UNBIASED ANALYSIS: WHO’S THE REAL AGGRESSOR? RUSSIA OR THE US?

Vince Dhimos answered a question at Quora.
 
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-chances-of-Russia-invading-any-neighbouring-country-in-the-next-10-years-Which-country-is-most-likely-to-be-attacked/answer/Vince-Dhimos
 
WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF RUSSIA INVADING ANY NEIGHBOURING COUNTRY IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS? WHICH COUNTRY IS MOST LIKELY TO BE ATTACKED?

Vince Dhimos, Editor-in-Chief at New Silk Strategies (2016-present)
 
This question obviously arises from the Western media and political class constantly calling Russia an aggressor and from the Democrat party’s witch hunt that is cynically called an election campaign. I recently checked out the platforms of each of the Democratic candidates – that is all of those that the Democrats are allowing to gain popularity – and found that they all think the US should support Ukraine in order to “contain Russia.” Of course, need I mention that sites listing Democrat candidates generally omit any reference to Tulsi Gabbard, who is an embarrassment to the US Establishment because she has the cheek to state that US wars are unjustified and are waged for “regime change,” not for defence. She has the strongest statement against US wars while Bernie, who sometimes pretends to oppose war, gingerly dances around the issue. It can be said without any exaggeration that the US political Establishment, on both sides of the aisle, is almost all willing to provoke a democratic nuclear-armed country to the brink of war.
 
Unlike the US government, which has been almost constantly at war since WWII, the Russian Federation has never been the aggressor in any standard, acceptable sense of the word.
 
The corporate media keep constantly shrieking that Russia is an aggressor, and their arguments are centred about two main issues, namely, the Georgian war and the post-coup Ukrainian events since the violent Maidan coup in 2014, which these media portray as “Russian aggression.”
 
However, let’s look at the known facts.
 
In the Georgian war, for example, Russia was named a peace keeper and its intent was to protect its neighbours S. Ossetia and Abkhazia, which were attacked by Georgia under the mentally unstable Saakashvili, acting on behalf of the US-dominated West.
 
In retrospect it appears that Saakashvili was baiting Russia by invading these small provinces. At any rate, reacting to the murder of civilians, Russia attacked the invaders and drove them deep into Georgian territory. Although some Western analysts accuse Russia of aggression for not stopping closer to the border, an EU tribunal found in favour of Russia overall, and it is generally acknowledged even among Western scholars, that Georgia – not Russia – was the aggressor.
 
In Ukraine, the instigators of the illegal Maidan coup were not Russian, they were the US and allies, who entered via State Department reps (notably Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland), members of European governments and agencies (eg, the German NGO Konrad Adenauer Stiftung) and NGOs such as a Soros Open Society foundation, the NED and USAID to start and actively participate in the illegal and violent coup that ousted the legitimately elected president of Ukraine. These were the real violators of international law, acting in the open, but virtually the entire Western media still insist that Russia “invaded” Ukraine in the aftermath of this coup. Russia did no such thing. What really happened was that the new US-installed Kiev government made laws outlawing the official use of Russian, even though Russia was until then one of the official languages, and BTW, before the coup, most Ukrainians spoke Russian at least as a second language, though many deemed it their mother tongue. It was and is the lingua franca in ex Soviet Bloc countries, who would be hard put to communicate with each other without it. It is vastly easier to learn than English for a Ukrainian because it is a very closely related Slavic language. In fact it makes no sense to artificially ram English down the throats of the countries at Russia’s border, though this is what Washington wants to do.
 
This draconian law triggered a backlash particularly in the Donbass where Russian was the mother tongue of most residents, and in Crimea, where almost everyone considered himself Russian. Recall for background that Russian author Anton Chekhov had written the short story The Lady with the Little Dog (Дама с собачкой), which was set in Crimean Yalta, then considered a Russian resort area, and all the characters in the story spoke their native Russian (when I visited Yalta in the early 70s, everyone I spoke with spoke perfect Russian. I heard no one speaking Ukrainian). Recall also that Yalta was the site of the signing of the peace accord by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt at the close of WW II. Stalin chose this town because it was a Russian site comfortably accessible to Europe and was an attractive tourist site that he perhaps wished to promote.
 
So when the government not of Russia but of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (you see it was never a regular Ukrainian province) held a referendum and over 90% of the voters said they wanted to accede to the Russian Federation, it was no surprise to knowledgeable folks. But alas, there are precious few knowledgeable folks in the Western world, so the majority just swallows the media’s swill and dutifully parrot the line that Russia is a dangerous aggressor that must be held in check by NATO (after all, what would the alliance’s overpaid bureaucrats do if they didn’t have an enemy? They’ have to find real jobs, poor things!).
 
The decision of Crimea to accede to Russia was made by ordinary Crimeans, not the Russians. How is that “Russian aggression”? Only Western politicians and media reps “know” that. They have already called presidential candidate and Iraq veteran Tulsi Gabbard a Kremlin stooge for suggesting the US should work with Russia instead of treating it like a pariah.
 
As long as the Western grassroots keep believing that Russia is the enemy, the Democratic Party leaders, certain Republican politicians, the Pentagon and NATO will proceed with their machinations and the spectre of nuclear war will continue to hover over us.
 
Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov has said that an armed conflict could start this spring. Yet none of the viable candidates for the presidency in 2020 has hinted that they will work toward peace negotiations with Russia. So far, the US has pulled out of two important arms control treaties, blaming Russia in one case but without real evidence of a violation. Russia has declared itself ready to negotiate on arms control but the US government is lukewarm to cold on the idea. Meanwhile NATO is planning another massive military drill as close as possible to the Russian border. Russia and China have never held such a drill off the US coast.
 
So who is the aggressor?