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What’s the Real Background Story Behind Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine?

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85 comments on What’s the Real Background Story Behind Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine?

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Russia Invades Ukraine

“Missiles and airstrikes hit Kyiv and more than a dozen other cities across Ukraine, minutes after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation. President Biden called the move unprovoked and unjustified, pledging further action against Russia.”

Live Link

The above snip is courtesy of the Wall Street Journal. 

That is an unprotected link courtesy of the Journal.

From a Source I Trust

“(Wednesday, 11:50pm U.S. Eastern Time.) Latest news is that Russian marines and helicopter-borne infantry have landed (seemingly unopposed) in Odessa, a large, very Russian-oriented coastal city in western Ukraine. Airborne forces have also reportedly landed in Dnepropetrovsk, over 60 kilometers behind Ukrainian front lines in the Donbass. Logistical and air defense facilities are being bombed throughout the country.”

  WSJ Report 

Be Careful of Videos

Entire Division Heading Into Crimea

Believable Separatist Claim 

Turning Point in Germany?

Ron Paul Institute Gives Thanks to End of US Military Empire

“Thankfully for we pro-Americans, tonight is the end of the US military empire. The far-flung unimportant satrapies finally realize that Washington’s words are just dust. There is no cavalry coming. Washington cannot rule the world. Thank God. Now let’s focus on our own problems.”

A Word About Borders 

Deeply Saddened

I am deeply saddened by this turn of events.

At the same time, I point out the US has made a mess of things every step of the way starting with the overthrowing a democratically elected leader in Iran and replacing that person with a US puppet.

We had a war with Vietnam based on lies, then another in Iraq based on lies.

We support Saudi Arabia and send it weapons in which to attack Yemen.

We side with Sunnis over Shiites when none of it is our business.

We punish Iranian, Venezuelan, and Cuban citizens because they have leaders we don’t like.

Yet, we make friends with some of the most brutal regimes on the theory “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

The Roots of This Crisis

The roots of this crisis dates to 2014 when the US got involved in a coup dubbed “Maidan” to overthrow the Ukrainian president.

The Cato Institute explains America’s Ukraine Hypocrisy

Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was not an admirable character. After his election in 2010, he used patronage and other instruments of state power in a flagrant fashion to the advantage of his political party. 

Despite his leadership defects and character flaws, Yanukovych had been duly elected in balloting that international observers considered reasonably free and fair—about the best standard one can hope for outside the mature Western democracies.

Instead, Western leaders made it clear that they supported the efforts of demonstrators to force Yanukovych to reverse course and approve the EU agreement or, if he would not do so, to remove the president before his term expired. Sen. John McCain (R‑AZ), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, went to Kiev to show solidarity with the Euromaidan activists. McCain dined with opposition leaders, including members of the ultra right‐​wing Svoboda Party, and later appeared on stage in Maidan Square during a mass rally. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Svoboda leader Oleg Tyagnibok.

But McCain’s actions were a model of diplomatic restraint compared to the conduct of Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs. 

The extent of the Obama administration’s meddling in Ukraine’s politics was breathtaking. Russian intelligence intercepted and leaked to the international media a Nuland telephone call in which she and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffey Pyatt discussed in detail their preferences for specific personnel in a post‐​Yanukovych government. The U.S‑favored candidates included Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the man who became prime minister once Yanukovych was ousted from power. During the telephone call, Nuland stated enthusiastically that “Yats is the guy” who would do the best job.

A February 24, 2014, Washington Post editorial celebrated the Maidan demonstrators and their successful campaign to overthrow Yanukovych. The “moves were democratic,” the Washington Post concluded, and “Kiev is now controlled by pro‐​Western parties.”

What Happened in Ukraine?

The mess today in Ukraine has its roots in the 2014 when democratically elected Ukrainian President Yanukovych was toppled in a US-backed coup. 

Q: Why did the US want to get rid of Yanukovych? 

A: Because he was against Ukraine joining NATO.

The current comedian president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, repeated two days ago his desire to join NATO.

I use the term comedian because he literally is a comedian who ran for office and won.

McCain dined with Svoboda Party leader Oleg Tyagnibok. The Svoboda Party is a group of neo-Nazis. 

The citizens of Ukraine were used as pawns in yet another US mission that backfired. 

Well who cares about Neo-Nazis as long as they want Ukraine in NATO.

And that’s the rest of the story US media will not discuss. 

This no way absolves Putin, but US meddling backfires again, and again, and again.

This post originated on MishTalk.Com.

