I don’t believe that Putin’s actions are a result of Western interference, but I don’t believe in Free Will, either.
If we could follow the thread back in history, what would we find that influenced present situations? How far back do supposed transgressions against the area that is currently under Putin’s rule go? What created an Aleksandr Dugin?
No, you have only referred to other people’s opinions, Yazmin. You have not told us why YOU are persuaded by them. Or what YOU think the West was “provoking” Putin to do. (Did the West want Putin to invade Ukraine? Why?) Or why YOU think the West is responsible for Putin’s decision to grab chunks of Ukraine from time to time. Or what right YOU think he has to do it. Or how you come to “know” so much about the deliberations of the Kremlin as to be able to assert what they are with confidence, especially when your “knowledge” of them contradicts what we can actually see happening. The visible manifest “evidence” of who is to blame for the war is that Russia invaded Ukraine more than once in the last ten years.
You are not just excusing Russia. You are taking Russia’s side. And what’s more, you are taking it with passion. And you do not tell us why. If you are Russian, that would explain it. If you are an agent of Russia, employed to act for Russia, that would explain it. But so far, no explanation has been forthcoming from you, just passionate repetition of your conviction that the war is all the West’s fault.
I do not forget that Wiki is biased to the left. But those quoted facts are facts. If you know otherwise, correct them and tell us how you know.
Jeanne - you don’t believe in free will? Then you don’t believe in moral responsibility?
“…Russia continues to illegally occupy Ukraines Autonomous Republic of Crimea…”
To further quote Solzhenistyn:
“Why is it that western Ukrainians…desire that the state of Ukraine should have the borders made for it by Lenin himself?..it was Lenin who arbitrarily attatched Novorossiya, the Donbas…as well as…parts of the left bank to Ukraine. Later Khrushchev arbitrarily added (1954) Crimea to Ukraine. And now Ukranian nationalists stand firm in defense of their “holy” territorial integrity - of borders created by Lenin?..
…the activities of NATO and…the U.S. do not differ…NATO clearly realizes that Russia is not capable of defending itself against the Alliance and thus NATO methodically and stubbornly develops its military apparatus from Eastern Europe to the south of continental Russia. One sees it in their support for a variety of color revolutions…
All of this leaves little doubt: NATO is in the process of encircling Russia and depriving Russia of its independence as a nation state…the vast territories which were never part of historic Ukraine…were forcibly and arbitrarily consumed into the territory of modern Ukraine and made hostage to Ukraine’s desire to join NATO…
Russia will never in any way, betray the many millions of Russian speaking peoples in Ukraine. Russia will never abandon the idea of unity with them.” (From interview in May of 2006)
I’m no expert, but I trust that Solzhenistyn knew what he was talking about. It’s possible that Putin simply shares the opinions of Solzhenistyn, as likely many Russians do, and was motivated by them to, by this view, “never betray the many millions of Russian speaking peoples in Ukraine”, or “abandon the idea of unity with them.”
But Liz - all boundaries are arbitrary.
I don’t think you are saying that all people should live within the boundaries of their ancestral ethnic territory? After all, there are millions of Russian, Irish, German, French, Indian etc. people in the US. Does Russia, Ireland, Germany etc. have some sort of right to claim ownership of the states/towns/counties where “their people” are most concentrated in this country?
Germany seized Czechoslovakia on the grounds that there were many German speaking ethnic Germans living there. Was it okay to do that?
Solzhenitsyn was a brave man, and he was right about the terrible wrongs that Russians suffered under Stalin. But he was an ardent Russian nationalist, and devout Russian Orthodox Christian, and that has to be taken into account when paying attention to his opinion of Russian-Ukraine relations.
I don’t argue against your (and Solzhenitsyn’s) view that the presence of millions of Russian speakers in Ukraine is a sound reason for Putin to annex Ukraine to Russia. I don’t share it with you, but that does not make it less valid than my own opinion that it is not.
Question: Why - would you say - Russia has a right to “independence as a nation state” but Ukraine does not have the same right?
Not at all the case, but it is another conversation altogether.
BTW, the moderator suggests that I should send you a PM instead of replying to you 3 times or more. Who is this robot? Why is it keeping track of my posts? I suppose everyone else is getting this same treatment? Or does it just have it out for me? 
Yazmin,
Poor old Solzhenitsyn. His years of captivity and escape to the West served only to increase his Christian faith and belief in the dignity of suffering. Hence his reading of Putin in the interview with a German paper quoted in the linked article. Get your hanky out. Pure pathos:
““[Vladimir] Putin inherited a ransacked and bewildered country, with a poor and demoralized people…. And he started to do what was possible, a slow and gradual restoration. These efforts were not noticed, nor appreciated, immediately. In any case, one is hard-pressed to find examples in history when steps by one country to restore its strength were met favorably by other governments. Putin gives us hope and seeks to restore Russia’s Christian tradition. That I applaud.” [The Washington Post, August 5, 2008]”
I can understand why Christian conservatives might approve of this forgiving view of a KGB apparatchik. But not atheist conservatives. And not the Jewish or secular dissidents who escaped the gulag. Not the family survivors of those who didn’t. Not believers in America as the liberator of slaves to totalitarianism.
