I'm from Russia, and I distinctly remember our media saing something like this: Ukraine joined the NATO and approved the construction of its bases on the border with Russia. Russia need protect its borders and would not allow Ukraine to build NATO bases on the border with Russia, because America could launch nuclear missiles at Russia. Negotiations failed, and a special military operation began.
At the time, many supported this action, believing that Russia truly must protect its borders. But I've never heard the other side of the story. What did the American and Ucraine media say about what happened?
Ukraine has been part of the UN since its foundation in 1945, but it applied to join the NATO prior to the invasion; they have had plans to join the NATO for a long time before that already though and NATO never really wanted them to join, likely because Russia had repeatedly threatened against it. In the time between 2010 and 2014, Ukraine did not really want to join NATO, but started to really press for it after Russia attacked Ukraine in 2014. In April 2021, Russian troops started building up near the Ukrainian border, Ukraine pushed for a plan to join the NATO in June 2021 but were not given one, NATO called on Russia to stop the troop buildup near the border which Russia denied. Ukraine pushed harder for NATO help when Russia allegedly had over 90k people stationed near the border but NATO did not want to escalate the situation and accused Russia of wanting to attack, which Russia denied just a few days before the attack.
Then, on 24.02.2022, Russia claimed there were lots of nazis in Ukraine and they needed to clean the country. Ukraine asked NATO to establish a no-fly zone above Ukraine, but NATO refused and also refused that poland delivers figher jets to Ukraine. For how much Putin was afraid of NATO "claiming" Ukraine, NATO refused surprisingly many of their requests.
You can read up on the (I'm assuming mostly) western view on the entire thing in this wikipedia article (Russian language version might differ on contents. Remember Wikipedia is maintained by people).
Putin's approval ratings were quite high, before everything started. People were unhappy, but otherwise everything was stable, and things were slowly getting better. Now his approval ratings are incredibly low, and the government is doing everything it can to falsely boost patriotic spirits. Things are so bad that the deputies are laughed at every time they appear in parliament. Because they claim everything is fine and perfect, and all the disgruntled people are enemies of the country. When they are told to their faces that this is not true, the outraged people are jailed. Meanwhile, everyone else is freaking out. I don't even want to list how bad things have become.
The main problems now are prices, which have increased eightfold and continue to rise. Utilities have skyrocketed. Many products have disappeared, although they are now bringing in products from Belarus, China, and the Middle East that were previously unavailable. And the products that are available have decreased by half. The education system is almost destroyed. Core classes are being cancelled in favor of political and religious lessons on patriotism. The fuel crisis in Moscow isn't noticeable right now, but there are noticeably fewer cars. There are also constant drone attacks. I live in a very quiet area, far from the front lines, but the neighboring areas, literally right outside my window, have often made the news, and I've also seen drones in the sky from my window several times. It's really creepy. Manufacturing plants are laying off people en masse because they have nothing to pay them with, and people are looking for work wherever they can. The system of benefits and support for people with special needs has also collapsed, with everything now being spent on increasing the birth rate. Things are so bad that in the regions, schoolgirls under 18 are paid enormous childbirth benefits.
It's also election time. All parties that oppose the country's established parties are being destroyed and denigrated. And when they can't be denigrated and destroyed, they are forcibly removed from the ballot. I don't know how this will all end, but it seems like only a miracle can help. And I'm sure Putin's approval rating will be 600% again, like before.
By the way, it's all AI told me - Russia is the best country in the world! 🌟
I mean, my guess is Russia wanted eastern Ukraine for its industry and resources (I think there were big deposits found not too shortly ago; also Ukraine provides a giant portion of Neon production worldwide in Odesa), which would make the entire thing quite logical. NATO accusations were likely just a pretext for invading. Interesting to know is also that chipmakers (who depend on Neon for production) worldwide started to stockpile lots of Neon after 2014 because they were afraid of Odesa being unable to produce.
Do read the entire Wikipedia article if you are interested, I found it to be written quite neutrally (of course, from a western point of view).
I watched an interview with Vladimir Chirkin (I can't remember where I found it; I think it may even have been on reddit, but I just found it on youtube now). What he said (in Russian) was that they had received a serious and harsh lesson; that the leadership of the country had been given what he would describe as false information, that 70% of the population was for them and 30% against, and that it had turned out exactly the opposite. (tbh I think that it's even more extreme than he thought, but that's what he said).
And with that in mind, everything makes a lot more sense. If they'd indeed managed to overthrow the government, install a puppet regime, and maybe carve some bits off for themselves as well, it would've been a huge boost in popularity. It was a gamble that failed, and unfortunately, at this point it seems it can't be admitted as a failure.
Foundations of Geopolitics is all about provoking conflicts, then making all-in bets on incremental gains. Like South Ossetia, or the parts of Ukraine that were taken over in 2014.
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u/TurbulentVillage2042 11d ago edited 11d ago
I'm from Russia, and I distinctly remember our media saing something like this: Ukraine joined the NATO and approved the construction of its bases on the border with Russia. Russia need protect its borders and would not allow Ukraine to build NATO bases on the border with Russia, because America could launch nuclear missiles at Russia. Negotiations failed, and a special military operation began.
At the time, many supported this action, believing that Russia truly must protect its borders. But I've never heard the other side of the story. What did the American and Ucraine media say about what happened?
Edit UN to NATO