Why Russia Invaded Ukraine

I have heard many explanations giving many different reasons why Russia is invading Ukraine. Putin gave his official reasons in his televised speech Wednesday night, announcing the “de-Nazification of Ukraine, as well as bringing to justice those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians.” This would make it sound like his main concern is the treatment of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, especially in the “pro-Russian secessionist regimes in the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk” which have been fighting for independence since at least 2014.

While there is little justification for suggesting that Ukraine’s government (or its ethnically Jewish President Volodymyr Zelensky) are acting like Nazis, there is a valid argument that Ukraine is divided by ethnic and linguistic differences, with various estimates suggesting that the eastern and southern third or half of Ukraine is Russian by nature and that the people there would prefer to be united with Russia. Many westerners may not be aware that the two provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence from Ukraine in 2014, and have been split between continued Ukrainian rule in their western regions, with Russian-supported, de-facto independence in their eastern regions, ever since.

Many westerners may also forget that Crimea – the almost completely separated peninsula jutting into the Black Sea south of Ukraine – was seized back from Ukraine in a similar move by Putin in 2014. Sixty years earlier in 1954, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, (an ethnic Ukrainian who had been in charge of Ukraine for many years before succeeding Joseph Stalin) accomplished a gift of territory – Crimea – from Russia to Ukraine.

The USSR maintained control either way, but the gift was officially promoted as cementing the ties between Russia and Ukraine. Khrushchev had wanted to accomplish this with the gift of Crimea to Ukraine since WWII. Other Russian leaders may have understood that Crimea’s almost completely Russian population would increase the ethnic/linguistic balance of Ukraine in Russia’s favor – the same method used when “gerrymandering” new borders for congressional districts in the United States to make sure more districts have a slim majority favoring the party then in power.

But what no one in Moscow foresaw in 1954 was the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of an independent Ukraine that wouldn’t forever remain closely tied to Russia. From 2010-2012, significant offshore oil and gas reserves were discovered in the Black Sea near Crimea. If the most economically logical finds were put into production, Ukraine would suddenly become a significant exporter of oil and gas – approximately at the level of Iraqi production, and in competition with Russia when selling fuel to Europe. Ukrainian pipelines to western Europe would be much shorter, and their prices would presumably be cheaper. An independent Ukraine was already charging Russia billions of dollars a year in fees to transport Russian oil and gas to the west across Ukrainian territory. A Russian invasion of Ukraine could put an end to such problems for Russia.

But how would Ukraine’s population react?

Despite Ukraine’s many natural resources, (not just potential oil and gas sales, but various metals in the ground and grains and other export crops on its very fertile soil) the Ukrainian people are arguably the poorest in Europe.

Putin also has a very real historical reason to want Russia and Ukraine re-united. The Russian nation was born in Kiev. Today Kiev is the capital of Ukraine, but over a thousand years ago, it was arguably the first capital of Russia. In the article: “When Was Russia Founded?” the author explains: “Foreign chronicles referred to the people who lived in the Northern Black Sea region as “Rosses” (росы) even before 862. The Annals of Saint Bertin, covering years 830-882, mention “people of Ros” and their king under 839. Then in the 10th century, Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Flavius Porphyrogenitus (905-959) mentions pechenegs (nomadic people of the Northern Black Sea region) waging wars on Rosia and attacking their capital, Kiev. So, the first mentions of ‘Rosses’ and their land refer to the Kievan Rus’, a loosely organized state with a capital in Kiev that existed in the 9th-13th centuries and later crumbled under the pressure of the Mongol-Tatars who invaded the Kievan lands in the 13th century. The Mongol-Tatar invasion eventually made the Russian princes consolidate their powers in the North-Eastern lands of Central Russia:” i.e. Moscow. So while Moscow was ruled by Kiev’s Rus from the 9th to 13th centuries, after that Kiev was ruled by Russian Tsar from Moscow.

If you’re not convinced that this argument is relevant, consider making the time to read what Vladimir Putin spent made time to write in July 2021: a 5,000 word essay: “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” which was published on the Kremlin’s website in Russian, English and Ukrainian

This idea of unity and brotherhood is part of the reasoning for such a gentle Russian invasion. Russia dominates the sea and air. Ukraine, within hours, effectively had no navy or air force. Russia could have destroyed all Ukrainian infrastructure. Ukrainian cities could already be leveled. But there are minimal civilian casualties; the utilities are still on – and even the internet is still functional, allowing multiple viewpoints to be promoted. This is nothing like Germany’s invasion of Ukraine, with the intention to exterminate what Nazis considered an inferior people. While Russia’s invasion is an act of aggression, as wars go, it is being fought on somewhat friendly terms. Russia is holding back to ensure that civilians and infrastructure are left intact whenever possible.

