Ukraine: the Tug-Of-war Between Russia and the West

Dubbed by many pundits as "The Most Stupid War in the World," the Ukraine conflict is one that hardly anyone saw coming back in 2010. However, it is close to a decade old already. In this conflict in the evenly divided Ukraine, brinkmanship by the local players in the country, by the West that wants to drag Ukraine into its orbit, and by Russia that fears losing Ukraine and its security in the process, is the norm. At the same time, the world watches in a seemingly helpless...
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Dubbed by many pundits as "The Most Stupid War in the World," the Ukraine conflict is one that hardly anyone saw coming back in 2010. However, it is close to a decade old already. In this conflict in the evenly divided Ukraine, brinkmanship by the local players in the country, by the West that wants to drag Ukraine into its orbit, and by Russia that fears losing Ukraine and its security in the process, is the norm. At the same time, the world watches in a seemingly helpless manner as Ukraine gets torn apart at the seams.

Most of the governments in the West blame Russia for instigating this conflict, citing Crimea and Donbas, which they accuse Russia of invading, even though the populations of most of the Western countries are divided when it comes to the party that caused the conflict and began the war in the first place.

Russia, meanwhile, blames the West for triggering the conflict in that:

• It accuses Western Governments of openly siding with the opposition during their three-month protests in the Maidan against the democratically elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych because of his decision to suspend the signing of an association agreement with the EU due to his misgivings about the proposals as a package deal.
• It believes the West reneged on a deal the Western- governments helped broker between Yanukovych and the opposition that would have realized a smooth transition through a union government and the holding of early elections.
• Russia is convinced the West approved the coup that chased Yanukovych out of power.
• It blames the new regime in Kyiv for failing to dialogue with those who opposed Yanukovych's ouster, mostly people from his support base in the Donbas and Crimea.
• Russia holds the new Kyiv authorities responsible for sending the military to crush this protest, which as a result morphed into an armed- resistance, hence the conflict today.

Apparently, this tug-of-war between the West and Russia is portrayed by many in the political establishment and the mainstream media in the West as the fault of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been labeled a resuscitator of the USSR, a thug, another Hitler, a tyrant, a communist, a homophobe, etc. Yet Putin has a popularity rating that has persistently hovered between 65%- 85% in Russia, and he fares well even in the West with a fifth of Americans viewing him favorably. So, what are readers missing; what are we not being told; what are we being made to think; and what is the way forward to realize a new and better Ukraine, and a better and safer world for humanity?

We arrive at simple conclusions after reading the accounts in this work.