Why did Russia really invade Ukraine?

[This article is based mainly on the speech of Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, whom I call the “anti-American American,” to the European Parliament on 19 February 2025 and other similar YouTube talks he gave.

[He was an adviser to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and other leaders, such as from Poland, Ukraine, the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Serbia, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya. He knows the geopolitical issues surrounding US-NATO and Russian relations firsthand from his 30 years as an adviser to these many European nations, east and west.]

Why did Russia really invade Ukraine? It is a very obvious question which most Americans and Europeans give the wrong answer to. They all say the Russia invasion of Ukraine was an expansionist move. Sachs tells us otherwise. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a DEFENSIVE NOT OFFENSIVE move, which Western experts fail to realize to this day, brainwashed or simply uninformed by the US-controlled media.

Recently, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to defeat “Russian aggression” that “knows no bounds.” Macron is totally misinformed. It was US-NATO aggression that forced Russia to defend itself.

In 1994, US President Bill Clinton revealed plans to expand NATO eastward “all the way to Ukraine,” in spite of previous hypocritical US pronouncements that there were no such plans. The US lied.

Round 1 was the inclusion in NATO of Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic by 1999. Russia was mostly silent because these countries were far from the Russian border. Round 2 was the inclusion of Romania, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Slovakia by 2004. Russia expressed anger, saying this was a violation of past agreements, which was simply ignored by the US. In 1997, US national security adviser Zbigniew Brezinski said that Russia was helpless to do anything about it anyway.

The US never talked to Russia. The plan was simply to surround and corner Russia, the “enemy.” Through all the US presidents, Democrats and Republicans, in three decades there was virtually zero diplomacy. The obsession was simply to “surround” and “corner” the Kremlin, nothing less.

In 1994, the so-called Orange Revolution exploded. The pro-West forces in Ukraine grew because of the corrupt pro-East government. Finally, in 2004, pro-West Viktor Yuschenko won over pro-East Viktor Yanukovych by a close margin of 53 percent versus 47 percent. The shift to pro-US-NATO away from pro-Russia was the catalyst for the eventual Russian invasion two decades later. Sachs says the CIA is active worldwide in instituting regime change, deposing anti-US forces to be replaced by pro-US. The attempt to depose Putin did not work.

Ukraine is the final buffer to the gates of the Kremlin. There were moves to make Ukraine a NATO member but the West hesitated. NATO membership implied that US-NATO can place its bases inside Ukraine, a no-no for Putin, who issued warnings of a nuclear war if Ukraine became a NATO member.

In truth, it implied that US-NATO hypersonic missiles inside Ukraine could hit Moscow within a few hours. Also, NATO mutual defense protocol for members implied that if Ukraine was attacked or invaded, the US-NATO forces have to respond.

All the ambitious plans of the Pentagon and the White House to surround and corner the Kremlin were thus preempted by the prospect of a nuclear holocaust, the end-game of all end-games. It was myopic of the US to even consider to surround and corner Russia. They were blinded by the prospect of neutralizing the old enemy quickly, which was not easy to do.

With the ascendency of US President Donald Trump, the situation has taken a 180-degree turn. Trump is withdrawing all US military and financial aid to Ukraine to end the war. He is even planning to withdraw completely from NATO, which will weaken it dramatically.

These two moves are a clear advantage to Russia. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is undaunted, thinking the support of the EU, especially of France, Germany, and the UK, will keep NATO afloat. In reality, the EU has been spoiled by the US which gives the majority of NATO’s financial and military aid.

With the US gone, NATO may just start a slow death, especially with a global economic storm brewing due to the Trump-initiated global trade wars.