@Humpleupagus

That's probably the 50th pretext for the invasion I'm hearing since February 2022, you seem to be able to catch up with all of them only by forgetting the previous ones?

And as usual it goes very much against the previous pretexts: Putin long argued Ukraine has no independence and is just part of Russia. All Russian propaganda apparatus reinforced exactly this message for the last 10 years or so.

One of the pretexts also goes like Russia did not guarantee anything in the Budapest Memorandum, so it could have done anything it liked (literally quoted here by @Max_Cope ), which directly contradicts what you postulated above.

Another one goes like there was no clearly defined border between Russia and Ukraine (outright lie).

Another one goes like Russia did not recognize Ukraine government after Yanukovych ran away to Moscow, but it's also a lie — Russia continued diplomatic relations with Ukraine and Putin literally met with Ukraine's president and signed agreements (he violated them but that was expected).

I can go for hours, Russian propaganda was quite creative with these pretexts...

If you're genuinely interested in the historical context, read https://verstka.media/kak-putin-pridumal-vo...

@DotardTed @PawelK @zoon