Ukraine four years later: what remains of the official narrative?

Following the events of February 24, 2022, political leaders, the mainstream media, and the armchair “experts” all reacted in the same way. They portrayed it as a war between Russia and Ukraine, as an unprovoked Russian aggression, and as an intervention motivated by imperialist objectives.

These three aspects of the official narrative have still not been abandoned, even after four years of war. We examine them here in turn.

A war between Ukraine and Russia?

We either didn’t see or didn’t want to see that the United States was using Ukraine to weaken Russia. Yet we now have information that increasingly confirms the existence of such manipulation. As early as 2015, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff alluded to the usefulness of fighting Russia in Ukraine instead of having to fight it in the United States (” United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there as a way not to fight Russia over here ) [1]. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, for his part, admitted that the Americans were seeking to weaken Russia [2](” weakening Russia … inflicting a bloody nose on Russia.” American aid to Ukraine, according to Senator Lindsay Graham, a mouthpiece for hawkish neoconservatism, was a fight to be waged “to the last Ukrainian. ” [3]Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, for his part, readily admitted that the United States was waging a “proxy war” in Ukraine [4].

One can even find a clip on YouTube in which Hillary Clinton draws a comparison between the American strategy in Afghanistan, which served to weaken the USSR, and the one currently underway in Ukraine [5]. According to her, the Americans used the Mujahideen to fight the USSR in Afghanistan, and they were now using the Ukrainians to fight the Russians. The scenario promoted by the United States in 2021-2022 was to trap Russia in Ukraine and bring about the fall of its regime, because the West was convinced that the intervention in Afghanistan and the use of the Mujahideen against it had led to the USSR’s downfall. Oliver North described the situation as involving “their blood and our bullets.[6] Retired General Keith Kellogg, an advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, asserted that the US war against Russia was the “acme of professionalism”. Using Ukraine to fight Russia allowed them to eliminate a “strategic adversary off the table”) without using American troops. This allowed them to then focus on their most important adversary, China [7]. Lindsay Graham, once again, considered the one hundred billion dollars given to Ukraine to kill Russians to be the best investment in military spending ever made by the United States [8]. Republican Senator Mitt Romney candidly repeated the same thing [9]: the Russians were being weakened without any loss of American lives. This candor is also shared by Bill Kristol, a notorious neoconservative. [10]

One might be tempted to downplay the significance of these statements. Some were made by people who are no longer in government. Others were made after the war had already begun. To support the interpretation of a proxy war, one would need to be able to prove the existence of a plan formulated before the start of the war.

The Rand Corporation is one of the largest think tanks funded by the US government. However, the Rand’s 2019 document ” Extending Russia “, seems to confirm the existence of such a plan [11]. It reads: “This report seeks to define the areas in which the United States can compete to its advantage… this report examines Russia’s economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties. It then analyzes potential policy options to exploit them—ideologically, economically, geopolitically, and militarily.”

The authors add: “The steps we posit would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps are conceived of as measures that would lead Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence.”

Among the proposed measures, the following are particularly noteworthy:

hinder Russian oil exports
reduce Russian gas exports
hinder the expansion of Russian pipelines
impose sanctions on the Russians
to provide lethal aid to Ukraine
increase NATO land forces in Europe
increase NATO exercises in Europe
to support the Syrian rebels
to promote regime change in Belarus
exploiting tensions in the South Caucasus
reduce Russian influence in Central Asia
challenging the Russian presence in Moldova
withdraw from the INF (intermediate-range nuclear forces) treaty.
damage Russia’s international reputation

However, the United States implemented these measures to the letter. Moreover, upon assuming office as Secretary of State after Donald Trump’s return to power in 2025, Marco Rubio confirmed that the United States had waged a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine [12]. It is therefore difficult to still claim that the conflict in Ukraine is solely between Russia and Ukraine. It probably would not have occurred without the initiative and numerous interventions of the United States.

An unprovoked attack?

The same Rand Corporation report contains the following warning: “Most of the steps covered in this report are potentially escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counter- escalation.”

Despite the dangers of escalation and the significant loss of life it could cause in Ukraine, the United States decided to proceed. But the warnings weren’t only from the Rand. The White House chose to implement these proposed measures despite the interventions of numerous experts in the field—politicians, ambassadors, and intellectuals—who had been warning it for many years.

