Hello everyone, I know this topic is a bit heavy and more recent in our memories but I’m having some trouble actually finding decent resources about what is actually going on and most sources I could find expect you to have some knowledge on the subject already. I’ve heard contradictory things and there is a lot of disinformation out there so now I will just ask directly. What happened? How did we get here?
Videos and books are also welcome!
Addendum:
A week into the conflict with Russian troops nearly surrounding Kiev, Zelensky says he is prepared to accept Ukrainian neutrality, and Russia and Ukraine begin negotiations.
March 2022 Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul reach preliminary agreement on peace terms. These terms would include Ukraine retaining all its territories except for Crimea, no NATO in Ukraine, rights for ethnic Russians, and a reduced Ukrainian military. Russia agrees to pull forces back from Kiev as a first step toward peace.
News of imminent peace spreads, NATO warmongers panic and the US sends British PM Boris Johnson to Kiev to sabotage the negotiations, promising Zelensky a blank cheque for weapons and money to continue the war.
April 2022 Kiev pulls out of all negotiations and murders their own negotiator in broad daylight, promising a similar fate for anyone attempting to deal with Russia; opts for mass mobilization and total war instead.
September 2022 Russia holds referendums for accession of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions to Russia.
October 2022 Ukraine passes a law forbidding any negotiations with Russia.
And that’s basically how we got here: One moderately successful and one catastrophically failed Ukrainian counter-offensive later, Ukraine and its military are in shambles and losing ground every day, forced to resort to stupid political stunts like assassinations, terrorist attacks and a disastrous incursion into Kursk to keep morale up, Europe having bet everything on Ukraine is still delusionally clinging to the idea of defeating Russia, the new US administration desperately trying to find a way to cut its losses and unload the whole failed project on the Europeans, and Russia in a stronger military and economic position than it has ever been since the end of the Soviet Union.
Exactly what I have been looking for. Thank you for such a well made breakdown of events.
No problem. Take the time to read through the links i provided and let me know if there is anything missing or anything that you need clarification on. I didn’t cover most of the SMO itself because i think what has happened since 2022 is rather well known.
I would say the least well known in the West is what was happening in the Donbass from 2014 onward. That has been totally suppressed in our media. The NATO expansion issue has been discussed a lot even in more mainstream sources, but to really understand the situation that led up to 2022 you need to see first hand the videos and hear the testimonies of the people who lived through it, which is why i think that the Donbass documentary (link in the first comment) is so important for people to see.
If you want to do some research on any of these topics yourself, keep in mind that Google is heavily censored and will almost exclusively display results that all parrot the same western mainstream media narrative on Ukraine, often word for word the same across dozens of publications. Use other search engines such as Yandex.
And Wikipedia is of course also a cesspool of propaganda on this topic, and like Reddit highly controlled by western intelligence agencies to align with the pro-Maidan, anti-Russian narrative, so be very cautious when using it as a source of information. It will very often lie by omission and will present the pro-Western side’s narrative as factual and objective while any other views are implied to be biased, controversial, untrustworthy, conspiracy theories, etc.
I will definitely let you know if I have any questions! I’ve been going through everything whenever I get the time. I’ve never heard of Yandex before actually but I’ll definitely give it a try. Thanks again!