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As Putin learned in the streets of St. Petersburg, “If there’s going to be a fight, throw the first punch.” 24 Feb 2022, to protect ethnic Russians in the Donbass, Russia launched the SMO with 90,000 troops. It was not a "full scale invasion." Timeline of the War in Ukraine: NATO expansion: 22 March 1999 to 24 Feb 2022 1996-1999: Bill Clinton campaigned on expanding NATO east of united Germany (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland) – joined NATO in 1999 - violating Secretary of State James Baker’s pledge to Gorbachev not to expand NATO “one inch to the east.” November 2002: NATO invited seven more Eastern European countries to join: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. April 2008: NATO’s Bucharest summit. George W. Bush put Ukraine and Georgia on an “immediate path to NATO.” 2008: Bill Burns ambassador to Russia, sent a memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Nyet means nyet.” Across the board the Russian political class said Ukraine is the reddest of red lines. 22 Feb 2014: With Sochi Winter Olympics underway, Team Obama toppled the democratically elected government of Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych. NATO rooftop snipers killed both protestors & police, forcing elected president Yanukovych to flee. In response to Yanukovych’s downfall, Putin stepped up Russian support for Russian-speaking separatist rebels in the Donbass, while US accelerates its efforts to arm and train the Ukraine army. 2 May 2014: Thugs with baseball bats were bussed in from Kyiv and massacred Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Odessa. They set fire to the city’s Trade Unions House: 48 people were burned alive or bludgeoned to death. In the Donbass crisis, 2 May 2014 became the point of no return. 11 Feb 2015: Putin and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko meet with French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Minsk, Belarus. [Minsk accords] The leaders agreed to a deal that would have ended fighting in eastern Ukraine - granted autonomy to the Russian-speaking Donbass, but successive Ukrainian governments refused to implement the accord. German Chancellor Merkel admitted that Minsk was a stall tactic to allow the buildup of Ukraine’s army to NATO standards. 14 Jan 2016: Under pressure from the Pentagon, Congress removed a ban on funding Neo-Nazis [in Ukraine] from its year-end spending bill. 31 December 2016, New Year’s Eve, 20 days before the incoming Trump admin, Lindsey Graham with a bi-partisan group of US Senators visited #Ukrainian troops on the civil war LOC, encouraging them to take the war to Russia: "We have your back…" 17 Dec 2021: Team Biden rejects Putin’s proposed mutual security accords that would have left “neutral” Ukraine intact. 18 Feb 2022: During Winter Olympics in China, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) documented that Ukraine ramped up cease fire violations along the civil war LOC - from Luhansk to Right-Sector controlled Mariupol. 19 Feb 2022: At the Munich Security Conference, Zelensky said Ukraine will get and deploy nuclear missiles. 20 Feb 2022: On 60 Minutes, on the final day of the Olympics in China, 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. Russia recognizes the breakaway Donbass and Luhansk Republics. 24 Feb 2022: Russia launches SMO with 90,000 troops – not a "full scale invasion." Russia intervened to protect the ethnic Russians living in the civil-war-torn Donbass.

As Putin learned in the streets of St. Petersburg, “If there’s going to be a fight, throw the first punch.” 24 Feb 2022, to protect ethnic Russians in the Donbass, Russia launched the SMO with 90,000 troops. It was not a "full scale invasion." Timeline of the War in Ukraine: NATO expansion: 22 March 1999 to 24 Feb 2022 1996-1999: Bill Clinton campaigned on expanding NATO east of united Germany (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland) – joined NATO in 1999 - violating Secretary of State James Baker’s pledge to Gorbachev not to expand NATO “one inch to the east.” November 2002: NATO invited seven more Eastern European countries to join: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. April 2008: NATO’s Bucharest summit. George W. Bush put Ukraine and Georgia on an “immediate path to NATO.” 2008: Bill Burns ambassador to Russia, sent a memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Nyet means nyet.” Across the board the Russian political class said Ukraine is the reddest of red lines. 22 Feb 2014: With Sochi Winter Olympics underway, Team Obama toppled the democratically elected government of Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych. NATO rooftop snipers killed both protestors & police, forcing elected president Yanukovych to flee. In response to Yanukovych’s downfall, Putin stepped up Russian support for Russian-speaking separatist rebels in the Donbass, while US accelerates its efforts to arm and train the Ukraine army. 2 May 2014: Thugs with baseball bats were bussed in from Kyiv and massacred Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Odessa. They set fire to the city’s Trade Unions House: 48 people were burned alive or bludgeoned to death. In the Donbass crisis, 2 May 2014 became the point of no return. 11 Feb 2015: Putin and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko meet with French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Minsk, Belarus. [Minsk accords] The leaders agreed to a deal that would have ended fighting in eastern Ukraine - granted autonomy to the Russian-speaking Donbass, but successive Ukrainian governments refused to implement the accord. German Chancellor Merkel admitted that Minsk was a stall tactic to allow the buildup of Ukraine’s army to NATO standards. 14 Jan 2016: Under pressure from the Pentagon, Congress removed a ban on funding Neo-Nazis [in Ukraine] from its year-end spending bill. 31 December 2016, New Year’s Eve, 20 days before the incoming Trump admin, Lindsey Graham with a bi-partisan group of US Senators visited #Ukrainian troops on the civil war LOC, encouraging them to take the war to Russia: "We have your back…" 17 Dec 2021: Team Biden rejects Putin’s proposed mutual security accords that would have left “neutral” Ukraine intact. 18 Feb 2022: During Winter Olympics in China, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) documented that Ukraine ramped up cease fire violations along the civil war LOC - from Luhansk to Right-Sector controlled Mariupol. 19 Feb 2022: At the Munich Security Conference, Zelensky said Ukraine will get and deploy nuclear missiles. 20 Feb 2022: On 60 Minutes, on the final day of the Olympics in China, 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. Russia recognizes the breakaway Donbass and Luhansk Republics. 24 Feb 2022: Russia launches SMO with 90,000 troops – not a "full scale invasion." Russia intervened to protect the ethnic Russians living in the civil-war-torn Donbass.