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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Why Putin Took Military Action</h1>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">February 24, 2022<br></div>
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<p><span><strong>Russia says it has no intentions of controlling
Ukraine and its military operation is only to “demilitarize” and
“de-Nazify” Ukraine in an action taken after 30 years of the U.S.
pushing Russia too far, writes Joe Lauria.</strong></span><span id="gmail-more-75604"></span></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_75610" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Putin-speech.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-75610" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Putin-speech.png" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="221"></a></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-75610" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Putin explaining his reasons for going to war. <span>(AP screenshot from YouTube)</span></span></p></div>
<p><span><strong>By <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/joe-lauria/">Joe Lauria</a></span><br>
</strong><em>Special to Consortium News</em></span><em><strong><span><br>
</span></strong></em></p>
<p><span><span><strong>R</strong></span>ussian President Vladimir Putin said in a TV address Thursday morning that the goal of Russia’s</span><span> military operation was not to take control of Ukraine, but to </span><span>“demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” the country. Moments after he spoke, </span><span>explosions were heard in several Ukrainian cities. </span></p>
<p><span>The Russian Defense Ministry said these were “precision” attacks </span><span>against Ukrainian military installations and that civilians were not </span><span>being targeted. It said Ukraine’s air force on the ground and its air defenses had been destroyed.</span></p>
<p><span>The Ukrainian government, which declared a state of </span><span>emergency and broke off diplomatic relations with Russia, said an invasion was underway and that Russia had landed </span><span>forces at the port city of Odessa, on Ukraine’s Black </span><span>Sea coast, as well as entering from Belarus in the north. It <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60504334">said</a> it had killed 50 Russian troops and shot down six Russian fighter jets, which Russia denied.</span></p>
<p><span>Putin said one of the operation’s aims was to arrest certain
people in Ukraine, likely the neo-Nazis who burned dozens of unarmed
people alive in a building in Odessa in 2014. In his speech Monday,
Putin said Moscow knows who they are. </span><span>Russia said it aims to destroy neo-Nazi brigades, such as Right Sector and the Azov Battalion. </span></p>
<p><span>Putin said the aim was not to occupy Ukraine, but he gave no
indication when Russia might leave. It could be over quickly if Russia’s
objectives are met. But war has its own logic and often lays waste to
military plans. </span></p>
<p><span>The BBC reported that according to Ukrainian authorities 50
civilians have been killed so far. President Joe Biden is certain how
this will turn out. </span></p>
<p><span>“President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a </span><span>catastrophic loss of life and human suffering,” Biden said </span><span>Wednesday night. “Russia alone is responsible for the death and </span><span>destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its </span><span>allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The </span><span>world will hold Russia accountable.”</span></p>
<p><strong><span>Diminishing Russia</span></strong></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_75388" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-18-at-19.09.43.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-75388" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-18-at-19.09.43.png" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="211"></a></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-75388" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Biden speaks on Ukraine at White House last Friday. <span>(Ruptly scre</span></span><span>enshot.)</span></p></div>
<p><span>Biden is to make a televised </span><span>address on Thursday</span><span> after he coordinates a response to Russia’s military action in </span><span>Ukraine with the G7 and NATO. </span><span>Biden said he will announce a new package of economic sanctions </span><span>against Russia, in addition to those imposed on Monday, but reiterated </span><span>that U.S. and NATO forces would not become involved. According to TASS, Russia’s news agency, the EU <a href="https://tass.com/world/1409859">said</a> it intends to weaken “Russia’s economic base and the country’s capacity to modernize.” </span></p>
<p><span>British Prime Minister Boris Johnson even hinted at British
military involvement. “Our mission is clear,” he said. “Diplomatically,
politically, economically and eventually militarily this hideous and
barbaric venture of Vladimir Putin must end in failure.” </span></p>
<p><span>In a White House readout after the last phone call between
Biden and Putin this month, Biden said Russia would be “diminished” if
it invades, a longstanding U.S. goal. </span></p>
<p><span>In addition to the sanctions, Russia has faced widespread condemnation </span><span>from most of the world, expressed at United Nations meetings this </span><span>week, including an emergency session of the Security Council on </span><span>Wednesday
night. Several nations spoke in melodramatic tones about the military
operation changing global security. Many of those nations supported the
U.S. invasion of Iraq.</span></p>
<p><span>On Monday, Putin said he would send Russian “peacekeepers” into Lugansk </span><span>and Donetsk, which he recognized as states independent from Ukraine. The West denounced it as an invasion, triggering the </span><span>first round of sanctions against Russia. Putin said the Russian </span><span>troops were sent in to protect ethnic Russians, many of whom have now fled </span><span>for safety over the border to Russia.</span></p>
<p><strong><span>Combat in Donbass</span></strong></p>
<p><span>Fierce fighting was reported Thursday along the line of separation between </span><span>Ukrainian forces and militias from Donetsk and </span><span>Lugansk.
