Debunking Lies About the War in Ukraine

By Eric Zuesse

Lie #1: The war started on 24 February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Before Ukraine’s President Volodmyr Zelensky quit negotiations with Russia to settle the war in Ukraine, he told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on 20 March 2022, “I made a point that the war in Ukraine has been lasting for eight years. It’s not just some special military operation.” Zakaria had asked him “You have said recently that Ukraine perhaps will not be a member of NATO. You have admitted that.

Could that — there are people who ask, could that concession, had you made it clearly and loudly earlier, could that have prevented this war?” Zelensky’s reply said that for Ukraine to make such a “concession” — unless some NATO countries would step up to provide “guarantees” to Ukraine’s winning this eight-year war — would be unacceptable to Ukrainians, because this war had started “eight years” earlier, and they wouldn’t accept now — after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 — a “concession” of an indispensable part of what their military has been fighting for ever since long before that, going all the way back to 2014 — virtual if not official membership in NATO, so that American missiles can then become posted on Ukraine’s border only 317 miles away from Russia’s command center in The Kremlin. That has always been Ukraine’s goal throughout this eight-year war.

And for Ukraine to “concede” it to Russia now would be for Ukraine to lose what they have been waging war for eight years in order to attain. He also told Zakaria that Ukrainians would never accept any concession to Russia on what was, before 2014, Ukrainian land: Crimea and Donbass: “Any compromises related to our territorial integrity and our sovereignty … We cannot concede to it.”

The NATO issue is part of that:

“NATO could be a source of guarantees for Ukraine, but we are not accepted as a member of NATO, so Ukraine has to seek for other security guarantees from individual countries, that could be NATO members. That is what we are proposing, a number of leaders of world countries could be the source of guarantees for Ukraine. They could be part of this circle of powerful countries. That is what we can talk about, security guarantees for Ukraine.”

His war in Ukraine is a war for “sovereignty” within the Ukraine that existed before 2014, and including Ukraine’s right to allow U.S.-or-allied missiles to be posted there within only a five-minute flight-time away from nuclear-annihilating The Kremlin.

He even said that “We are running out of time. You have to admit Ukraine into NATO right now.

We do not have much time. You have to accept Ukraine as a member of E.U. [as a stepping-stone to being allowed into NATO]”. In other words: Only as a temporary measure would he accept some NATO countries offering to provide “guarantees” to Ukraine’s winning this eight-year war — and he is holding the same goal now, that Ukraine’s Government has been pursuing ever since 2014: for U.S. missiles to be able to be placed in Ukraine and thus only a five-minute missile flight-time from The Kremlin. (During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK refused to allow Soviet missiles to be placed 1,131 miles away from Washington DC.)

Here is a video of the 2014 regime-change in Ukraine which had produced this war. And here is what had led up to that historic regime-change event. And here is how that historic regime-change event ultimately produced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

So: the Big Lie about Ukraine’s war is that it started on 24 February 2022, instead of during 20-26 February 2014. Even Ukraine’s President acknowledges that it is false. For some reason, the leaders of Ukraine’s ‘allies’ (especially the U.S.) do not acknowledge it.

Lie #2: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 was “illegal”.

Here is why Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 could her considered as legal under international law:

No one maintains that U.S. President John F. Kennedy lacked international legal authorization to invade the Soviet Union if the Soviet Union were to place its nuclear-warheaded missiles in Cuba only 1,131 miles away from Washington DC. Everyone recognized that if the Soviet Union and Cuba were to do that, it would constitute an act of aggression against the United States, because those missiles would be so close to America’s command-center in DC as to enable a blitz nuclear attack by the Soviet Union so fast as to possibly prohibit America’s strategic command to recognize the attack in time to launch its own, retaliatory, missiles.

This is the principle, that any major world power possesses the national self-defense right to prohibit any bordering nation from allowing weaponry and forces of a major world power that is hostile to this major world power to be placed in that bordering nation.

