I previously listed 9 things done by The West which made the War in Ukraine inevitable. It is why I see The West (that is to say, primarily and basically the USA, as the rest of The West have now proven to be little other than vassal states) as responsible for the war, with Russia merely responding to it (as in, they had no choice). In short, the War was engineered by The West and forced upon Russia, rather than the reverse which is often claimed in US media (as "the unprovoked Russian invasion," phrase often repeated).
There is a middle ground here, which many people I respect are taking (including Chomsky, Mearsheimer, Aaron Mate, and many legitimate Peace groups--just not the ones asking to give war a chance--those aren't peace groups at all). The middle group position was that the War *was* provoked, but that the Russians (somehow) did not *have* to invade (but I fail to see the alternative). Of course, the 9 things I listed are most often called Russian Propaganda in the west, if they are not simply ignored.
Number 9 on my list was the declared intention of Ukraine to launch an all out attack on Donbas and Crimean in March 2022, and to that end the accelerating artillery attacks by the AFU on Donbas starting in February 16, which finally pushed the Russians into taking emergency actions including recognizing the independence of Donbas and launching the SMO.
This is a claim which western media don't call Russian Propaganda very much because most often they don't mention it at all. Supporters of the fascist dictatorship of Ukraine will only let someone make these claims (if they can't stop them somehow, such as by pulling their Twitter account) and then, while not even restating or recognizing the claim in any other way, will simply call it Russian Propaganda (as has happened to me).
Anyway, I continue to stand by my claim #9. I read the whole story extensively documented by MoonOfAlabama (an award winning journalist and one of the best of our times) as it was happening, and then reiterated in a wonderful recap series a year later (which I intended to link here, but have not gotten around to it because there are so many other things to read about and comment on).
But MoonOfAlabama was not alone in this. None other than filmmaker Oliver Stone described it in an interview in mid 2022. And I have seen others. The latest I've seen is an excellent account by a Swiss journalist and author:
Inevitable because since Zelensky’s declaration of his intention to retake Crimea by force in April 2021, Ukrainians and Americans had decided to trigger the war no later than early this year.
The concentration of Ukrainian troops in the Donbass since last summer, the massive arms deliveries by NATO in recent months, the accelerated combat training of Azov regiments and the army, the intensive shelling of Donetsk and Lugansk by the Ukrainians from 16 February onwards (all this was ignored by the Western media, of course), prove that Kiev had planned a large-scale military operation for the end of this winter.
The aim was to repeat the “Operation Storm” launched by Croatia against the Serbian Krajina in August 1995 and to take the Donbass in a lightning offensive, without giving the Russians time to react, in order to gain control over the entire Ukrainian territory and enable the country to join NATO and the EU quickly. Incidentally, this also explains why the USA has repeatedly announced a Russian attack since the autumn: they knew that, one way or another, it would come to war.
Improvised because the Russian response was made under time pressure. When the Russians realised that NATO’s diplomatic moves – no US response to their proposals, Blinken-Lavrov meetings in Geneva in January, Zelensky’s call for calm and Macron-Scholz mediation in February – did not clarify the situation and amounted to a classic stalling tactic, the Russians reacted in a masterful and at the same time very risky way. Within ten days (recognition of the republics, cooperation agreement and start of the military operation), they decided to attack first in order to pre-empt the Ukrainians.
Prior to reading this account, there was something troubling about my point #9 which this account resolves. And that was, "If Ukraine was going to attack Donbas, why did it not do more than just ramp up artillery fire?"
The answer is that the Ukrainian plan to retake Donbas was modeled after American style "Shock and Awe" or "Blitzkrieg" campaign, not the "Slow Grind" that Russia has been doing ever since (which is actually intended to reduce civilian casualties--it is fighting war the "old fashioned way").
If Russia had waited much longer, Donbas would already have been taken and the only way for Russia to push back would be with massive casualties of their ethnic brothers in Donbas.
So more and more, the story is easier to see. Russia had no choice.
From a somewhat less impeccable source, I have found the story about the "NATO laptop" found in Donbas, reportedly left behind by someone from Right Sector, including battle plans. I'm not sure how much to believe this story, but I suspect the Kremlin did know more about Ukrainian plans to retake Donbas than observers like me (let alone the brainwashed western masses).
One commentator to that article makes the following point, worthy of mention if not to my mind conclusive:
"Is it still a war crime if you don't wait for the other side to attack but come first to protect your own population?"
Yes. This is a pre-emptive strike. According to the traditional reading, this is contrary to international law. NATO has already done so, but that doesn't justify such an approach.
But: military attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces have been going on for 6 years. This was, formally, an internal matter of Ukraine before the recognition of Donbass and Lugansk as independent republics.
With the recognition of the republics and their request for military help, this was - formally - impeccable under international law.
Incidentally, NATO has never bothered to make it look legal under international law.
This is not a moral, but a purely international legal assessment.
In short, we need not labor the question of whether a pre-emptive attack by Russia would have been legal. Because it was not a pre-emptive attack, but a response to an escalating conflict which had been going on since 2014. (No wonder the western response is to just call anything improper about the 2014 Revolution to be Russian Disinformation)
In my version, even the accelerating artillery attacks starting of February 16 2022 would have meant it was not merely a 'pre-emptive' attack. Either this commenter didn't know about that or chose not to highlight it to simplify his analysis here, that in fact the war had been ongoing since 2014.
My belief is that Putin has the case for Justified War made here several different ways, both in the ongoing war since 2014, also in the accelerating attacks on February 16, 2022, and in other ways, such as what I'd call "belligerent encirclement" (Russia was not only seeing it's former republics coup'd and loaded with military bases with their guns pointed at Russia, but there had in fact been a history of US provoked conflicts as well, such as Afghanistan), and many calls for negotiations rebuffed by the US.
Whereas usually the west (in NATO wars such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria) doesn't even have a good case for Justified War made in one way.
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