By Thierry Meyssan

The Ukrainian conflict is turning into a war between the West on one side and Russia and China on the other. Each side is convinced that the other one wants its loss. And fear is a bad advisor. Peace can only be preserved if each side recognizes its mistakes. This must be a radical change, because today neither Western discourse nor Russian actions correspond to reality.

https://www.voltairenet.org/article218093.html

No political leader wants a war on his territory. When they do, it is usually out of fear. Each side fears the other, rightly or wrongly. Of course, there are always a few elements that push for a cataclysm, but they are fanatical and in the minority.

This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves. Russia is convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the West wants to destroy it, while the West is identically convinced that Russia is conducting an imperialist campaign and will eventually destroy its freedoms. In the shadows, a very small group, the Straussians, want confrontation.

This is not to say that World War III is just around the corner. But if no political leader radically changes his or her foreign policy, we are walking directly into the unknown and must prepare for absolute chaos.

To clear up misunderstandings, we must listen to the narratives of both sides.

Moscow believes that the overthrow of democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych was a coup d’état orchestrated by the United States. This is the first point of divergence as Washington interprets the events as a “revolution”, the “EuroMaidan” or “Dignity” revolution. Eight years later, numerous Western testimonies attest to the involvement of the US State Department, the CIA and the NED, Poland, Canada and finally NATO.

The people of Crimea and Donbass refused to endorse the new power, which included many “integral nationalists”, successors of the defeated of the Second World War.

Crimea, which had already voted in a referendum to become part of the future independent Russia when the USSR was dissolved, six months before the rest of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic declared its independence, voted again in a referendum. For four years, Crimea was claimed by both Russia and Ukraine. Moscow argues that between 1991 and 1995, it and not Kiev was paying pensions and salaries of officials in Crimea. In fact, Crimea was always Russian, even if it was considered part of Ukraine. In the end, it was Russian President Boris Yeltsin who, in the midst of a severe economic crisis, decided to abandon Crimea to Kiev. However, Crimea then voted for a constitution recognizing its autonomy within Ukraine, which Kiev never accepted. The second referendum, in 2014, overwhelmingly proclaimed independence. The Crimean Parliament then called for the attachment of its state to the Russian Federation, which the latter accepted. To strengthen the continuity of its territory, Russia built, without consulting Ukraine, a gigantic bridge linking its metropolis to the Crimean peninsula across the Sea of Azov, effectively privatizing this small sea.
Crimea is home to the port of Sevastopol, which is indispensable to the Russian navy. The latter represented nothing in 1990, but became a power again in 2014.

The West recognized the Soviet referendum in Ukraine in 1990, but not the one in 2014. Yet the right of peoples to self-determination does apply to the Crimeans. The West argues that many Russian soldiers were present without wearing their uniforms. True, but the results of the two referendums in 1990 and 2014 were similar. There is no room for suspicion of fraud.

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