Russia is the bad guy, and I'm tired of pretending it isn't

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Since December of 2021, information has been released by sources in both the American and Ukrainian governments to the international printing regarding Russian intentions to exert its dominance over Ukraine.

Since the release of the first reports, the globe has watched with aside breath as Russia turned down the thought of peaceful negotiation in favor of outrageous demands he knew would not be granted by the Eu (Eu) and its allies inside the U.s.a.-led Northward Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While these negotiations were taking place, thousands of Russian troops began massing on the Ukrainian border and began building infrastructure like supply depots and field hospitals.

Putin has additionally expressed in his ain writings on the Kremlin's official website detailing in exhaustive fashion the historical and cultural links between modern Russia and Ukraine and blaming the lack of "spiritual unity" on a change of identity forced on them by NATO-centrolineal forces following the fall of the Soviet Wedlock (USSR).

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Many here in the US are unfamiliar with the precipitating events that led to the conflict. While the history of the ii nations stretches dorsum across centuries, the seeds of the current conflict were kickoff planted with the autumn of the USSR in 1991, establishing the modern nations of Russian federation and Ukraine.

An NPR report by staff author Becky Sullivan on the history of the two nations summarizes the precipitating events and provides context for the electric current crisis.

Ukraine gave its nuclear stockpile, leftover from the Soviet era, to Russia in commutation for a recognition of territorial sovereignty in 1996.

Since the dissolution of the USSR, Russia and NATO have fought for influence within the region. As the population protested, rebelled and later overthrew the post-Soviet regime in favor of a pro-NATO government, Russians exerted pressure on Ukrainian leaders and annexed the Crimean peninsula in March 2014 after labeling the revolutionary government illegitimate.

When the Russian annexation concluded, the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donbas and Luhansk declared their independence after Russian-supported rebel forces captured their governing capitals, citing a desire to maintain closer ties with Russia.

The fighting led to the signing of the Minsk Agreement, which was intended to act as a ceasefire, but fell apart in less than a year, reigniting the fighting in eastern Ukraine. A 2d peace deal, known as the Minsk II Understanding was signed in 2015, but information technology too fell through and fighting has continued in the region since.

Over the next five years, a new president was elected, current president Volodymyr Zelynsky, who asked then-president Donald Trump for aid in moving away from Russia's economical sphere of influence. This resulted in Trump famously asking Zelynskyy for "a favor" in investigating the son of and so-presidential candidate Joe Biden's connections with Burisma, an energy company based in Ukraine, while threatening to withhold regular military aid as a bargaining fleck. Zelynsky initially agreed just ultimately refused to follow through, citing popular dislike in Ukraine for interfering with U.s. affairs.

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Since Biden'due south 2020 ballot victory, little boosted news came out of the state until Russian troop deployments began edifice on the edge in April of 2021. When initially confronted by NATO allies, Putin promised to pull back some of the forces, but left tens of thousands. This spurred Zelynsky to come across with the new president to establish a timeline for NATO membership, which ultimately failed to occur.

The procedure of initiating Ukraine into NATO has been put off for years, with leading nations fearing a direct disharmonize with Russian forces. Unfortunately, this has allowed Russia to maintain a dominant presence in Ukraine, ultimately allowing them to claim their current efforts to invade the state are peacekeeping measures seeking to pacify conflict at their border.

Prominent NATO members, like French president Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime number Minister Boris Johnson take expressed support for the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Biden has expressed like sentiments, merely such sentiments ring hollow when his administration has straight refused to provide military help to Ukraine, who fears their country will autumn casualty to Russian expansionism without international assist.

The Biden administration has struggled to maintain popular support due to COVID-19 continuing to ravage the country, rising inflation spurring discontent amidst working-class voters and the public relations disaster of the end of the war in Afghanistan, leading Republicans to aim at taking back the majority in the Firm of Representatives and Senate in the upcoming 2022 elections.

This newfound opportunity has exposed a division within the Republican party centered around its love/hate relationship with its de facto leader, Trump.

Trump appeared on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton evidence, a bourgeois talk radio show, on Tuesday, Feb. 22. While on the show he made comments calling Putin's declaration of support for the Donbas and Luhansk regions, the principal justification for his current invasion, "genius" and "savvy."

Trump has a well documented history of fraternizing with authoritarians and has gone out of his way to comport out explicitly authoritarian actions and policies like using tear gas to disperse protestors for a photo opportunity and repeatedly directing violence toward members of the press at his political rallies. But despite, or perhaps because of, his trend toward authoritarianism, he even so finds support among a broad swathe of the ostensibly freedom-loving Republican political party electorate.

There is a faction inside the party, led by Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, to distance the party from Trump during the upcoming 2022 elections and since the onset of the Ukrainian crisis this faction has expressed their support for Ukrainian sovereignty while simultaneously decrying Biden's as too little and likewise late.

Even so, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Fla. this past weekend, the largest gathering of conservative politicians, activists and donors in the U.s.a., a survey of 2574 attendees gave Trump a 99% approval rating for his previous term and 85% supported a futurity bid for the presidency in 2024.

We saw how Trump went from political outsider to dominating the Republican political party well-nigh overnight in 2016, flipping formerly vocal opponents like Senator Ted Cruz and even McConnell himself later receiving the Republican nomination. If the same were to happen in 2024, contempo history shows nosotros should be wary of the reliability of Republicans in excising the about radical elements of the party.

The existent partitioning exposed past the Russian incursion seems to be an ongoing ability struggle within the Republican party betwixt Trump'southward force-posturing populism and the more than ideologically motivated faction led by McConnell in the Senate. The party agrees on lines of nationalist domestic policy and protectionist economical policy, but differs on foreign policy and the office the party should accept in influencing global politics.

Trump's foreign policy seems to depend on whatever he feels rallies his base most, similar assassinating Iranian full general Qasem Soleimani on Iraqi soil, most sparking another state of war with both powers. Trump's willingness to decide and act unilaterally, even against the communication of his advisors, in matters of strange policy and utilise the military to exercise so place him alongside other authoritarians he's publicly praised like Kim Jong-Un and Putin.

The division of the party not explicitly aligned with Trump prefers an isolationist arroyo, maintaining positions of authorisation in diverse multinational organizations like NATO and the United Nations (Un) but not acting on the global stage unless a specific national interest is at stake.

This is why the party can openly decry the violence being perpetuated by Russia while remaining silent when information technology comes to helping the refugees seeking to flee the conflict, including thousands of international students from various African countries like Nigeria, Morocco and Federal democratic republic of ethiopia who remain stranded without a path of escape.

Putin's newest invasion of Ukraine is the work of a man driven to restore Russia to the "glory" it once had. He hearkens back to the aforementioned blood and soil justifications that so rallied nations in the early half of the 20th century and served as the pretext for the German invasion of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, claiming that shared cultural heritage outweighs a nation's desire for self-governance.

A significant portion of the Republican political party, with Trump every bit their leader, accept a significant chance of becoming the ascendant political influence in the country in 2024. This contingent, which openly praises authoritarians and stormed the U.s. Capitol building on Jan 6, 2021 in an try to overturn the results of the 2020 election, has shown a disdain for the democratic process and a penchant for anti-intellectualism.

We must concord our nation up to a mirror and examine its weaknesses. Its vulnerability to misinformation, its deep political divisions, and its weakness to strongman populism historically signal toward balkanization and bloodshed. America claims to exist ameliorate than Russia, so we must work together, as one nation, to brand that happen.

Staff reporter William Box tin can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @William17455137. To stay up to date with all your southern Illinois news, follow the Daily Egyptian on Facebook and Twitter .

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