Whereas Cuba is 1,131 miles away from DC, Ukraine is only 317 miles away from The Kremlin. Five minutes away from The Kremlin would be so close as to mean game-over for Russia, checkmate by the U.S.

JFK demanded from both Cuba and the Soviet Union, that there will NEVER be Soviet missiles placed in Cuba, and the Soviet Union then promised that they would comply with that national-security demand by the U.S.; thus, WW III was averted.

This time around, the aggressors were America and Ukraine; and Russia (facing an even bigger threat than America did in 1962) imposed the same demand as JFK did, but its enemies were/are determined and clear aggressor nations — they refused to comply.

Why does ANYONE allege that allowing the United States to place its missiles only 317 miles (a 5-minute missile-flight away) from The Kremlin would not constitute aggression by the U.S. and Ukraine against Russia? Allowing Ukraine into NATO would grant the Governments of U.S. and Ukraine a right to place U.S. missiles 317 miles from The Kremlin — something that no rational Government of Russia would ever allow to happen. As Russia’s Government has said, this issue of permanently excluding Ukraine from NATO is “a matter of life and death” for Russia. And THAT is the reason it is.

The Cuban-Missile-Crisis precedent acknowledged that Russia now has a national-defense right to demand that Ukraine NEVER be allowed into NATO. This is what U.S., its NATO anti-Russian military alliance, and the existing Ukrainian Government, refuse to acknowledge.

On 17 December 2021, Russia demanded, from both the U.S. and its anti-Russian military alliance NATO, promises in writing, that Ukraine WILL NOT BE ALLOWED INTO NATO. On 7 January 2022, America and its NATO aggression-alliance both said no.

That left Russia either to capitulate to America and its NATO, or else to invade Ukraine in order to prevent that aggressor — America — from doing essentially what JFK had gotten the Soviet Union to do: to agree to the defending major world power’s extremely reasonable (actually necessary) demand and so promise NEVER to allow Ukraine into NATO.

America (and its NATO) thus forced Russia to invade Ukraine, in order to prevent nuclear “Checkmate!” by the U.S. regime. The aggressor was America — NOT Russia.

All of the U.S.-and-allied propaganda organs (including academic ones) that use the lying phrase “Russia’s illegal invasion of ukraine” must therefore be recognized as being the liars that they actually are. (Otherwise: they must declare JFK to have been violating international law by threatening Khrushchev with an American invasion if Soviet missiles would be placed in Cuba.)

What the Cuban-Missile-Crisis example displays is a more detailed statement of the Westphalian Principle or “Westphalian State System” as Oxford Reference defines that:

OVERVIEW

Westphalian state system

QUICK REFERENCE

Term used in international relations, supposedly arising from the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648 which ended the Thirty Years War. It is generally held to mean a system of states or international society comprising sovereign state entities possessing the monopoly of force within their mutually recognized territories. Relations between states are conducted by means of formal diplomatic ties between heads of state and governments, and international law consists of treaties made (and broken) by those sovereign entities.

The term implies a separation of the domestic and international spheres, such that states may not legitimately intervene in the domestic affairs of another, whether in the pursuit of self‐interest or by appeal to a higher notion of sovereignty, be it religion, ideology, or other supranational ideal. In this sense the term differentiates the ‘modern’ state system from earlier models, such as the Holy Roman Empire or the Ottoman Empire.

Richard Coggins

RTC

From:  Westphalian state system  in  The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics

That cites two “Empires” — Holy Roman, and Ottoman — but actually ALL empires violate Westphalianism. That includes today’s American empire.

During WW II, the advocates of Westphalianism were FDR and Stalin, and the opponents of Westphalianism were Churchill, Hirohito, Mussolini, and Hitler. Truman and his personal hero Eisenhower became FDR’s successors, and both of them were opponents of Westphalianism. This was the reason why the Cold War started: both of the first two American Presidents after FDR were imperialists. They created today’s military-industrial-complex-controlled America, the international American dictatorship that now exists and which has replaced FDR’s democracy.

