Kim Madsen

Vladimir Putin did not wake up on 24 February 2022 and decide, “I think I’ll invade eastern Ukraine today,” nor was the US campaign to expand NATO into Ukraine a last-minute maneuver. (US State Department documents show Ukraine’s future membership was discussed as early as 1994.) 9 Feb 1990: In a deal approved by Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, as a quid pro quo for accepting German reunification within NATO, Secretary of State James Baker pledged that NATO would not expand “one inch to the east.” US, European and German leaders made explicit assurances to Gorbachev against any future eastward NATO expansion. Gorbachev understood the assurances as a “binding agreement.” Subsequently, Soviet leaders made decisions on that basis and acted on them - withdrawing the Red Army from Germany and dissolving the Warsaw Pact. 12 March 1999: Clinton is president. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland became members of NATO. A weakened post-Soviet Russia, led by Boris Yeltsin, controlled by a cabal of Oligarchs, could do nothing to prevent it. Powerless, Yeltsin was said to be “infuriated with his friend Bill Clinton...” 29 March 2004: George W. Bush is president. Seven more Eastern European countries join NATO: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia - largest wave of NATO enlargement ever. April 2008: At the Bucharest NATO summit, George W. Bush announced that Ukraine and Georgia are on an “immediate path to NATO.” Bill Burns, ambassador to Russia, sent a memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “Across the board,” he wrote, the Russian political class told him, “Ukraine is the reddest of red lines” – “Nyet means nyet.” 22 Feb 2014: Kiev erupted in violence. State Department official Virginia Nuland boasted that since the 2004-2005 “Orange Revolution,” the US had spent $5 billion on regime change in Ukraine. NATO rooftop snipers killed both protestors and police, forcing Ukraine’s democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country. 2 May 2014: Bussed to Odessa from Kiev, Right Sector thugs carrying baseball bats confront ethnic Russians protesting the coup. When protestors fled into the city's Trade Unions House, the building was set on fire. Forty-eight people were burned or bludgeoned to death – the Donbass civil war point of no return. 11 Feb 2015: Putin and Ukrainian President Poroshenko meet with French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Belarus to negotiate the Minsk ceasefire accords. The leaders agreed to a deal that would have ended the fighting – granting autonomy to the Russian-speaking Donbass, but successive Ukrainian governments refused to implement the accord. German Chancellor Merkel later admitted that Minsk was a stall tactic to allow the West to build Ukraine’s army up to NATO standards. 17 Dec 2021: Team Biden rejects Putin’s proposed mutual security accords that would have left a “neutral” #Ukraine intact. For years, Russia had tried to convince US administrations that Ukraine was off-limits to NATO membership, but Russian concerns were brushed aside. December 2021, Team Biden insisted, “Russia doesn’t say who can join NATO.” 18 Feb 2022: The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) documented that Ukraine had ramped up artillery attacks along the Line of Contact. Since the 2014 coup, NATO-armed #Ukraine and neo-Nazi Banderites had killed thousands of ethnic Russians in the Donbass. 19 Feb 2022: Invited to speak at the Munich Security Conference, Ukrainian President Zelensky questioned whether Ukraine was obligated to retain its non-nuclear status, arguing that the "non-nuclear deal" and Ukraine’s non-nuclear status were “in doubt.” 20 Feb 2022: Sunday night on CBS 60 Minutes, Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said, “Ukraine will never honor the Minsk cease fire.” 21 Feb 2022: Russia captured a Ukrainian soldier, killed five others as they crossed over the border into Rostov. Russia learned the invasion of Donetsk city was imminent and recognized the breakaway Donbass and Luhansk oblasts as independent republics. 24 Feb 2022: With about 100,000 troops, #Russia launched its “Special Military Operation” - not a "full scale invasion." Citing the UN principle, “Responsibility to Protect,” Russia intervened in the eight-year Donbass civil war after all prospects for diplomacy had failed. If the US, UK and EU continue rejecting Russian proposals for a long term, European wide peace accord – as Putin proposed in December 2021 – the Russian army will continue advancing toward Kharkiv in the north and Odessa on the Black Sea. As Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized: There will be no Minsk III.