As early as 1997, US authorities were warned by George Kennan (who, ironically, was the architect of Russia’s containment strategy) in the article entitled ” A Fateful ” Error,” not to enlarge NATO. Then thanks to WikiLeaks, we also learned that William Burns, who served as the CIA director in 2025 and was then the US ambassador to Russia, wrote in a memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, titled “Niet means Niet. Russia’s NATO Enlargement redlines,” that they should not seek to include Georgia and Ukraine in NATO. In his book Provoked, Scott Horton reports that, in Burns’ opinion, even Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates (Deputy Security Council Advisor) had reservations.

Jack Matlock was a former US ambassador to Russia. He was one of the few Russia specialists in the American diplomatic corps. Just before the invasion, he wrote: “Since Putin’s major demand is an assurance that NATO will take no further members, and specifically not Ukraine or Georgia, obviously there would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion of the alliance following the end of the Cold War, or if the expansion had occurred in harmony with building a security structure in Europe that included Russia.”

William Perry, Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton, was also against an expansion that included Ukraine.

Chas Freeman, former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in 1993-1994, envisioned instead the creation of a post-Cold War European security system centered on NATO. Fionna Hill, a Russia expert and member of the National Security Council, told The New York Times that in 2008, intelligence agencies recommended against opening the way for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO because a large number of NATO members opposed it. Scott Horton emphasizes in his book Provoked that “she had personally and wisely warned President Bush and Vice President Cheney against it [13]. ”

John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, Stephen F. Cohen, the late professor at NYU and Princeton, and Noam Chomsky, the internationally renowned intellectual, were also at the forefront of this discussion. They, too, tried to convince the American administration to abandon its promise of NATO membership to Ukraine. Even Barack Obama, the former Democratic president, tried in vain to make it clear that Ukraine was of vital interest to Russia, but not to the United States.

Even more surprisingly, Zbigniew Brzezinski (author of The Grand Chessboard in 1997) acknowledged that Ukraine, while independent, should remain neutral, just like Austria. In 2014, he wrote: “there should be clarity that Ukraine will not be a member of NATO. I think that is important for a variety of political reasons. If you look at the map, it’s important for Russia from a psychological, strategic point of view. So Ukraine will not be a member of NATO.”[14]

In addition to warnings from the Rand Corporation, the interventions of George Kennan, William Burns, Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, Jack Matlock, William Perry, Chas Freeman, John Mearsheimer, Stephen F. Cohen, Noam Chomsky, Barack Obama, Fiona Hill and Zbigniew Brzezinski were all ignored by the US government. It therefore appears that escalation was not only accepted as a possible consequence, but even desired as a tangible outcome.

One of the main hypotheses we examine in our book *Le conflit mondial au XXIe siècle L’Harmattan, 2024) is as follows. Instead of viewing the economic “sanctions” against Russia (the end of European purchases of Russian gas and oil) as consequences stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we believe that decoupling Europe and Russia for gas and oil sales, and more generally, weakening Russia, were clearly the true objectives pursued by the United States. The means to achieve this was to provoke Russia until it had no other choice but to intervene in Ukraine, which in turn would justify the “sanctions” aimed at weakening Moscow.

Several provocations were launched to force Russia’s hand and induce it to intervene. The first was the expansion of NATO from 16 to 30 and then to 32 members, encircling Russia, despite promises not to do so, despite warnings from Russian heads of state, and despite repeated expert opinions. This was followed by a series of provocations that were never reported in the mainstream media. In quick succession, let us mention the presence of the NED ( National Endowment for Democracy ) in countries bordering Russia, the color revolutions that were fomented under its impetus, the American withdrawal from the ABM Treaty (on anti-ballistic missiles) and INF Treaty (on intermediate-range nuclear missiles), the installation of hybrid anti-ballistic missiles systems in Poland and Romania, the $5 billion invested in Ukraine since 1991 by the United States, the repeated meetings of senators (McCain, Graham and Murphy), Vice President Biden and Victoria Nuland with the 3 Ukrainian opposition leaders, the American funding of the Maidan demonstrations (tents, shows, food, buses), the de facto support for the violent overthrow of the regime by the neo-Nazi group Right Sector and the presence of the United States on Ukrainian territory after the coup d’état (Kerry, Brennan, Biden). These American interventions constitute a series of provocations that were very real, even if they were not reported in the traditional media.

