WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SLAUGHTER IN UKRAINE?
Gennady Shkliarevsky
The war in Ukraine–the largest and most dangerous military conflict in Europe since WWII–has been raging for almost three years. It has already claimed over a million human lives, in both Ukraine and Russia, and has brought much suffering and destruction. As the war continues to escalate, it creates a threat of turning into much wider conflict that may consume the world in a nuclear conflagration.
There is one question that has dominated discussions of this war since it started: Who is responsible for this war? Who is the main culprit? Answers to these questions differ. From the very beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine the American and Western political elites have tried to take a high ground in this war. They have claimed and continue to claim that by supporting Ukraine, they stand on the side of peace, justice, and democracy against the savage authoritarian Russia. The narrative that has been constructed by the American and Western political elites and spread by Western mainstream media portrayed Russia as a ruthless aggressor that started this war by invading Ukraine.
There are dissonant voices that point to the United States and the collective West as possible culprits in this war. They claim that the West has contributed to this conflict by trying to expand NATO’s reach beyond Europe—the move that Russia has considered hostile. These discordant voices are relatively few. They drown in the shrill cacophony of mainstream propaganda that claims that the accusations they make are too general and unconvincing since they do not indicate any specific role that the West has played in the outbreak of hostilities.
As developments in Ukraine continue to unfold, more and more facts come into the open, and they shed new light on the war. Facts are emerging that indicate that the role of the American government in the outbreak of hostilities was much more direct and more specific than generally assumed.
Some of these facts come directly from government sources. Their authenticity has not been disputed. The recent interview of Victoria Nuland, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, indicates that the United States had an opportunity to prevent the eruption of the war in Ukraine and deliberately rejected it. Nuland acknowledges that this opportunity came in early spring of 2022 during the negotiations between representatives of Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul, Turkey.
The negotiations in Turkey yielded a draft that would have ended hostilities. The agreement addressed concerns of both sides in the conflict. According to the agreement, Ukraine was to declare military neutrality and non-alliance with military blocs. It was also to reduce its military and accept limitations on the use of certain types of weapons. In exchange, Russia offered to guarantee Ukraine’s security and to withdraw Russian forces from all occupied territories, with the exception of Donbass and Crimea.
The agreement was on the table and ready to be signed by the governments of Russia and Ukraine. However, when the news of the deal reached Washington, Biden’s government urged Ukraine to reject the agreement. The obedient collective West followed the ruling from Washington. Boris Johnson, the ever-mercurial American puppet, traveled to Ukraine on April 9, 2022, to deliver the message to Zelensky. The deal was to be rejected. The official pretext was Russia’s alleged atrocities in Bucha (a town near Kiev) that were inflated and misrepresented by politicians, media, and self-proclaimed experts.
The acceptance of the agreement could have ended the conflict at its very beginning. It would have prevented the destruction of Ukraine and spared many lives. Yet it was rejected . . . and the rest is history. The United States, the collective West, and NATO emerge in this episode as warmongers, not peacemakers. What could be the reason that motivated the American government to reject this opportunity to end the war? Certainly not the interests of Ukraine and not concerns for peace and security in this region and in the world. The motivation appears to be the goal that the U.S. has pursued since the fall of communism: a defeat and a breakup of Russia. The dismantling of Russia would have given an opportunity to spread America’s influence in the region and become the sole arbiter of its politics. This development would have been a very significant step toward establishing America’s hegemony in the world.
Watch:
Ukrainian-born American Gennady Shkliarevsky is Professor Emeritus of History at Bard College, New York.
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Do you really want to know who is responsible?
Everyone of you, American Taxpayers!
Now, hear me out; because “you will all be hearing this all again someday soon” I want you to remember? Government will claim that they do absolutely nothing on their own without the duly elected represenitives of the people: “meaning they are only serving your interests.” They will blame you for War ( Pending Nuclear War) with Russia. Now, because you will not “protest or fight” this invites legal capture on all of you. Think Big.
And, if you just mustered up your numbers and put 1-million protesters on wall streets, NYSE, to crash the Military Industrial Complexes Profit Party, they would obey you America. That Simple, That Easy.
So … Tell me, what do you think your chances are, America, of saying the government does not represent YOU? Do you Vote? Do you Patronize them? Do you Serve? Most of you are Doomed, however, there is still a short time!
I want to thank all who have read the article and left their thoughtful comments
Thank you M. Dowling for bringing us this thoughtful article.
I would like to go back a bit further than the author. I love hstory, but do not claim to be an historian.
The Russian perspecitve! I think most readers know that Napoleon’s attack on Russia in 1812, and Hitler’s traitorous invasion of his ally beginning Sunday, 22 June 1941 (5 1/2 months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour) are two powerful examples why Russia felt the need buffer states. With the Reagan years and a kind of detente Russian fears (though still deep) were less on the surface. With the rise of radical Muslims those fears again became more acute. At the same time the new political power of the MIC (Military Industrial Complex)
represented by the rise of Dick Cheney, further heightened Russian angst.
When Obama, a rather naive man about international relations (and viewed as a “weak” man from the Russian perspective) appointed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state (and it seems some dangerous “Russian hating pro-Ukrainians” became influential under her) tensions were rising. Add in the influence of a ‘neo-Nazi’ influence in the Ukraine and the powder keg was primed. Knowing Obama would not stop them, the Russians took the complaints of ethnic Russians in the Crimea as an excuse to seize the area in 2014.
The response from the west was to be angry with Russia and try to get the Ukraine into NATO, instead of seeing that the just cause of the ethnic Russians be properly addressed.
Read Eisenhower’s speech warning on the MIC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address#:~:text=In%20the%20councils%20of%20government,power%20exists%20and%20will%20persist. 20240914 00:07 GMT
The Ukrainina Perspective
The Ukrainian famine—known as the Holodomor, a combination of the Ukrainian words for “starvation” and “to inflict death”
he horrific loss of life in the Ukraine is terrible, especially for the Ukraine that 90 years ago lost a significant portion of it’s population (3.9 million = 13% ) in the early 1930’s due to Joseph Stalin’s caused famine as he tried to break the will and nationalism of the Ukrainian people.
https://www.history.com/news/ukrainian-famine-stalin 20240914 00:15GMT
Given not only t he current situation in a rapidly deteriorating society in the USA and the current world situation, the election of Harris could literally send the western world back into the Dark Ages (AD 500-AD1400). It could even make the Novel On the Beach seem somewhat prophetic.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SLAUGHTER IN UKRAINE?
CIA, NATO, and Zelenski. Duh.
Yup!!! The CIA engineered ‘Maidan’ was conveniently swept under the rug…as was the right of the defecting territories to self determination…