[Split Thread] Is Ukraine to blame for Putin's invasion

Arnold Schwarzenegger's message (its text may be found here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...essage/627100/) was fairly good.

But it does contain some approximations and inaccuracies. Perhaps he has been told lies himself. If he was still in Germany, he could not read the Russian information website RT.com (without a VPN) because of European censorship. Having just one source of information is not ideal.

If he gets his information from forums, then he might get a distorted view because of censorship done by "moderators" who have a political agenda.

He said:

Quote:

I know that your government has told you this is a war to de-Nazify Ukraine. This is not true. De-Nazify Ukraine? It is a country with a Jewish president—a Jewish president, I might add, whose father’s three brothers were all murdered by the Nazis. Ukraine did not start this war. Neither did nationalists or Nazis. Those in power in the Kremlin started this civil war; this is not the Russian people’s war. ... To President Putin, I say: You started this war. You’re leading this war. You can stop this war now.

So he said that "Ukraine did not start this war". But is this true? (or only half-true)

A reminder of a few facts:

Quote:

Ukraine cut off the fresh water supply to Crimea by damming a canal that had supplied 85% of the peninsula's needs before Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.

(https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...ia-2022-02-26/)
(possible crime against humanity by Ukraine)


About sanctions imposed on Russia before 2022:

Quote:

... sanctions have hit the Russian economy badly. Since 2014, it has grown by an average of 0.3 percent per year, while the global average was 2.3 percent per year. They have slashed foreign credits and foreign direct investment, and may have reduced Russia’s economic growth by 2.5–3 percent a year; that is, about $50 billion per year. The Russian economy is not likely to grow significantly again until the Kremlin has persuaded the West to ease the sanctions. ... As part of the two last defense bills, the US Congress adopted severe sanctions on suppliers to Nord Stream 2, the Russian gas pipeline from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, which are likely to stop the completion of that pipeline. The United States and the EU responded to the Russian annexation of Crimea with sanctions against Russian officials, individuals, and enterprises held responsible for the annexation, as well as anybody pursuing business dealings with Crimea. They were joined by several allies, such as Australia, Canada, and Norway. Ideally, these sanctions would have compelled Russia to withdraw from Crimea, but nobody believed that would happen in the near term. Their impact was limited to Crimea, and did not harm the Russian economy. Instead, the more realistic goal of the Western sanctions on Russia’s annexation of Crimea, understood within the Barack Obama administration, was to persistently isolate Crimea economically and politically, and that goal has been accomplished. Crimea’s foreign trade plummeted by 90 percent. Housing prices slumped, while prices of goods and services rose because of supply problems. Annual tourism shrunk, and now comes almost entirely from Russia. The biggest Russian state banks, Sberbank and VTB, have stayed away to avoid the US and EU sanctions. Instead, the already sanctioned Bank Rossiya, owned by friends of Putin from St. Petersburg, and a few minor Russian state banks, notably the Russian National Commercial Bank, operate there.42 The prominent Russian economist Sergey Aleksashenko assesses that Russian financial support to Crimea has so far cost about $5 billion per year.

(https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-d...ons-on-russia/, date: May 3, 2021, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine)

So Ukraine (with its Western allies) waged a humanitarian and economic war on Russia in 2014, after its annexation of Crimea, even though it is well known that Crimeans wanted to join Russia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_C...ferendum_polls).

In addition, after the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics (of mostly Russian-speaking Donbass) declared independence in 2014, instead of dialogue and granting them self-governance (perhaps after a honest referendum), Kiev chose to start a military offensive against them ...

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