This continued as the United States participated in the formation of the government: the appointment of the prime minister (Arseniy Yatsenyuk) while the two other opposition leaders (Vitali Klitschko and Oleg Tyanibok ) were sidelined. Klitschko became mayor of Kyiv, and four members of Tyanibok’s neo-Nazi Freedom Party joined the government, as did Maidan commander Andriy Parubiy, who became Secretary of Defense and National Security. The new government proceeded the day after the coup to repeal the law recognizing the public nature of the Russian language. In reaction to these Russophobic laws, the oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk declared their sovereignty. A civil war was immediately launched by the neo-Nazi group Azov against the Russian speakers of Donbas, and a massacre of opponents of the new government took place in Odessa, when some forty people were burned alive in the trade union house where they had taken refuge. A naturalized Ukrainian American (Natalie Jaresko ) became Minister of Finance. Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was appointed to the board of directors of the Burisma company. A year later, Joe Biden secured the dismissal of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who had been investigating the former head of Burisma. A loyalist of the United States, Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, who initiated hostilities against Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, was appointed governor of Odessa.

The United States and its NATO allies also trained the Ukrainian army. The Minsk agreements were never implemented and served only to prepare the Ukrainian army for war. In December 2021, the Americans refused to negotiate a new security architecture for all European countries proposed by Russia. Joe Biden’s promise at the end of December 2021 not to deploy nuclear missiles on Ukrainian territory capable of reaching Moscow in minutes was subsequently abandoned by Biden himself a few weeks later.

It is therefore undeniable that the United States has engaged in numerous provocations. The suggestion that this was an unprovoked act of aggression is as absurd and fanciful as it is false. Ukraine’s de facto membership in NATO, and the constant, existential threat that a missile could be deployed there and launched to reach Moscow in minutes, forced the Russians to react. By threatening Russia, the United States initiated the war. The origin of the conflict was NATO’s expansion to include Russia and its encirclement by this US-led military alliance.

An intervention motivated by imperialist ambitions?

Even if we accept that the United States provoked the crisis, this does not imply that Russia invaded Ukraine solely in self-defense. Russia could have, for its part, used this crisis to expand its territory. What evidence supports the claim that the invasion of Ukraine was a response to what Russia perceived as an existential threat? What allows us to believe that the Russian intervention was defensive rather than offensive, and that it did not stem from imperialist ambition? As we shall see, this last part of the official narrative is also the result of another piece of disinformation.

The countless provocations by the United States had already put the Russians on the defensive. But some saw in Vladimir Putin’s explanation, just before the invasion, as well as in a letter from July 2021, proof that Russia harbored ambitions of territorial conquest. In this letter, Putin repeatedly refers to Russians and Ukrainians as one people. The first “controversial” sentence is this: “Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us […] It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.”

Ukraine’s borders, he argues, have no other significance than to mark a former administrative division of the Soviet Union. Hence the other, seemingly “problematic” quote: “Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia.”

Here, however, is the conclusion of his presentation: “Things change: countries and communities are no exception. Of course, some part of a people in the process of its development, influenced by a number of reasons and historical circumstances, can become aware of itself as a separate nation at a certain moment. How should we treat that? There is only one answer: with respect! (…) The Russian Federation recognized the new geopolitical realities: and not only recognized, but, indeed, did a lot for Ukraine to establish itself as an independent country. Throughout the difficult 1990’s and in the new millennium, we have provided considerable support to Ukraine.”[15]

Putin thus admits that, even though he believes Ukraine and Russia share the same people, Ukraine was destined to become a distinct nation. As for the claim that modern Ukraine was created by Russia, this clearly refers only to Ukraine’s borders. These were indeed first drawn by Lenin, then altered after World War II, and finally modified once again by the administrative transfer of Crimea to the USSR in 1954. Russia maintained good relations with independent Ukraine after 1991 and paid substantial royalties for the transit of Russian gas to export markets. The world’s largest country has no need for new territories.