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Mike Shedlock

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Kick'n
Kick’n
2 years ago
There’s one thing you haven’t mentioned Mish. The Putin Doctrine. Putin has openly expressed a return to the old Soviet expanse. Russia retaking all the Stans, China taking Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South China Sea, delving into Africa. Where do they stop? You know in order to continue economic prosperity you need access to resources right? And people with little means have a way of sacrificing freedom for prosperity. When you let one government agency take care of all your needs, accountable to no one, as autocracies tend to do, bad things can happen; very bad things indeed. Think Chernobyl, Coronavirus, Cyberwar… Spacewar? China is a police state. Russia is pretty much there. How many police states are you ok with in the world? China’s miscalculation on Covid cost millions of lives and would have cost many more had it not been for one brave doctor who broadcast the genetic code “against orders”. He ended up being disciplined and losing his life to the virus for his troubles. Still, no one knows where the virus came from. An even worse virus has a high probability. Would be nice to know when that happens in a timely manner.
US foreign policy has f’d up royally over the decades. And perhaps that hasn’t helped dealing with these autocracies or keeping countries from seeking out autocracies over democracies. But ask Taiwan about their “big brother”. They shutdown their borders long before China admitted anything about Covid. They knew China was up to no good. They just didn’t know what it was and neither did anyone else. Maybe we need to engage the world differently but engage we must. And if we don’t hold autocracies accountable, who will? And if we’re not capable of backing it up, how will we actually hold them accountable? Isolationism and laissez faire didn’t work in the 20’s and 30’s. But luckily militaries were low-tech compared to today’s standards. But by the end of the war though Germany had jets and rockets. Imagine if they had figured out the A-bomb? We wouldn’t be talking about the sovereignty of Ukraine or any other country in Europe. No one wants to go to war, or at least few do. But there are always bastards who do. And some of them have real power, singular power. Best not to let them get too far ahead of us. Better, let the people who have a stake in the dying have their say, like in democracies where the freedom of speech affords them this.
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Portlander2
Portlander2
2 years ago
So true, Mish! Hypocrisy is a trait we must have inherited from the Brits, who weaponized hypocrisy during the colonial period. It’s a perk of a superpower, until it’s no longer a superpower. Thanks for reminding us elsewhere of our hypocrisy over Taiwan. We recognize China’s sovereignty over Taiwan (the “two systems, one country” model). So how do we justify arms sales to Taiwan? Eventually, as Ron Paul points out, this craziness can’t continue for long. Too bad that much of the good that the U.S. does around the world may not last either.
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kiers
kiers
2 years ago
Reply to  Portlander2
….and the Brit Parliament is the MOST rabidly pro Ukraine intervention!  
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
2 years ago
great take mish.   agree with your thinking 100% on this subject.    the economist made a great point in past few weeks,   US has had monroe doctrine since 1823.    and truman doctrine anti commie containtment.    i believe the real story is the amerikan MIC pentagon banking ruling class really missed the cold war when gorby dismantled USSR peacefully.    we had to conjure up new enemies like Saddam etc…………..but now all those war mongers are happy they have convinced majority of amerikans to hate the russians and/or the chinese again.      btw,  i don’t let the voters off the hook.   our representatives deliver exactly what our people want.   constant warfare.   ancient wisdom teaches thinking men,  that democracy works.   first 2500 years.    peace loving people elect peaceful folks.   war loving people elect war mongers.    unfortunately majority of amearikans love war.    i also vote in EU with a very ancient and peaceful naiton,   which had the greatest empire europe ever knew.    italians vote peace for the most part past 75 years.    when berlusconi threatened to go to iraq with W the dumber,  the italians showed up in rome and torched government buildings.    berlussconi backed down.    too bad amerikans don’t have the brains or the spine.   maybe in another few centuries.    
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carmensandiegoalive
carmensandiegoalive
2 years ago
Very, very rarely do I agree 100% with the writings of another but this is one of those times.
The host of this site is 100% correct in tracing the origin of this new war to the gratuitous, foolish and maniacal internal manipulations within Ukraine by the United States, continuing its 70-year history of such madness.
Only a collection of fiendish lunatics (NATO) would have as a goal the movement of hostile nuclear-capable forces to the border of Russia, a nation fully able to destroy western civilization within a single hour, by working to admit Ukraine to membership.
Congratulations, Michael Shedlock, for having the courage and insight you have demonstrated by posting your piece and asserting the cruel unvarnished truth.
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Webej
Webej
2 years ago

Q: Why did the US want to get rid of Yanukovych? 
A: Because he was against Ukraine joining NATO.