An interesting sidelight to this is that whereas Sunni Islam, and the passion that some of them have for establishing an international “Caliphate,” accept imperialism or even advocate it (as Caliphate-proponents do), Shiite Islam opposes imperialism, and this has been one of the major reasons why Shiite Iran is rejected by all imperialistic Governments. Here is how Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei phrased this in his 21 October 2006 “Leader’s Speech in Meeting with Soldiers and Commanders of the Sacred Defense Era”:

There are two major differences between a defensive and an offensive war in terms of meaning and content. One difference is that an offensive war is based on transgression and aggression, but this is not the case with a defensive war. The second difference is that a defensive war is a place where zeal, courage and deep loyalty to ideals emerge. These ideals may be related to one’s country or … one’s religion. ….

This does not exist in an offensive war. For example, when America attacks Iraq, an American soldier cannot claim that he is doing it for the love of his country. What does Iraq have to do with his country? This war is at the service of other goals, but if an Iraqi person resists this military invasion and presence inside his country, this means showing resistance and defending one’s country, national identity and those values that one believes in. …

Since the day the regime of Saddam attacked Tehran and struck the airport until the day Imam (r.a.) accepted the resolution – was a glorious era. And it continued to be a glorious era until Saddam attacked again and our revolutionary and mujahid people took over the entire desert. Basiji youth from throughout the country participated in the war and they put in an astonishing performance. This time – the second time that Iraq had attacked – they managed to make it retreat.

Between 1953 and 1979, Iran had been part of (i.e., a vassal of) the then-growing American empire, and Khamenei in that speech made a principled repudiation of THAT America — the post-FDR, imperialistic, America. But that America is now bipartisan in both of America’s political Parties, and is at war against the anti-imperialist nations of today, mainly Russia, China, and Iran — but also against any nation that is friendly toward any of those three. The anti-imperialist nations are pro-Westphalian; the imperialist nations are (and always have been) anti-Westphalian.

Ever since Obama’s coup in Ukraine in 2014, Ukraine has been and is a U.S.-vassal nation. Its demand to have the right for U.S. missiles to be positioned only about 300 miles away from the Kremlin is actually a U.S.-NATO demand that is placed upon this vassal-nation’s leaders as a precondition to be able to receive weapons from U.S.-NATO against Russia’s 24 February 2022 invasion. Zelensky is a U.S.-NATO stooge. This entire problem is a problem of U.S. imperialism. Ukraine is America’s proxy. Russia is defending itself against U.S. aggression.

Today’s international law doesn’t mention the Westphalian Principle, because FDR had died and the U.N. (which he invented and named) became created in Truman’s image, not in FDR’s; and so it accepts imperialism (which FDR passionately despised and loathed). That’s part of the gutting which has resulted, of FDR’s envisioned U.N.

Lie #3: Russia’s 24 February 2024 invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked.

Click on this to see instances of that rabidly false allegation; and here and here are two typical examples of it. But the provocation is America’s demand that its vassal-nation Ukraine must have a ‘right’ to place U.S. missiles only 5 minutes from Moscow. It is outrageous, and a violation of Westphalianism (which is based upon a clear distinction between aggressor and defender).

Lie #4: Russia’s 24 February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was aggressive not defensive.

Consequently, the phrases “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”and “Russian aggression against Ukraine”, which are two typical phrases in media reports and official statements against Russia in this war — typical examples being this and this — all are baldfaced lies. Why are they used against Russia now, when in 1962 no one was alleging that JFK acted other than defensively in the Cuban Missile Crisis? (Furthermore: he wasn’t responsible for his neoconservative predecessor Eisenhower’s having positioned U.S. missiles in Turkey in 1959, which had precipitatedwhat Khrushchev did in Cuba. In the settlement that avoided WW III, Soviet missiles were removed from Cuba and American missiles were removed from Turkey. The U.S. regime was actually the aggressor in the combined 1959-1962 Turkey-Cuba Missile-Crisis.)

