You guys had me almost convinced that armed reunification was imminent.
Now that emotions have calmed somewhat, I think most people realize that peace is always preferable to war. The difference between China and Russia or the Taliban is that China can afford to have peace.
I think a lot of people were expecting Xi to emulate Putin, and are disappointed when that didn't happen. After so many US provocations lately, I can't really blame them. Unfortunately, I think we're gonna have to come to terms with the fact that the Chinese leadership is sticking to their slow-and-steady strategy, and they're not going to deviate from that whatever the provocations.
Putin no longer had a choice, the war in Ukraine was inevitable. No matter how much the Western mainstream media repeats that Putin has started unprovoked aggression and war, these are lies.
Many people, for whom the events of February 24 were a surprise, for some reason forget April 2021, when Ukraine had already formed military forces to strike at Donbas in violation of the Minsk agreements. In response, Russian troops were deployed along the border. For some reason the war didn't start in April 2021. At that time the US was in the epicenter with covid-19 and probably postponed the proxy war in Ukraine until next year. History repeated itself in late 2021. Zelensky concentrated an even larger army on the Donbas front - 120,000 - 150,000. Russia's armed forces also had to transfer more serious forces to the border in an attempt to deter Zelensky from attacking the two republics in Donbass.
Putin's negotiations and ultimatums with the "president of the world" Zelensky and his Western curators did not yield results, they needed a conflict. A clear example of this is the statements of the West, even before Russia invaded Ukraine, that sanctions would be imposed on Russia if Putin did not withdraw Russian troops from the Russian border.
Zelensky was determined to invade Donbas and eliminate the pro-Russian "Colorado beetles" once and for all, in clear violation of the Minsk agreements.
If Russian troops were withdrawn in the winter of 2021/2022, there would be an attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against the two republics, following the example of Operation Storm, conducted by the Croatia and NATO against Srpska Krajina in 1995. If Russia does not had intervened, then the Donbas republics would not have had a chance to oppose it. And then there would inevitably be a similar scenario for Crimea.
The head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Pushilin already on February 16 began the evacuation of children, civilians and the elderly to Russia, because the two Donbas republics expect the Ukrainian Armed Forces to attack them.
The former president of Ukraine, Poroshenko recently admitted that neither he nor Zelensky had any intention of implementing the Minsk agreements, but only signed them to buy time to arm and train an army to "take back" Crimea and Donbas . Well, yes - but in Crimea 95% of the population is Russian and they do not want to return to Ukraine. In the republics of Donbass, the majority are Russians and were subjected to 8 years of terror because they do not want to Ukrainianize themselves and glorify the Nazi Stepan Bandera as a national hero.
And what are the Minsk agreements - for Ukraine to stop terrorizing the Russian population in Donbas and let them live with Russian cultural differences. The "separatists" just wanted to live peacefully, without banning their Russian language, culture and ethnic identity. But no - Poroshenko's regime and then Zelensky's for 8 years terrorized and massacred the population in Donbas with the help of Nazi battalions, and finally decided to attack the two republics and Ukrainianize them by force.
And all this is confirmed by Macron's phone conversation with Putin, on February 20, or 4 days before Russia invaded Ukraine. This conversation was reported two months ago by the national French media, in which Macron tells Putin that he called Zelensky, and I quote "to calm down the armed forces" and "Donbass has been under intense bombardment by the Ukrainian Air Force in recent days." Macron also tells Putin not to give in to Zelensky's provocations and asks Putin to withdraw Russian troops from the border. That is, Putin should allow Zelensky to invade the republics and terrorize the Russian Donbass.
Two days after that phone conversation with Macron, on February 22, Putin declared the Minsk agreements "dead" through the fault of Zelensky and Ukraine. On the same date, February 22, Putin also signed two decrees recognizing the two republics of the DPR and the LPR. On February 24, Russian troops invaded Ukraine to protect the two republics.
In the conversation with Macron, Putin also emphasized that only a few days ago, Zelensky announced to the world community the desire of Ukraine to acquire nuclear weapons, as well as the reluctance and firm refusal of NATO to discuss with Russia the architecture of the common European security.
Therefore, those who pick up on the propaganda thesis that Russia launched the special military operation for no reason either do not understand the background of the events and are disoriented, or they are simply deliberately lying. Starting the war was an inevitable step that the US and its puppet Zelensky deliberately provoked Russia to take.
