US officials who forecast a Russian attack on Ukraine were correct and were not creating a false narrative, as many of us believed. Although the US, NATO and Ukraine are the primary instigators of the current crisis with Russia, Russia’s military action is an act of aggression and is not acceptable. Russia’s security concerns are not an exaggeration, and had they been addressed this conflict could have been avoided. But Russia’s military actions in Ukraine are not supportable.

Russia was backed into a corner, and its requests to NATO to stop it’s eastward expansion were flatly rejected, and even mocked as NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg threatened last Saturday: "So if Kremlin’s aim is to have less NATO on Russia’s borders, it will only get more NATO."

The next day, Feb 20, Ukraine’s president Zelensky suggested that his country may seek to restart their nuclear weapons program.

Russia's desire to protect the persecuted, poor (avg. monthly salary of about $300) Russian-speaking people of eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region who have been attacked by the Ukrainian government (with US weapons and training) for 8 years, is also a legitimate issue that has been flat-out ignored by the west. Regardless, what Russia is now doing in Ukraine is wrong.

Here’s what some others are saying:

Tulsi Gabbard: "This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border."

Pat Buchanan: “Putin…came to power in 1999…as America conducted a 78-day bombing campaign on Serbia, the Balkan nation that had historically been a protectorate of Mother Russia. That year, also, three former Warsaw Pact nations, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, were brought into NATO…In 2004 Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria were admitted into NATO, a grouping that included three former republics of the USSR itself, as well as three more former Warsaw Pact nations. Then, in 2008, came the Bucharest declaration that put Georgia and Ukraine, both bordering on Russia, on a path to NATO membership.”

The Party for Socialism and Liberation: "[T]he current crisis is the byproduct of a long effort by the United States to establish absolute domination throughout Europe. The U.S. policy is aimed at undermining Russia’s security by surrounding it with advanced missiles that can reach their Russian targets in less than 10 minutes. For the last three months, the Russian government simultaneously called for negotiations about their security concerns while at the same time amassing troops at the Russia-Ukraine border and at the border of Ukraine and Belarus. Putin announced that Russia would militarily intervene in Ukraine after the United States and NATO rejected their fundamental demands that Ukraine not be incorporated into NATO and that Ukraine, which shares a 1,200-mile border with Russia, not be used as a staging ground for advanced missiles that target Russia."

Retired US Army Col. Douglas Macgregor: “The first thing we have to do is acknowledge that Putin’s basic point, not just his point, the Russian governments point, which they’ve made for 25 years, is valid. They don’t want U.S. forces and missiles and NATO troops immediately across the border in eastern Ukraine. Absolutely. We didn't want them in Cuba, he doesn't want them in eastern Ukraine. We should acknowledge that. Stop pretending it’s a nonissue. It is a major issue for them.”

Joe Lauria, Consortium News: “In his address on Thursday morning, Putin said the military operation he was launching was a question of life or death for Russia, referring to NATOs expansion east since the late 1990s. [Putin] said:

“For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.””

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Hopefully Ukraine promises to stop its war on Russian people in Ukraine, vows to never join NATO, and NATO falls back, and then Russia goes home.

Peace