Putin’s Russian generals, when the war is over in Ukraine, will likely reunite with their old friends leading the Ukrainian military, reminisce about their days in the Academy in Moscow when they went to school together in Soviet times, and invite the Ukrainian leaders to keep running Ukraine under a new administration that is not pro-West but pro-Russia.

Wikipedia’s entry for Ukraine supports the strength of these brotherly ties, describing Ukraine’s early history as the “tribal federation Kievan Rus’ forming the basis of Ukrainian identity…. The Golden Age of Kievan Rus’ began with the reign of Vladimir the Great (980–1015), who turned Rus’ toward Byzantine Christianity. During the reign of his son, Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054), Kievan Rus’ reached the zenith of its cultural development and military power…. The 13th-century Mongol invasion devastated Kievan Rus’. Kyiv was totally destroyed in 1240.” which led to Moscow’s domination of Russia. Although ruled by Mongol, Turkic, Lithuanian, Polish, and (almost but not quite including the city of Kiev itself under their rule) Ottoman masters for a few centuries – Kiev was reintegrated with Russia by 1667. Culturally, the city was still dominated by Polish speaking upper classes, but after centuries of renewed Russification, “According to the census of 1897, of the city’s approximately 240,000 people approximately 56% of the population spoke the Russian language, 23% spoke the Ukrainian language, 12.5% spoke Yiddish, 7% spoke Polish.” This trend of Russification continued during most of the Soviet era, especially under Stalin. Ukrainians who wanted a better education and career generally chose the Russian language as it opened opportunities throughout the Soviet Union. Despite the reversal of this trend since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, many Ukrainians still speak Russian and an argument can be made for about half of Ukraine identifying as Russian:

As if Putin needed any other reason to want to seize Crimea (ethnically/linguistically Russian) which holds major offshore oil and gas wealth – and eastern Ukraine (ethnically/linguistically Russian) which includes the large and newly economical Yuzovsky shale gas field – Ukraine had a US/CIA-backed revolution in 2013-2014 ending in new pro-Western leaders for Ukraine by the spring of 2014. Surely this had nothing to do with newly discovered oil and gas fields, as the United States is never interested in controlling such energy rich regions.

The 2014 elections, ousting the pro-Russian leader of Ukraine – President Viktor Yanukovych – led to the election of one of Ukraine’s leading bankers – Petro Poroshenko – leading Ukraine. Poroshenko had ties to western banking interests and steered Ukraine away from Russia and towards the US and Europe. Plans for inclusion in the European Union and NATO began in earnest. Before Poroshenko was even elected, pro-Western businessmen and politicians were selling the rights to the Yuzovsky gas field to Shell (and other fields to Chevron) while minimizing ties to Russian energy companies like Gazprom, Novatek, Rosneft, and Lukoil. Putin didn’t even wait for the official election in Ukraine. Observing what was happening with concern, Russia seized Crimea back from Ukraine by March 2014, regaining a major ice-free naval port in Sevastapol, major oil and gas concessions in the Black Sea, and a population that already considered itself Russian. Shell and Chevron canceled their oil and gas commitments in Ukraine.

Fast Forward to 2022, and we can see some of the same factors dominating Putin’s thoughts in eastern Ukraine: a predominantly Russian population with huge energy resources. Ukraine is also rich in coal, iron ore, manganese, titanium, bauxite, and a host of other metals. Agriculturally, the article: “Ukraine can feed the world” (at least 600 Million people, anyway, according to real estimates) sums it up with: “Ukraine has been known as ‘the breadbasket of Europe.’ This title is entirely accurate, given that Ukraine is home to around a quarter of the world’s super-fertile ‘chernozem’ or ‘black soil.’ ….Ukraine is already among the top three grain exporters and a world leader in areas such as soybeans and sunflower oil. Ukrainian agricultural exports enjoy a growing profile in key global markets like China, Egypt, India, Turkey, and across the European Union.” But Ukraine’s people are still poor.

And as if these aren’t already enough reasons for Russian leaders to want Ukraine, there’s always NATO to consider. Ever since WWII, Russia’s most powerful potential enemy has been the western alliance of Americans and Europeans. Historically, Russia has been invaded from western Europe multiple times across the flat and hard-to-defend European Plain, in gray below:

Stalin was thrilled to conquer his way west and control this least defensible plain to its narrowest point in Germany in 1945. With mountains to the south blocking tanks and making an easy land invasion from the Balkans impossible, he would only have to worry about an invasion through East Germany – a small area easy to defend, with a front of about 450 kilometers from the Baltic Sea to the Ore Mountains.

Fast forward to 1992. The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact have collapsed. The United States is the lone superpower. Russia is weak and former Soviet republics are independent and ostensibly neutral, but with their eyes on the success of the West. Fast forward to 2022. Most of Eastern Europe – including many former Soviet Republics – has joined NATO, with the new western boundary of Russian power forced to defend a front of almost 1800 kilometers of the European plain between St. Petersburg and Rostov. Ukraine, officially neutral, has been working to join the European Union and NATO and align more closely with the US than Russia.

