Aidonian's blog

The Russia-Ukrainian crisis

the last 8 years Russia and Ukraine are at arms at each other. Why? In 2014 the pro-Russian president was ousted and the pro-western goverment wanted to join NATO. In the east, two provinces declared themselves independent and with help of Putin, they continue to fight today. Since this morning, Russian armed forces have entered Ukraine and attacked multiple places at once all over Ukraine. Its anyone guess how this will end. I hope that Athena guides them back to the table to start the peace talks again to end this war.

What is NATO?

To understand whats the role of NATO in all of this, you need to know what NATO is. NATO is a military alliance between US and most of Europe. Some countries did not join to create a neutral zone between NATO and USSR and now Russia. Some former USSR republics joined NATO like the balkan states. Sweden en Finland did not join to this day. NATO is a military alliance that normally is used as a defense when member are attacked. Its mostly used to further the interests of the US. While its a defensive military alliance, its mainly used to further the interests of the US. Trump wanted the member states to increase their budget for NATO. To this day, i don’t think that Biden has undone that decision. Under Trump a new cold war started, first against China and now with Russia. Russia and China are expanding their influence. China is already richer than the US.

Years ago NATO promised to Russia that they wouldn’t expand to the east after the fall of the USSR. NATO did anyway. Western companies moved in to Russia until Putin rose to power and basicly stated that they follow him or leave. Most of them left.

Granted,Putin did do questionably things like changing the constitution so that one way or another he could stay in power until at least 2036. (?) Oppposing candidates are basicly silenced. He comes off as a dictator. Since im not that familiar with Russian politics, im being careful when describing Putin.

Historical background

Ukraine and Russia share a common history. The origins of modern day Russia lies in Ukraine with the founding of Kievan-Rus. Russians and Ukrainians are both Slavic people. But they have different languages. Catharina the great Russianized the region that is now Ukraine when she moved Russians to that location and outlawed the Ukrainian language. The Tatars were also relocated from the Ukrainian region to somewhere else. In the 1930’s (between 1932 & 1933) when Stalin ordered that the livestock be nationalised, most farmers didn’t cooperate and killed some of their livestock instead of handing it over to the state. When the drought happened, the holodomor started. The drought caused a famine that led to the death of alot of people around 3 milion people died. The numbers vary between 2,5 and 7 milion people. Around the same time,a similar famine accured in Kazakhstan. Since it affected mostly Ukrainians, alot of Ukrainians call it a genocide. It was definitly a crime against humanity and a genocide. Whether or not it was intentionally directed at Ukrainians or not is a big questionmark. Some think it was a mix of ignorance of the situation and bad policy rather than intentionally trying to do cause a genocide.

This history is also part of the Russian-Ukrianian crisis today.

The situation today

Russia is not happy with Ukraine wanted to join NATO. They see the former USSR countries join NATO as a security threat. They see NATO advancing to their borders as a way to intimidate them. If you look at a map of Iran and the location of various US military bases, you can quickly see that US is the agressor here. After 2014, a peace accord was signed in Minsk where Ukraine was asked to change the constitution to also recognize Russian as a official language. The pro western goverment never implemented those things. Not to this day. Some eastern provinces did not recognize the new goverments since 2014. Normally these changes should have been implemented by 2015, but like i said, it never happened. The pro-western goverments backed by US tried to seize control in the eastern provinces along with far right militias who are fighting alongside the Ukrainian army. Are those militias gained military experience to use in their home countries? If most of them are foreign militias, they are a real security concern.

The easy solution being here is to recognize the autonomy of those provinces, recognize the Russian language in Ukraine and make Ukraine a buffer state between Europe/NATO and Russia.

Russia is backed by China and Syria.

War is bad for everyone involved. Especially for the people on the ground. The people are going to get hurt by it. Not the ones ordering the attacks. The fact that the Ukrainian president ordered his citizens to take up arms shows his contempt for his people in my opinion. Instead of trying to protect them, he puts them in harms way. Most Russians don’t want this war, just as most Ukrainians don’t want it. They know that they will be caught in the crosshairs.

Putin using the “responsibility to protect” is a jab at the west because they have used to as well to justify their invasions of other countries. In this case, Putin wants to protect the Russians in Ukraine, but is that the real reason? Maybe it has more to do with unifying the lands that once was under Russian control during the Tsar?

The answer is no. War is almost always about economics. This is no different. With the eastern provinces under his control, Putin has again acces to the black sea through land. Putin uses nationalistic pretenses that aren’t entirly accurate here that Russia and Ukraine are one people. While both of them are of Slavic decent (?) they are not the same people. They have similar origins, but that’s about it. That is what you can call propaganda to justify his actions and try to rally the people behind them. That Putin uses the term neonazi to describe the Ukrainian goverment is a weird one, i must admit. If he manages to annex whole of Ukraine as part of Russia, he will have access to the wealth of Ukraine. Maybe that its what its about here? The riches of Ukraine.I have no idea how rich Ukraine really is when it comes to recourses. I know that the wages are lower than in Europe, so clearly if there is, they don’t profit from it. The common people rarely do.

That Russia has sanctions imposed on them, is not really much of a concern for the elite of Russia. They are barely affected by this. The common people will be. I stand with Russians and Ukrainians, not with their leaders. My thoughts are with them.

The same can be said of the US. They want a puppet in power in Ukraine that favors them instead of Russia. Calling Putin and the Russian elite oligarchs is a joke, because they are no different than the elite in the west. They all are capitalists all but in name. Who benefits of a war? The capitalists of course. The military industrial complex gets the most funding and needs wars to make and sell more weapons.

I can only hope that the Russian people stand up and demand Putin to end this war. They have the power to do so. They need to make their voice heard again.

Does the west have the backbone to attack Russia? I doubt it. They know that they have nuclear missiles. Could this lead to Russians being discriminated? I hope not. With the covid pandemic, Asian people were targeted for retaltions because people thought that they were responsible for the pandemic, while no one is responsible for it. Imposing a travel ban for Russians for work, education, tourists is counterintuitive because it will only hurt the common people. Its a weak response. One thing i can not wrap my head around is that the Communist party in Russia has sided with Putin in this. If they truly are marxists, they would reject this war. I hope one day to find out why the leadership of the Communist Party of Russia has backed this war.

The war must end now and the peace accords of Minsk must be respected. There is no other option. So I don’t back the war. I’m firmly against it. I’m proud of my party PVDA that they don’t support the war. We don’t support Putin.