Public Health Policy Reviews 20:
Analyzing Vladimir Putin’s Reasons for Invading Ukraine, 2 Years Later.
Photo by Samuel Jerónimo on Unsplash.
The humanitarian and public health emergencies unfolding in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel have dominated international news regarding military and geopolitical conflicts since October 7th, 2024.
The situation is increasingly dire for the Palestinians trying to survive the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) invasion of Gaza. Consequently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine – which began on February 24th, 2022 – seems to have become an afterthought to international news outlets and politicians.
But, like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sanctioning the IDF attacks on civilian targets – a key feature of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been attacks on civilians and civil infrastructure.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2021. Photo image courtesy: Wikipedia Commons.
Moreover, it is easy to see the parallels between the eponymous “Bibi” Netanyahu’s military actions in the Middle East and Vladimir Putin’s reign of terror in Russia and Eastern Europe over the past two decades.
Like the doomed King Macbeth in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) timeless play – The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606) – Bibi Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin are steeped in the blood of their political enemies and countless civilian casualties from wars.
So, considering Mr. Putin’s eagerness to threaten everyone with nuclear war and annihilation as the “civilized world” continues to oppose his invasion - let us remind readers of the particulars of Putin’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.
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Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash.
As amateur political opinion journalists, we prefer to remain objective in the dispute between Ukraine and Russia.
Vladimir Putin’s humble origins and purposeful success as an intelligence officer have forged a genuinely Machiavellian international political actor. Putin relies on craftiness, manipulation, and brute force to maintain his power and control over Russia and its citizens.
However, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Putin and the Kremlin had a legitimate case regarding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) continued expansion into Eastern Europe and Asia.
Mr. Putin’s answer to the challenge posed by NATO was to launch imperialist incursions into Chechnya (1999), Georgia (2008), and Syria (2015). In addition - Russia’s war with Ukraine began ten (10) years ago, in 2014, when Putin invaded and annexed Crimea.
President Putin did not receive significant punishment for invading Crimea from former US President Barack Obama, NATO, or the United Nations (UN). The weak response from Mr. Obama to Russia’s international military adventurism only emboldened Putin.
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The official emblem and logo of the Azov Battalion features an ancient Nordic rune symbol associated with contemporary Nazism. Photo image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Russia’s predawn invasion into Ukraine, which he called a “special military operation,” came after the Russian military amassed military troops and equipment on the Ukrainian border for over a month.
President Putin referenced “extreme nationalists and Neo-Nazis in Ukraine” among the reasons for his military incursion in Ukraine on February 24th, 2022. He used the embrace of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion by the Ukrainian military as propaganda to justify his incursion into the country.
“They (Ukraine), of course, will crawl into the Crimea, just like in the Donbas, in order to kill – just as the gangs of Ukrainian nationalists, Hitler’s accomplices, killed defenseless people during the Great Patriotic War,” Putin claimed. “They openly lay claim to a number of other Russian territories,” Putin continued.
Most people across the world did not believe Putin. Moreover, Russian atrocities in Ukraine have been sufficiently severe to influence the mainstream international press to ignore the story about the Azov Battalion.
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Another Azov Battalion patch features a Wolfsangel and the Black Sun, two symbols associated with Nazism. Photo image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Putin, his advisors in the Kremlin, and his military generals believed that the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick affair.
However, the resistance of the Ukrainian people – inspired by their President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy – has rallied the free world to their cause. After Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border on February 24th, President Zelenskyy described the invasion on Twitter as “a declaration of war against the whole of Europe.”
President Zelenskyy also wrote, “As of today, our countries are on different sides of world history. Russia has embarked on a path of evil, but Ukraine is defending itself and won’t give up its freedom.”
To the surprise of the international community, Ukraine has successfully fought back against Russia to a surprising two-year-long stalemate. Even more encouraging is that Mr. Putin’s violent and unlawful aggression against Ukraine has backfired against him.
Zelenskyy’s leadership against Vladimir Putin has influenced two previously neutral Scandinavian countries—Finland and Sweden—to apply for NATO membership in May 2022.
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Photo by Samuel Jerónimo on Unsplash.
Russia’s humiliating military setbacks and diplomatic losses have since pushed Vladimir Putin to begin making ominous threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
President Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons to prevent Russian military losses against Ukraine’s armed forces proved the decisions by Finland and Sweden to be correct. What the debates focusing primarily on the macroeconomic international impact of the war and military tactics are missing is the long-term impact of Russian violence on the women and children of Ukraine.
The Russian military, special forces, private military contractors, and the military troops of Putin’s allies who have entered Ukraine are all accused of committing deliberate attacks against civilian targets. The carnage has included massacres of civilians, torture, and indiscriminate rape of women and children.
Ukraine’s success on the battlefield in “holding the line” against Russian forces offers a bit of hope for the women and children in Ukraine who want to live free from the death and violence of Russia’s “special military operation.”
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Photo by Ahmed Zalabany on Unsplash.
Life for women and children in NATO and EU member countries is imperfect.
Yet, on average, females and children have longer life spans and higher living standards if they live in NATO and EU countries. But Ukraine cannot defeat Russia by itself. Luckily – NATO, the European Union (EU), and many countries not part of the NATO alliance have expressed unconditional support for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.
President Putin claimed the objective of his incursion into Ukraine was to “de-nazify” the country. However, Putin’s real aim was to prevent the Ukrainian government from following through on its plans to join NATO and the EU.
When viewing the world map objectively as a “chessboard,” you understand Vladimir Putin’s efforts to keep NATO expansion away from his country’s Western border. But Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine’s civilian population has destroyed the premise of Mr. Putin’s claims against NATO aggression.