[yucky]

We're discussing what the trigger was for the 2014 invasion. It's also worth discussing whether the response was justified, but it's a separate discussion as to what caused Russia to invade & annex Crimea in 2014. That was the reason. Pretending that Putin just woke up one day and decided to invade Ukraine isn't helpful to anybody since it makes it seem like you're being dishonest.

Common sense can tell us Putin was itching for an excuse to annex Crimea, but then that leaves us with the very uncomfortable question of why the US pushed Ukraine into this situation knowing how Putin would respond.

Ukraine is being used a pawn in a proxy war between the US and Russia. People need to call it what it is if they actually care to understand it.

[federoccco]

Let me tell you one thing — Yanukovich would go down, whether US interfered or not, there were enough of internal Ukrainian elites who wanted him to go. The whole US pushed Ukraine talk is delusional. Ukraine is not a pawn, it has it’s own interests which do not always align with the West.

If 2014 invasion was somehow related to Euromaidan protests, this 2022 invasion has no relation to internal Ukrainian politics nor to it’s foreign policy — nothing has fundamentally changed. The only reason why Putin attacked now is because he felt he could get away with it — Ukraine was asking for weapons since October and got only light anti-tank weapons to fight insurgency war. Nobody in the West pushed Ukrainians to fight, what West really wants is business as usual.

Yet now it becomes less and less possible due to Ukrainian information war.

Repeating Russian propaganda narratives is not what makes you a sudden expert on Eastern European politics.

[yucky]

>If 2014 invasion was somehow related to Euromaidan protests, this 2022 invasion has no relation to internal Ukrainian politics nor to it’s foreign policy — nothing has fundamentally changed.

There is no "if", unless you are arguing that invading Crimea the next day was a coincidence. That is fact, not opinion. Just like the post-coup regime in Ukraine then officially voting to drop neutrality, clearing the way to join NATO (which is just the international arm of the US military).

As to what has fundamentally changed, well Biden is back in charge like he was in 2014. Biden and family have huge financial interests in Ukraine, as evidenced by the emails that our totally honest media finally acknowledged were legitimate[1][2][3] (only after the election was over of course). And with that, Ukraine was set back on their path against Russia, to poke the bear some more at our behest.

There is a reason Russia/Ukraine was quiet for 4 years under Trump. And its the same reason we had to listen to that tired "Trump is Putin's puppet" conspiracy theory for most of his presidency. He wouldn't play their game. Hell, he was even impeached over Ukraine. Elements of the US government have been orchestrating this game for years, and innocent Ukrainians are the ones left holding the bag. Well them, and middle class US taxpayers who always end up footing the bill.

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/burying-hunter-biden-laptop-story-w...

[2] https://ijr.com/ny-times-confirms-emails-hunter-laptop-not-r...

[3] https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/the-new-york-times-hates-to-sa...