Russia's War on Ukraine: Stop the War. Stop the Expansion of NATO

"It is the West who started the war." – Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

"It's simple: if Russia stopped invading Ukraine, it would end the war." – Joe Biden, President of the USA

"War is not the solution. War is the problem." – Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General

“To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulative evil of the whole.” –?Judges of the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials.

According to Putin, "It is the West who started the war." This is completely false. It is Putin who started the war in what he has described as a "special military operation" which has turned out to be a full, large-scale war against Ukraine. We mainly blame Putin for the war, but we also blame the US, NATO, and, to some extent Ukraine for creating the conditions for the war. Ukraine used to have very good relations with Russia before it abandoned its neutrality and decided to join NATO, which was regarded as a very serious threat to the Russian Federation.

For Joe Biden, "It's simple: if Russia stopped invading Ukraine, it would end the war." This may be true, but if NATO stops expanding near the borders of Russia, this may also help stop the war.

On 22 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered military forces to enter the breakaway Ukrainian republics of?Donetsk?and?Luhansk, calling the act a “peacekeeping mission” which has been completely rejected by the UN and the world. Putin also officially recognized?Donetsk?and?Luhansk?as sovereign states, fully independent from the Ukrainian government?(Simmons, Ann; Trofimov, Yaroslav; Luxmoore, Mathew, “Putin Orders Deployment of Troops to Breakaway Regions in Ukraine.” The Wall Street Journal, (22 Feb 2022).

In the early hours of 24 February 2022, Putin announced a “special military operation” to “demilitarize and de-Nazify” Ukraine, and launched a large invasion of the country.

Putin has always declared that “he loves the Ukrainian people and regards Ukraine as part of the Russian nation.” And because Putin loves the Ukrainian people, he has sent hundreds of thousands of his troops, together with all his deadly weapons, planes, and artillery to shell and destroy every building and everything and exterminate Ukrainians in a brutal fascist war, exactly as George W. Bush and Tony Blair had done before him in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The level of shelling, killing, slaughtering, and devastation the Russian forces have been doing against Ukraine is absolutely illegal and immoral. There is no justification whatsoever for this unprecedented level of evil, brutality, and devastation.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of the bloodiest and most brutal invasions in the recent history of mankind. It is a crime against humanity, exactly as the American invasion of Vietnam (1955-1975), the American invasion of Afghanistan (2001-2021), and the American invasion of Iraq (2003-2011). In these particular invasions, a superpower with all its destructive weapons invades another small weak country and destroys everything in it with a fascist imperialist attempt to bring it to its knees and force its people into submissiveness and slavery.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is absolutely illegal and immoral. You cannot invade a sovereign country just because you want to protect an area or a community speaking your language or belonging to your ethnicity and culture. It is also immoral because even if you have a legal basis for your action, you should think of the suffering of those involved in your action. A landlord is immoral when he evicts a family from their apartment and throws them on the street just because they are unable to pay the rent for some time.

As the Americans had failed before in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the Russians will certainly fail in Ukraine. But it is really very sad and tragic to see the Russians resort to brutal shelling and bombardment of a peaceful, sovereign country in the 21st century while the UN is paralyzed and too weak to stop the bloodshed and the rest of the world is either just watching or doing too little to help. This is a real, brutal, bloody war. This is not a video game!

The Russians and NATO are mainly responsible for the mess and for this great human tragedy. NATO is an illegal, aggressive organization that should not have been founded in the first place. It operates outside of international law and against the UN Charter. It has divided the world into NATO “sacred” lands and the rest of the world are just garbage dumps that NATO and the other brutal superpowers can invade and slaughter anytime they want. This is very selfish and irresponsible of the US and NATO members.

NATO should have been abolished a long time ago, at least after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Instead, it has kept expanding to East European countries until it reached Ukraine in spite of all the warnings from Russia and other military experts who have always warned that NATO expansion toward Russia will end up in a very bloody conflict. NATO did not heed the warning and acted very recklessly and irresponsibly and so did the Ukrainian government.

Now we have a very brutal war raging between Russia and Ukraine in the middle of Europe. There are innocent peaceful people being slaughtered every day and their homes and their civilian infrastructures are being destroyed by the Russian sophisticated deadly weapons.

Instead of serious attempts being made by the UN to stop the war and bring about peace between these two nations that used to be brothers and sisters living as one nation, we see the US, NATO, and their allies playing with fire by providing Ukraine with the same deadly weapons like those of the Russians and boasting of the Ukrainian “victories” against Putin.