Any alleged report that employs any such phrase as “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine” and “Russian aggression against Ukraine”, is propaganda — lying ‘news’ or ‘history’ — that bases itself upon the false unstated assumption that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 started the war in Ukraine, instead of responded to a war in Ukraine that U.S. President Barack Obama’s Administration (including Joe Biden) — the American Government — had actually started there, in 2014, against Ukraine’s adjoining nation of Russia. America is planning ultimately to invade Russia from the only nation that is only 300 miles away from Moscow (Russia’s central command — far closer than Cuba was to Washington DC during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis).

Here, as proven in the links, are the historical facts, documenting the U.S. Government’s increasing aggression against Russia — using Ukraine as its primary springboard in its plan to conquer Russia:

The Obama Administration perpetrated in February 2014 a bloody Ukrainian coup (hidden behind popular anti-corruption Ukrainian demonstrations that the CIA and State Department had trained and organized local racist-fascist anti-Russian Ukrainians to lead) overthrowing the democratically elected President of Ukraine and replacing him by a racist-fascist (ideologically nazi) regime that immediately replaced Ukraine’s generals with ones to ethnically cleanse pro-Russian Ukrainians and kill some and terrorize the others to flee into Russia so as to get rid of the people in the Ukrainian regions that had voted 70% or more for that democratically elected President — and this ethnic cleansing would enable the nazi U.S.-installed regime in Ukraine to be ‘democratically elected’, and so to continue the U.S.-Government’s control over that country, on Russia’s border.

For the full details, see this.

So: all four of those phrases (“Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”, “unprovoked war in Ukraine”, and “Russian aggression against Ukraine”, and (the one shown at the very top here) “The war started on 24 February 2022,” are lies, which reverse the aggressor (purportedly Russia, but actually America) and the defender (purportedly Ukraine — which is America’s proxy in its war against Russia) — the defender here being actually Russia).

The war in Ukraine started with Obama’s coup, not with Putin’s ultimate response to it (which occurred soon after America’s rejection on 7 January 2022, of Russia’s demand, NOT to allow Ukraine into NATO). Even Zelensky knows this (as was proven here at the start). And both he and his predecessor, Poroshenko, are aware that the February 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected President and installation of the post-coup regime means that their own Presidencies were and are likewise illegal.

America’s plan here is to place its missiles on Ukraine’s border with Russia, only a five-minute-missile-flight away from blitz-nuking The Kremlin and thereby behead Russia’s central command — too fast for Russia to be able to launch its retaliatory missiles.

What is the power of lies?

In a U.N. General Assembly vote on November 14th, the U.N. General Assembly (which has no power) voted by 94 votes for, 73 abstentions, and only 14 votes against, a Resolution to demand that Russia pay restitution to Ukraine, for the war in Ukraine — that America started against Russia by its 2014 coup. America — a proven dictatorship and police-state — leads the world’s ‘democracies’ this way.

Often, lies have more of an impact than truths do. And, this time, that impact can even turn out to be WW III. That’s why calling-out these lies, by the U.S. regime, against Russia, is essential — in order to prevent WW III.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Duran.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is a professional lie-debunker. His new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Jonas E. Alexis, Senior Editor

Jonas E. Alexis has degrees in mathematics and philosophy. He studied education at the graduate level. His main interests include U.S. foreign policy, the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the history of ideas. He is the author of the book, Kevin MacDonald’s Metaphysical Failure: A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Critique of Evolutionary Psychology, Sociobiology, and Identity Politics. He teaches mathematics in South Korea.

• Read the Latest Posts from Jonas >>>
• Read Jonas’ Archives (2004-2015) >>>