But in the 21st century, there is yet another geopolitical concern facing Russia: the rise of China.

Russia sits in the middle of the largest landmass in the world and it has huge natural resources. Eighty years ago Russia was surrounded by the Axis Powers of Germany and Japan. Japanese expansion into Russia’s east was ended by harsh battles in Mongolia that limited Japan’s desire for war with Russia. Germany was defeated only after severe losses that almost led to Soviet defeat in the heart of Russia. The threats against Russia in the 21st century include NATO in the West, Fundamentalist Islam in the south, and Chinese hegemony in the East. Like a lion being encircled and nipped at by a pack of hyenas, the Russian Bear feels dangerously encircled and forced to prove his strength to would-be attackers. A military show of strength coupled with a strategic realignment with various major powers seems in order.

With all these reasons to want Ukraine under Russian control again, as it has been for most of modern history, is the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine a surprise?

Everything written above could be found in a mainstream assessment of history and geopolitics. I am now proceeding to additional reasons for such an invasion – more specifically in tune with topics on which my blog is often focused.

Many prophecies suggest that in the early 21st century there will be a huge global war. The 16th century French prophet Nostradamus suggested that the main problem for France would be neglect and negligence in regard to an Islamic threat, followed by an Islamic invasion of Europe from the south and southeast that reaches the middle of France and Germany. Nostradamus suggested this would begin with a major event near the turn of the millennium but prior to June 2002. (September 11, 2001?) He described the tensions between the Islamic “East” and the Christian “West” growing and accelerating over 27 years, eventually culminating in a (limited to a few cities) nuclear world war.

Late in this 27 year period of accelerating problems, but early in the scope of world war, Nostradamus predicted that Ukraine would be invaded. Some authors have interpreted this invasion to be due 1700 years after the Council of Nicea – 2025 A.D. Recent events suggest they were off by a few years in their interpretation of Nostradamus, as it seems to be happening in 2022, though it is possible that the current invasion of Ukraine could be limited and end any day – with an independent but smaller Ukraine still existing to be re-invaded in 2025.

Nostradamus warned, in Quatrain 3:95

“The Moorish law shall be on decline,
After it, another one more seducing,
Boristhenes (Dnieper) shall be the first to fall”

Boristhenes is the old Latin name for the Dnieper River running through the middle of Ukraine.

I suspect that Nostradamus’ reference to “Moorish law” is not a reference to North African Moors and Islam in this case, but is a reference to Sir Thomas Moore’s “Utopia” and to communism, which Nostradamus refers to elsewhere as “the loving of everything in common” on one side and those of “opposite ideas” on the other side. Perhaps those Westerners with the ideals of democracy and capitalism being referred to in line 2’s “another one more seducing.” With communism declining in Ukraine it shifted away from Russian influence to reliance on America… but has America pushed too far? Is Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a response to NATO encroachment?

Nostradamus predicts other problems and perhaps Russia is also looking for a buffer in Eastern Europe knowing that a much larger war is coming in Europe. Russia might also want living space for its people farther from the upcoming position of the next North Pole after a pole shift.

Nostradamus also predicted that this Third World War would end by late 2028-early 2029, followed almost immediately by a civilization-ending pole shift which some Nostradamus scholars date to October 2029.

The American psychic Edgar Cayce also predicted these things. He told a boy in 1941 that he (the boy) would live to see a global religious war – presumably between Islam and Christianity. He said that Russia would once again be a Christian nation – which it now is – arguably the most Christian of any major nation. Cayce also coined the term “earth changes” and predicted a cataclysmic pole shift, with various signs of its approach becoming more obvious in 1968, and 1998. Perhaps the next, final intensification of signs will be another 30 years later in 2028?

Much like Cayce’s boy in 1941 was told he would live to see this great religious war, the Bible also warned that the generation that saw Israel re-created as a nation (1948) would live to see all end times prophecy fulfilled. Assuming that Jesus’ parable of the fig tree does refer to Israel and that Psalms’ definition of a generation being at most 80 years is correct, this suggests that much will occur by 2028. And Bible prophecy suggests that someone leading a religion which is against or anti-Christ will rise up near the end times and form a new great empire overlapping the previous Babylonian, Persian, and Greek Empires (the Middle East) to wage war against Jews and Christians and attempt to take over the world, prior to a remaking of the world in a pole shift:

There are dozens of biblical references to a pole shift, but a few will suffice here in this already very long post:

Isaiah 24:1 “Behold, the Lord lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants.”
Job 9:5-6 “It is God who removes the mountains, they know not how, When He overturns them in His anger; Who shakes the earth out of its place, And its pillars tremble.”
Psalms 46:2 “though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea.”

