The feelings engendered by the scenes of suffering in Ukraine have understandably evoked strong emotional reactions in the West, which tend to interfere with rational analysis. Contrary to the Western portrayal of the Russian invasion as the act of a "madman," this new evidence supports his claim that the decision to invade was made in response to a credible threat of genocide in the ethnic Russian region of Donbass.

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AUTHORS NOTE: This article is not intended to be a justification for the Russian invasion.

Having written recentlythat it may be a bad idea right now to keep trying to explain why invading Ukraine should be understood in context, it is with trepidation that I'm now going to do just that. The reason is that there are documents that just came to light which show that those who believed that Russia was trying to prevent a genocide were correct.

Although you've probably never heard, since it is never reported in American media, Russia reported that there were as many as 125,000 Ukrainian troops inside the ethnically Russian Donbass region of Ukraine by December of 2021, when the 8-year old conflict between Ukraine and the breakaway Republics was heating up again. These troops had been funded and heavily armed by the US, which had been encouraging Ukraine to forcibly take them back. On February 24^th, the day the invasion began, Ukraine was clearly poised to invade the self-declared independent Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The newly revealed records confirm what many of us suspected, that the Ukrainian invasion was scheduled to occur within days.

It is very likely that this was apparent to Russian military intelligence, which would provide a totally different explanation for why the invasion occurred even as Russia was negotiating with Ukraine than the idea that Putin was simply "mad" and "wanted to restore the long-lost Russian Empire." The claim that Putin was lying about not wanting to invade was based on the fact that he was conducting a troop buildup while negotiating, and in the end did invade. However, taking literally Putin's statement that Russia had "no plans to invade" is disingenuous. Obviously, the Russian military buildup meant that they had a plan, but he said repeatedly that whether there would be war depended entirely on Ukraine's actions. It is entirely possible that he would have preferred to not invade, as he repeatedly indicated. Unless, of course, you start with the assumption that he is mad.

Unlike those who believe the US wanted to avoid war, Zelensky understood what Putin was saying. He called for a halt to inflammatory rhetoric coming from the US and asked Biden to come to Ukraine underscore the fact that there need be no war. In the end, Zelensky was put in a position where he had no choice but to refuse to deescalate the situation by removing troops from Donbass. The video in this article shows why: When he had tried order troops out of Donbass in 2019, neo-Nazis with much greater power over the government and military than their numbers would indicate laughed in his face and sent him away. That's how a Jewish president came to realize that he had better go along with what these US-backed fascists had in mind.

So go ahead and hate Putin if it makes you feel better. War is always a choice, and it is always brutal. Civilians are always killed, even though dead children make excellent propaganda for those who want to paint a war as one-sided. But if you want to prevent the next war, for God's sake try to understand the logic of both sides of this conflict. More specifically, do whatever you can do to try and get your government to stop constantly provoking a nuclear power, while denying its legitimate security interests.

Here is the official Russian Defense Ministry announcement (video at the end, this translation supplied by Konstantin Scheglikov). The cited documents can be seen here.

Briefing by the Russian Defense Ministry on the discovery of secret documents indicating that the puppet Neo-Nazi Ukrainian regime prepared an offensive against the Donetsk and Lugansk republics with the support of NATO:

"During a special military operation, secret documents of the command of the National Guard of Ukraine came into the possession of Russian military personnel. These documents confirm the covert preparation by the Kiev regime of an offensive operation in the Donbass in March 2022.

The Russian Defense Ministry publishes the original secret order of the commander of the National Guard of Ukraine, Colonel General Nikolay Balan, dated January 22, 2022.

The order "On the organization of training of the battalion tactical group of the 4th Operational Brigade to perform combat (special) tasks in the operation of the united forces as part of the brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine".

The document is addressed to the heads of the northern Kiev, southern Odessa and western territorial administrations of the National Guard of Ukraine.

The order, brought to the command of the National Guard of Ukraine, details a plan for the preparation of one of the strike groups for offensive actions in the zone of the so-called "operation of the united forces" in the Donbass.

The document approves the organizational and staff structure of the battalion-tactical group of the 4th operational brigade of the National Guard, the organization of its comprehensive support and reassignment to the 80th separate airborne assault Brigade of Ukraine.

I would like to emphasize that this brigade from the airborne assault forces of Ukraine has been trained by American and British instructors in training programs of the "NATO standard" in Lviv since 2016.

In accordance with the order, the Deputy Commander of the National Guard was tasked with organizing combat coordination of the battalion tactical group of the National Guard as part of the 80th separate airborne assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from February 7 to February 28, 2022.

I draw your attention - as many as five paragraphs of paragraph 4 are devoted to the issues of careful selection of personnel, examination of all psychologists and ensuring their high motivation.

To do this, the National Guard is ordered to provide "visual agitation, information and propaganda materials, flags, and printing products."

The Deputy commander of the National Guard for Personnel was ordered to organize "an effective system of informational, moral and psychological support for the battalion-tactical group of the 4th brigade of operational purpose, internal communication of commanders with subordinates."

At the same time, it is important to provide "an explanation to the personnel of management decisions and the importance of performing upcoming tasks."

I draw special attention to the fact that paragraph 12 of the order prohibits sending to the area of combat coordination and to the place of execution of "combat special tasks" of the National guardsmen who showed "unsatisfactory" results of psychological testing according to the criterion of "readiness for risk".

All measures of the nationalists' combat coordination are ordered to be completed by February 28 in order to further ensure the fulfillment of combat tasks as part of the Ukrainian "joint forces operation" in the Donbass.

The document contains the original signatures of the officials responsible for the tasks of the command of the National Guard of Ukraine.

We well remember the statements of the leadership of the Kiev regime, replicated in February by the Western media, about the alleged absence of any plans for the armed seizure of the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics. Their desire to solve all issues allegedly "by political and diplomatic means".

However, the originals of the secret combat documents of the National Guard of Ukraine unequivocally prove the falsity of these statements.

A special military operation conducted by the Russian Armed Forces since February 24 has forestalled and thwarted a large-scale offensive by shock groups of Ukrainian troops on,uncontrolled to Kiev, the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republic in March of this year.

Thus, only one question remains unclear so far: how deeply the leadership of the United States and its NATO allies were involved in the planning and preparation of the operation to storm the Donbass by the Ukrainian interspecific group of troops in early March. All those who care so much about peace in Ukraine today."

The Russian Defense Ministry publishes the originals of the National Guard's combat order proving that Ukraine is preparing an offensive on Donbass in March this year."

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Authors Website: http://www.soldiersforpeaceinternational.org

Authors Bio:

I am a former Army and VA psychiatrist who ran for the US Senate in 2010 on a campaign based on a pledge to introduce a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood and regulate campaign finance.

A constitutional amendment banning corporate campaign expenditures and limiting or abolishing individual donations spent to influence elections is an essential step to getting back on the path to democracy.

I am convinced that the only way to do this is to make support for such an amendment a campaign issue. That way, we can easily see who wants to get in Congress to represent We the People and who want to serve our interests over those of corporations who currently control the US government.

I believe that it is possible to end war, address climate change and provide health care to all if we can prove that democracy is possible. Unless we can awaken enough Americans to the fact that their government is pursuing an agenda of corporate imperialism that will enslave them along with the rest of the world if not reclaimed by We the People, we will leave our children with a legacy of pain for which we cannot be forgiven.

Ultimately, endless war is a symptom of a disease that will destroy human civilization if not eradicated. There is no "us" vs "them." Our fates are intertwined. None of us gets out alive. The question is, how will we have lived?