There was a lot more to it. There are documents outlining NATO’s plans for Sebastopol, thinking they could snatch it from Russia by sleight of hand (speaking of ‘not being a threat’). Yanukovych had decided to sign a deal (energy/financing) with Russia, against the EU’s veto.  Although he settled on a compromise deal (leaving office, calling elections) brokered by the EU, the Nazi faction forced an illegal coup by shooting at the crowd (both demonstrators and police).
The first thing they did was to ban Russian. Then there were the assaults on Crimean Russians in busses, and the burning of Russophonic demonstrators in Odessa to the chants of “cockroaches” (no police intervention). And finally the anti-terror operation against the Russians in the Don basin, 8 years of death and destruction by random shelling & Nazi Azov batallion raids. Even this weak they refused to cease fire, and destroyed the water and gas infrastructure.
Finally we have a dolt like Olaf Scholz referring to the genocide of Russians as ‘ridiculous’. It is hard to describe the impact that this barb by a Nemets has on Russians. After 8 years of stalling on the Minsk agreements, a declaration of war in March 2020, non-stop propaganda antics by the West, 15 years of non-answers about security concerns, Russian patience has thinned and it will not listen to polite lies any longer. Putin is under significant internal popular pressure ‘to do’ something about Donetsk. Putin wants to clean up and announced war crime tribunals. Remember, Nuremberg was a Russian idea (Teheran 1943).
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dpy
dpy
2 years ago
Reply to  Webej
No menion of the post-coup reassignment of contracts for resource extraction to new players.  Those players included American politicians or their family members.  Pretty smelly plot.
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LawrenceBird
LawrenceBird
2 years ago
It was not a coup Mish, that would be a complete rewriting of the history of the Maidan protests (which numbered in the hundreds of thousands).  Fine to suggest we gave political comfort to the opposition but a coup it was not.  Yanukovych ran away after the parliament threatend impeachment and granted amnesty to the protesters.
And if US officials did not discuss who they felt would be good or bad for Ukraine and US/western interests that would be a dereliction of their responsibilities too.   

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Webej
Webej
2 years ago
Reply to  LawrenceBird
It was an unconstitutional and undemocratic transfer of government power, one that many in Ukraine did not condone, some stridently so.
The violence was orchestrated (the details have still to emerge), and the demonstrations were also orchestrated by billions in funding by NGOs who specialize in channeling discontent. Remember Syria in 2011, and the demonstrations in Dar’a (to ban same sex classrooms, and to allow the veil in classrooms), advertised as democracy agitation, and right away, casualties among soldiers!
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Cansip
Cansip
2 years ago
Reply to  LawrenceBird
No, you are wrong, It was a Coup. In 2014, we were working for a General Contractor in VA , had a meeting with their superintendent, he suddenly started to chat with everybody in the room after the meeting and he said my son is in US special forces, he is Ukraine now on secret mission, I don’t know what he is doing there, he does not tell me, then 1 week later the famous shooting of civilians occured in Maidan square , the rest is history, if you are thinking that we had nothing to do with this, you are mistaken.
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denker
denker
2 years ago
“the overthrowing a democratically elected leader in Iran”    A fallacious simplification of what happened to Mossadegh.  I suggest reading    Six Myths about the Coup against Iran’s Mossadegh  from the nationalinterest  org. 
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Mish
Mish
2 years ago
Reply to  denker
The US has admitted this is what happened. Now declassified!
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Agave
Agave
2 years ago
It’s two things, mainly, IMO.
One, is what Casual_Observer 2020 said below about Putin’s long simmering anger about the dissolution of the USSR and his desire to go down in history as the one who put it back together. He is just plain a narcissistic sociopath. Lost lives of others who get in his way do not matter to him. He will lie, kill, an do whatever it takes to get what he wants, as long as he sees the odds in his favor. He may have miscalculated this time though.
Two, as was recently quipped by a pundit, Russia is essentially a huge gas station with nukes. They do not have a large, inventive, and highly entreprenuerial economy. They have talented programmers, but those seem focused on disrupting other governments more than creating something useful for all. They rely heavily on oil and gas exports. Look at their economy, smaller than some US states and some megacorps. A fair amount of this energy transport infrastructure goes through Ukraine, which extracts a price from Russia for the favor. Putin wants to fully control it, because a lot of Russia’s fortunes are based on energy exports.
