A different perspective on the Invasion of Ukraine

Russian invasion of Ukraine caught many as a surprise because it was considered an irrational move and therefore it could not happen. It seems that there is a flawed understanding of what the Russian government considers to be rational. In this video I will give my thoughts of why Russia invaded Ukraine.

Sources:
Maps: Google Maps

Assets used:

[Eastory]

If you want a perspective from Russia, then the guy, who translates my videos into Russian made a video on his own. It is good.

[YasinTheDuke]

I can't wait for Eastory to make an army movement video on this war once its over.

[lmy]

The graphics and maps in your videos are always superb. Watching these are both informative and digestible.

[cognitiontime]

The economic growth of 2004-2012 was associated not only with oil prices, but also with the active development of markets. Many Western companies invested in Russia because there was cheap labor and unfilled niches. From about 2010-2012, Russia fell into the middle income trap. But instead of reforming the economy, Putin decided to annex Crimea and introduce so-called "anti-sanctions" - to free up domestic markets for local monopolists.

[provereno-na-sebe]

As a Russian, I would say that you missed one important thing - the Russian Navy was located in Crimea, which was of strategic importance, since the collapse of the USSR, this location was leased to Russia by Ukraine, but understanding in what way further relations with Ukraine will develop, Russia went ahead of the curve and took a place for the fleet itself.

[Maus_Indahaus]

Very good analysis, but I must disagree with one thing. The west is not always against the oligarchies, if they are pro-western, as in Hungary, Turkey and Montenegro. So, the line between the democratic west and oligarchic east DOES exist, but is not as strong as someone might believe.

[perturabo]

The military isn’t the ones with too much influence on the US government, the military industrial complex are the ones who do.

[konstantinriumin]

Actually Russian military has very little influence in policy making - a result of constant struggle between them and inner security services which military was losing since WW2. There is a reason why military coups were not even attempted in Russia in times of political turmoil since then.

[trifarianboi]

As an international politics student, I am an aggressive realist. John Mearsheimer is the best representation of my views I could find online. That last bit about finding the cause of the war is very significant because the problem is that we're all coming to different conclusions. The US foreign policy people, the same who wanted to go into Iraq and pursue the other foolish policies that have deteriorated the US's reputation believe that this was all Putin, he's the second Hitler etc. I believe that if we don't recognize basic realist great power logic, this will happen again and again. Russia said Ukraine couldn't join NATO. That's that. The US said Cuba couldn't have foreign troops and missiles there. That's that. Our failure to understand each other's red lines has got everyone into trouble time and time again.

For me the most scary part is that this war was easily avoidable if we just said "NATO won't accept Ukraine's admission into it". However, the Taiwanese-Chinese war in the future will be much harder to avoid, and even harder to keep the US out of it, because it is both a red line for the US and for China. This is how great power wars begin. China wants it because it considers it part of China and needs to break out of the US led cage around it. The US needs to keep China in the cage and needs to reassure its allies in the Pacific (Korea, Japan, Philipines) that it will protect them, as leaving Taiwan alone against China will assure the US loses its allies there.

In conclusion, I believe the US's and the EU's (although people like Merkel knew Ukraine in Nato was a bad idea as far back as 2008) foreign policy doctrines are ill equiped to prevent the next century defining war, China's reconquest of Taiwan. The major issue is that there's too much invested from both sides in Taiwan. Ukraine wasn't important to the US, which is why it was foolish to cross Russia's red line when we weren't willing to fight for it, but Taiwan is. In making a final judgement, the China-US war of 2030 is inevitable due to the immutable nature of the situation.

[JadedMeritt]

The conflict has not one reason, but a whole list

[buckplug]

It should be noted that in a country run the FSB approval ratings should be taken with a grain of salt. They may show a tendency, but that tendency may be incredibly skewed. Same with military statistics, demographics, polls etc. It's not like Western governments don't skew statistics when they have the chance.

[evanrobinson]

I usually don’t comment on videos but I found your video very insightful and educational.

[seneca]

2:55 "In Russia the military and the security services are effectively responsible for running the country."

I've seen at least Kamil Galeev argue on Twitter that it's only the security services that run Russia. Military is low in the dominance hierarchy and deliberately kept weak so it can't challenge the security services' domination. I don't myself know enough to say whether he's right or wrong.

[votesus]

Maybe you could do WW1 on the western or eastern front. It’ll be difficult to map the unit positions as they don’t really change but there is alot to talk about for supplies, attrition, naval battles etc

[YI-well]

Thanks for the video. As a citizen of Russia (and I am against the war), I will share my observation. The situation compared to the annexation of 2014 is noticeably different. If 8 years ago there was a lot of enthusiasm for the bloodless annexation of Crimea, now the attitude to what is happening is extremely ambiguous.