It is not clear to what extent Russian forces are taking part in the
Donbass battle and if the aim is to capture all of the two breakaway
provinces.</span></p>
<p><span>Both had voted for independence from Ukraine in 2014 </span><span>after a coup overthrew the elected president Viktor Yanukovych. The </span><span>new Ukrainian government then launched a war against the </span><span>provinces to crush their bid for independence, a war that is still </span><span>going on eight years later at the cost of 14,000 lives.</span></p>
<p><span>Neo-Nazi groups, such as Right Sector and the Azov Battalion, who </span><span>revere the World War II Ukrainian fascist leader Stepan Bandera, took </span><span>part in the coup as well as in the ongoing war against Lugansk and </span><span>Donetsk. </span></p>
<p><strong><span>A Matter of ‘Life or Death’ </span></strong></p>
<p><span>The Russian military action follows demands made in December by Russia </span><span>to the U.S. and NATO in the form of treaty proposals that would require </span><span>Ukraine and Georgia not to join NATO; U.S. missiles in Poland and Romania to </span><span>be removed; and NATO deployments to Eastern Europe reversed. The U.S. </span><span>and NATO rejected the proposals and instead sent more NATO forces to </span><span>Eastern Europe and have been heavily arming Ukraine.</span></p>
<p><span>In his address on Thursday morning, Putin said the military operation </span><span>he was launching was a “question of life or death” for Russia, referring to NATO’s </span><span>expansion east since the late 1990s. </span><span>He said:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of
containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country,
it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a
nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a
very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state
and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about
on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong><span>Detailed Explanation of Causes and Aims of Operation</span></strong></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_75612" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Silets_Sokalskyi_Lvivska-place_of_battle_of_Soviet_soldiers_with_Nazi_invaders-1.jpeg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-75612" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Silets_Sokalskyi_Lvivska-place_of_battle_of_Soviet_soldiers_with_Nazi_invaders-1.jpeg" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="261"></a></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-75612" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Silets Sokalskyi Lvivska battlefield monument in Ukraine of Soviets soldiers against Nazi invaders. <span>(Viacheslav Galievskyi/Wikimedia Commons)</span></span></p></div>
<p><span>In his 3,350-word <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843">speech</a>,
Putin laid out in full detail the reasons he decided to take military
action and what he hopes it will achieve. The speech is a devastating
critique of U.S. policy toward Russia over the past 30 years, which no
doubt will fall on deaf ears in Washington. </span></p>
<p><span>Western media is so far ignoring the speech or superficially
dismissing it. But it has to be carefully studied if anyone is
interested in understanding why Russia launched this military operation.
Just calling Putin “Hitler,” as Nancy Pelosi did Wednesday night, won’t
do. </span></p>
<p><span>Hitler in fact features in Putin’s address. For instance, addressing the Ukrainian military, Putin said:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not
fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to
allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of
allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s
adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian
people.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>He linked the Nazis’ invasion of Russia to NATO’s threat today, saying this time there would be no appeasement:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Of course, this situation begs a question: what next, what are
we to expect? If history is any guide, we know that in 1940 and early
1941 the Soviet Union went to great lengths to prevent war or at least
delay its outbreak. To this end, the USSR sought not to provoke the
potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the
most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself
from an imminent attack. When it finally acted, it was too late.</span></p>
<p><span>As a result, the country was not prepared to counter the
invasion by Nazi Germany, which attacked our Motherland on June 22,
1941, without declaring war. The country stopped the enemy and went on
to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost. The attempt to appease
the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake
which came at a high cost for our people. In the first months after the
hostilities broke out, we lost vast territories of strategic importance,
as well as millions of lives. We will not make this mistake the second
time. We have no right to do so.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Putin said the existential threat from NATO’s expansion was the main reason for military action: </span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Our biggest concerns and worries, [are] the fundamental
threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia
consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year. I am
referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its
military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.</span></p>
<p><span>It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently
trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries
regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe.
In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical
deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while
the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests
and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is
approaching our very border.</span></p>
<p><span>Why is this happening? Where did this insolent manner of
talking down from the height of their exceptionalism, infallibility and
all-permissiveness come from? What is the explanation for this
contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely
legitimate demands?”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span> </span><span>Putin called the Americans “con-artists” for lying about NATO expansion. He referred to:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span> “promises not to expand NATO eastwards even by an inch. To
reiterate: they have deceived us, or, to put it simply, they have played
us. Sure, one often hears that politics is a dirty business. It could
be, but it shouldn’t be as dirty as it is now, not to such an extent.
This type of con-artist behaviour is contrary not only to the principles
of international relations but also and above all to the generally
accepted norms of morality and ethics.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Putin said Russia had long wanted to cooperate with the West.
“Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as
their enemy. They did so with impunity. Make no mistake, they had no
reason to act this way,” he said. </span></p>
<p><strong><span>Cold War Triumphalism & Its Consequences</span></strong></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_75613" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Iraq-US-invasion.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-75613" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Iraq-US-invasion.jpg" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="260"></a></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-75613" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>U.S. soldier conducts search of family’s home in Iraq, 2006. <span>(Navy Journalist 1st Class Jeremy L. Wood)</span></span></p></div>
<p><span>Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union had led to a
redivision of the world and a change to international law and norms.
New rules were needed but instead of achieving this “professionally,
smoothly, patiently, and with due regard and respect for the interests
of all states … we saw a state of euphoria created by the feeling of
absolute superiority, a kind of modern absolutism coupled with the low
cultural standards and arrogance of those who formulated and pushed
through decisions that suited only themselves.”</span></p>
<p><span>Putin then said this “absolutism,” with the Soviet Union no
longer as a barrier, led to unchecked U.S. aggression, starting with
NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and U.S.
involvement in Syria. Russia has been taking note of the destruction
Washington has wrought, even as it seems whitewashed from American
minds.</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“First a bloody military operation was waged against Belgrade,
without the UN Security Council’s sanction but with combat aircraft and
missiles used in the heart of Europe. The bombing of peaceful cities and
vital infrastructure went on for several weeks. I have to recall these
facts, because some Western colleagues prefer to forget them, and when
we mentioned the event, they prefer to avoid speaking about
international law. </span></p>
<p><span>Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya and Syria. The illegal use of
military power against Libya and the distortion of all the UN Security
Council decisions on Libya ruined the state, created a huge seat of
international terrorism, and pushed the country towards a humanitarian
catastrophe, into the vortex of a civil war, which has continued there
for years. The tragedy, which was created for hundreds of thousands and
even millions of people not only in Libya but in the whole region, has
led to a large-scale exodus from the Middle East and North Africa to
Europe.</span></p>
<p><span>A similar fate was also prepared for Syria. The combat
operations conducted by the Western coalition in that country without
the Syrian government’s approval or UN Security Council’s sanction can
only be defined as aggression and intervention.</span></p>
<p><span>But the example that stands apart from the above events is,
of course, the invasion of Iraq without any legal grounds. They used
the pretext of allegedly reliable information available in the United
States about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
To prove that allegation, the US Secretary of State held up a vial with
white power, publicly, for the whole world to see, assuring
the international community that it was a chemical warfare agent created
in Iraq. </span></p>
<p><span>It later turned out that all of that was a fake and a sham, and
that Iraq did not have any chemical weapons. Incredible and shocking
but true. We witnessed lies made at the highest state level and voiced
from the high UN rostrum. As a result we see a tremendous loss in human
life, damage, destruction, and a colossal upsurge of terrorism. </span></p>
<p><span>Overall, it appears that nearly everywhere, in many regions of
the world where the United States brought its law and order, this
created bloody, non-healing wounds and the curse of international
terrorism and extremism.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Putin said over the past days “NATO leadership has been blunt
in its statements that they need to accelerate and step up efforts to
bring the alliance’s infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders. In other
words, they have been toughening their position. We cannot stay idle
and passively observe these developments. This would be an absolutely
irresponsible thing to do for us.”</span></p>
<p><span>Ukraine, he said, had essentially become a de-facto NATO member posing the greatest threat to Russia. </span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s
infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the
Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is
not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy.
The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which I have to
note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape.
Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract
NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong><span>A Parting Shot at European Vassals </span></strong></p>
<p><span>Putin also blasted America’s European allies for not having the
strength of principle or the moral fiber to stand up to Washington. He
said: </span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“The United States is still a great country and a
system-forming power. All its satellites not only humbly and obediently
say yes to and parrot it at the slightest pretext but also imitate its
behaviour and enthusiastically accept the rules it is offering them.
Therefore, one can say with good reason and confidence that the whole
so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and
likeness is, in its entirety, the very same ’empire of lies.’”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>[Read the full text of the <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843">speech.</a>]</span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span><b>Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of </b></span></span><em><span><span><b>Consortium News</b></span></span></em><span><span><b> and a former U.N. correspondent for </b></span></span><em><span><span><b>T</b></span></span></em><span><span><i><b>he Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe</b></i></span></span><span><span><b>, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the </b></span></span><span><span><i><b>Sunday Times </b></i></span></span><span><span><b>of London and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for </b></span></span><em><span><span><b>The New York Times. </b></span></span></em><span><span><b>He can be reached at <a href="mailto:joelauria@consortiumnews.com">joelauria@consortiumnews.com</a> and followed on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/unjoe">@unjoe</a> </b></span></span></span></span></p>
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