Why Did Russia invade Ukraine?
Why did Russia invade Ukraine? It is a question many have asked but few in the American mainstream media will give an honest answer to. The President of Russia Vladimir Putin has been called a butcher and many other horrible names due to his invasion of Ukraine, we see horrific images of bombed out Ukrainian cities and the footage is heartbreaking but is it justified? A typical news story about war in Ukraine focuses on the missile attacks, the viewer is told that there was another damaging attack, the reporter then reveals the number of causalities yet strangely they do not address the question “why did Russia invade Ukraine”.
NATO, USA and Ukraine
NATO is the North American Treaty Organization, to put it bluntly, its members are against Russia. They have expanded closer to the Russian border over the last 25 years, a simple look at before and after photos show how nations unfriendly to Russia have been coming closer to the Russian border. Looking at the map we see all that Russian blue on the left, now as we look at the right, we see the blue shrinking and the red growing.
On the left in the yellow circle is Ukraine, it used to belong to Russia now it is on its way to turning red (if it joins NATO). Look at all the red coming closer to Russian land, and we can see why Putin has made it clear NATO is becoming aggressive with its expansion. Putin has objected to NATO advancing closer to Russia, he believes they are not respecting Russian security concerns. Why did Russia invade Ukraine? If Ukraine joins NATO (and turns red on the map), it could possibly put Western weapons very close to Putin’s country. Putin has made it clear he does not trust NATO nor the United States when they state they would never stage an attack Russia.
Complicating matters is The United States making the claim that they never agreed to a limit on the expansion of NATO, claims that are false according to the liberal Los Angeles Times. The West has vigorously protested that no such deal was ever struck in limiting NATO expansion, however, hundreds of memos, meeting minutes and transcripts from U.S. archives indicate otherwise. The documents suggest that the claim that the U.S never committed to limiting NATO expansion is not actually true. Why did Russia invade Ukraine? NATO’s expansion coupled with the West claiming that they never agreed to limit NATO expansion caused the Russians to finally act.
In 2014 Putin addressed the NATO problem and their expansion, he made it clear there would be a possible military response if the threat to Russian security was not taken seriously. Putin blames the United States for fueling the expansion near the Russian border, believing firming that America controls NATO. Russia is strengthening its military "on the background of new threats to national security that have a complicated and interlinked character" the Russian president stated back in 2014.
The Russians say NATO’s recent build-up of military potential around Russia's borders constitute "violations of norms of international law". The invasion in Ukraine did not suddenly happen, the average American may believe Putin woke up one fine day and decided to bomb Ukraine, but nothing could be further from the truth. Putin has been warning about entering Ukraine for a long time. Remember the map? Ukraine used to belong to Russia under the Soviet Union, the plain fact is that Ukrainians are genetically Russian in Russia’s eyes, as Putin says, “they are one nation”. Why did Russia invade Ukraine? They did it to protect their border, they did it to stop Ukraine from joining NATO, they did it for their own security measure against the United States. As Americans we would not like Russian weapons in Mexico, the threat would be too close to home; Putin equally does not want a weaponized Ukraine glaring at Russian land.