Why had Putin Really Invaded Ukraine?

It Seems Nobody in the West Really Cares to Find an Answer

This is my two-year old piece but it gained a new relevance in the light of new Putin’s peace offer on Ukraine which US had already dismissed without even considering it. Now, if they REALLY wanted peace as they always claim, would they have done that, especially with such an ease and an utter contempt for the peace offer which is very unlikely to come again, especially on such light conditions?

Original two-year old post: This fact did also strike me as very strange and unnatural - that Western society and media at large do not exhibit any desire to understand the whys of Ukrainian war. All they do is to condemn and blame Russia for the invasion endlessly, parroting and copypasting each other like bots in the process thus increasing the levels of mass hysteria and hatred. But they are not even curious to understand possible reasons for this very extraordinary event of military action. This is even more astonishing taking into account how very fundamentally important this question - WHY did Putin invade? - is. Yet I do not see many people asking this question in the West, and even less people are trying to answer it.

Brainwashed Westerners usually dumbly repeat legacy media talking points. Critically thinking people in this particular case no less dumbly repeat Putin’s talking points. And NO ONE seems to really think for themselves here and try to find an answer to this crucial question - why had Putin invaded?

If you ask why did Putin invade, a brainwashed Westerner (I use this word to denote not just Americans but also Canadians, Brits, Europeans, etc.) would usually provide a cliched and meaningless answer - like 'Putin wants to restore old Russian Empire or USSR' or 'Putin is just a mad dictator' - and then dismiss all the subject altogether. This is because the Westerners who are brainwashed by establishment propaganda are much more preoccupied with how to react to Putin's invasion than with understanding the reasons of it. This is pretty stupid, however, since understanding Putin's reasons might actually help us to BETTER REACT to his actions as well. Yet majority of these Westerners are absolutely incurious to learn those reasons. They either imagine that they know them already (those simplistic cliches like 'Putin is a mad dictator and 'Dark Lord'), or do not care to know. Again, this total indifference to one of the key questions in this whole situation might be excusable for an average Western citizen but for politicians, journalists, political scientists and analysts? Those people SHOULD BE ASKING this fundamental question and trying to find an answer to it as a part of their professional duty, and yet they don't. Why?

It is especially astonishing taking into account that before the invasion majority of the Westerners did not actually believe that Putin would dare to invade. When he did, many of them were deeply shocked. Yet now none of them is even curious to find out WHY did Putin invade, and act as if this kind of behavior was to be expected from 'such a person as Putin' (although NONE OF THEM did really expect it BEFORE the invasion!) This attitude is kinda pretty strange and inconsistent, isn't it?

You might think that those simplistic cliched answers which I spoke of above are enough to understand Putin's motivation but they aren't, they do not ring true even. If Putin really wanted to restore Russian Empire so badly, what was he doing for the whole 20+ years of his presidency? Why did he start restoring it only now? Yeah he had annexed Crimea back in 2014 but this was also a single and an isolated event, not his regular routine, and even this event came rather as a paranoid reaction to Ukrainian Maidan than any calculated attempt to 'restore Russian Empire'. So this explanation is not convincing, not really. Putin gone mad? Again, WHY? He seemed pretty sane even if evil for all twenty two years before. Also, he doesn't act like a madman now - rather as cold and rational guy who he always was. So the theory of Putin's insanity isn't plausible as well. Then why had Putin invaded?

Critically thinking Westerners usually revert to Putin’s own claims to explain his reasons but Putin's own provided explanations and justifications for the invasion do not make much sense for me as well. 'Demilitarization' and 'denazification' of Ukraine without its occupation, how does it even make sense? How could you forbid a sovereign state from having an army? And how could you 'denazify' a country (if you believe there are a lot of Nazis out there), when Nazi ideology is in people's heads - shoot them in their heads? So it doesn't make sense to me. Or does it mean that Putin wanted actually to occupy Ukraine? Then why had he left Kiev and Chernigov on his own volition when he didn't have to? That again didn't make sense. Or was Putin's real goal to protect Eastern Ukrainian rebel Donbass region and its Russian-speaking population as he also claimed? That might ring true but then for protection of Donbass region it was enough to order Russian troops JUST INTO THIS REGION! There was absolutely NO NEED to go further into Ukraine, to bomb Kiev and Chernigov and other regions and cities if Putin's goal was only Donbass region! Then WHY? It again does not make sense to me.

Again, as I also stated many times before, I do not see what Putin gains from this war at all - he only loses. Putin had put his country, his people (including his friends and oligarchs) under unprecedented Western sanctions. Hell, 300 billions of dollars of Russian currency reserves were frozen by the West! Moreover, Putin had fucked up Nord Stream 2 pipeline which he and Gazprom spent a lot of time, effort and money to build and which might have given Russia a lot of gas money and political and economic leverage over Europe. US tried for years to block Nord Stream 2 project in vain, and now Putin gives US its closure as a gift on a silver plate - WHY on Earth? Putin also claimed he did not want expansion of NATO to the East - yet now he would get it due to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Why on Earth did he need that, why did he need to turn his neutral neighbors into his enemies? Putin also claimed that he wanted to protect Russian-speaking population in Ukraine. Yet by his invasion he had endangered millions of Russians and Russian-speaking folks living elsewhere in the West due to current toxic Cancel Russia Western campaign. Even if Putin might not have expected to which insane lengths the West would go in its paranoia of overreaction, he surely should have have some clue still. Yet, despite of all of that, he still had invaded. WHY?

What does Putin GAIN? Even if we'd assume that his real goal is to occupy Ukraine and he would be even able to fulfill it, then WHAT? Life in international isolation under permanent heavy unprecedented sanctions? Also, how would he control this big land populated by over forty millions of people who do really hate him now? Ukraine would be a perfect rebel ground, worse than Chechnya ever was, for Russia. So why does Putin even need it? It doesn't make any sense.

So let us conclude. Putin loses everything and gains nothing from this war. He was perfectly aware of that before attacking yet he still did. He isn't insane. Then why had he done it? Why no one in the West even asks this question, and why even less than no one tries to find an answer to it? Sigh.

I do not claim to know the answer. But I'm at least asking the question. I have some hypotheses though. I do not believe that Putin is insane. Neither I believe that all of a sudden he decided to 'restore the glory of Russian Empire', after 20+ years of his presidency. Then why? Well, there should be SOMETHING we do not know about it all - and Putin does. Western leaders maybe too but they do not tell it to you. There is ONLY explanation which makes sense: if all the facts that we DO KNOW do not provide a plausible reason for Putin's invasion, but Putin, being rational and not insane (and hence, still needing his REASONS!), STILL invaded, then there are REASONS for his invasion but we do not have enough facts to understand these reasons. This is, again, the ONLY explanation which makes sense. You might call it a 'conspiracy' but when a sane person does something which looks insane to us, there are usually facts which explain his motivation but which we do not possess. Which facts those could be? This is a topic for entirely new post.