(from an earlier comment, Sep 10, 2024, evidence-collection and observations continue)
NATO was an excuse
Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and status as a country, was established in 1991 more or less
throughout the world. That was a couple of years after
the Berlin Wall came down.
Changes were in the air.
The
relationship between Ukraine and NATO goes back to Ukraine’s independence: increased cooperation in 1994, 1997, 2002, 2005; decreased 2010; increased 2014, 2018; U-turn
2022; back again
2022; …
Sometime
before 2009, the Kremlin circle (ex-
KGB and the like) decided that it would be
intolerable to
lose control over
Crimea, and perhaps lose
empowering influence on Ukraine, something along those lines, and that they would need a land bridge to whatever they hence might have to
grab. A new or extended
Kharkiv Pact wouldn’t do, for example.
Couldn’t be left to an
independent country to decide.
And that uncompromising decision marked, and set, the — henceforth seemingly inevitable — collision course of which we’ve seen
the results. Likely not an overnight decision, more like an
irredentist, “
entitled”, “
ownership”, or revanchist
sentiment, possibly since the Cold War in those circles.
It’s a thread throughout (
elsewhere,
2013,
2018,
2021,
2024).
Ukraine
wrestling free from the dominating, northern neighbor, wouldn’t be easy —
isn’t easy. And their NATO aspirations were,
perhaps predictably (
2022,
2022), a useful excuse for the Kremlin to
attack/
invade, (pseudo-)annex (
2014,
2022),
assimilate, regardless of Ukraine’s sovereignty. If their rationale was merely NATO, then what was all this about, and what was accomplished? Besides, something similar would apply to any strong defence that Ukraine would seek membership of. NATO was
the most likely around to
get in the way of unimpeded
Russian military (or Russification) actions, and the Kremlin had
years to
prepare. We can now conclude that the aspirations were justified.
Quoting Wikipedia, which has the requisite references, here’s
what the Ukrainians want(ed):
Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption, abuse of power, human rights violations, and the influence of oligarchs. — Euromaidan (2013-2014)
Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption and abuse of power, the influence of Russia and oligarchs, police brutality, human rights violations, and repressive anti-protest laws. — Revolution of Dignity (2014)
Abandoning the Ukrainians would have the faint whiff of cowardice, broken promises, appeasement and encouragement of the attacker, more so if echoing their lines (
2022,
2022) — free expansion of
non-democracy.