The debate over the cause of the war in Ukraine often centers on a single question: “Was it Putin’s imperial impulses that led to the Kremlin’s invasion, or the West’s disregard for Russia’s security concerns?”
Scholars, students, commentators, and politicians all have their own training, sources, and life experiences that shape their views.
Some analyses are based solely on individual motives.
Why Did Putin Invade Ukraine?
There are those, like John Mearsheimer, who assert that Putin was only being rational when he launched his “special military operation.” Mearsheimer even suggests that if he were Putin, he would have acted sooner, as if to confirm that Putin’s actions were not only warranted, but morally just.
I have heard other sophists claim that the U.S. helped stage a coup that brought Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to power. Some even assure whomever is willing to listen that the CIA worked with the nationalist Azov Battalion to ready them to conduct covert operations against Russia. The producers at Russian propaganda network RT must beam triumphantly at every mention of this whimsical storyline.
Less fanciful sources suggest that NATO’s enlargement fueled Putin’s rise and stoked Russian nationalism. They claim that Russia’s imperialistic designs did not spontaneously fire to life – they required an external ignition source. That spark, as they see it, was the threat posed by NATO at Russia’s border. To support their point, such pundits often reach back to the presidency of George H. W. Bush and invoke a promise Secretary of State James Baker made to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990. The statement that NATO would expand eastward “not one inch” was indeed conveyed by Baker. But context matters, and Baker was speaking within the context of the unification of Germany. The ultimate agreement focused specifically on Germany; it never disavowed future expansion.
Despite the fact that Baker made this comment a generation ago, to another administration of a completely different government (the USSR), the Kremlin continues to express outrage over what they claim was a betrayal by the West. They conceal the fact that the exchange between Baker and Gorbachev was never an agreement. Yet their myth remains justification for Putin’s cult of empire. The Russo-Georgian War, the cyberattacks against Estonia, the breach of the Budapest Memorandum, the annexation of Crimea, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine are merely responses to the West’s treachery, in their telling. The Kremlin also took note that if Ukraine had been a member of NATO, as are its Polish, Slovakian, Hungarian, and Romanian neighbors, Russia’s actions against it would be an act of war and could trigger a response.
In the real world, however, Ukraine’s admission into NATO was never a serious topic. Even after Russia invaded, then-U.S. President Joe Biden was reluctant to entertain the idea. Despite the failings of his predecessor Barack Obama’s “reset” with Russia, the goal of working toward more predictable relations with Moscow was still a major thrust of U.S. foreign policy. The inclusion of Sweden and Finland in the alliance was a direct outcome of Putin’s illegal invasion. For that development, Putin has himself to blame.
A Look at the Facts
For the record, let us recall the facts.
In November 2013, protesters gathered in Kyiv’s Maidan Square to demonstrate against then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the European Union Association Agreement. Instead, he had agreed to membership in the Eurasian Economic Union.
The Eurasian Union was a token attempt at economic regionalism and a veiled instrument of Russian geopolitical control. Many contend it survives as merely another façade to reconstitute the Soviet Union. Putin promoted this union grandly, but it offered little incentive in the way of political or market institutions. The aim of the agreement was to pull Ukraine away from Brussels and closer to Moscow.
The protests against Yanukovych’s reversal grew in size and intensity. The movement became known as “the revolution of dignity.” What began as peaceful protests the night of Nov. 21, 2013, gained momentum throughout the winter. On Jan. 16, the government introduced a series of repressive laws harshly restricting civil society and the right to protest. The reaction widened, and from Feb. 20-22, 2014, 88 people were killed by government forces during the Maidan Square protests. Some victims were shot by rooftop snipers.
The people eventually overwhelmed government security forces and seized administration buildings. On Feb. 22, they set out to form a new government. While his private residences were also being seized, Yanukovych fled to Russia.
Putin declares he will protect ethnic Russians in the near-abroad from any Western underhandedness. Defending those people’s rights includes formal security guarantees, and the banning of future NATO membership for Ukraine and other ex-Soviet republics. In truth, what forced Putin’s hand was not treachery and betrayal by the West. Rather, it was the fear Putin had of democratic trends – certainly not NATO enlargement.
The color revolutions, the Arab Spring, civil war in Syria, rumblings from the Baltic to Central Asia, and domestic dissent in 2011 provoked alarm among Russian elites who fear their system is vulnerable and their leadership style might be unsustainable. Beholden to this worldview, Putin charges that the West’s modern cries for “democratization” are merely voicing the same false outrage the former imperial powers used when they invoked their calls for “civilization” during the period of colonization. He claims that Russia’s current adversaries are the heirs of that previous institution.
In order to defend Russia from these irreconcilable differences in values, Putin reasons that: “The stronger the state, the freer the individual.” Dissent is akin to treason. The cry for independence is confrontational and wreaks conflict.
Well, Ukraine’s cries for independence were a demand for dignity, human rights, and eliminating corruption. If that is confrontational – so be it.