I do not understand why Putin apologists deny that they are Putin apologists. Why should being called an “apologist” - surely better than being called an “appeaser” - get their dander up? If not an “apology” for Putin’s actions, what is the repeated, dogmatic insistence that Putin believed he had no choice but to “get involved” (nice one!) in Ukraine because Nato expanded? As Putin “sympathy” or - better - “empathy”?
When Putin apologists deny that they are Putin apologists, while sympathetically embracing his anti-Westernism, I am reminded of the bipartisan American anti-semites who deny their anti-semitism while systematically comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, Jews to a fifth column, describing Jews’ insidious influence, seeing the alliance with Israel as an impediment to world peace, and who work to “balance” Israel’s nuclear bombs with Iranian ones. Anti-semites like Patrick Buchanan, Mearsheimer, Obama. I was not , therefore, surprised when I googled “Dr. Boyd Cathey” - the author of the link quoting the saintly Solzhenitsyn - and found my way to The Unz Review, where he promotes a good deal of literature written by himself revealing the nature of Jews and their sabotage of universal peace, the brotherhood of man, and their involvement of America in adventures abroad against its interests (you know, those “neocon” war-mongers).
As a Putin apologist, are you aware of the nature of some of the political fellow-travelers you quote? The Unz Review - for which your source in your link writes - is a filthy, low, disgusting antisemitic rag.
Our webmaster has returned from abroad, so I will be able to ask him about that “moderator” who is some ghost I am not acquainted with. Perhaps he will be able to quell the irritating interfering specter.
No one else has complained about interference by him/her/it. It does seem as if he/she/it has singled you out, Jeanne. Which makes his/her/its presence and activity all the more mysterious.
C.Gee, Jillian, you can call Solzhenitsyn delusional all you want but it’s isn’t an ‘Putin apologist’ or an ‘anti-Semitic’ talking point that Crimea and Eastern Ukraine areas are historically Russian and the borders were made by Lenin, a fact that you continue to ignore, if you’re going to make argument that historical land claims doesn’t matter, then you might as well say that the Judea and Samaria Area lands don’t matter and should still be occupied by the ‘Palestinian’ Arabs.
By the way I found this and this is the alliance that you want to continue to defend?:
http://tenc.net/06war/lebanon.htm
Straight from the horse’s mouth, how can you say that there’s no NATO involvement, but then say it’s a good thing to continue to give NATO weapons to Ukraine.:
And the continuing costs:
Forbes confirmed the annexation was legal and even the BBC eventually had to admit it as well:
It’s an automated system thing I get these same messages all the time, you can just ignore them.
Yazmin - Judea and Samaria ARE occupied by “Palestinian” Arabs.
You are still just piling on links. Does anyone read them? I don’t - I told you I wouldn’t.
I am now convinced that you are Russian and that you have an actual job defending Russia’s wicked invasion of Ukraine.
I’m not saying its right or wrong, just that this view explains why he did it. I seem to recall that even the Russian speakers of Donbas indicated at some point that they wanted to rejoin Russia (or something to that effect).
You’re right that boundaries are arbitary. This whole thing seems to have started in a dispute over boundaries, and whether these states on the border should belong in Russia or Ukraine.
But that’s why, it seems to me, it could - and should - have been a matter that was resolved through negotiation, not war.
The U.S., in my view, is to blame for failing to negotiate a settlement, instead escalating it into a war because of people like Nuland who, incompetently and irresponsibly, thought it would be a good idea to effect a “regime change” in Russia, as if it was some kind of insignificant little tin-pot dictatorship with no nukes.
Really, how intriguing… Nobody else gets these sorts of messages?
Yazmin,
When does your history start and stop? Which borders are the historically correct borders? The ones that the power enforcing them enforced them for the longest period of time? Or the ones within which the people were happiest or longest at peace? Or the ones that represented the furthest reach - no matter how temporary - of a power ? These are nothing but “talking points”. What matters reaching an armistice are not talking points taken from selective historical facts, but the military facts on the battlefield.
You are arguing that the Soviet boundaries under Lenin are the historically correct boundaries for modern Russia - despite the historic ceding by the Soviet Power of the “Ukrainian” Soviet territory to the Ukrainian government seeking independence from Moscow. Why? The only explanation for this is that you agree with Putin that the modern Russian Power is entitled to the borders established and enforced during Soviet times (although some Tsarist boundaries are historically compelling). Oh happy times that strengthened and deepened the Russian soul!
I got one that told me I was about to run out of times to hit the “like” button. Weird.
Our webmaster says that those “monitor” messages should be ignored. The messages are bugs in the programming (not his.) I see Chauncey recommends the same. (He too gets them, he says.) Leave and come back a few minutes later and you’ll probably find you can do what you want to do.
Again, Liz, you put faith in “negotiations” to end what you regard as a border dispute.
What has changed since the failure of the Minsk Agreements, except that the Ukrainian army has thwarted Putin’s putsch on Kyiv, thereby making Russia’s occupation less secure which makes it very much in Ukraine’s interest to keep the war going - and less likely to make concessions in an armistice agreement?
Well, Liz, you do hit that button a lot. 
I shall dutifully ignore the moderator or figure out ways to get around it.