I don't believe the line pushed by the US, Ukrainian, and Russian governments.
Though even if you are to claim that there aren't Russian soldiers, explain where all these military professionals come from and how they have all this advanced Russian military hardware.
It fits all the criteria of a Russian style takeover, complete with covert military deployments and indirect military assistance with weapons and training.
Russia has all but won in Ukraine, but denies its involvement, and won't be satisfied till it has two regions of Ukraine fully under rebel control. The peace talks won't happen till there is a military stalemate.
Well, it’s not an easy question you asked. To answer it I need to be back to the very beginning of the conflict in Dec, 2013. A couple of thousands of Ukrainians, who were not pleased with the current president, arrived to Kiev for protests. (Reminds Fergusson a little, doesn’t it? BTW, Soros paid both Kiev and Ferguson protests). Many EU and American officials (McCain, Nuland,
Geoffrey Pyatt, etc.) started coming to Kiev to encourage those protesters. (I just wonder,what would American people think if Russian officials arrived to Ferguson to encourage their protests?). After the unconstitutional coup, which was welcomed and supported by Obama and his administration, American officials (Biden, Nuland, Brennan, Hodges) started coming to Kiev one after another to direct the actions of Kiev Junta against the people who did not agree with the coup. There were 9 areas in SE Ukraine (Crimea, Donetsk, Lughansk, Kharkov, Zaporozhe, Nikolayev, Kherson, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, it’s marked with red&pink on the map), which started their numerous protests against Kiev Junta and for being with Russia and demanding to have referendums about it. Kiev Junta was afraid of the referendums and didn’t allow them. Crimea was the only one area who had one and with 95% votes went to Russia without even one shot. (Crimea is a red peninsula at the bottom of the map below).
In May, 2014 Donbass ( Lughansk&Donetsk areas, red spot on the right of the map below) also has had a referendum and with 85% voted for independence from Ukraine. After that Kiev has sent its tanks and soldiers to make Donbass surrender and all Donbass stood up. The war has started. And as you can see, it was not Donbass, who came to Kiev (in the middle of the map), it’s vice verse. At the beginning the men (and some women) from Donbass did not have either weapons or skills to fight with Ukrainian soldiers. However Ukrainian soldiers (before and now) were not too motivated to fight the civilians, and the majority of them didn’t have any skills either. That’s why Kiev started an ugly propaganda against Donbass people, calling all of them (7 millions!) terrorists and semi-people (just like Hitler did, nice choice of tactics, ha?). Also Ukrainian Army commanders make the soldiers shell Donbass villages and cities from Grads, Uragans, ballistic rockets “Tochka-U” from about 15 miles distance, so they don’t even see, that they are killing women, children, seniors, etc. The rebels from Donbass had their homes and families behind them to protect, so their motivation was and is much stronger. But their hands were tied: they couldn’t use any Grads back, because they couldn’t shell their own lands and people.
In May and June Ukrainian Army pretty easy captured Western half of Donbass (and until now the rebels control only Eastern part of Donbass, the rest of it is controlled by Ukrainians), but by that time rebels have found out how to put Ukrainians into pocket sectors. There were 3 or 4 such pocket sector last August and one just a few days ago with 8-10 thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and weapons (watch the video). Then rebels would let those Ukrainians, who surrender and abandon their weapons, go and let them live. So, more and more Ukrainian weapons started slipping into rebels’ hands. Again, if Russia had its regular troops in Ukraine, they would already move much deeper inside the country since last May, don’t you think? Right now the areas, controlled by rebels contain about 3,5 million people versus 40 million population of Ukraine (without Crimea).
To answer the question about Russian role in this conflict, let’s first answer a question: who gains from this conflict? Definitely, not Russia. Having a hot war next to its borders weakens Russia. Besides 800 thousands refugees fled from Ukraine to Russia since last summer and it sucks up a lot of money from Russia to support them. Does USA gain from this conflict? Why not? Remember, who contributed to set the fire of conflict on from its very beginning and still keeps supporting the war? To me it’s very clear: war in Ukraine will be over as soon as West stops financing it. Besides, it’s very easy and painless for official Washington to use Ukraine as a pawn (they don’t care how many Ukrainian lives it will take) to give Russia a constant headache right next to its borders and to weaken it that way.
Today there appeared a very good article, which may also answer a lot of questions about Ukraine and Putin’s plans about it.
Why the West s Strategy of Containing an Aggressive Putin Is Misplaced Samuel Ramani
Hipeter, it took me almost whole day to make a long story short and to answer as many possible questions as I could. Let me know, if you are satisfied or not. If not, I am ready to answer more questions.
