The Road to the Russia-Ukraine War

By OSD.news

Doves attacked during Pope's prayer for peace in Ukraine
ABC News, 26 January 2014
"In what some are interpreting as an ominous sign for world peace, two white doves released from the Vatican have been attacked by two larger birds.
The doves were set free as a symbol of peace from a balcony overlooking St Peter's Square during Pope Francis' weekly Angelus prayers, held at noon every Sunday.
But moments later, a seagull and a black crow swooped down and attacked the doves, pecking at them repeatedly, as tens of thousands of people watched on."
Source: abc.net.au

• Language: English
• Publisher: OSD.news
• Release date: May 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005431044

OSD.news

OSD.news started publishing e-books and will cover different subjects, based on news of the time. All the information comes from sources that the general public would consider trustworthy, respectable, and all due credits are given including live links. More titles will be available soon.

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The Road to the Russia-Ukraine War

forgotten and overlooked news from 1990-2022

Edited by OSD.news

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2022, OSD.news

License Notes

This publication has been produced to raise awareness about important issues, and for this reason it is freely available on:

osd.news/publications

ISBN 9781005431044

Cover artwork is based on actual photos of the below event, using Wikimedia Commons images:

Doves attacked during Pope's prayer for peace in Ukraine

ABC News, 26 January 2014

In what some are interpreting as an ominous sign for world peace, two white doves released from the Vatican have been attacked by two larger birds.

The doves were set free as a symbol of peace from a balcony overlooking St Peter's Square during Pope Francis' weekly Angelus prayers, held at noon every Sunday.

But moments later, a seagull and a black crow swooped down and attacked the doves, pecking at them repeatedly, as tens of thousands of people watched on.

Source: abc.net.au

Table of contents

Introduction

The NATO Promise

NATO Expansion

Euromaidan and Regime Change

Annexation of Crimea

Ethnic Tensions in Ukraine

The Donbass War

Ukraine’s Nazi Problem

Democracy in Ukraine

Western Involvement

The Final Escalation

Introduction

It is a terrible war which Putin started, Russia is the aggressor that invaded a sovereign country causing destruction, death and unimaginable suffering. But the picture is not black and white, and the West and Ukraine also bear some responsibility for letting the situation escalate to this point. It is important to understand how we got here, to see what the obstacles to peace are, if we want to achieve a lasting solution in Ukraine and avoid further conflicts in other parts of the world.

This publication aims to show all the important events that led to this war through headlines and quotes from articles of the time, starting from 1990 up until Russia attacked Ukraine in February, 2022. Many people saw this war forthcoming, we just didn’t pay attention, but going through these forgotten and overlooked news we can now see it was bound to happen.

All the information in this publication comes from respected media outlets, organisations and individuals. You can find the source at each quote and a link to the source, so (unless you’re holding a printed copy in your hand) you can read the full article with a click.

The NATO Promise

It was promised NATO will not extend one inch to the east, but it wasn’t put in writing

Did the West Break Its Promise to Moscow?

by Uwe Klußmann, Matthias Schepp and Klaus Wiegrefe

Spiegel International, 26 November 2009

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused the West of breaking promises made after the fall of the Iron Curtain, saying that NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe violated commitments made during the negotiations over German reunification. Newly discovered documents from Western archives support the Russian position.

Jack Matlock, the US ambassador in Moscow at the time, has said in the past that Moscow was given a clear commitment. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the German foreign minister in 1990, says this was precisely not the case.

After speaking with many of those involved and examining previously classified British and German documents in detail, SPIEGEL has concluded that there was no doubt that the West did everything it could to give the Soviets the impression that NATO membership was out of the question for countries like Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia.

On Feb. 10, 1990, between 4 and 6:30 p.m., Genscher spoke with Shevardnadze. According to the German record of the conversation, which was only recently declassified, Genscher said: We are aware that NATO membership for a unified Germany raises complicated questions. For us, however, one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east. And because the conversion revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.

The Soviets insisted that everything be documented in writing, even when all that was at issue was the fate of Soviet military cemeteries in East Germany. However, the numerous agreements and treaties of the day contained not a single word about NATO expansion in Eastern Europe.

For this reason, the West argues, Moscow has no cause for complaint today. After all, the West did not sign anything regarding NATO expansion to the east. But is that tough stance fair?

I wanted to help them over the hurdle, Genscher told SPIEGEL. To that end, the German foreign minister promised, in his speech in Tutzing, that there would not be an expansion of NATO territory to the east, in other words, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union. East Germany was not to be brought into the military structures of NATO, and the door into the alliance was to remain closed to the countries of Eastern Europe.