Are there other reasons to believe that security was a major concern for Russia? Did Russia have good reason to feel on the defensive? Should Russia still have trusted NATO? Does the context reveal that NATO cannot be trusted? It seems that the loss of trust quickly increased mistrust and apprehension regarding what was happening behind closed doors at the White House.

The list of broken promises, both spoken and written, is very long. We already know that the Americans withdrew from the World Health Organization, the Paris Climate Agreement, and the Iran nuclear deal. Regarding relations with Russia, the West has not kept its promise not to expand NATO. It withdrew from the 2002 treaty on ballistic missile defense systems and the 2019 treaty on intermediate- range missiles. The Europeans (France, Germany, and Poland) did nothing to ensure a democratic transition despite the agreement signed on February 21, 2014. They subsequently failed to respect the Minsk I and II agreements. In 2021, the West’s refusal to discuss a European security architecture, valid for all, revealed the underlying intention of depriving Russia of security.

Furthermore, the threat was not merely hypothetical. While the withdrawal from the 2002 treaty on ballistic missile defense systems led to the deployment of ballistic missile defense systems in Poland and Romania, was it purely hypothetical to think that the withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty would lead to the deployment of intermediate-range missiles on Ukrainian territory? All of this tends to confirm that Russian concerns were security-related and not linked to territorial ambitions. To think otherwise is to put Russia on trial based on a conspiracy theory. It demonstrates the symptoms of chronic Russophobia.

Finally, and most importantly, the hypothesis of a territorial ambition is refuted by numerous actions taken by Russia. First, Russia refused to annex Crimea despite the 1991 referendum vote, which was approved by a near-unanimous vote, even before Ukraine gained its independence. It was only following the Maidan coup and the involvement of the United States that Russia regained Crimea. It had slipped from their grasp with Ukraine’s accession to sovereignty in 1991. While it had been part of the empire and the USSR for centuries, Russia had only lost it 23 years prior. The existence of a major Russian naval base and access to the Black Sea became paramount issues. This base was even at risk of slipping from their control and falling into the hands of the United States. Maintaining this military base was compatible with Ukraine’s sovereignty, but with the neo-Nazi minority having decided to place its fate in NATO’s hands, it became imperative for Russia to reclaim this oblast. Composed overwhelmingly of Russian speakers facing the newly implemented anti-Russian laws, it was the subject of a second referendum, which confirmed the results of the first. It is these particular and troubling circumstances, not its imperialist ambitions, that explain Russia’s control over Crimea.

To demonstrate that Russia’s primary concerns were security-related, it’s important to note that all Russian leaders opposed NATO enlargement. They preferred to adhere to the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements rather than annex the Donbas. Maintaining a significant Russian-speaking minority within Ukraine, capable of influencing Ukrainian state policies in a way that might favor Russia, was in their interest.

In 2021, the Russians then formulated proposals for a new security architecture in Europe, which they submitted to NATO and the United States. This confirms once again that their reactions were defensive. They warned the American authorities that, otherwise, they would intervene in Ukraine, thus explaining the US government’s ability to predict what would happen. The Russians then sought to target their intervention. They called it a “Special Military Operation” because they did not want to wage war. They committed only 150,000 troops, whereas conquering Ukraine would have required at least ten times that number.

Immediately after the invasion, Russia sought to initiate negotiations with Ukraine, which proved fruitful, but NATO representatives brought them to a halt. Former Israeli leader Naftali Bennett confirmed that these negotiations broke down following Boris Johnson’s intervention. The agreement left open the possibility that Donetsk and Lugansk could be sovereign or autonomous within Ukraine, but not annexed by Russia. Again, this contradicts the notion that Russia has embarked on an expansionist project.

Russia was slow to increase its troop numbers on the ground. It was also slow to target the country’s infrastructures. It waged a war of attrition, not a war of territorial conquest. Russia therefore entered this conflict reluctantly. It didn’t want this war!

