Americans should know they are responsible for what is happening in Ukraine now because their government has continuously interfered with Ukraine and Russian for a long time. This aggression coming out of America seems accounted for by the American culture that they worship money and strength and don't care much about weak people that they exploit. Even though I was born in a western country under the influence of western media, I have an impression that American irresponsibility is appalling as I consider the following facts:
1. The current Ukraine contains historically Russian territories that were moved to Ukraine in the era of USSR. Russian government cannot ignore originally Russian people living there. And Ukrainian nationalists are quite dangerous people. They are repressing proRussian people in the east. This is not something that Putin made up. My Russian acquaintances who work in the west directly know acquaintances and relatives living in the east Ukraine who witnessed such repression, namely, torture and murder. They joined the overturning of the government in 2014 holding the same flag as that they used when they cooperated with Nazis in 1940's. American government seems to often fund and arm such group of (almost terrorist) people, as they did to Mujahidn in Afghanistan (closely related to Taliban and AlQuaida) when it fought against Soviet.
2. The US have actually interfered with Ukraine and was likely involved in overturning the democratically elected Ukrainian government in 2014, establishing a puppet. Most notably, there was evidence, leaked conversation between American officials about who they want as the next Ukrainian leader. They had this conversation before the overturn actually happened, which even those US officials themselves admitted, although they denied American support of the overturn. Joe Biden was at the top of the then US administration, and his son earned millions of dollars in Ukraine afterwards. Anyone would suspect his deep involvement from this.
3. Russia has always been threatened by the economic aggression by the US. Putin was at first friendly to orgarches and the US when he took the position of president, but he started fighting them when they tried to sell off the shares of the companies that possess Russian natural resources to American capitals in 2004. If this had happened, the Russian oil money would have directly flowed into the US capitals, and therefore wouldn't have been accessible to Russian people. Notably, I was impressed by how IMF forced a country to privatise their state-owned companies and then American capitals tried to absorb them. Fortunately, this aggression was stopped by Putin, and a half of the shares of Russian oil companies are now owned by the state. This appears to be the key to the reason why the American government regard Putin as enemy.
4. Western media are highly suspected to intentionally broadcast distorted images of Putin. A typical example is Navalny's assassination. He claimed that he rang FSB agents and recorded their confession of the attempted assassination, by pretending to be their boss on the phone. What is this stupid story? He barely escaped from the assassination by FSB, and the notorious Russian spy agents confessed their attempt of assassination on the phone? Well, I personally believe that Putin is killing his opponents when they threaten his power. But, after hearing many such crappy stories from the western media, I started to believe Putin's opponents are sponsored by westerners that try to economically exploit Russia.
5. The current Ukrainian president who was from the south but elected by people in the pro-EU part, Zelensky, provoked Russia to an unthinkable extent. He showed the will to get back crimea, to crush the rebels in the east, to join NATO, and to increase their armament to cope with Russia (even nuclear armament). The first three plainly violates the Minsk agreement, and undermines Germany and France who joined it. Based on this fact, any sensible people would think that he risked own people's lives. From the fact that he could boldly do this, I suspect that he was backed by the US. No other countries would have been able to give him confidence to do so.
All these stories and others that I hear consistently indicate American aggression. Thus, despite pro-western media in my country, I started to believe that, even though Putin is a dictator and killing his opponents, he tells more genuine things. Europeans should reconsider their relationship with the US that destabilise Europe.
I find it highly interesting how people who try and put these despots in a rosy light almost always require using “America” as a foil for how totally evil and wrong they do everything, meanwhile ignoring the person they support has launched no fewer than three(just from my amateur knowledge) invasions into countries that Russia has __literally__ zero claim to in any sense.
By the way, I found your post totally unhinged, though you did hide it pretty well until your final point where the guy ordering assassinations against his political opponents(read: “when they threaten his power”) is somehow painted as the reasonable and moral person.
It's pretty clear almost all Ukrainians don't want to be part of Russia. The fact that Putin has a theory of history that he believes the will of common people should just bow down before is the cause of this invasion and the tensions between US and Russia. As usual, a paranoid leader obsessed with honor gained through force and machismo is blaming everyone but himself.
Moreover, the so called "eastern expansion" of the west is driven by common people wanting freedom and prosperity, not by imperialistic machinations. Meanwhile russia has one of the highest emigration rates in the world.
If NATO was war mongering why didn't NATO do much after the occupation of Crimea? Or after the attack on Georgia?
Putin life's work is bringing some imagined Russian glory back. But that's the exact mentality that brought suffering on the Russians through the ages. Be it a Tzarist Russia, a communist Russia or a putinist Russia. The common Russian was always sacrificed for some imagined Russian glory.
It's amazing that you can brush away the fact that Putin murders politicians activists and journalist who expose his corruption, and you still think he is genuine. Remember that he denied that he is going to invade ukrain multiple times just before he invaded?
The only truth Putin recognizes is power.
He will use half truths to manipulate, control and assert his dominance.
Compare for example the western rhetoric blaming the war on Putin while acknowledging the common Russian as a victim. Putin's rhetoric OTOH is generalizing the enemy as some fictive "westerner" conglomerate coming after russia. This sort of demagogy is a tool to prepare a people for bloodshed and war, not for peace.
By the time Americans recognize their own country's fault here it will be far too late. I think that both sides have their own propoganda machines, but the western/American machinery is far more complex, giving us the guise of "impartial journalism".
There are many holes in your statements. I am too tired to rebut them in HN-normal form.
However, I will say this: even if one accepts everything that you claim at face value, nothing justifies what Putin/Russia are doing in Ukraine right now.
I never said that Putin was a good guy or that I am in favor of his actions. You must see this as more nuanced than what the western media is presenting it as, though. If you look at this through a pragmatic lens, and see Putin as an actor playing the same game of geopolitical interests every other country is playing, you will easily understand how Washington's actions have led us to this point (albeit more subtly than the Kremlin).