Isaiah 22:25 “In that day,” declares the Lord of hosts, “the peg driven in a firm place will give way; it will even break off and fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut off.”

Amos 5:8 – Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of night into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth forth the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name.

Revelation 16:18-20 “there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty… And the cities of the nations fell… and every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.”

Revelation 21:1 “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.”

Even the Third Secret of Fatima suggests similar destruction. “In 1917, the most credible and well-documented visions of the Virgin Mary were received by three young cousins in Fatima, Portugal.  Several times that year, always on the thirteenth day of the month, the children experienced trance-like visions in which they claimed the Holy Mother spoke to them.  On July 13, 1917, the three cousins were given three secrets – three prophecies about horrible things to come.  The first two secrets describe aspects of hell, WWI and WWII, and the importance of Russia as a Christian nation. 

The Third Secret of Fatima may involve a POLE SHIFT and an apocalyptic Third World War, but we don’t know for certain – because the Vatican refuses to satisfy our curiosity and discuss the details of the Third Secret openly….” Commenting on the Vatican’s refusal to divulge the Third Secret: “Pope John Paul II, who commented on the Third Secret while speaking in Fulda, Germany: [said] “It should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the earth, and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired.” (originally from the October 1981 issue of Stimme des Glaubens.)”

Wow! Are we supposed to take Pope John Paul II and his comments on the Third Secret of Fatima seriously? Our current pope does….

“On March 13, 2013, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, became the first pope from the Americas.  The Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal José Policarpo, soon announced that Pope Francis twice asked him to consecrate his papacy to Our Lady of Fatima, and this was done on May 13, 2013 – on the 96th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to the three shepherd children.  Pope Francis obviously takes the secrets of Fatima seriously, and publically acknowledges this by having his papacy consecrated this way.  It implies that the events of the third secret are not over.

Fatima author Father Malachi Martin has said that “the Third Secret is your worst nightmare, multiplied exponentially.” (http://www.tldm.org/News10/MalachiMartinBelievedInBayside.htm)  In an interview with Art Bell in 1997, he explained that “I was shown the Text of the third secret in February 1960. I cooled my heels in the corridor outside the Holy Father’s apartments, while my Boss, Cardinal Bea, was inside debating with the Holy Father (Pope John XXIII), and with a other group of other bishops and priests, and two young Portuguese seminarians, who translated the letter, a single page, written in Portuguese….. on the content of the Third Secret, Sister Lucy one day replied: ‘It’s in the Gospel, and in the Apocalypse, read them.’  We even know that one day Lucy indicated Chapters 8, 13 of the Apocalypse. (http://garabandalnews.overblog.com/2014/01/fatima-3rd-secret-and-facts.html)”

“Although the great apostasy and dangers to the faith have been discussed by Vatican officials in regard to the Fatima secrets, no one has commented specifically on the Antichrist in relation to the Third Secret.  But Pope John Paul II did talk about massive flooding and pole shift type events killing many people.  I believe the next North Pole will be in Siberia, northwest of Lake Baikal, near the borders of Russia, China, and Mongolia.  There is a large magnetic anomaly there.  The famous Tunguska blast event of 1908 occurred there.  The Magnetic North Pole is already moving in that direction.  And one of the main founders of the pole shift theory, Professor Charles Hapgood (author of books like Path of the Pole and Earth’s Shifting Crust) also felt this was the likely location of our next North Pole.  If that is correct, and if that will happen soon – what will that do to the people of Russia and China?

Most of their nations would become uninhabitable, arctic wasteland.  We may already think of Siberia that way, but imagine it even closer to the North Pole.  Let’s now look in context at what Pope John Paul II said right before commenting on huge floods killing millions: “Given the seriousness of the contents, my predecessors in the Petrine office diplomatically preferred to postpone publication so as not to encourage the world power of Communism to make certain moves.   On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the earth…”

Pope John Paul II suggested that World Communism – the major powers of which are Russia and China – would make some hostile moves if they knew the secret.  Father Malachi Martin agreed and wrote in his book The Keys of This Blood: “were the leaders of the Leninist Party-State to know these words, they would in all probability decide to undertake certain territorial and militaristic moves against which the West could have few if any means of resisting.”  I think they would decide to conquer new lands farther from the upcoming new North Pole to provide suitable new homelands for their populations.  Central Europe, South Asia, and the Middle East would probably be invaded by Russia and China.  This may be one reason the Russians are preparing to invade Ukraine.  Perhaps in Revelation 9:16 when an army of two hundred million comes to the Euphrates from the east – it is because the imminent pole shift has become obvious and the people of China and Russia are fleeing.  If so we can expect huge wars in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East soon.”

I could go on for hundreds of pages describing Russia’s role in WWIII, and Ukraine, and the coming pole shift…. but I already have, if you’re interested.