I think Vlad may have miscalculated here. A short term win may turn into discord at home and a long term quagmire for him abroad. Time will tell.
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Webej
Webej
2 years ago
Reply to  Agave
In the West it has become normal to interpret geopolitics in terms of the petty preoccupations of the leaders.
Doing so is pure projection … our leadership cannot rise above petty personal ambitions and preoccupations themselves.
Denigrating Russia’s physical economy is a sign of being a twit … what is the American economy other than a bank to finance imports from abroad and a whole lot of advertising?
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Agave
Agave
2 years ago
Reply to  Webej
Ah, I see now. You’re a fanboy of brutal dictators, bloody autocrats, grifting plutocrats, and non-democratic authoritarians. I get it.
Putin is a selfish monster who kills and imprisons for years those that don’t agree with him. There is no freedom or democracy there. There was once a glimmer of hope for that. Putin swore he would only serve two terms. How did that work out? F’n liar and dictator.
His “petty preoccupation” with rebuilding the soviet empire is well known, and one that he regularly admits to. Except this time around instead of a communist “worker’s paradise”, it’s a fascist plutocracy owned mostly by him and his favorite oligarchs.
I favor democracy, free and fair elections, and freedom of speech. Don’t you?
You sound like a trumpling. He idolizes that cold blooded killer too, and wants the same dictatorial powers, as he showed in his failed coup.
Did the US try to influence the Ukraine towards freedom and democracy against Vlad’s wishes? Perhaps. What’s wrong with that? It’s a sovereign country that should make its own choices and has the right to listen to countries that encourage that. That frightens the Pute.
Russia and China are trying to sway the world away from democracy and towards iron fisted autocracy. Is that really what you want? It is in our interest to sway free, democratic sovereign nations like Ukraine towards what kind of country they choose to be and who they want to associate with. And to keep our democracy fair and vibrant too.
I have worked with Russian and Lithuanian immigrants. Extremely fine, smart, and talented people, outstanding in fact. They emigrated for a reason – better opportunity to shine here. Russia and Lithuanian would do well to keep people like that and make their countries the better for it. It’s the government of Russia that’s holding back the people while their leaders grift, torture, and violate human rights.
Lots of what I’m reading the past few days shows that Putin is losing it, and miscalculated on this one. My opinion is that both the Ukrainians and Russians will end up against him in a long, grinding failure for his attempted takeover. He may have Parkinson’s and a loss of mental clarity as well. I’m becoming more convinced that this will not end well for him.
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StukiMoi
StukiMoi
2 years ago
Reply to  Webej
In Children’s tales, it is always one simple Good Guy, who heroically fights against a designated, equally simplistic, Bad Guy.
Children are simple. Any more complexity than that blow past them.
Ensuring people remain de facto children, is a necessary condition for the survival of the sort of financialized idiotopias which The West has degenerated into. Even moderately intelligent grownups, simply don’t fall for nonsense to trivial as blind belief that printing dead guys’ faces on paper pieces create wealth. Hence, ensuring the captive drones remain well indoctrinated children, is what the indoctrination apparatus’ must necessarily revolve around.
So you have designated Mean Putin, whom “we the indoctrinated children” must cheer for designated Good Dear Leader (whether he’s currently orange or senile) to beat in some sort of childish televised football game.
What passes for entertainment, must be about idiotettes in rubber bikinis engaged in childbrain teengirl intrigues, while their “we the children” cheer for them, and fight mean creaetures.
And making a living, must be reduced to pretending rank middlebrows pontificating nonsense they will never understand on TeeVee,  are “smart.” Because lots of the paper pieces with dead guys’ faces on, were handed to them.
Etc., etc.
Communists, whether Soviet/Putinesque or Chinese, aren’t really all that, either. In fact, they are, by mere virtue of being dumb enough to believe i Communism, pretty darned clueless. Which is why, for the longest time, The West didn’t exactly have a hard time being a substantial improvement on those guys.
Thing is: Those guys have remained the same. The West has continued to degenerate. Pedal to the metal (or lack thereof) for going on 50 years now. Such that, by now, the Communist countries, are much better governed, and have much better leaders, both in private enterprise and in public office, than what we have. While hardly the good guys, the commies are now the better guys. Now, that’s pretty darned sad.
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Webej
Webej
2 years ago
Q: Why did the US want to get rid of Yanukovych? 
A: Because he was against Ukraine joining NATO.

