by Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts:
The world is facing catastrophe, and there is no awareness. For years I and Stephen Cohen, while he was still alive, advised that Washington’s provocations of Russia, including those of its NATO puppet states, were misguided and counter-productive. Even prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev was open for the Soviet Union to become a cooperating member of the West. The Russian population had a favorable attitude toward the West and looked forward to Russia’s incorporation into the Western world.
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The Reagan administration and Reagan’s successor, the George H. W. Bush administration were open to this idea. President Bush’s Secretary of State Jim Baker affirmed that he promised there would be no movement of NATO east to Soviet borders if Gorbachev permitted the reunification of Germany, which set the stage for the freedom of the Soviet Union’s Eastern European empire.
The Clinton regime, under the influence of Neoconservatives, violated America’s word on the grounds that it was verbal and not in writing and therefore did not count. The Clinton regime not only overthrew Yugoslavia and broke it into pieces while turning a historic part of Serbia over to Muslims, but also moved NATO to Russia’s border. At the time with the Soviet collapse in 1991 Russia was too weak to do anything about it as the Yeltsin government was Washington’s puppet.
At the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Putin, Yeltsin’s successor, declared that Russia did not accept Washington’s unipolar world in which Washington ruled, and that Russia would follow its, not Washington’s interest. Putin’s declaration of independence was more or less ignored at the time, because Washington was involved in its wars in the Middle East for Israel’s benefit.
But as time passed Washington realized that Russia was off the reservation, and that something had to be done about it.
The Sochi Olympics provided an opportunity. The Kremlin thought that a successful Olympics held by Russia would boost Russia’s standing with the West. Instead, US, UK, and German officials boycotted the Sochi Olympics, during the proceedings of which while Putin was inattentive the US overthrew the Russian-friendly government of Ukraine, formerly a part of Russia for centuries.
The Nazi, anti-Russian government that Washington installed in Ukraine began physically abusing the Russian population of former Russian provinces that Soviet rulers had incorporated into the Soviet Ukrainian province. Crimea, a part of Russia since the 1700s, was attached to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956, and the Donbass was attached to Ukraine by earlier Soviet rulers. At the time Ukraine and Russia were part of the same country, the Soviet Union.
Ukraine’s independence was secured by Washington after the Soviet collapse in 1991 when President Gorbachev was arrested by hardline communist party members who thought, correctly in retrospect, that he was liberalizing too much too quickly and giving too much away to Washington without enforceable guarantees.
Crimea is the location of the Russian Black Sea Naval base under long-term Russian lease from Ukraine since Ukraine’s independence. Putin was sufficiently alert to comprehend that the new American puppet government in Ukraine would cancel the lease, thus depriving Russia access to the Black Sea and through the sea to the Mediterranean.
The population of Crimea voted by 97% to be reunited with Russia, and so did the Russians who populate the Donbass. Putin accepted Crimea’s request, but refused Donbass’ request.
What was the reason for this decision by Putin, a decision that has led to the ever-widening war in Ukraine eight years later?
The best explanation is that Putin let Western propaganda make his decision. If Putin took back Donbass in addition to Crimea, which he had to take or lose Russia’s warm water naval base, it would confirm Western propaganda’s claim that Putin intended to restore the Soviet Empire. Why Putin thought Western propaganda should limit Russia’s behavior in its own interest, instead of the West’s interests, suggests a Putin who has one foot in the West and one foot in Russian nationalism.
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