The war in Ukraine didn't need to happen

Western Europe's leaders are having “second thoughts” about the quagmire that the United States has put them in owing to its confrontation with Russia. But the War over Ukraine did not have to happen! All that needed to be done to prevent it was to implement the 2015 Minsk II agreement, which declared Ukraine “neutral” (not unlike Austria), stopped the Ukrainian civil war, and provided autonomy for the Donbas oblasts. That agreement satisfied Russia's security concerns.

However, the United States, France, Germany and Kiev played the Russians by not implementing it while arming Ukraine to NATO “interoperability,” knowing that Ukrainian “neutrality” was Russia's “red line” — President Putin had been telling the West that since 2007. Further, Kiev continued its assault on the Donbas for eight years, killing 14,000 Russianspeaking civilians. On December 17, 2021, Russia made one last effort at a political solution when it called on the United States and NATO to negotiate a new European security framework that would eliminate the real threat Moscow saw from NATO Enlargement. However, the United States ignored Russia's proposal, all but assuring Moscow would intervene.

Now Western Europe is scrambling to find a way out of this self-inflicted mess, issuing varying peace proposals. Not surprisingly, the outlines of those proposals are basically what Minsk II called for! I ask Biden, Nuland, Blinken, Sullivan and their Republican accomplices has 300,000 Ukrainian deaths, the destruction of Ukraine, permanently disrupting the global order, and putting humanity on the precipice of nuclear annihilation been worth it?

— George Wright, Chico