
d) Putin wants to be remembered and blieves ukraine is supposed to be part of russia.
Putin has became corrupted by power and his inner circle that feeds him the narrative (who are equally blinded by their own propaganda). This has lead Putin wanting to be regarded as a strong leader and take his place in history beside his idol Stalin, and other big leaders. He has talked a lot of about uniting Russian people back under one country. He has also written an 5000 word essay (ON THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF RUSSIANS AND UKRAINIANS) where he makes claims for Ukraine with little regard ot what the people of Ukraine want. These fantasies of being the one who unites “russian” people with Russia and raises Russia from the fall of the soviet union. Back to being a real super power that can do whatever it wants. Are propably some of the reasons the russian regime initiated the attack. This was also boosted by the easy annexation of the Crimea back in 2014.
The annexation of Crimea also boosted the the failures of Russian intelligence services and over all command chain, who believed that taking over the whole Ukraine would be as easy and fast with little resistance. This miscalculation and false image in their minds was a strong reason for going through with the attack.
e) Ukraine is getting stronger.
Ukraine had been upgrading its army and training its forces. Ukraine also stating that it wishes to join Nato and EU to receive more security guarantees. Buying modern equipment from the west. Delaying the attack could have led to Ukraine being even much more difficult opponent than it is now.
Also the Nato expansion was not a fear because of a threat by Nato, but the fear of no longer being able to attack Ukraine without involving Nato. (One of the biggest reasons why the attack came now.)
F) Ukraine is becoming democratic and lifting the standard of living.
One of the core reaons to attack at all: was that Ukraine is getting stronger as a democracy and gaining wealth. This does not look good to Russian totalitarian regime as it produces an internal threat to current power structure in Russia.
The rising of Democratic countries in the borders of Totalitarian Russian regime is perceived as a threat to their own position. As the Russian people might start to see the failures of their leaders andcompare their life to others with rising freedom and wealth. Russia’s fear was that Ukraine organically imports the ideas and change into Russia. In the eyes of Russians it is different than importing them from the west: as Ukraine is more familiar and shares more positive and deeper connections (also a lot of family connections) to regular people compared to western countries. And also as the Ukranians were before and at the start of the war portrayed as their brother nations (by putins ON THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF RUSSIANS AND UKRAINIANS). Moreover Russians believed that these connections would not be influenced by their propaganda against the west as the Ukranians werent seen as “westerns”, thus creating problematic situations were the living standards in their brother nations rise to higher level than in Russia. Of course now we can see that Russian propaganda has affected many russians despite them having close relatives in Ukraine.
I see that these are the reasons which prompted the Russian side to attack.
Reasons why this is not a NATO proxy war operation or any other silly conspiracy theory:
1) Like mentioned before, European countries were heavily reliant in Russian oil and natural gas for their industry.
In Eu they believed by making the economies of Europe and Russia tied closely together it would prevent war as both side would have huge economic losses. This of course was seen as weakness in Russia and they exploited it in the from of ‘energy weapon’ coercion for example in 2009. But the main and naive idea of Europe is what cements its base of not being in anyway a part of starting a war. There is no two-sides, no provocations. The intent of intertwining the economies was there from the Eu side.
2) “Nato expansion”
There is no agreement were Nato has signed not to accept new members. The countries joining Nato, join out of free will and are completely allowed to do so. They are sovereign countries that can themselves decide what is their main threat for their sovereignty and if joining Nato benefits them or not. Nato does not posses a threat to Russia as it is a defensive alliance where countries are not obligated to attack if other member decides to attack. Again Europe’s reliance in Russian energy exports.
But what if Nato wants the resources and attacks Russia to get them? Even a second grader can calculate that the costs outweigh any benefits of such an attack by billions of times. No real risk there. + Russia has nuclear weapons, so no, Nato wont posses a threat in real life. This is just another take on Russia panicking over the weakening of its sphere of influence. Also like said above, the sphere of influence ideology doesn’t take into consideration the will of the people in the countries that joined Nato completely voluntarily. Thus the premise of Nato enlargement is already flawed as Nato is not conquering or annexing them.
Here are some links that root out more reasons why the idea of Nato enlargement is rooted in propaganda:
Russia’s myths about NATO: Moscow’s propaganda. by Federal Academy for Security Policy of Germany
Mearshmers accusation of the west behind Ukrainian-Russian war doesn’t stand closer inspection.
Missreading the war in Ukraine‘
russias claims by analysis of putins speeches
Most recent piece of scientific analysis of the short comings in “west is at fault” thinking:
A Critique of Geopolitical Reason from Monroe to Mearsheimer
More critic for Mearsheimers realistic ideology
3) Chemical weapons labs.
https://factcheck.bg/en/there-is-no-evidence-that-ukraine-is-developing-biological-weapons-in-pentagon-funded-labs/
It’s just pure propaganda that was re-introduced after the initial attack failed and Russia started to need “justifications”. Chemical weapons suited the Corona pandemic athmosphere.
Why I chose the biolabs reason: The bio-chemical weapons labs is the perfect example of hundreds of disinformation and propaganda pieces the Russians manufacture. As it contains the seed argument (bio laboratories) which is true, and then it builds fear around it by claiming they are bio-chemical weapons labs.
Many of the Russian propaganda rely on “what if”, “question everything” and “just asking questions” ways of thinking, as their purpose is to feed many different stories to dillute and bury the truth.
This leads to ordinary people becoming so filled up with different contradicting information that they no longer can take decisive actions because everything needs to be checked and verified.
It seeks to plant a seed of doubt on everything, and everyone. Thus slowing down and dividing countries and lowering the resistance of Russias actions.
4) Genocide in Donbass (+Minsk):
None of the international organisations which have monitored the state of human rights in the Donbas region since 2014 has confirmed a fact of such deliberate mass-killings. This is proven by reports published by the Council of Europe, the UN High Commission for Human Rights and the OSCE.
Even the Russian government knows this and thus never pressed the international community to intervene, like they could have done if they had solid evidence.
Russia itself sent mercenaries and weapons to donbass and operated them near civillian targets in hopes of:
-civillians shielding them from being striken back.
-and if being hit back they could use it to claim the narrative of Ukraine murdering civillians that were near them.
Also a compherensive analysis of the Minsk agreements:
https://cepa.org/article/the-minsk-agreements/
(Notice the date)
5) Uniting Russian people.
You can read the following full tweet thread of how Russia has treated its minorities and neighbouring countries after annexing them. There are sources linked there so you don’t just have to take their word for it, its just an easy format.
when foreigners casually drop ‘bombing of kyiv’ these pics always come to mind. this is what #RussianColonialism did to chechnya and grozny when they tried to leave the empire in 2000. a war crime of horrific scale, but the rest of the world was like ‘meh’, so moscow continued pic.twitter.com/ysiKKArGFz
— вареничок.eristavi 🇺🇦🏳️🌈 (@maksymeristavi) February 20, 2022
If people wanted to join Russia, the war would have been over in 3 days. But overwhelming majority resisted the russian invasion, so it is blatantly obvious what the consensus among Ukrainians is about the situation.
Bonus point: “Ukraine are nazis”:
Russians sending film crew and trying to claim nazism in Finland: https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000008798547.html
Finland banning the operations of the nazi group:
https://korkeinoikeus.fi/fi/index/ennakkopaatokset/kko202068.html
Also known russian operatives have close ties with said nazi group.