There has been war (instigated by the Russians) going on and off there since 2014, shelling the Donbass, isn't something unusual, its expected and something both sides did. Its also something that in the past couple of years has resulted in fewer civilian deaths, and even many civilian deaths in the Donbass alone, since the Russians escalated the war in February
Between 2014 and 2022 the War in Donbas killed an estimated 14,000 people Mostly closer to 2014, and a large portion of those killed by Russians and there client militias. More recently your only talking about very few (and again killed by both sides).
25 killed in 2021
The total number of civilian casualties recorded by OHCHR in 2021 has totaled 110: 25 killed (16 men, two women, three boys, one girl and three adults whose sex is not yet known) and 85 injured
ukraine.un.org
How many have the Russians killed since the start of their "special military operation"? At least hundreds of times as many, could be a thousand times.
after the Obama administration and U.S. Congress members installed a new government in Ukraine That's a fantasy. And also even assuming the counterfactual where it was true it wouldn't justify grabbing Ukrainian land. They didn't try putting Yanukovych back in office in 2014, they just grabbed chunks of Ukraine.
A diplomatic solution with Russia might have involved something as simple as demilitarization of Ukraine and a signed treaty promising Ukraine would never join NATO That's not simple. You could never get a treaty passed blocking NATO membership for Ukraine in the US or in Ukraine. Possibly you could in some other NATO country (it only takes one to block membership) but likely any country proposing to do that would face pressure by the other members.
And that was the easier part. Ukraine agreeing to be defenseless was never going to happen.
In addition to being difficult to bring about, it was also unreasonable even ridiculous.
And on top of all of that it wasn't all that Russia was demanding. Putin also wanted a pledge to never add any other NATO members and to pull back all non-local forces from eastern Europe. Thus reducing the security of NATO members (esp. but not only the Baltics) and leaving other countries near Russia open to bullying and intimidation by Russia, or to having parts of their land taken away like what happened to Ukraine, Georgia before that, and Moldova during the transition out of the USSR. |
