No, "the first place" was not Russia attacking Ukraine. It was Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk launching his so-called "Anti-Terrorist Operation" (ATO) in April 2014.
FACT: The Minsk Accords were an attempt to resolve the violence ands the issues of ethnic Russian autonomy in the Donbas.
FACT: The Minsk Accords (I and II) were negotiated over a period of 8 years, during which Ukrainian forces were bombing and shelling civilians in Donetsk and Lugansk as part of the ATO.
FACT: Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Petro Poroshenko have ALL admitted that they never had any intention of implementing Minsk; that the negotiations were drawn out merely to "buy time" while NATO armed and trained and built up the Ukrainian Army.
FACT: The LPR and DPR were begging to become part of Russia since the Maidan Coup happened in 2014.
FACT: Putin refused to annex the so-called "break-away republics", preferring to keep those areas and populations as part of a "friendly" Ukraine.
FACT: The Russians made it clear as early as 2008 that any attempt to allow Ukraine to enter NATO would lead to a civil war and Russian "intervention". This was explained by Lavrov to Ambassador Burns in 2008, and Putin reiterated the warning as late as 2021 and early 2022.
FACT: The SMO was a gesture designed to show Russia's seriousness and get the Ukrainians to agree to a negotiated peace that included Ukrainian neutrality. This was negotiated in Istanbul in late March and early April. Do I really need to show you the articles from the Western media showing all this???
Russia is ready to negotiate, but only on terms that recognise the reality on the ground. For Russia, this means that the four Oblasts that were annexed by Russia in September 2022 (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia) plus Crimea must be recognised as now inviolably part of the Russian Federation.
Putin's launching of the SMO was the only way to avoid a wider and possibly nuclear war. I have covered this in many articles. Perhaps uyou should read this one:
"How Vladimir Putin Saved The World"
https://medium.com/@euroyankeeblog/how-vladimir-putin-saved-the-world-cca005eca0c9
