РАТ КОЈИ ЈЕ ИЗБИО СА ТРИ ДЕЦЕНИЈЕ ДОЦЊЕ

Abstract

The paper gives arguments for the thesis that, from the perspective of Russian geopolitical interests and their protection, the military intervention in Ukraine was inevitable and came with the delay of three decades. On the one hand, it is a direct consequence of the USSR breakup and the NATO encirclement of Russia, through extending the North Atlantic Alliance to the former member-countries of the Warsaw Pact, some of the former member-states of the USSR (the Baltic countries), as well as all the former Yugoslav republics (except for Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina). On the other hand, it is the result of building new state identities in the anti-Russian narrative, with the violence exerted against ethnic Russians and Russophones, which was particularly pronounced in Ukraine. At the same time, the West pursued a perfidious policy towards Russia. The three-decade delay is the consequence of the illusions cherished by the West and of untimely Russian learning the lessons from the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia, for which the West is most directly responsible. Concurrently, the attitude towards the compatriots who remained outside the borders of Russia also partly explains Russian policy during the Yugoslav crisis in the last decade of the 20th century. The ultimate goal of such Western policy is in the idea of achieving the “breakthrough to the East” via breaking up Russia (“decolonization of Russia”) and, furthermore, via breaking up China, which was declared as the sole global competitor of the USA in the latest US National Security Strategy from 2022. Key words: disintegration of the USSR, breakup of the SFRY, Russia, Ukraine, genesis and causes of the ethnic conflict, 2022 Russian military intervention.