No, I "must" not conclude that. That is one possible goal. I think a much more plausible reason is the reason that Gorbachov, Yeltsin, and Putin all verbally and with Putin repeated, openly stated: They were against NATO expansion.
NATO was created as a hostile military alliance to the USSR. That it continued after the USSR ended is a testament to the power of the US MIC.
The US and USSR almost went to nuclear war in 1962 because of missiles placed in Turkey by the US followed by Cuba by the USSR. The US has missiles in Poland, 150 km from Russia's border, and in Romania, just south of Ukraine, and since 2014 the US military has been training the Ukrainian military on NATO tactics, and specifically training them how to kill Russians, and providing NATO weapons, and the CIA has been training forces explicitly to create future insurgent forces. Ukraine has failed to implement Minsk II. The US has put zero pressure on Ukraine to implement Minsk II. In 2016 Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Amy Klobuchar were in Ukraine talking to Ukraine military saying "2017 will be the year of offense. The Russians must pay a higher price. We will go back to Washington to get you the weapons you need." 2018 Adam Schiff said explicitly "We're arming Ukraine so that they can fight Russia over there so that we don't fight them over here." Russia refused for 8 years to recognize the Donbas as separate from Ukraine. Instead Russian repeatedly called for Minsk II to be implemented, which meant the Donbas stayed part of Ukraine. In the two weeks before Russia's invasion there was a massive build up of Ukraine forces near the Donbas, increased shelling by Ukraine gov't on their own people in the Donbas (and in violation of Minsk II), the US and Ukraine again saying publically that Ukraine would join NATO (although we now know that privately the US said to Zelenskyy that Ukraine would never join NATO - begging the question then why foment Russian agression in public on this point?) and then Zelenskyy went to the Munich Security conference and said Ukraine should think about getting nuclear weapons.
All of what I wrote above is true and verifiable in US MSM. The US has been using Ukraine as a proxy to fight Russia since the coup in 2014. Yet your theory is that that huge litany of direct, military threats to Russia, on their border, from a key business partner (gas, Ukraine imports) that I list above is less plausile than your theory - which has NEVER been corroborated by Putin, is that this is all because Putin wants to force Ukraine to be part of the Russian federation.
Your logic on this point is faulty.
My citation? Nice dodge. You quote the Western source that corroborates that "violence is increasing." I wrote specifically "Dude, if you think that you are going to get any links that say anything other than “It is all Russia’s fault” from main stream western news, then you’re fooling yourself." Then you point to a Western media source to corroborate that it is all Russia's fault. Facepalm.
You are also incorrect that Reuters "hints that it was staged by Russia." It says no such thing. It says, "Washington and its allies have raised fears that the upsurge in violence in the region could form part of a Russian pretext to invade Ukraine."
I don't excuse everything Russian either. I still think the invasion was wrong, even if it turns out not to have been a war crime. The evidence in Bucha is still out, but it should be UN investigated and if it was Russian war crimes, they should be charged. Not just BTW, Russia asked for just that. Russia responded to the Bucha war crimes charge by Ukraine/US and said the UN should investigate. The US and UK rejected an independent UN investigation. That does not look good for Ukraine (but it doesn't mean Russia is innocent).
Also not just BTW and regarding Nazis in Ukraine. Every year there is a proposal put to the UN members denouncing Naziism. Every year just two countries vote against it: the US and Ukraine. Just those two countries.
I'm done here. Bye now.
