How the unprovoked war in Ukraine was provoked

Key Markets report for Wednesday, 21 May 2025

​More than three years into Russia's "Special Military Operation" (SMO) in Ukraine, there are still those who continue to speak of unprovoked and brutal Russian aggression. The qualifier "brutal" is particularly useful for contrast with the gentle and kindly wars that Western powers approve of, like the one presently being waged on Gaza, Lebanon and Syria where the Israelis are pulling triggers, but the US and European powers are supplying the untold thousands of tons of ammunition and supplying target point of interest coordinates. But the greater lie about Ukraine is the characterization of the SMO as "unprovoked." Below is a very condensed timeline of how the war was hatched, entirely by Western powers led by Britain and the US.

The USSR collapsed in 1991 and as soon as it did, NATO went to Ukraine to establish cooperation. In 1995, NATO and Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) started jointly conducting military exercises. By 1997 they signed the "Charter on Distinctive Partnership" in Madrid and set up the Yavoriv base as a de facto NATO command center for Ukraine. Leading to the 2022 SMO, NATO has quadrupled its forces at or near Russian borders, the highest concentration since Germany's 1941 invasion. It has also been conducting about 40 military exercises in Russia's backyard, conducting daily mock attacks against targets inside Russia, often from a distance of less than 10 miles.

Project Ukraine’s Clarion call

The Clarion call for Project Ukraine was launched on 26 September 2013 when Carl Gershman of the National Endowment for Democracy published an OpEd in Washington Post calling for Ukraine's accession to EU and NATO, and declaring that for the US, "Ukraine is the biggest prize." A month later, on 30 October 2013, the Obama administration set off the opening salvo by filing an arrest warrant in Vienna against one Dmitro Firtash - one of the most powerful Ukrainian oligarchs and chief political patron of President Viktor Yanukovich.

The lawfare attack was orchestrated by Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and Victoria Nuland. Three days later, Nuland flew to Kiev for a meeting with Yanukovich. After their meeting, Nuland declared triumphantly that, "the President made it clear that Ukraine has made its choice and its choice is for Europe." The very next day, the extradition request for Firtash was dropped.

EU Accession Agreement

Why, one might ask, was it necessary to blackmail President Yanukovich into signing onto the EU accession agreement? As it turns out, the Ukrainians weren't unanimously onboard (a small majority was against it), and the EU accession agreement would turn Ukraine into an EU colony: it came at a cost of $160 billion and included 1,000 pages of EU directives that Ukraine would have to comply with, plus any future directives. Ukrainians would have no say in what the EU might demand, so the Accession Agreement amounted to a comprehensive surrender of the nation's sovereignty. The EU offered no help in funding Ukraine's transition, and the IMF offered only small amounts (about $4 billion) with extremely extortionate strings attached.

On 21 November 2013, Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov suspended the preparations for signing of the Association Agreement, stating that IMF's conditions were far too harsh. A week later, Yanukovich was in Vilnius, Lithuania confirming that Ukraine can't sign up, pleading for further negotiations. The very next day, Euromaidan protests started. It was an action of hundreds of NGOs coordinated out of the US Embassy. Protests continued for weeks and violence started to escalate in February 2015. On 20th February, negotiations were arranged between Yanukovich and the representatives of the opposition, mediated by EU representatives from France and Poland, plus a Russian representative.

The Euromaidan massacre

As the talks were ongoing, rooftop snipers from some 20 locations shot into crowds and assassinated some 80 people, both protesters and police, wounding hundreds more. The killings were widely and immediately blamed on Yanukovich's security forces but subsequent investigations proved conclusively that they were organized by the neo-Nazi elements of the opposition.

But on the day of the negotiations, the pressure on Yanukovich was such that he signed an agreement with the opposition, yielding to all of their demands. On the same day, President Obama called Vladimir Putin to ask for his cooperation with transition to the new government and implementation of democratic reforms in Ukraine. Almost at the same time, Vice-President Biden called Viktor Yanukovich, pressuring him to disband his security services.

