As it's almost a decade now since this thread started I think we should have a quick recap oh how this all started in order to nip any revisionism in the bud.
- Ukraine elected a pro-EU president who would move towards a closer partnership with the EU.
Yes
- When it came time to start finalising/signing agreements with the EU the pro-EU president decided he was now pro-Russia instead so wouldn't be signing anything.
Yes, this is because the offer from the EU was basically pathetically low compared to what Russia was offering.
- The Ukrainian people got mad and protested.
Absolutely their right.
- The now pro-Russian president had some of them shot.
There were violent protests, I doubt he "had some of them shot".
- The Ukrainian people got a lot more mad and rioted.
Yes, more violent protests
- The now pro-Russian president fled Kiev.
Driven out, sure.
- The Ukrainian government fired the now pro-Russian president.
- The now pro-Russian president fled to Russia.
Probably smart.
- Russia used the confusion to annex the Crimean peninsula using troops stationed there plus unmarked troops "on holiday".
Yeah, Crimea was mostly made up of Russian speakers anyway who supported this. Vast majority of people living in Crimea are pro Russian and wanted nothing to do with being part of Ukraine after the revolution.
- Russia used the confusion to send unmarked troops "on holiday" to Donetsk and Luhansk, meeting up with local Russian immigrants and pro-Russian Ukrainians and starting a "separatist" movement.
Nah, the separatist movement mostly involved Ukrainians. Vice sent a team there, I watched this yesterday, they checked passports and IDs. Some people didn't have IDs on them but there were plenty of legitimate Ukrainians. It's false to say there wasn't a legitimate Ukrainian independent movement in those regions, even though yes there was also Russians.
- Once Ukraine got it's act together the "separatists" started getting facerolled by the Ukrainian military.
I'm not sure that's a good thing given they were still Ukrainian citizens, the Ukrainian military also included groups like the Azov Brigade who were paid by the Ukrainian government because their actual military was actually rather poor and unmotivated.
- Russia sent tanks, artillery and anti aircraft systems to back up their forces and proxies in the east, claiming all the time they were Ukrainians using their own equipment (this was completely debunked due to those forces using open radio communications and possessing weapons systems never exported to Ukraine).
There were definitely Ukrainians. There was undoubtedly Russians as well. The issue is at this point the Kyiv side was being backed and trained by the West. So it was a full blown proxy war.
- Either Russian operatives or Pro Russian "separatists" accidentally shot down a commercial airliner, thus drawing massive international attention to the conflict and making Russia's open support of their proxies and sympathisers in Donetsk/Luhansk untenable.
Yeah this was obviously a terrorist act and I have no idea why either side would do this, I imagine it wasn't deliberate since no one gained anything from it, but that's no excuse and doesn't help the victims.
- A ceasefire would be agreed as Russia could no longer openly send the troops/weapons required to hold ground and Ukraine lacked the ability to defeat their forces outright.
Neither side respected the ceasefire though, there was constant fighting. Again documented and you can easily watch this.
And that's where things stayed for five plus years while Ukraine rapidly rearmed itself to defend against a possible invasion and Russia squandered the time building more one of prototypes that looked cool but were still 30 years behind the west.
- Putin issued a demand to the West stating that Ukraine should never be part of NATO, we wouldn't agree to that, Russia invaded.