by thisislife2 | 2026-01-08 16:28:23+00:00
I am an Indian, and unlike some of you westerners I don't perceive this through the value-based filters ("Russia evil, west good") that you view the war from. For us from the Global South, what is happening in Ukraine is just pure interest-based politics between the superpowers, where Ukraine is the victim (due to the fault of its own leaders) between Russian and western superpowers.

Ukraine's founding document, the 'Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine', Article IX states:

“The Ukrainian SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic) solemnly proclaims its intention to become a permanently neutral state in the future, one that does not participate in military alliances and adheres to the three non-nuclear principles: not to receive nuclear weapons, not to manufacture or acquire such weapons.”

Joining NATO clearly violates this.

Thus, the major Russian goal in Ukraine is to punish Ukraine for breaking its promise to be a neutral country that would never endanger Russian security (a commitment that was also guaranteed by the Ukrainian constitution till pro-western Ukrainian leaders captured power undemocratically). This has been done by annexing Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine (to provide a land corridor to Crimea). (Crimea has Russia's only warm-water port and allows it to extend its influence to other neighbouring regions. NATO access to it would have crippled Russian Navy and Russian geopolitical strategies.) This goal has been nearly achieved as Russia has already captured 20% of their territory (Crimea + Eastern Ukraine). Their secondary goal now is to prevent Ukraine from having a large army, joining NATO and ensuring Russia gets back its foreign reserves from the west (or capture more Ukranian territory if the west decides to keep their money).

Ukraine has neither the money, the manpower or the weaponry to prevent this unless NATO or EU joins the war (which it will not).

The major goals of the western superpowers (America, France and UK) was to ensure that Russia does not develop good political and economical relations with Europe as then Russia would compete in their Spheres of Influence in Europe. The Anglo-Americans especially needed Russia as a villain because without Russia as an enemy, NATO becomes irrelevant. Indeed, if European relations with Russia improved to the point of economic and military alliance, the possibility of a European army, with Russia in it, would have been a grave threat to the US. Already, American oil and gas industry were feeling the pinch of competing with Russia in Europe. Dangling NATO membership (which the west knew would never realistically happen because of Russian opposition) and engineering a civil war in Ukraine through the pro-western and pro-Russian Ukrainian leaders ensured Russia was sufficiently provoked to attack Ukraine. Russia can now be vilified and the current and next generation of Europeans will grow up hating Russia (generational hatred) thus sabotaging any possibilities of the ties improving between Europe and Russia for the next few decades. Using the war, they have now been able to sway Sweden and Finland to give up neutrality and join NATO, which was another major goal of theirs - with Sweden and Finland in NATO, the Arctic Council is now fully NATO dominated, against Russia. This now makes it easier to curtail Russia's influence and plan in the Arctic, where Russia is planning to build a new maritime route that would challenge the maritime powers of the west (mainly the US). Russia's Arctic vision is why Trump (and the US in general) is so obsessed with Greenland. Other secondary goals including capturing Ukraine agricultural economy etc.

Russia and western superpowers have always known that the end result would always be a divided Ukraine.