I can’t see what else the goal would be, unless it really was some plan to split the world into East and West; to really solidify the Cold War that’s been ongoing (I do not however buy “denazification”)

Cause, Ukraine seems as fucked politically as the US, when it comes to internal matters anyway. I just can’t imagine Russia is really interested in the state-building and counter-insurgency—or, more accurately, sees that as even a medium-term viable solution.

I still suspect there were specific, concrete actions taken by the US/US-affiliated people that Russia acted in response to (not just the long term NATO stuff, but something more specific).

In hindsight, the US really looked like it was playing a game of chicken by talking about the “imminent” Russian invasion for weeks on end; you can just imagine some CIA spook telling his boss “I know sir we’ve been trying to trigger the invasion but he’s not taking the bait”.

I know that’s conspiracy brain but the insane US involvement just feels like it was very much a ginned-up situation and, frankly, it looks like the US/NATO found themselves in a situation they didn’t really expect. Russia just occupying the breakaway regions was probably what the US was going for; I imagine all parties saw that coming sooner or later, and I imagine the CIA encouraged the build up of whatever kind of anti-Russia fighters it could manage in the region to make it a quagmire.

Like obviously Russia was prepared to take military action against its semi-hostile neighbor; I imagine their government has always found it pragmatic to have a plan for such a thing. I don’t necessarily see that as a sign of aggression, so much as military competence