Who started the Ukraine war?: Russian revanchism analysts
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The soldiers wore no insignia
They moved through Simferopol in unmarked vehicles, surrounded the Crimean parliament, and raised the Russian flag on February 27, 2014. Putin denied they were Russian. Then he admitted it on camera, with a smirk.
We have watched this play execute across four countries. Georgia 2008. Moldova since 1992. Crimea 2014. Donbas 2014-2022. Then the full invasion. The NATO expansion critics want to start the clock at Bucharest because that is where their argument works. Start earlier and the pattern is visible before NATO made a single promise to Kyiv.
Grozny. Start there. In 1999, Russia leveled its own city — Russian citizens — killing tens of thousands of Chechen civilians to consolidate Putin’s domestic power. Litvinenko poisoned with polonium in London. Politkovskaya shot on Putin’s birthday. MH17 shot down by a Russian Buk launcher that crossed the border and returned the same night. NATO expansion did not cause this pattern. This pattern is why every country that could join NATO sprinted toward it.
Putin told the world who he was. The 2005 speech calling the Soviet collapse the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. The 2021 essay arguing Ukrainians and Russians are one people. These are not reactions to Western policy. They are declarations of a leader who views the post-Soviet space as property.
The structural inevitability camp offers an elegant dodge. Systems made it happen. Structures collided. Systems do not forge passports for soldiers entering the Donbas. Individuals made choices.
The Ukrainian agency camp strengthens our case. Ukrainians chose. Russia’s response to that choice tells you everything about the nature of the regime.
Where we concede ground: The Bucharest declaration was the worst of both worlds — provocation without deterrent.
What would change our mind: Declassified records showing NATO rejected a workable Russian proposal respecting Ukrainian sovereignty.
Read the full synthesis: Who started the Ukraine war?