Here’s a Viewpoint article by Mary Hatch that appeared in the May 18, 2022, issue of the Mecklenburg Sun titled “Behind Putin’s lies“.
So much for Putin’s neo-Nazi bunk. Here are more plausible reasons Putin is annihilating Ukraine.
When Russia first invaded Ukraine in February, and the excuse was to wipe out neo-Nazis and save Ukraine, I thought it was a misprint because it seemed so absurd. What country in their right mind would want Russia to barrel into their homeland and wipe out 100 billion dollars worth of infrastructure (per Ukraine’s top economic adviser, Oleg Ustenko) and force more than 11 million Ukrainians from their homes, according to the UN. This logic would be the same as me writing a letter to Putin and telling him there are major concentrations of neo-Nazis in 10 of our states and could he come and round them up and if he destroys 30% of our infrastructure. I guess that’s just called “collateral damage.” And while looking for neo-Nazis — just help yourselves to our resources. It’s pathetic that Russian soldiers believe this bunk and even more pathetic that Americans believe it. There were reported exchanges where the Russian soldiers were surprised that the Ukrainians weren’t happy they were there. I guess this is what happens when you have state run media for years and your channel on your TV is “Russia.”
Here are some plausible and more believable reasons Putin decided to pummel Ukraine.
• Putin was furious that President Zelensky wanted to join NATO and the European Union. This would make Ukraine not only very wealthy because of its well-known resources, but it would protect the country from possible Russian invasions. If Putin let this go, how many more countries would want to join the EU and NATO and in so doing would have NATO’s protection.
• Ukraine holds 5 percent of the world’s resources. (Business Today 2/25/22). It holds 20 percent of the world’s lithium in the Donbas region which Putin just happens to want to annex (lithium is needed for batteries for electric cars and for solar panels). According to an article in New York Times by Hiroko Tauchi (3/2/22) prior to the invasion, an Australian firm, said it was in the process of securing rights to two major lithium deposits in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine and Kirovograd, in center of country. The same month, Chengxsin Lithium, a Chinese company also applied for rights to lithium deposits in Donetsk and Kirovograd. Luhansk is rich in coal — another state Putin wants to annex. Ukraine also has claims to almost 50 percent of the European gas in Europe, second only to Norway. (Harvard.edu).
So, it appears this war is about, “I’ll show you Ukraine for wanting to join EU and NATO and oh, do I want your valuable resources and if you don’t give them up, I’ll destroy your country, because your resources are more valuable to me than your people.” And Putin, where are those neo-Nazis that you were going to round up? It seems the only round-ups were innocent civilians and children who were massacred their bodies thrown into mass graves. And the topper to this was Donald Trump’s comment when interviewed Feb. 22, 2022 by The Washington Post and asked what he thought of Putin invading Ukraine. Trump: “It’s smart and savvy and genius.” I guess we know where Trump’s allegiance is. It seems throughout civilization, wars were fought over ignorance, power, money and resources no matter what lies, excuses and propagandas were spewed.