Conclusion

Under the 1975 Helsinki Accords, shouldn’t Russia have recognized the Ukrainian people’s right to self-determination? The problem is that the far-right leaders in Ukraine have acted against the popular will. In 2014, only a small fraction of Ukrainians (20%?) wanted to join NATO. The popular movement, which brought hundreds of thousands of people to Maidan Square, favored inclusion in the European Union. Nevertheless, the neo-Nazis opted for eventual integration into NATO. Then, in 2019, 73% of the Ukrainian people voted in favor of Volodymyr Zelensky ‘s peace program with Russia. Once again, the people’s wishes have not been granted. Since 2025, the Ukrainian people have wanted an end to the war and the start of negotiations. Yet, each time, the United States, NATO, or the Ukrainian authorities ignore the voice of the Ukrainian people.

Respect for territorial integrity is certainly an ideal to be preserved, but this ideal is sometimes disrupted by the violence of an imperialist state seeking to destabilize a region. In such cases, resorting to arms becomes inevitable for self-defense. The Russians were thus forced to wage a preemptive war.

It took Trump announcing his intention to annex Canada, Greenland, and Panama, and attempting to behead the Venezuelan president through kidnapping, for American imperialism to finally be discussed. It’s as if the numerous US military interventions around the world, starting with the country’s direct complicity in the genocide of the Gazans (it supplied Israel with $22 billion worth of weapons after October 7, 2023), weren’t enough to draw this conclusion already. With shortsightedness, recent events have been blamed on Donald Trump rather than generally on the United States, even though American imperialism has been ongoing for decades, whether under a Democratic or Republican banner. Not only has the Ukrainian conflict been treated as if it began on February 24, 2022, but American imperialism has also been treated as if it emerged on January 20, 2025.

For the past four years, numerous intellectuals, experts, journalists, former diplomats or military personnel have done the impossible to change the official narrative. We think in particular of Benjamin Abelow, Jacques Baud, George Beebe, Medea Benjamin, Brian Berletic, Olivier Berruyer, Max Blumenthal, Anne-Laure Bonnel, Michael Carley, Robert Charvin, Noam Chomsky, Alex Christoforou, Stephen F. Cohen, Michel Collon, Glenn Diesen, Gilbert Doctorow, Pepe Escobar, Sylvain Ferreira, Norman Finkelstein, Chas Freeman, Caroline Galacteros, Glenn Greenwald, Gordon M. Hahn, Katie Halper, Jonathan Haslam, Chris Hedges, Jacques Hogard, Scott Horton, Michael Hudson, Larry Johnson, Caitlin Johnstone, Ivan Katchanovski, Georges Kuzmanovic, Annie Lacroix-Riz, Dimitri Lascaris, Pierre Lellouche, Igor Lopatonok, Pascal Lottaz, Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos, Andrei Martyanov, Aaron Maté, Alexander Mercouris, Paul Moreira, Ray McGovern, Douglas MacGregor, John Mearsheimer, Nicola Mirkovic, Guy Mettan, Xavier Moreau, Judge Napolitano, Christelle Néant, Ben Norton, Laurent Ozon, Benoît Paré, Michael Parenti, Héléna Perroud, Nicolai N. Petro, Vijay Prashad, Scott Ritter, Jeffrey Sachs, Richard Sakwa, Jacques Sapir, Mary Elise Sarotte, Jeremy Scahill, Oliver Stone, Emmanuel Todd, Lawrence Wilkinson and Yuliya Yurchenko.

Contrary to the official narrative, the war in Ukraine is a war between the United States and Russia, and one in which the former is using the Ukrainian people as a proxy. Russia was facing a provocation to which it had no choice but to react. This reaction was motivated by defensive, not offensive, objectives.

Four years later, the American and European neoconservatives who orchestrated the war in Ukraine are still at work, perpetuating it in the vain hope of bringing down Russia. All their calculations have proven wrong. Europe has been impoverished, and the Ukrainian people, the first victims of this mad adventure, have paid a heavy price for the cynical manipulation of their false friends.

Notes

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d4rcoPulY4

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/25/russia-weakened-lloyd-austin-ukraine-visit/

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJvXqtYdJqk

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWu7cPPVv0

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUu4vVYa9aE

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tsg0MTZv2A

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N51j1XN0y64

[8] https://morganton.com/news/lindsey-graham-russians-are-dying-best-money-weve-spent/video_be53de64-9d16-5656-ba0f-2e7f56f46426.html

[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXJJw9MV-ak

[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Ne6QL3M3M

[11] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1086696