There was more to it. There are documents outlining the big plans NATO had for Sebastopol, which they think they could wrest from Russia by sleight of hand. Yanukovych had decided to foster economic (energy/finances) ties with Russia over a veto by the EU.
What didn’t help was the shooting at the Maidan at police and demonstrators by the Nazi faction, even though Yanukovych had just promised he would lay down his office and call for new elections as an EU brokered compromise.
The first act upon ceasing power illegally was to ban Russian. Russians in busses from the Crimea were assaulted. In Odessa they burnt a bunch of Russian speaking Ukrainians while chanting “cockroach”. And then the 8 year anti-terrorist operation in the DonBas, with the use of the Nazi Azov batallion (and others), claiming Russian civilians every other day with artillery shelling, which they refused to stop (destroyed the gas and water supply just this week). The declaration of war in March 2020. Yanking the Russians’ chain with the Minsk protocol (never made an inch headway) and propaganda antics and lies about NATO.
And then the claim by Olaf Schulz that mention of genocide was ‘ridiculous’ … it is unimaginable what it means to Russians to have a Nemets telling them genocide of Russians is ridiculous. Putin is intent on cleaning up & holding war crimes tribunals for those responsible. Remember, the Nuremberg trials were a Russian idea (Teheran 1943).
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denker
denker
2 years ago
R. D. Stuart, Charles Lindbergh, Robert E. Wood, Potter Stewart, Sargent Shriver, George W. Norris, William Borah, Hiram Johnson ,Burton Wheeler, Gerald Nye, Robert LaFollette, Jr etc. in the 1930s.     Buchanan, Mish, Ron Paul etc. in 2022. What does history teach us about isolationists?
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Jmurr
Jmurr
2 years ago
Reply to  denker
They don’t want to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers in wars that are not in the defense of the US.   You left off Colonel Smedley Butler. “War is a racket!”
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
2 years ago
Reply to  Jmurr
great reply JMURR
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RonJ
RonJ
2 years ago
Reply to  denker
George Washington said to not get involved in foreign entanglements.
Just what is an isolationist? Does Mexico meddle in the affairs of other countries in Central and South America? Not that i am aware of. Does that make them an isolationist?
What in the Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution talks about the U.S. being an empire? There wasn’t even a standing army. Washington called up the militia to deal with the Whiskey Rebellion. I was watching Lincoln, on the History Channel. The U.S. Army at the start of the Civil War was 15,000. Pretty much an isolationist sized army.
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denker
denker
2 years ago
Reply to  RonJ
When the US withdraws around the world who will fill the vacuum? You know damn well who.  Back in GW’s day and Lincolns  Great Britain ruled the waves but tomorrow? Who is building up its navy (and other military forces) rapidly and expanding around the world its control of resources and infrastructure? 
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RonJ
RonJ
2 years ago
Reply to  denker
The Roman Empire is no more. Empires rise and fall. No exceptions. Europe had a number of wars after the Roman Empire fell.
China is of coarse, building up to be an empire. They will rise, then like Rome, they will fall at some point in the future. Every boom ends in a bust. Bread and circuses, you know.
Who will fill the vacuum when the U.S. withdraws? Maybe several players. Germany was destroyed in WW2, but is the big cheese at the moment. They are the center of the EU. There is talk of an EU army. Current events could propel that into existence.
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
2 years ago
Reply to  RonJ
monroe doctrine the most arrogant ever.   and still alive 199 years later.   pax amerika,   are arrogant and ignorant and violent empire of people.   
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  RonJ
Empires have always risen and fallen, and they will continue to do so, until, someday, perhaps, they don’t. When one empire controls the entire world, there will be nothing to counterbalance it, and it may be eternal from that point on.
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StukiMoi
StukiMoi
2 years ago
Reply to  denker
“When the US withdraws around the world who will fill the vacuum?”
Have you ever stepped outside? Aside from the very far North, and perhaps the highest mountains, does anywhere appear to be an empty vacuum which needs to be filled, to you?
One of the few industries where the US is still at least semi competitive, is small arms. Trade freely with all, and anyone pretending  masses of individual people are some sort of vacuum, will always end up doing so at their own peril.
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
2 years ago
Reply to  RonJ
monroe doctrine the most arrogant ever.   and still alive 199 years later.   pax dumbfuc*istan are arrogant and ignorant and violent empire of people.   
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Billy
Billy
2 years ago
Anyone want to take bets on which country will be forcibly taken next while the rest of the world debates how many genders humans have?
Georgia, Taiwan, Kazakhstan?
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StukiMoi
StukiMoi
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy
I’d be concerned if I was in Romania, and cared one way or the other. If Russia senses The West is even more of a paper tiger than they previously thought….. The Baltics look geographically vulnerable, but they are culturally more homogeneously Western. And scaring Finland and Sweden into NATO, is a risk I doubt the Russians want to take.
Perhaps Romania won’t be pressured quite as obviously forcibly as Ukraine, but I suspect the pressure will be on.
American warships parading around deep into the Northern Black Sea, would never sit easy with Russian military planners. If NATO/EU manages to prove too impotent (Biden babbling about “have no doubt about article 5 being there to protect all NATO terrain” despite it being a non-NATO country which is under threat, sure don’t sound like having a big enough stick to be comfortable talking softly…), Romania may be the weakest link in the NATO chain.
Romania has become mostly a semi functional Eurodumpster where people are treated as livestock by the leeching euroclasses. While noone wants to have Russian rockets coming through their apartment walls, neither do many care enough about the current leechocrats to bother fighting all that hard to preserve them. Just like in much of Ukraine (at least per Russian calculation.)
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Casual_Observer2020
Casual_Observer2020
2 years ago
2014 ?  Nyet.
–