It is very difficult to assess Putin's current rating because the polls are subjective. Now only 3-6% of respondents are ready to answer questions about politics. In autumn, this figure was about 30%. Basically, refusals occur immediately after a person finds out the topic of the survey.

I'd like to take a look at another study. At the end of March, people in Russia were asked: "What do you feel about the future of the country?" Only 29% answered "inspiration". 26% said "sadness", 25% - fear, 16% - devastation.

The general mood is influenced by the fact that the economic situation is not getting better. Even if people don't link the rise in prices to the war, they are piling up resentment. It will definitely come out at some point.

And the most important thing. Russian power has always become weaker if it loses a war.

[gogobram]

I think the Nord stream 2 deal is extremely important for this conflict.

Notice that back then Germany, Netherlands and Russia were all working together to create these Nord stream pipelines. But as they got finished, Russian "Gasprom" bought all rights to use the pipeline, turning it into a Russian monopoly. The Nord stream 2 line is a continuation of the Nord stream 1 project, which supplies most of Europeans gas. Nord stream 2 would have provided even more, which was kind of annoying for the USA, which of course also tries to sell gas to Europe.

How does Ukraine fit into it?
In Ukraine, a huge gas supply was discovered, and extraction of that gas started early 2022 (by Dutch Shell, who signed a 10 billion dollar contract for it). Shortly after, the USA put more pressure to cancel the Nord stream 2 deal, the same day it got cancelled Russia invaded Ukraine. Ukraine was effectively competing with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And there's even more. Earlier, Ukraine was blamed of having stolen Russian gas, when Russian gas pipelines crossed Ukraine, and so now, it was mining gas on its own even further irritation Russia.

Let's not underestimate the role of the USA in this conflict.
After all, the son of Joe Biden was a member of a Ukrainian gas company for some time. When Trump made comments about this to the Ukrainian government, Trump was blamed of abusing his power to attack the Biden family, and he almost got impeached for this very reason. But I guess, the least we can say now, is that indeed it's crazy that the Biden family is dealing in Ukrainian gas just a couple of years before the war starts.

So, is this the first war about gas? - You may want to read about Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuelan crisis, ... it's always about gas and petrol, which ultimately equals productivity, money, economic welfare, quality of life ...

So, its a little strange that you make this a purely media-centric conflict, which appears to be about sentiment and about feelings, while of course Economy or "just business as usual", has to be an equally big factor in the equation.

[StevenStarksjbirdcapitalllc]

While I agree that Iraq was a mistake; it wasn’t the military who pushed it; it was the corruption in regards to the defense industry as embodied in Cheney.

[antonvetrov]

I have really enjoyed your approach, although it obviously is a little biased. I am an international relations graduate and we have studied a conflict in Ukraine for quite a while now. The general consensus among the most capable conflictologists from my university is that the 2014 revolution could've been ignored by the Russian decision makers, if not for a one single factor. As you've rightfully stated, the Orange revolution have established a pro-Western government, but although there were "gas wars" and other conflicts between our countries, that have never reached a boiling point. So why the 2014 revolution was different?
Kharkov agreements. What is that? That was the document that addressed one of the most important issues of the Russian-Ukrainian relations since the collapse of the USSR — naval bases in Crimea. The issue of naval bases and the Black sea fleet were central to the relations between two counties even in the 90-s. So Kharkov agreements have prolonged the usage of the Ukrainian soil in Crimea by Russian Federation in 2012 and one of the first things the new Ukrainian government has done was denouncing these agreements.
This was not really covered by the Russian media, it was kind of a footnote to all the things that were happening, but it is believed that it was a turning point.

[Dominicn]

One thing that i admire a lot from you Eastory, was that you had almost immediately, on multiple occasions, had made statements about how much of this was your THEORY, and basically lots of disclaimers before going forward with your ideas. one thing that most of the other videos covering the conflict do that makes me angry (like vox, vice, johnny harris, etc) is that they all always write “EXPLAINED!” and go forward with blabbering their own ideas and theories about the conflict but never once use those words before diving in, they never say theories, or their ideas, they all always claim what they say is 100% accurate and is literally the official explanation when it is obviously NOT! many including johnny even have inaccurate and completely wrong information throughout their video, yet them trying too hard to look like the officials”explained” video for everyone, they end up spreading lots of misinformation and fake news just because of that.

i appreciate your responsible nature to give disclaimers and clearly talk without any facade behind your words, always doing an amazing job, keep it up brotha!!

[seanthermes]

This was a very watchable video, entertainingly presented and an interesting take on the reasons behind this conflict. One thing I would say about this take on these events is it seems to have Russia/Putin acting in nearly a vacuum or bubble with very little contemplation on how other external powers act for their own self-interest which may or may not cause reactions. Its more like a tennis match where people are serving the ball backwards and forwards, each person reacting to the latest set of events.