About the Author: Jack Jarmon
Jack Jarmon has taught international relations at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University where he was Associate Director and Research Professor at the Command Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis. During the mid 1990s, he served as USAID Technical Advisor for the Russian government. He has lectured at major universities and war colleges and authored and co-authored five books, which are currently core texts for international and security studies programs in the US and abroad.
What Are Europe’s Best Weapons of War?
Pingback: Putin's Blunder: Russia Is 'Starting to Lose the War' in Ukraine - National Security Journal
Pingback: Is Trump Getting Played by Putin on the Ukraine War? - National Security Journal
Swamplaw Yankee
May 24, 2025 at 9:52 pm
John Mearsheimer is called a “sophist”. Wow. This peer review function really is educational.
John recently appeared on a podcast run by a former military officer, Dan D. The use of sly omission, deletion of fact was quite evident. John, the peer reviewer speculates, knows, can recall at will, the specialized history of Ukraine much more in depth. That is, to the ignorant Doodle Dandy, John can recall select facts about Ukraine that are only needed in specialized situations.
Ad rem: it was very evident that Dan was run over by a truck load of omission, selective technique that John emitted on air to Dan with no failsafe. There was no “expert” present to point out and/or debate why there was such a technique applied to dumb ole Doodle Dandy listener. Worst, Dan then goes off and pens op-eds, op-eds that seem so skewed, ( but published ) that the text could serve as term projects in a University level correction course.
The sophists seem to run wild.
What did Putin’s great, great, great, grand pappy do? Well what every other orc peasant russian would do. Go make easy ,money on a guaranteed cash maker!
Yes, the peasant russian orc of 1616 would bi-annually join a sex trading caravan that pushed off into Ukrainian hinterlands to butcher families but kidnap little Ukrainian girls and boys for self satisfaction and easy cash profit. The russian peasant of 1615 would cash in for Ottoman gold in the muslim dungeon fort in Crimea, called Caffa. Huge numbers of muslin run dungeons housed deflowered christian children to be delivered to depraved muslim captivity.
That is the real reason that the Ukraine was invaded in 2013-14. Putin knew that deep inside himself he had the long pent up need to self-satisfy his ancient russian genetic need to satiate himself on Ukrainian kiddies. Just as the rest of the peasant russian had inside themselves as they lived in muscovite elite control.
Putin knew that the millions of peasants would support him, adore him, revere him the second that he offered them free, no-cost, gifts of freshly identified human trafficked Ukrainian children. There was no need to hunt the children in Ukraine personally. Just support the cultural genocide war on Ukraine with the children of the captive nations of imperial russia: nneded for the meat grinder of the russian army.
That was so simple. The twist? There was a twist. The objection from the “civilization” of the WEST. The WEST would object to irredism from Putin. Hoe could Putin steal Ukraine’s land when before the russian peasant just stole the kiddies.
Well, Epstein disease to the rescue. Epstein was rubbing body parts with the Democrat elite all over the USA. So, when the political parts of 2013 appeared, the implementation of a Epstein operation in Ukraine was go-go in Democrat elite circles.
The Obama-Biden-Democrat cabal betrayed the WEST with the unilateral green lighting of the theft of the geopolitical advantage of the WEST in the loss of Ukraine’s Crimea and Black/Azov seas zone to the prime, vile cold war enemy of the WEST: Putin.
When Putin immediately started his “little green groomer” kidnap of Ukrainian children for air-lift to the fatherland, the Obama-Biden-Democrat definition of “civilization” now included Epstein child human traffick victimization. Putin was ecstatic with the greenlighted “approval” from the O-B-D cabal.
All that 2013 maidan technicality with US embassy staff was not related to 1616. The O-B-D cabal supporters in 2025 raise this distraction as they avoid the thousand year cultural genocide the russian or today are still responsible for!
Until the free, no-cost, gift from the O-B-D cabal stops, the peasant russian wants the 11 years of free table top dancing to continue even if for only another glorious week. Keep the war going, send more meat grinder men from the captive nations, import more muslim missiles, shaheds to kill those Ukrainian fathers fighting to get their children back (aka stooping the free table top dancing). The cultural genocide of Ukrainian children must extend to every corner of Ukraine. Hey, the russian peasant even harvested children out of Poland and Rumania way back when, too.
Tell the slimy slithering unilateral Thackooff weirdoe shame show anything that will keep the table top dancing going.
Who knew the Q anon would try to warn the Doodle Dandies of the moral turpitude of the inner beltway Pizza places. Who knew their moral warnings would bring Epstein US Virgin Island secret “air freight” to an end!
The only question is if the MAGA elite has had enough of “values”? Will MAGA ask the chief magistrate to make a world wide demand that Putin transmits pre-payment of $10,000,000 in gold bullion for each and every kidnapped child as compensation and reparation before any more fake negotiations, laments for Peace and dying soldiers.
As soon as Putin compensates the first 100,000 Ukrainian kidnap victims at $10,000,000 in gold bullion, the women of muscovite elites will change the length of the war very quickly. Make a bet? -30-