Having yielded to all of the opposition's demands and signing an agreement brokered by EU representatives, Yanukovich fell into Biden's trap and disbanded the Berkut. As soon as he did, armed opposition stormed key government buildings, parliament, presidential palace and Yanukovich's own residence. Five days later, Ukraine's rump parliament, under duress, approved of the new government, handpicked by Victoria Nuland. The US, EU and the UN immediately recognized the junta which was now fully under Western control.

Weaponizing Ukraine against Russia

The process of weaponization of Ukraine in preparation for war against Russia kicked off almost immediately. The Junta's very first decree was the banning of Russian language in schools, media and in government. The parliament passed a resolution making Ukraine's World War II Nazi collaborators officially heroes of Ukraine and making the denial of their heroism a criminal offence. Representatives of neo-Nazi parties like Oleh Tyahnybok (Svoboda), Dmitro Yarosh (Right Sector), Andrei Shkil (UNA-UNSO) and Andriy Biletsky (Azov Battalion) were given disproportionate power with key government posts, including ministries of internal security, military, agriculture and education.

CIA's John Brennan deployed dozens of special units of the CIA and FBI to set up security structures and defend the new regime. Policing of areas under Kiev's control was turned over to some 30 neo Nazi battalions who kicked off a reign of terror against ethnic Russians. By 13 March 2013, the Junta started dispatching military convoys to the South and East of Ukraine where the people were protesting against the new government. Under pressure from the IMF and with Brennan's go ahead, on 13 April the Junta launched a very brutal Anti-Terror Operation (ATO) which escalated to a full civil war after the Odessa Massacre which took place on 2 May 2014.

Massacres and rebellions

On that occasion, at least 116 people were killed, 46 of whom were burnt alive. Unofficial count was as high as 200 casualties. In the massacre's aftermath, there was not a word of condemnation from any Western official. To the contrary, Kiev was being excused and Obama's UN Ambassador Samantha Power even lauded Kiev's "remarkable, almost unimaginable restraint." And so, all over southern and eastern Ukraine, massacres continued. By mid-July 2014, well over 2,000 ethnic Russians were killed.

On 11 May 2014, Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics held referenda for independence and as soon as the results were announced, they declared independence, kicking off the following 8 years of frozen conflict during which AFU continued to launch artillery shells and missiles into the towns and cities in Donbass, killing as many as 14,000 people, most of them civilians.

During that time, NATO was busy training up 10,000 troops a year for 8 consecutive years, deploying them immediately to Donbass in preparation for the future conflict. In 2014, AFU counted 121,500 troops. By 2020, that number reached 311,000. Along with reserve forces, Ukraine's military swelled to some 800,000 troops or, if you asked Mr. Zelensky, to 1.1 million. Meanwhile, the US Department of Defense set up 48 biolabs in Ukraine, which they owned up to, and Nuland confirmed in August 2022 Senate hearings. The CIA set up a dozen listening stations along Russia's borders.

The nuclear threat

In February 2022, AFU escalated artillery and missile attacks against the Donbass 30-fold and prepared to take the rebel republics and Crimea by force. Zelensky announced that Ukraine would deploy nuclear missiles against Russia - a threat which the Biden administration corroborated in direct talks with Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov, affirming that the US reserves the right to install ABM launch facilities in Ukraine, near Russia's borders. That fact alone would deprive Russia of her nuclear deterrence and represent a strategic defeat and potentially an existential threat to the nation.

For anyone who thinks this still makes Russia's SMO unprovoked, all they have to do is a simple mental exercise: suppose the roles were reversed and all this took place along the US border with Mexico with Russians training up Mexican troops and deploying them along Texas, Arizona or California borders and setting up biolabs, spy stations and missile launch facilities aimed at targets within the US. Could the picture get any more straightforward than that? We should count ourselves lucky that this conflict hasn't escalated into a nuclear war, thank Vladimir Putin for his restraint, and the American people for ridding humanity of the pathological, monstrous Autopen administration.

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