You were definitely dodging the issue between us, Bob. Ukarine is not a sovereign nation since the unconstitutional coup, backed by the US, in 2014. You still haven't addressed that truth.
But since your brought it up...Ukraine was also not a peaceful neighbor. Ukraine was trying (from Russia's point of view) to join a hostile military alliance. Ukraine had outlawed Russian as a language. Ukraine was killing ethnic Russians in the Donbass. In 2015 40+ protestors to the new coup government were burned alive in Odesa. There has been no arrests, not even more than a cursory investigation by the anti-Russian government in Odesa into an atrocious mass murder of pro-Russian peaceful protestors.
Two weeks before Russia's invasion this year, Zelenskyy went to the Munich security conference and said he thinks Ukraine should develop nuclear weapons.
From 2015-2022, Ukraine took in over $3,000,000,000 in NATO weapons. Ukriane was training with NATO and specifically with the US armed forces and CIA. Ukraine integrated known neo-Nazi groups into its armed forces. They were so bad in 2018 the US passed a law forbidding and aide to Ukraine from going to the Azov battalion.
The leaked Victoria Nuland call from 2014 showed that the US picked the top post-coup government positions.
Ukraine's last president before Zelensky, Poroshenko, has openly stated that Ukraine had no intention of implementing the Minsk II peace plan they "meant nothing." Ukraine only used the peace plan to buy time to build up its military.
Poroshenko lost to Zelenksy, who ran on a platform of peace with the breakaway Donbass regions. Zelensky faced huge opposition from the far right and neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine, particularly in the military.
All of the above was funded and driven by the US. All of it. From the US overthrowing an election in 2004, pushing for Ukraine to join NATO in 2008, the coup in 2014, the huge push for war with Russia (see Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Amy Klobuchar video on YouTube) from 2014-2022, funding and driving the Civil War from 2014-2022 instead of Minsk II.
There is even a video from a few years ago of Biden (as VP to Obama) bragging about coercing Ukraine to fire an Attorney General - who just happened to be investigating the company that Hunter Biden sat on the board of.
Ukraine was anything BUT a peaceful neighbor doing peaceful neighbor things prior to Russia's invasion. Does that justify the invasion? I don't know. That is a question for UN charter law experts.
Was Russia provoked? Of course they were. US cold war experts have been predicting exactly this situation for decades if the US kept pushing Ukraine to move away from its neutral position between Russia and the EU.
The facts aren't on your side, Bob. You thought incorrectly that you were the spider, and I am a fly.