Keeping peace and stability in the world should be the responsibility of the UN only as per International law. There is no place for NATO or any other military organization or bloc operating outside of the UN.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of the bloodiest and most brutal invasions in the recent history of mankind. It is a crime against humanity, exactly as the American invasion of Vietnam (1955-1975), the American invasion of Afghanistan (2001-2021), and the American invasion of Iraq (2003-2011). In these particular invasions, a superpower with all its destructive weapons invades another small weak country and destroys everything in it with a fascist imperialist attempt to bring it to its knees and force its people into submissiveness and slavery.

As the Americans had failed before in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the Russians will certainly fail in Ukraine. But it is really very sad and tragic to see the Russians resort to brutal shelling and bombardment of a peaceful, sovereign country in the 21st century while the UN is paralyzed and too weak to stop the bloodshed and the rest of the world is either just watching or doing too little to help. This is a real, brutal, bloody war. This is not a video game!

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also called the?North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states, 28 of which are in Europe and the other 2 are in North America (the US and Canada). NATO was established after World War II. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty, signed on 4 April 1949. (“What is NATO”. NATO Homepage. 3 March 2022); (Cook, Lorne. (25 May 2017, “NATO, the world’s biggest military alliance explained”. Military Times. The Associated Press. 3 March 2022.

NATO?constitutes a system of “collective security”, whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack on any member state by any external party. The Alliance was established during the Cold War in response to the threat posed by the Soviet Union. NATO has remained in place even after the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The NATO headquarters are located in Brussels, Belgium while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons, Belgium.

The principle of collective defense is enshrined in?Article 5 of the Washington Treaty?in 1949. NATO was engaged in many American aggressive invasions in the world: The American invasion of Vietnam (1955-1975), the American invasion of Afghanistan (2001-2021), and the American invasion of Iraq (2003-2011). In these particular invasions, a superpower with all its destructive weapons invades another small weak country and destroys everything in it with a fascist imperialist attempt to bring it to its knees and force its people into submissiveness and slavery. NATO actively took part in all these invasions and was directly responsible for all the destruction and carnage that took place during these invasions.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO started to expand and included former?Warsaw Pact states?(the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland)?and ex-Soviet republics (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia).

In a televised address on February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out why he was conducting what he called “a special military operation” against Ukraine. Putin said the military operation he was launching was a “question of life or death” for Russia, referring to NATO’s expansion east since the late 1990s. He said:

“For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line that we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.”

Putin said he was also acting to save Russian speakers (many have Russian passports) from a renewed offensive against them after eight years of attacks because they had rejected the 2014 U.S.-backed coup and declared independence from Ukraine. He said NATO and Ukraine:

“… did not leave us [Russia] any other option for defending Russia and our people, other than the one we are forced to use today. In these circumstances, we have to take bold and immediate action. The people’s republics of Donbas have asked Russia for help. In this context, in accordance with Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in the execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22, I made a decision to carry out a special military operation.”

But as Joe Lauria has explained in a fascinating article in Consortium News:

“Neither an Article 51 self-defense measure nor a collective security resolution was ever passed by the Security Council. Therefore, according to the strict letter of today’s law, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is illegal. But after what the U.S. has done tragically to the laws of war and the jungle it has created, it hardly seems to matter anymore.”?(Joe Lauria, “Is Putin’s War Legal”, Consortium News, March 29, 2022.)

NATO and the Russians are mainly responsible for the mess and for this great human tragedy in Ukraine. NATO is an illegal, aggressive organization that should not have been founded in the first place. It operates outside of international law and against the UN Charter. It has divided the world into NATO “sacred” lands and the rest of the world are just garbage dumps that NATO and the other brutal superpowers can invade and slaughter anytime they want. This is very irresponsible of the US and the NATO members.

NATO should have been abolished a long time ago, at least after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Instead, it has kept expanding to East European countries until it reached Ukraine in spite of all the warnings from Russia and other military experts who have always warned that the expansion toward Russia will end up in a very bloody conflict. NATO did not heed the warning and acted very recklessly and irresponsibly and so did the Ukrainian government.

