At the end of December 2022, I noted in the Russo-Ukrainian War II that:1
During this week, I received several contacts displaying information “hidden” in the reports of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) special mission in Ukraine. The data points to the conclusion that the conflict may not have been initiated by Russia on 24 February, 2022, but by Ukraine about a week before.
I have to admit that this information was perplexing, as, if accurate, it would throw the whole Western narrative on the motives of the war upside down.
I went through the OSCE reports, and they do confirm a sudden and lasting spike in explosions within the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (see, e.g., this and this) starting on 17 February. They also confirm projectiles “assessed as rockets” and reports on damage to civilian infrastructure and a factory in a non-government-controlled Mykolaivka near Luhansk. They also confirm fresh craters in government-controlled areas. What the reports do not clearly state, however, is who did most of the shelling or who commenced it.
An article by Reuters, citing sources from both the Kremlin and Washington, states quite clearly that Donbas was under heavy shelling, at least, on 17-18 February. Here’s another one per Reuters. This is one French site, citing the report of the OSCE, that clearly lays the blame for escalation on the Ukrainian side.
If my memory does not deceit me, I contacted the OSCE in December 2022 and inquired about which side enacted the shelling on 17 February, 2022. I received no reply. However, we can assume that if the shelling had been started by Russia, 17 February 2022 would have been the start date of the war, instead of the 24th.
Now, former Bundeskanzler Angela Merkel has thrown her two cents into the ring by noting that Poland and the Baltic states are to blame for the war in Ukraine. She notes that:
That’s why I wanted a new format where we could speak directly with Putin as the European Union.
Some people didn’t support this. These were primarily the Baltic states, but Poland was also against it.
Mrs. Merkel essentially states that she would have been building a direct line of discussion between President Putin and the EU, but (especially) Poland and the Baltic states would have objected to this. Moreover, on 17 December 2021, President Putin put forth a list of demands that NATO should meet to “lower tensions in Europe. These included no deployment of NATO troops and military equipment to Ukraine or to any non-NATO country in Eastern Europe and halting NATO enlargement. Many European security analysts consider the document to be a last effort of President Putin to prevent the war in Ukraine, and there have been several such efforts.
In the NATO vs. Russia I noted that:2
Dr. Mearsheimer reports that Alexander Grushko, Russia’s former deputy foreign minister, had stated in 2008 that “Georgia’s and Ukraine’s membership in the alliance is a huge strategic mistake that would have the most serious consequences for pan-European security. One Russian newspaper reported that, when Presidents Putin and Bush met, Putin would have stated that “if Ukraine was accepted into NATO, it would cease to exist.”
Why were all these drastic warnings ignored for so many years? Stupidity and ignorance, you may say, but I don’t think that holds water. Geopolitics is first and foremost a war of words and theatrical actions (“escalations”), but every warning from Russia was disregarded for years. It’s just too deliberate. To add, the Director of National Security, Tulsi Gabbard, has recently hinted that there actually were U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine before the war. She has, of course, received a great deal of criticism for her statement, but should we really disregard the statement of DNS, who, at least in theory, should have access to all intelligence provided by the U.S. and her allies? I would not.
There are also some other issues with the conflict, which defy logic. There’s a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that former British PM Boris Johnson and the U.S. interfered to stop the peace process in April 2022 (see, e.g., this, this, and this), despite a massive “disinformation” campaign to debunk this. When the war started, Russia did very little to stop the flow of weapons from NATO countries into Ukraine. Just this weekend, Russia struck Lviv, which is a transportation hub between Europe and Ukraine. It makes very little sense why Russia has not struck the transportation infrastructure of Ukraine previously (the bridges over Dnepr, anybody?). Moreover, President Trump appears very reluctant to resolve the conflict, which would essentially require removing President Zelenskyy from power and appointing his former top advisor, Oleksii Arestovych, as an interim president. I am, of course, no regime-change expert, but know that the CIA is probably very educated and possibly the most efficient operator in such operations alongside Mossad and MI6 (with the FSB coming as a distant fourth, imho). Consider also how the war began with such perfect timing, occurring just after the declaration that Covid was over and right before politicians were to be indicted for actions undermining our constitutions.
What could be behind all this? A conspiracy with deeply sinister aims, in which the war in Ukraine is just one piece. Perhaps each major player in this conflict is merely a pawn. Maybe the timing of the conflict was set, and maybe it is set to continue until another front can be opened. Speculative, I know, but in whose version of the “truth” can we truly trust nowadays?
Tuomas
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The quote includes some grammatical corrections.
The quote includes some grammatical corrections.