While President Putin’s speech of Wednesday was horrifying, there are key facts to remember that led up to this mess. We didn’t get to where we are at with Russia overnight. Ray McGovern, writing in Consortium News and Antiwar.com, discusses some of these facts:
–In 2008, US Ambassador to Russia William Burns was warned by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Russia might have to intervene in Ukraine if it was made a member of NATO. This warning was delivered on February 1st, 2008. Despite this, a NATO summit, held after this warning was delivered, stated on April 3rd, 2008: “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”
–In 2014, the US orchestrated a coup in Kiev in which a government friendly to the US and the West took power. People like US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, also one of the Neocons who called for perpetual warfare and preemptive US invasions, immediately called for Ukraine to join NATO.
—Missile defense systems deployed by the US in Romania and Poland can be easily converted to offensive systems. This would give the US the ability to strike Moscow within 7 to 10 minutes, according to Russia.
The US wanted this war just as much as President Putin did. Ukraine has some of the world’s biggest reserves of natural resources.
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