As far back as 2008, according to Russian and US media, Putin told his then US counterpart George W Bush that “Ukraine is not even a country”.

During his end-of-year news conference in December, Putin again raised eyebrows by saying Ukraine was “created” by Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union.

Months earlier, in a long article called “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, he said Kyiv’s decisions are driven by a Western “anti-Russia” plot.

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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Reply to  Casual_Observer2020
Putin’s address to the country two days ago is even worse:
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Casual_Observer2020
Casual_Observer2020
2 years ago
The mess today in Ukraine has its roots in the 2014…
—
Completely illogical. The roots were back in 1999 when Putin became President of Russia. This was going to happen irrespective of who the leaders of Ukraine were. Ukraine has always been thought of by Putin as the prize to secure his legacy in Russian history. 
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Webej
Webej
2 years ago
Reply to  Casual_Observer2020
Apparently you can articulate Putin’s mind better than he can himself!
Explaining geopolitical forces and dynamics in terms of petty psychologizing is trite sophomoric illiteracy.
So self-righteously convinced of it own point of view, the mind can only consider other points of views in terms of mental aberration.
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RonJ
RonJ
2 years ago
Reply to  Casual_Observer2020
Martin Armstrong: Putin lamented the Soviet Union’s collapse which I have stated before was a sore issue with Putin. He recognized the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic and made very clear that he views Ukraine historically as part of Russia. As I have stated before, the Russ capital was Kyiv.
The Mongols invaded in 1240AD and destroyed their capital leaving only the Golden Gate still standing. Kyiv was originally the first capital of Russia.
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AWC
AWC
2 years ago
“WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”    Smedley Butler
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nkirby
nkirby
2 years ago
Reply to  AWC
My vote is for prostitution as the oldest most profitable racket.
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
2 years ago
Reply to  nkirby
NO WAY.   read the book “DEBT,  5 thousand year history”.     most humans were indentured by their parents for thousands of years.    no need for prostitutes.   little boys and girls were delivered to pay off debts by their own parents for most of humanity.   
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StukiMoi
StukiMoi
2 years ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
And still are. Things are never diiiiferent nooooow!
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Rbm
Rbm
2 years ago
Humm guess biden was right.  It will be interesting.   No country is gonna send troops to Ukraine.  Arms yes.  Wonder if this will mire down to another Afghanistan or Vietnam.  
Funny trumps praising putin as a great strategist not realizing he was and continue to be his puppet.    
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RonJ
RonJ
2 years ago
Reply to  Rbm
Putin ensured Russia wouldn’t be a puppet, after Clinton meddled in Russia’s 1996 election.
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Christoball
Christoball
2 years ago
The Ukraine is being demilitarized. Military assets will be destroyed and Russia will go home.
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  Christoball
Umm, an unusual prediction. We’ll see.
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Eddie_T
Eddie_T
2 years ago
Reply to  Christoball
And monkeys will fly out of my @ss.
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indc
indc
2 years ago
Reply to  Eddie_T
please record and share such video
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dingus
dingus
2 years ago
The real reason? Use Russia as a scapegoat (as per usual). In this case it is using Russian sanctions as a cover-up for for the tidal wave of inflation created from excess fiat printing. How is this not obvious with the latest from the Biden administration?
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TheWindowCleaner
TheWindowCleaner
2 years ago
The sins are many on all sides. Come on Mish, think a little more deeply. The problem is, and has always been since the beginning of human civilization, THE MONOPOLISTIC MONETARY PARADIGM OF DEBT ONLY AS THE SOLE FORM AND VEHICLE FOR THE CREATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MONEY. Use Monetary Gifting for the benefit of all economic agents individual and commercial instead of only to maintain empires and war machnines…and maybe we can evolve past all of the rhetoric and chaos.
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Robbyrob
Robbyrob
2 years ago
The Ukraine invasion is good news for Wall Street  link to spectator.co.uk
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Michael Droy
Michael Droy
2 years ago
Excellent.
You have missed out the continued shelling of civilians by Azov/nazis over 8 years across the line of contact for Donbas.
But included the global context
Azov seems to be the target for Russia right now – at least according to the Russian press releases.  As you say, stories out of Ukraine are totally unreliable but Russian press releases have been accurate todate.
Still no evidence of Russian troops on the ground in Ukraine or even in Donbas – at least not yet.  Pity I have been waiting since 2014 for evidence of Russia troops in Ukraine, and no one has any at all (unless you take quotes for US generals as proof).  In Crimea i have still seen no photos of >10 little green men.
This is more evidence of the decline of US and its overreach in E Europe.  i suspect the citizens of Delesevu, Romania, will be protesting to their government that the missile site of US Nukes aimed at Russia is closed down at once.  Biden can present it as a peaceful gesture.
BUT the real analysis has to be in the light of the great China/US trade bifurcation.
This is not so much US retreating, as US recognising it needs a much tougher wall between Russia (which will go with China) and Europe which will try to maintain a neutral position to trade with both sides.  US needs Europe in its block or it is totally lost.  A split between Germany and Russia is exactly what US needs.
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MPO45
MPO45
2 years ago
And here it is…
stocks to the moon!
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Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
2 years ago
$US (dxy) at 52 week high … meanwhile, cryptos …
Just sayin’
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thimk
thimk
2 years ago
yes USA has its hands all over this. Just tipped  in on a USA expat living KYIV  (just bought property there ) for boots on the ground reporting and viewpoint.  streamed live 6 hours ago . looks like Russia bombed airport. 
 
