Igor Zaytsev's blog

Towards the end of 2021, the US raised the alarm: Russians are planning to invade UA. The Media was feverish: almost daily new terrifying stories about the pending unprovoked attack debuted on White House press briefings and appeared on mainstream media, citing anonymous but highly knowledgeable sources. At the same time US State Department was hording EU and other countries to prepare retaliatory measures: sanctions on Russian energy exports, freeze of Russian assets, disconnect from the SWIFT payment system, cultural blockade on anything Russian, and supplies of weapons to the UA.

Later in became clear no one believed the story of impeding invasion. The Ukrainian government was publicly stating that they see no basis for such claims, trying to calm the panicking population and collapsing economy. Many Western security services saw no signs of the impeding attack. Yet, the Western governments didn’t published any statements denying US claims.

Near the start of 2022, US State Department switched to “false flag” claims. They had absolutely reliable information about Russia preparing some kind of mass casualty attack on their own citizens in order to justify the invasion. Maybe a use of chemical weapon, or maybe an explosion…

Meantime, this induced panic has made some of European leaders nervous. Or maybe they saw an opportunity to score some diplomatic points by preventing the invasion they didn’t believe was about to start. The intense diplomatic dialogue with Moscow has started.

Seeing the chance to make use of this panic, they believed a beneficial deal is possible. Since they claimed they had no interest to invade, they now could officially promise it to any leader in exchange for the Western commitment to not expand NATO any closer to Russian borders. They also made a tried to convince the Minsk-2 guarantors (France and Germany) to put pressure on UA to resume the Minsk-2 implementation. That bet fired backwards — since NATO went out of its way to reject such agreement and the France and Germany couldn’t or wouldn’t force the UA to implement Minsk-2, now it would seem like Russia has a reason for invasion. Moreover, implicitly implying that they had the invasion as an option in mind, it only made US claims seem more believable.

Seeing as things are now really heating up, Russians delayed the departure of its forces which participated in training in Belarus. Some other preparations for the possible conflict with UA started (like the relocation of landing ships to the Black Sea Fleet). The Donbass republic made claims that they discovered Ukrainian plans for attack on Donbass.

The Western pressure growing on Russia, and its diplomatic efforts wasting in vain, Putin decided to demonstrate force and annexed the two Donbass republics.

Almost immediately, Ukrainian forces started a massive artillery bombardment of Donetsk. EU observers evacuated. US started to evacuate its diplomatic staff to Poland and relocated its embassy from Kiev to Lvov in Western UA. At that time, Russian forces still haven’t deployed to Donbass in any significant numbers.

The US managed to produce its invasion. At this time, any Russian attempt for diplomacy and the lack of military action against UA would have devastating effect on Putin’s popularity. So a new plan was approved. Russian forces would rush into UA, while creating panic, while at the same time constantly broadcasting they don’t intend to capture territories and any Ukrainian soldier that surrenders will not be harmed and be released as soon as the fighting is over.

The first part of the US State Department’s plan to start a proxy war with Russia and to detach the EU from Russia have succeeded.

Continued in part 2.