Many legal experts, lawyers, and researchers have documented the illegality of NATO as a military organization operating outside international law and the U.N. Charter. In an article titled?“NATO, the UN, and International Law”?in Mediterranean Quarterly, Raju Thomas, professor of political science at Marquette University, explained how NATO is an illegal organization and “NATO has usurped the UN system.” (Raju G. C. Thomas, “NATO, the UN, and International Law”. Mediterranean Quarterly, Volume 10, Number 3, Summer 1999, Duke University Press).

NATO constitutes a standing provocation to the rest of the world, an alliance in search of an enemy, or the need to create one, in order to justify its existence?(Ted Galen Carpenter. (1992), A Search for Enemies: America’s Alliance after the Cold War, Washington, D.C. Cato Institute).

Thus far, NATO has found its enemies in Russia and China, the new emerging superpowers in the world. The world should expect more troubles and wars ahead.

The mission of the UN to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. Its missions have consisted primarily of unarmed military observers and lightly armed troops with mainly monitoring, reporting, and confidence-building roles.

Regrettably, this role of the UN has made the world a jungle where the superpowers do whatever they want and stand by their allies in the UN Security Council to protect them. This is why we have seen many wars, invasions, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in different parts of the world: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and now Ukraine. The UN is supposed to keep peace and stability, but it has been side-lined by the superpowers themselves. NATO and other organizations have taken its place although their legality is doubtful as per the International Law. This is why Putin is emboldened and launched a brutal criminal war against Ukraine. We should expect more wars like this unless the superpowers realize that it is not in their own interests and the interests of the world to act as they want and put themselves above international law and the UN Charter.

The world has been watching, in shock and horror, what has been happening in Ukraine since the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, announced in a televised speech on 24 February 2022 the launching of what he called “a special military operation” against Ukraine. He was just playing with words to deceive his people and the world. What he has been doing is rightly called “a full-scale war” against Ukraine. In addition, Putin’s war in Ukraine is very cruel, ruthless, brutal, and evil. It is also absolutely illegal and immoral as we have already said.

The scenes, videos, and pictures we see every day on TV channels, the Internet, and social media are very shocking and depressing for their graphic content and crimes against humanity. This is a really sad tragedy involving real people and innocent civilians. This is not a video game to watch or play. The world and the UN should exert more effort to put an end to this war. There must be compromises on both sides. The UN has knowledgeable legal experts and very extensive and long experience in solving conflicts in different parts of the world. It is illogical and unreasonable to reduce the role of the UN to just a “spectator” in the Ukrainian conflict, and a provider of humanitarian aid. The UN is the sole legal organization authorized by the world to keep peace and stability and its role should not be underestimated or ignored.

We all recognize that there can be no business, no trade, no education, no justice – nothing at all?without peace on Earth.?I have a personal experience of living a miserable life during the time of war in Iraq—during the first Gulf War and the Second Gulf War. I strongly believe that wars solve no problem at all; they just bring destruction and miseries of all sorts.

The world has been looking desperately to the UN to bring about the desired peace but, unfortunately, the UN has been paralyzed by this member or that, by the Vetoes of the Big Brothers, and by its very “defective structure”. It has thus failed to achieve peace in many parts of the globe. What we see in Ukraine now is a very bad example of the failure of the UN to deliver peace for humanity. Nevertheless, the UN is a necessity for us and so is any leader working for peace in any country or on any piece of land.

All wars are destructive and useless. We should look at the war in Ukraine in practical terms and a wider context to condemn all wars regardless of who the aggressor is and who started it. All wars involve real people who are slaughtered, killed, and injured every day. There is real devastation and destruction of infrastructure. There are shortages of food and water. There is real hunger and starvation. Countries are facing rising debt, inflation, and reduced market access, bearing in mind the world has just started to recover from the setbacks and miseries of the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia is starving the world by launching its brutal war on Ukraine which is an important food basket for a large number of developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa.

There are no winners in any war. There are only losers. Those who engage in war and hope they will achieve “victory” are misguided and look for the mirage. Those who send their troops, tanks, and deadly weapons to slaughter their innocent neighbors, destroy their cities, and occupy their land are sick, ruthless monsters. They are corrupt politicians and evil leaders who seek to divert the attention of their citizens from the real challenges facing them. (For more details, read my article: "The Russian Invasion of Ukraine: This Is Not a Video Game!" published on LinkedIn on April 12, 2022.)

Putin is a dreaded intelligence officer trained to be a ruthless dictator and a suicidal operative. If NATO and Europe put too much pressure on him and he is cornered in a very tight spot, he may commit suicide taking the whole world with him!