A short time later, then-British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd joined the German-American consensus. As a previously unknown document from the German Foreign Ministry shows, Genscher was uncharacteristically open with his relatively pro-German British counterpart when they met in Bonn on Feb. 6, 1990. Hungary was about to hold its first free elections, and Genscher declared that the Soviet Union needed the certainty that Hungary will not become part of the Western alliance if there is a change of government. The Kremlin, Genscher said, would have to be given assurances to that effect. Hurd agreed.

But were such assurances intended to be valid indefinitely? Apparently not. When the two colleagues discussed Poland, Genscher said, according to the British records, that if Poland ever left the Warsaw Pact, Moscow would need the certainty that Warsaw would not join NATO the next day. However, Genscher did not seem to rule out accession at a later date.

What the US secretary of state said on Feb. 9, 1990 in the magnificent St. Catherine's Hall at the Kremlin is beyond dispute. There would be, in Baker's words, no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east, provided the Soviets agreed to the NATO membership of a unified Germany. Moscow would think about it, Gorbachev said, but added: any extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable.

Now, 20 years later, Gorbachev is still outraged when he is asked about this episode. One cannot depend on American politicians, he told SPIEGEL. Baker, for his part, now offers a different interpretation of what he said in 1990, arguing that he was merely referring to East Germany, which was to be given a special status in the alliance -- nothing more.

At the conference, the two German foreign ministers (the East German foreign minister at the time was Oskar Fischer, who had been close to the former East German leader Erich Honecker) came together in the corridors and conference rooms, met with the foreign ministers of the four victorious powers in World War II and, in various configurations, discussed the future course of Germany. By the end of the conference, it had been decided that the external aspects of German unity, such as the alliance issue and the size of the German military, were to be resolved in the so-called two-plus-four talks.

… the Soviets would hardly have agreed to take part in the two-plus-four talks if they had known that NATO would later accept Poland, Hungary and other Eastern European countries as members.

In late May 1990, Gorbachev finally agreed to a unified Germany joining NATO. But why didn't Gorbachev and Shevardnadze get the West's commitments in writing at a time when they still held all the cards? The Warsaw Pact still existed at the beginning of 1990, Gorbachev says today. Merely the notion that NATO might expand to include the countries in this alliance sounded completely absurd at the time.

Some leading Western politicians were under the impression that the Kremlin leader and his foreign minister were ignoring reality and, as Baker said, were in denial about the demise of the Soviet Union as a major power.

On the other hand, the Baltic countries were still part of the Soviet Union, and NATO membership seemed light years away. And in some parts of Eastern Europe, peace-oriented dissidents were now in power, men like then-Czech President Vaclav Havel who, if he had had his way, would not only have dissolved the Warsaw Pact, but NATO along with it.

Then, in 1991, came the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the war in Bosnia, with its hundred thousand dead, raised fears of a Balkanization of Eastern Europe. And in the United States President Bill Clinton, following his inauguration in 1993, was searching for a new mission for the Western alliance.

Source: spiegel.de

Video: youtube.com

Record of Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker

National Security Archive, 9 February 1990

Baker: We understand that not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.

Source: nsarchive.gwu.edu

Newly Declassified Documents: Gorbachev Was Told NATO Wouldn't Move Past East German Border

by Dave Majumdar

The National Interest, 12 December 2017

As the newly declassified documents show, the Russians might have had a point. While it was previously understood that Secretary of State James Baker’s assurance to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand not one inch eastward during a February 9, 1990, meeting was only in the context of German reunification, the new documents show that this was not the case.

Gorbachev only accepted German reunification—over which the Soviet Union had a legal right to veto under treaty—because he received assurances that NATO would not expand after he withdrew his forces from Eastern Europe from James Baker, President George H.W. Bush, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the CIA Director Robert Gates, French President Francois Mitterrand, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, British foreign minister Douglas Hurd, British Prime Minister John Major, and NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner.

Indeed, as late as March 1991, the British were reassuring Gorbachev that they could not foresee circumstances under which NATO might expand into Eastern and Central Europe. As former British Ambassador to the Soviet Union recounted in March 5, 1991, Rodric Braithwaite, both British foreign minister Douglas Hurd and British Prime Minister John Major told the Soviet that NATO would not expand eastwards.

Source: nationalinterest.org

Russia was given verbal assurances about the limits of Nato’s expansion, but no written guarantees

Russia’s belief in Nato ‘betrayal’ – and why it matters today

by Patrick Wintour

The Guardian, 12 January 2022

Did Russia see the implications of the 1990 agreement for Warsaw Pact countries?

Yes, many Russian policymakers opposed the concessions being made at the time by Gorbachev in part because of the implications for eastern Europe. Russia was given verbal assurances about the limits of Nato’s expansion, but no written guarantees. In March 1991