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Dr_Novaxx
Dr_Novaxx
2 years ago
Reply to  thimk
Nice, thanks!
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Robbyrob
Robbyrob
2 years ago
Domino theory – Russia won’t stop with Ukraine (shades of Vietnam)
The Battle of Paris was fought on March 30–31, 1814  After a day of fighting in the suburbs of Paris, the French surrendered on March 31 to the Russians
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RonJ
RonJ
2 years ago
Reply to  Robbyrob
In 1914, France and Russia were fighting Germany. The U.S. and Germany fought each other in WW1 and WW2. They are now allies. We are also allies with the country that bombed Pearl Harbor.
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Christoball
Christoball
2 years ago
I don’t think this is the Black Swan event. The financial fundamentals will be more strident.
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Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
2 years ago
Reply to  Christoball
It isn’t.
We’re in early stages of financial upheaval which will take a year or two to play out as Everything Bubble Bursts.  Not to be harsh, but I think “Ukraine” will be soon forgotten (by financial markets) as other issues arise.  China and Taiwan would be much more problematic.
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TexasTim65
TexasTim65
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Bennett
Correct. We and Europe get next to nothing from the Ukraine so it’s a big nothing burger.
Taiwan on the other hand supplies a lot of much needed microchips and other goodies so it’s a much bigger deal. Also, if we are going to war, it’s far better to go to war with China than Russia.
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Dr_Novaxx
Dr_Novaxx
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Bennett
Tony, Baby!   How about a rousing rendition of “Ukraine, UUUUKraine!  If you can’t win here, you can’t win anywhere it’s up to U-Ukraine, Ukraine!”
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MPO45
MPO45
2 years ago
The biggest market losers are mostly Russian firms.
Another good trading day for me.  Same setup for when China invades Taiwan?  
Cha ching..
Better position your trades now boys.
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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago

It’s all
our fault. We should have kept those countries formerly under the Russian
occupation from joining the West so that when Russia got back on its feet it could
then occupy them again. If we had done that Russia would not have felt threatened.
Of course once they had 150 million East Europeans under their control again
then I suppose that they would feel threatened by the West still because we are
not under their control and would demand concessions and disarmament like they
did during the Cold War. Russia has a problem with its neighbors. For some
strange reason they don’t like Russia and at the first chance join a defensive
alliance.

When a KGB
officer took over from Yeltsin in 1999 the writing was on the wall. Russia
would not become a liberal democracy like Eastern Europe did.

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Dutoit
Dutoit
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
During an interview of Putin, a journalist asked him what he thinks about “wokenism”, destruction of statues, etc, in the western world, he said: “we will protect European culture”. Many Europeans think that the plague comes from the west.
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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Reply to  Dutoit

Wokism definitely
didn’t help. Strangely woke philosophy was born in France, crossed the Atlantic
and came back to haunt France.

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KidHorn
KidHorn
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
All we had to do was stop trying to force Ukraine into NATO. No one, outside of the US, wanted them to join NATO.
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RonJ
RonJ
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
“It’s all
our fault. We should have kept those countries formerly under the Russian
occupation from joining the West so that when Russia got back on its feet it could
then occupy them again.”
Why would it occupy them again? Because you imagine?
Did a KGB officer take over from Yeltsin because the U.S. meddled in Russia’s 1996 election? Election meddling does not make for liberal democracy. With election meddling from Google, Facebook and Twitter, we do not have liberal democracy in the U.S. either.
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Doug78
Doug78
2 years ago
Reply to  RonJ
“Why would it occupy them again? Because you imagine?” Isn’t that what Russia wants now? They want to control the countries next to them and the countries next to them do not want to be controled by Russia. In the EU all countries renouced territorial revendications and guaranteed all borders and there is peace because they did it. Russia is not into that kind of behavior and justifies invading others because the others “made them do it”. We have heard that before many years ago and we know what happens next. 
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RonJ
RonJ
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
We don’t know what happens next.
The U.S. has bases or outposts in something like 130 countries. Who is doing the controlling of other countries? How many governments has the U.S. government overthrown or attempted to? Obama even meddled in Brexit, which was none of our business. It was the business of the people of Great Britain. It was their choice, not ours.
U.S. troops are in Syria. Not invited in by Syria. U.S. justifies invading when it suits U.S. government interests. Does Yugoslavia exist any more, as it was under Tito? Czechoslovakia? It is two countries now. Britain left the EU. Borders can be changed when particular parties want to allow them to be changed. 
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Webej
Webej
2 years ago
Reply to  RonJ
Jerusalem. The West Bank. East Timor. Kosovo. Libya. Etcetera.
The self-righteous hypocrisy smells …
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StukiMoi
StukiMoi
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
“Russia has a problem with its neighbors. For some strange reason they don’t like Russia and at the first chance join a defensive alliance.”
Lots of Eastern Europeans don’t much mind Russia.
What happened post Soviet breakup, was that suddenly the main sources of funding and support available to those wanting to be rulers, came from The West. So the heads of the snakes ended up moving much further West than the body.
And, like in near all scams; the scammers will always be the ones most doggedly clinging to the trite “but he signed on the dotted line” excuse for maintaining any perks and privileges a temporary quirk of history may have temporarily awarded them, into perpetuity. It’s what the entirety of financialization scams are built on as well (“we” supposedly being “responsible” for “our” “national debt”, just because some privileged halfwit spent like a drunken sailor long before any actual “we” were even born…..).
In reality, by now, most people in much of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics, are at best agnostic wrt whether Russia or NATO gets to be the foreign clownshow installing weapons in their countryside. If The Kremlin ends up replacing the local leeches with more remote ones, the latter is likely to be easier to work around without being found out, than equally kleptocratic leeches closer by.
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Robbyrob
Robbyrob
2 years ago
Russia postpones Cuba debt payments amid warming relations Reuters “When do the missiles go in?”
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Dutoit
Dutoit
2 years ago
The best thing would have been the “finlandization” of Ukraine. But it seems that nobody wanted that.
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Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
2 years ago
Ukraine in NATO … almost like allowing Russia to put missiles in Cuba … how would US respond?
Oh, wait …
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Bennett
If the US had handled Cuba the same way as Russia has handled Ukraine, once Cuba became friendly with Russia, the US would have invaded and taken over, long, long before there was any missiles placed there.
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Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
2 years ago

