Russia vs. Ukraine: An Analysis of the Tense Situation

I hear from many American friends that the whole reason why Russia is threatening Ukraine and making ultimatums is that Russia wants to expand and has aspirations to rebuild the Soviet Union. That is why it is in Kazakhstan and is now threatening Ukraine.

I have a different analysis of the situation. Last week, I wrote a commentary about the situation in Kazakhstan. Now let us focus on Ukraine.

On the Eastern side of Ukraine live two-million Russians who speak Russian. Who eat Russian food. Who sing Russian songs. The West wants to expand NATO to Ukraine, which includes these two-million Russians.  

Please, can anyone imagine Ukrainian Russians joining NATO against what they consider Mother Russia? And that Russia would let that happen? And NATO putting nuclear missiles on the border of Russia, in eastern Ukraine.  Do you think that Russia would accept that lying down?

What are they smoking in Washington?

Would the USA allow Russia to expand its influence over Florida and put its missiles in Florida? Did we not almost go to war for Russia trying to put missiles in Cuba? And now we want to put missiles in Ukraine, on the border of Russia, where those Russians live. The time for a missile to arrive from Ukraine to Moscow is just five minutes.  

I do not believe Putin wants to expand and recreate the Soviet Union. He has enough trouble with what he has. He does not need more. So why did he annex Crimea? Why did he move into Kazakhstan?

When the Maidan Revolution happened in Ukraine in 2014, it was a revolt against corruption and an authoritarian regime. That threatened the control Putin had on Russia. These kind of demonstrations tend to spread across borders. That is what happened with the Arab Spring. That is why China extinguished the fires in Hong Kong and threatens to take over Taiwan.

Because the Maidan Revolution threatened his power, Putin needed to do something heroic. Taking Crimea, which Russia claimed was Russian to start with, was the act. It increased his popularity and the Maidan Revolution had no effect.

Putin could not afford the Kazakhstan demonstrations either — and for the same reason — and accepted with pleasure Tokayev’s invitation to come and help extinguish the Kazakhstan demonstrations.


Russia is not threatening the West. It is the West making threatening moves against Russia by expanding NATO to Russia’s borders and putting missiles five-minutes distance from Moscow.
Putin’s moves are not to expand Russia geographically, but to protect his own interests to stay in power and to protect Russian security interests from aggressive NATO moves, which acts in order to justify its existence.

NATO really has no reason to exist. Trump said it himself. There are video clips from top politicians from the West that claim NATO’s attack on Serbia in 1999 was a major mistake ( see the talk of  the Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia James Bisset on Tik Tok ”Serbian Story “). This move to expand into Ukraine is another act to show it is still alive and relevant.

Another reason could be (and I pray I am wrong) that Washington needs news that will divert the population from the problems it has internally — racial and ethnic turmoil , the vaccinated against the non-vaccinated, increasing inflation, etc. Argentina did it in starting the Falkland war. The Israeli opposition claims Bibi Netanyahu did the  same. An  old trick.

A third explanation could be that the military-industrial complex needs to justify the defense budget. Eisenhower and Kennedy warned us about their influence, that the military- industrial establishment needs an enemy to keep the defense billions flowing.

Scary.

Or maybe someone in Washington is smoking weed.

P.S. A neighbor’s explanation for what is happening is that the USA is defending Ukraine’s right to self-determination. If they want to join NATO, they have the right to do so, and we should defend that right. Sure. Like we defended Chile’s right when Allende was assassinated, or El Salvador’s right, or many other countries where our business or security interests were threatened.

Give me a break, or I am going for a smoke….