Why the US Does Not Want the Ukraine War to End is a fair treatment of the complex history of the Russia-Ukraine saga over the past 30 years. I recommend this video highly. I don’t agree with every point this YouTuber makes, but it is well-produced and more cogent and succinct than anything I have seen for its length. It is either a good primer or a refresher depending on your knowledge level of the Ukraine conflict. The thesis of the video is that this is a war the West wanted. NATO wanted a pro-western government in Ukraine, not to help Ukrainians, but to weaken and break up Russia. Therefore, the Western alliance does not want the war to end until this is accomplished. At the same time, the video does not whitewash the motivations and actions of Russia, but suggests that Putin’s actions are not those of a madman, but those of a reasonable president trying to protect Russia’s interests. The video rightly points out that America used our own military force to prevent Soviet influence near our borders many times in the past.
I have been to Russia and Ukraine 12 times since 1991. I learned about each of the Ukrainian presidential elections both through the news and firsthand conversations with Ukrainians. I was initially supportive of the Orange Revolution in 2004, which eventually brought Viktor Yushchenko to power. It seemed to be a people’s movement, but in truth both presidents on either side of that conflict, Yushchenko and Yanukovych, ended up being incredibly corrupt. I also followed the changes after 2014 to the current Euro-Maidan presidents, Poroshenko and Zelenskyy, and the beginning of the war in the Donbas regions. The common denominator is that each president promised to end corruption in Ukraine and better the economic situation. Each invariably ended up being at least as corrupt as his predecessor.
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