It seems the usually patient Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have had enough of US-Nato provocations.
Early this morning (February 24), he ordered Russian troops into the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, together called the Donbass region.
He did more. He also ordered Russian troops from the north (Belarus) as well as the south (Black Sea) into Ukraine.
In the south, their targets were the important ports of Mariupol and Odessa.
Should these fall to Russian forces, Ukraine would be shut off from the Black Sea.
Russian paratroopers have already captured Antonov military airport, 25 km from Kiev.
Similarly, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that was the site of a massive explosion in 1986, appears to have been surrounded by Russian tanks.
What led Putin to take such drastic measures?
Moscow had drawn a red line about Nato expansion into countries bordering Russia.
These were formerly part of the Soviet Union.
For weeks, Putin and other Russian officials warned against Nato’s eastward expansion.
The US and its Nato allies contemptuously dismissed Russia’s security concerns.
While we do not believe military action is the answer to such problems, the responsibility for events in Ukraine lies squarely with the western regimes.
Of all peoples, Muslims have suffered grievously as a consequence of military attacks, mainly by the US and its Nato allies.
Islamic Iran has suffered western-zionist sabotage and attacks for decades.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen all lie in ruins.
These countries were not destroyed by people from Mars.
The millions of people murdered and displaced in these countries are the direct result of US-Nato aggression.
So, the same regimes now breast-beating about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sounds a little rich.
Here is what US President Joe Biden said today about Russia’s invasion:
“Putin has committed an assault on the very principles that uphold the global peace. Now the entire world sees clearly what Putin and his Kremlin allies are really all about,” Biden said during a live speech from the White House.
“This was never about a genuine security concern on their part. It was always about naked aggression.”
What “principles” is Biden referring to and whether they apply to any of the Muslim countries that successive US regimes, one of which he was a part of, have destroyed during the last 40 years or so?
It is important to keep in mind that in 1989, then US Secretary of State James Baker had pledged to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that in return for his agreement of German unification, Nato would not move one inch eastward.
True to their duplicitous nature, the US and Nato have done exactly the opposite.
It was President Bill Clinton, who in 1997 dismissed the advice of two former American ambassadors to Moscow, George Kennan and Jack Matlock, to incorporate former Soviet republics into Nato.
Even before this, the US had interfered in Russia’s internal affairs and installed a drunkard like Boris Yeltsin as president of Russia.
Americans robbed the country dry, much to the chagrin of Russian patriots.
One does not have to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to understand Putin’s concerns.
The US, Britain, and a number of other western regimes have imposed sanctions on Russia.
These are not likely to have a huge impact on Russia which has reserves of more than $600 billion.
Putin had anticipated these. In fact, since 2014 when Russia took over Crimea, the west has imposed a raft of sanctions.
These have not cramped Putin’s style.
It must also be asked why the US has been so keen to provoke Putin into taking this drastic step?
Essentially, the military-industrial complex—America’s real masters—want perpetual wars.
With US defeat in Afghanistan and end of the 20-year-war, another war was necessary.
Ukrainians have become the latest sacrificial lambs for these gangsters and criminals.
They thrive on the blood of ordinary people.
For a change, the people now dying are Europeans, not Muslims.