“The mess today in Ukraine has its roots in the 2014 when democratically elected Ukrainian President Yanukovych was toppled in a US-backed coup. 

Q: Why did the US want to get rid of Yanukovych? 

A: Because he was against Ukraine joining NATO.”

…
This goes back to break up of USSR.  Though nothing formal put on paper, there were assurances from various officials from Bush Sr Administration and succeeding Administrations (and NATO countries) that Ukraine would not be in NATO.  Lies and half truths the order of the day out DC.  Can’t imagine.
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Bennett
First, those were not in any treaty. They were side comments by someone in the US, but given that administrations have changed many times since then, and that they situation has changed many times since then, that does not make them retroactively binding. Second, Ukraine has never been in NATO. Thus, even though they were non-binding, they still have been true for 30 years.
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Cocoa
Cocoa
2 years ago
You forgot that Bill Clinton went back on the Russian/US agreement when the the Wall fell. The US did a victory dance over the dead body of USSR, propped up a drunk like Yeltsin and led to Putin nationalism. Sort of how the UK and France punished Germany after WW1 and got Hitler for WW2. Best not be petty! US foreign policy blunders all around-with Joe Biden being the icing on the idiot cake
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wmjack50
wmjack50
2 years ago
DON”T BLAME ME —I was not washed in propaganda from the corp. Media —Ukraine is another disaster —The basic truth is Russia is run by a political GANG —WHY do they fear the WEST and Their border Countries—Because THE GANG fears Democracy and The GANG could be voted out===A mafia with an army is the political class in RUSSIA as in the China’s CCP—That is what our own DC elite work for eventually  in USA
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
It seems that US Intelligence was not in Alex Jones territory at all, and was dead on, when they said that Russia was preparing to invade.
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threeblindmice
threeblindmice
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
Yes they were.  Yet that does not support believing US intelligence claims without evidence.  Although some will conflate the two, conveniently forgetting the times when they were wrong and/or misled the public intentionally.
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KidHorn
KidHorn
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
I think the Alex Jones comment was directed at creating a false flag film. Not an invasion. And, as far as I know, there wasn’t a false flag film.
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Someone linked to a Tass press release that talked about offensive attacks by Ukraine that was justification of why they were going to to have to invade. I have no idea if there was never a film, or if the US comments about the film too the option of the film off the table. To me, the issue of whether there was film or not was unimportant. The real question was whether they were going to invade. Putin said no, and that they had withdrawn from the border. The US said they had not.
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Dean_70
Dean_70
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
US ‘intelligence’???  These 2 territories signed their declaration of independence, effective Feb 2022. This has been building for years. How much ‘intelligence’ does it take to foresee the result?
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Jojo
Jojo
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
Again, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
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KidHorn
KidHorn
2 years ago
I’m surprised things have gotten as far as they have. Hopefully things end quickly with few casualties.
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RunnerDan
RunnerDan
2 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Yes!  Hopefully few casualties with peace quickly ensuing and the US Admin left standing with bent wrist saying “That wasn’t very nice!” in a lilting gay adolescent voice. 
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TexasTim65
TexasTim65
2 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Ukraine will surrender in another day or so. Their airports are wrecked and without any air support their ground forces will be dead meat. So there will be few casualties but lots of political blustering – LOL.
What Russia has done here is borrow exactly the playbook that the US used in the 1st gulf war against Saddam in terms of a huge build up, take control of the air space and then move in virtually unopposed.
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