You had the US spend 5 billion to fund and empower opposition groups to start a coup and start shooting up innocent protestors in the Maidan.
With aims to also make the Black Sea Naval base in Sevastopol which Russia has occupied since 1783 a NATO base and deprive Russia of a southern port.

Then Ukraine burned hundreds of ethnic-Russians alive in the Odessa Trade building, and labelled as terrorists the separatists (Ukrainian ethnic-Russian citizens) who didn't want to go along with Washington's new Ukrainian puppet ruler.

Then they spent the next 8 years bombing hospitals, cafes and kindergardens killing too many women and kids to count.

Putin was reluctant to support them.
He spent years trying to find an alternative path.
What do you think Minsk was?
The West is obsessed with war, (that's why they wouldn't let Zelensky negotiate a peace agreement a month after the war started) The US poked and prodded Russia to get them to act, and they thought they would bring Russia down with sanctions, cause civil unrest and Putin's ousting.
These have been their aims all along.
The West is the aggressor.

If you shell, bomb, drop mines in a civilian area and murder a segment of your own population for 8 years, you lose any right to rule over them.
Then eventually Putin accepted the Donbass region calls for independence, and entered the war under the pretext of collective self-defence.

- And here we are, half a million dead later, a country laid to waste, and western governments giving standing ovations to NAZI SS in their parliaments.

And you want to know why what Zelensky and Canada recently did wasn't an accident?
- Because it's not a random event, not the first time it's happened.

When Zelensky Brought a Nazi to the Greek Parliament
http://consortiumnews.com/2023/09/27/when-zelensky-brought-a-nazi-to-the-greek-parliament/

Zelensky is being pushed out by the US.
The west wants to freeze the conflict, and if they can't get Zelensky to negotiate, then he's got to go.
Expect elections for the purpose of removing Zelensky.

I don't know how you do your little pansy dance SM and tiptoe around all these inconvenient facts month after month.
Newsflash - Iraq didn't have any WMD's.

The only thing you've bought into is a false narrative by omission of the facts.
And you should be old and wise enough to know better.

Ain't that right charter boat?

Baldrick,

You are the one doing a poofter dance around the inconvenient facts.

Ukraine is an independent country and Russia signed an agreement to guarantee Ukraine's borders and sovereignty. Ukraine has never threatened Russia or given Russia any excuse to invade Crimea or Donbas.

Up until the 24th Feb 22 Russia promised that it had no intention of invading Ukraine so Russia cannot be trusted not to lie through its teeth.

The misery of Russians is entirely Putin's fault.

Russia is losing this war.

Baldrick,

You claimed: "The West wants to freeze the conflict, and if they can't get Zelensky to negotiate, then he's got to go."

What bollocks. The West if anything is rubbing its hands in glee as the smaller Ukrainian army is using cast-off Western weapons to shred the Russian army and bankrupt the Putin regime.

The only people wanting to freeze the conflict are the Russians who are losing the war.

That may have been one of your most unintelligent comments yet.
- Though your earlier 'poofter dance' comment was amusing. Lol

Western officials press Ukraine to hold elections despite war
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/09/24/ukraine-elections-war-russia-west/

The proposal — initially floated by Tiny Kox, the Dutch head of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly — was also pressed by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), during a visit to Kyiv last month with Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), which otherwise focused on solidifying U.S. assistance and bipartisan support for Ukraine.

[Tiny Kox. Had to wonder whether someone was pulling my leg with a name like that]

Tell me then why is a man who loves to provide support to opposition groups during US overthrows and who has openly called for Putin's assassination suddenly supporting Ukrainian elections?

'Take him out': Graham intensifies calls to assassinate Putin
http://youtu.be/UoRojyazmQc

The answer is because the West wants to freeze the conflict like it did in Korea after its proxies counter-offensive failed spectacularly.

If Zelensky wont accept the loss of territory, and freeze the conflict, the US needs a new puppet ruler.

Zelensky has almost used up his usefulness anyway.

But that said Russia won't stop now while Ukraine is on the back foot and they hold the initiative.

This articles a few months old, but it shows that even then Russia knows the wests game.
https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/international_safety/1894785/

Lavrov "In my opinion, they are trying to temporarily freeze this conflict, secure a ceasefire and bide their time, so they can again flood Ukraine with weapons, create new military infrastructure and transfer new long-range lethal weapons. At least, this scenario is favoured by American political scientists. Recently, Foreign Affairs published an article by Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, who described exactly this scenario: achieving a cessation of fire and having a respite. Of course, Russia will also get a respite but Ukraine has the entire West behind it. So, they argue, the West will make Ukraine much stronger and then they will continue to achieve the goals stated in Vladimir Zelensky’s 'peace formula.'

When the west says Russia wont negotiate, they are actually saying 'Russia will not accept our terms, which is the Zelensky Peace Plan' which is not a peace plan, but the equivalent of total Russian capitulation including Russian officials and Putin all taken into custody for war crimes by pro-western people in pro-western courts.

The west failed with sanctions, failed to cause civil unrest in Russia and oust Putin.
Failed with the military counter-offensive to take back territory.

Now it has a near-broken and totally demoralised Ukrainian military who may have to face a Russian counter-offensive with hundreds of thousands of fresh fully trained troops and Ukraine will likely lose significant troop numbers and territory and the US will be left red-faced, with NATO nations thinking the US can't defend them.

The US knows the Ukrainians can't win, can't reach their military goal of taking back lost territory, and they figure that if winning is off the table, then they simply need a new strategy that prevents Ukraine and the West from losing outright, and a need to rebuild weapons stockpiles and focus on preparing for a confrontation with China.

The US needs an off ramp, but the off ramp has now been closed.

Meanwhile...

The Global Economy Won’t Survive THIS - Russia & Saudi Are Forcing The Unthinkable
http://youtu.be/5-PQAPfkkv4