Understanding The Russia-Ukraine Conflict — In 5 minutes.

By J.B Daudu

Q. What is NATO doing at Russia’s doorstep?

A. Trying to stop Putin from rebuilding the Soviet Union, which was almost an equal rival with the United States in the past.

Q. Is NATO right to do this?

A. No. Because of an old agreement in which the West agreed not to move any closer to Russia, which is eastwards.

Q. Did Russia agree (in the Budapest memorandum) to guarantee Ukraine’s independence and never to invade them?

A. Yes.

Q. Is America the strongest nation in NATO?

A. America is not just the strongest nation in NATO but synonymous to NATO.

Q. What happened in 2014 that may explain the current conflict?

A. A Ukrainian President loyal to Russia (Viktor Yanukovych) was toppled in a Yellow-Vest-type of revolution. Russia believes that this revolution was instigated and sponsored by the West.

Q. What was the immediate fallout of the ouster of Yanakovich?

A. Two predominantly Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine broke away and became semi-autonomous. These regions are Donbass and Lugansk.

Q. Is Ukraine a stakeholder in Russia’s economy?

A. Russia’s natural gas pipeline to Europe passes through Ukraine.

Q. What is this pipeline called?

A. Nord Stream 1.

Q. Who owns the Nord Stream pipelines?

A. The Swiss-based company called Nord Stream AG.

Q. Who owns Nord Stream AG?

A. A Russian company called Gazprom, which is one of the largest energy companies in the world.

Q. Why did Putin not invade Ukraine immediately after the 2014 issue?

A. He feared sabotage of Nord Stream 1 by Ukraine in case of an attack. Nevertheless, he took Crimea.

Q. What plans did Putin put in place to ensure that he will be able to invade Ukraine and reinstall a President loyal to Russia?

A. He began building an alternative to Nord Stream 1 aptly called Nord Stream 2. As expected, Nord Stream 2 bypasses Ukraine to Europe straight from Russia.

Q. Did the military establishment understand that Nord Stream 2 held the key to a Russian invasion of Ukraine?

A. Not just the military establishment but analysts and politicians knew that, as soon as Nord Stream 2 was completed, a countdown to a Ukrainian invasion has begun.

Q. Although not the cause of this difficult situation, how did President Donald Trump prevent Russia from launching an invasion of Ukraine?

A. First of all, in 2018, Trump annihilated a Russian force trying to cross the Euphrates to the Eastern side of Syria, where the oil wells are located. 300 ex Russian soldiers of the Wagner Group were killed. This aggressive response by Trump put Putin on notice that Trump was willing to use the overwhelming force of the US military to achieve his foreign policy goals. Secondly, Senator Ted Cruz (a Republican Senator) authored a bill requiring the sanctioning of Nord Stream 2. This bill was passed and President Donald Trump not only signed it to become American Law, but enforced it. Thus, Trump prevented a war without firing a single shot: he just used America’s economic might to cage Putin. Whether or not Trump thought it was unfair for NATO to want to admit Ukraine is hard to know. But it is important to note that Trump was at such logger heads with NATO that the current French President (Emmanuel Macron) lamented that NATO was about to die under a hostile US President. It is safe to guess that Trump (whose America First Policy is well known) did not fully support the shenanigans of NATO with regards to Ukraine.

Q. How did the sanctioning of Nord Stream 2 affect Putin’s plan to invade Ukraine?

A. It affected Putin’s plan because it meant he had to wait until Donald Trump left office before the project could continue. But as long as Donald Trump was in office and Nord Stream 2 could not be completed (giving Russia an alternative means of selling gas to Europe) he suspended his plans. This is proof that, in spite of what the media keeps repeating, Trump is no friend of Putin.

Q. If action speaks louder than words, who is really a good friend of Putin?

A. Joe Biden. As soon as Joe Biden took over the White House from Donald Trump, he waived the Nord Stream 2 sanctions, giving Putin the singular most important factor he needed to carry on with his Ukraine invasion plans.

Q. Contrary to what Joe Biden did for Russia, how did he “help” America to remain energy independent?

A. Although Trump had worked hard to ensure that the US became the largest oil producer in the world, Joe Biden “helped” the United States energy industry by cancelling several oil-related projects. The most popular of these was the Keystone XL pipeline, which had already gulped the equivalent of N10 billion. After deliberately destroying America’s energy independence and helping Russia, guess what Joe Biden is now doing? America now buys oil from Russia. And the quantity keeps increasing, which is why Russia cannot completely be banned from the SWIFT global financial platform.

Q. Can sanctions stop Putin from sacking Zelensky and installing a puppet loyal to Russia?

A. Time shall tell.

Q. Is Putin’s desire to install a puppet in Ukraine understandable in view of the security disadvantages of having a NATO country so close to Russia’s border?

A. Of course it is.

Q. What should Joe Biden (who emboldened Russia by waiving the Trump sanctions) had told Ukraine if he wanted to avoid war?

A. He should have advised Ukraine to tread softly and even remain neutral, knowing that Putin (with the second most lethal military in the world) cannot be stopped by Ukraine; knowing that only the United States can take on Russia; knowing that the US (under him, Joe Biden) will not send troops to fight for Ukraine.

But what did Joe Biden do?

Who then is responsible for the current conflict?

Did Joe Biden set up Ukraine to be destroyed as part of the campaign to humiliate the United States? The humiliation of the US has already been ordered by the World Economic Forum. Remember Afghanistan! That debacle that saw America humiliated was planned. Remember point Number 2 of the 8 predictions of the World Economic Forum, which is that America will no longer be a superpower but that a group of nations will call the stakes in world affairs?

Or are the globalists (as some believe) trying to start a world war that will shake things up really well to prepare the ground for the New World Order?

Time shall tell.