As the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 approaches, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made a surprising confession.
Jens Stoltenberg spoke at a press conference about the fact that the Russian-Ukrainian war did not actually start in February of last year, but in 2014.
????????????????????????????????”NATO has been training the Ukrainian military since 2014, NATO partners have been supplying the Ukrainian armed forces with the necessary weapons and training since 2014″ — Jens Stoltenbergs admits again
“Unprovoked invasion”… pic.twitter.com/Qa8shKSWXx
— AZ ???????????????? (@AZgeopolitics) February 14, 2023
“The other thing I will say is that the war did not start last February. The war has been going on since 2014. And since 2014, NATO allies have provided support to Ukraine, with training, equipment, so that the Ukrainian armed forces were much stronger in 2022 than in 2020 and 2014. And of course that made a huge difference when President Putin decided to invade Ukraine.” Stoltenberg said.
It is worth noting that during the last year, especially in the first months of the Russian invasion, every independent news portal that dared to point out that the conflict actually started in 2014 – and that the offensive is an extension and escalation of the “long war” – was called a pro-Russian newspaper. declared.
Before the start of the invasion, 14,000 Ukrainians had already died in the conflict
In order to understand what led to last year’s invasion, we need to know what the Ukrainians’ relationship with the Russians was like after 2014.
The current Ukrainian government was formed in 2014 after a US-backed coup against President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych wanted to strengthen his relationship with the Russians instead of the European Union after Vladimir Putin made him a more favorable offer. After that, demonstrations became regular in the country, and Yanukovych lost his legitimacy when the snipers he commanded killed dozens of demonstrators. At the same time, it is also worth noting that the “Majdan revolution”, which claims to be pro-EU and liberal, actually relied on ultra-nationalist terrorist militias, such as the Right Sector.
The new government of Ukraine played an important role in the development of the conflict banned the Russian language in the country, despite the fact that the majority of the inhabitants of the Donbass region speak it as their mother tongue.
The fact that the war did not actually start last year is clearly shown by the fact that before February 2022, Ukraine had already lost around 14,000 soldiers in the battles to prevent the final secession of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. The conflict brought nothing but suffering to the people of Donbass, and it was exacerbated by the fact that the Ukrainian government often shut off the water in the disputed areas.
In addition, as Putin demanded guarantees that Ukraine would not join NATO, Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he was considering rearming the country with nuclear weapons.
It is also a matter of debate whether Russia legitimately feels threatened by the fact that a NATO allied country is its neighbor. And although Putin is trying to keep NATO as far away from the country as possible, it is important to remember that it is a peacekeeping organization, so the alliance does not fundamentally pose a threat to Russia.