Summary of How U.S. Provoked War in Ukraine

Professor Jeffrey Sachs presents events and timeline since 1991.

I wonder how many Americans are acquainted with the basic facts of the French invasion of Russia in 1812 and the German invasion of Russia in 1941. Following the French invasion, approximately 450,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded, and the civilian population also suffered terribly. Tolstoy’s famous novel War and Peace is set during the Napoleon’s invasion and it chronicles how the Russian people reacted to it. I wonder how many Americans have read War and Peace.

Following the German invasion in 1941, an estimated 27 million Russians were killed. While there is a huge literature about the horrors suffered by the Russian people as the Wehrmacht advanced and laid siege to cities such as Stalingrad, this terrible theater of warfare is not common knowledge in the United States.

Naturally these invasions greatly accentuated Russia’s longstanding distrust of the West, and nothing the United States government has done since 1990 has reduced their distrust. We Americans have a longstanding habit of assuming that we are the good guys, and that if our armed forces kill people abroad, it’s always for a good cause. However, the Russians do not see us that way. Our military bases all over the eastern hemisphere, our expansion of NATO to the east despite our promise NOT to do so in 1991, our invasions and bombings of various countries since 2001, and our ever-meddling CIA have caused grave misgivings in Moscow. If I were a Russian leader, I would certainly not trust any assurances from Washington.

Watch Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs’s presentation of the basic facts and timeline of how the U.S. government recklessly discarded James Baker’s promise to Gorbachev in 1991.

Since then, the U.S. has pursued policies that have sown fear in Moscow, ultimately baiting Moscow to take military action in Ukraine to prevent the CIA and NATO from further establishing their power in that country whose northeast border lies only 350 miles from Moscow.