OK, on Ukraine Invasion.
Regarding Ukraine; the history of Ukraine actually is quite complicated, however, what Russia is doing now absolutely is not.
Lets see an overview of Ukraine, and how it got to today:
In 9th century Kiev Rus was formed with it's capital Kyiv, from a lot of independent lands, ruled by local dukes.
Just before the first 10th century, Kyiv duke Vladimir the Great, who was born in Kyiv, converted to Christianity through Byzantine; in order to make cruisades and attacks from the balts stop.
The baptism took place in Crimea. Moscow was established 200 years after the rule of Vladimir the Great ended.
These things are noteworthy, because putin continues to claim "historic russian lands" in his nonstop mantra.
Kyiv Rus stook tall for 3 centuries, but weakening economic connections with Byzantine Empire and weakened Constantinople, which was a significant trading center, Kyiv Rus finally fell to mongols. From the 14th century Kyiv was conquered and ruled by Grand Dutchy of Lithuania. Lands that belonged to GDL developed science and culture faster, they were more open to the west influences: Reformation, great revolutions, breakthrough in though and philosophy. While the territories that remained closer to Moscow, absorbed harsher, mongol culture and it's practices: stronger leader and obedience to him policy, knowledge on how to enforce and abuse your own and foreign people as well as open hostility towards the western world.
Fast forward to 17th century, keeping in mind that until then major part of Ukraine belonged to Poland and locals weren't very happy about it, because Poland enforced polinization on them. Cossacks were angry, they waged war against Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and even established polish pogroms. Then they fought even more then the autonomy of Ukraine.
They fought and they bargained until 1654, when after the Treaty of Pereiaslav, russia decides that eastern Ukraine is theirs, and annexes parts of land. And just like that, since the rule of Peter the Great, every few centuries, moscovites kept taking territory equal to the size of the Netherlands. This treaty was a serious pause to the development of Ukraines national identity; the etmon of cossacks shaked hands with russia, because they badly needed military help. They didn't see the problem with it for 337 years, until they were completely incorporated into the Russian Empire and so, everyone up until the start of 20th century lived in Russian Empire.
Chaos in Ukraine started when cruiser Aurora fired the shot and Lenin's bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace, and started declaring they they are all one nation. Ukrainians, in turn, then announced that they are establishing the Peoples Respublic. In 1918, Kyiv and big part of Ukraine is taken by the Red Army. At the same year in march, germans kick them out. On april, germans help organize a revolution and instead of Peoples Respublic, Ukraine nation is established. On november - another revolution and Peoples Respublic is re-established agen. On the same month, another revolution and in the west part of Ukraine, the West Ukrainian Peoples Respublic is formed.
Polish look from afar for some time, then decide that Ukraine is theirs. Polish, with the aid of czechs and romunians, start the war with both Ukraine respublics. On the other side, 1919 march, the red army takes back west Ukraine and establishes an Ukrainian Soviet Respublic with it's capital Kharkiv. In summer, from the other side, White Army takes back Ukraine, but at the end of the year, the Red Army kicks them out. In 1920 the Polish offer Ukrainians a treaty against the Red Army with the conditions that they give Polish the city of Halych, a few other territories and forget the wrong doings. Ukrainians reluctantly agree and both countries go against the russians. At the beginning it goes well, but after a while, bolsheviks recover and start to fight back. At 1921 Polish stops bolsheviks near Vistula river. Then, a miracle happens: polish start to push the bolsheviks back. After bolsheviks retreat, they sign the Riga Treaty; the Polish recieve west Ukraine, bolsheviks east Ukraine, Chechs - Mukachevo, Romunians - Chernivtsi. Ukraine Soviet Respublic remains at the hands of the Soviet Union. The soviets acknowledge the fertile lands of Ukraine and start massive collective farming and industrialisation (Russians today are very quick to point this out btw).
After the first decade in the Union for Ukraine, the soviets finally understood why Ukrainians are pissed off. So they started the Ukranization process: they gave more rights to the Ukrainian language, increased Ukrainian strength in the government apparatus and also in the national communist party. In comparison, if there was only 1/5 of Ukrainians in the national communist party, in 10 years time their number grew to 60%. But in 1930 the ukrainian celebration ended and the soviets began the reverse policy - deukranization, because Stalin decided that Ukrainian communists aren't loyal enough and maybe even the agents of the enemy. In a year and a half, 4000 teachers were accused of nationalism and massive arrests began. This type of deukranization policy will be enforced by the soviets up until the Ukrainian declaration of independence. In 1933 Holodomor happens - the big famine, which takes the lives of 7 million Ukrainians and only in 2006 is recognized as genocide against the ukrainian people.
What caused the Holodomor, however, is still up for debate: it was either the result of soviet industrialisation or Stalins plan to exterminate the ukrainians. Even then, in order to hide the scope of the tragedy, soviets invited international stars, like Bernard Shaw, who was precisely driven through the Soviet union, excluding the locations of the famine. And afterwards, in the now abandoned homes (Zaporozhye, Doneck, Luhansk) russians quickly populated with their colonists - the seeds they planted in 1930, when did they reap them? At the start of 20th century. By the way, not all ukrainians starved to death; some of them just left and upon return found comfortably sitting russians in their homes. Massive conflicts began and around 1 million russian colonists were forced to leave (how many of them were populated in there, that even that many left back then, so much remained up to this day?).
Then a national hero in Ukraine appears, his name - Stepan Bandera. For ukrainians he's a national hero, for russians - an asshole who collaborated with fascists. Agen; in west Ukraine - a hero, in east - a bastard. Soviet propaganda tried really hard to glue the "bandit" nickname, trying to maximize the negative meaning to the word. This is noteworthy, because in 2010, when president Viktor Yushchenko announced Stepan as a national hero, Doneck court will invalidate that decision. The Second World War practically destroyed Ukraine, but by throwing massive efforts, in 5 years time, the respublic reached the pre-war industrial level; it became one of the leading nations in european industry and an important Soviet Union high technology and weapons research center. Then a former Ukrainian party leader Nikita Chruschtschow became the leader of the whole Soviet Union and started expressing that both countries should forget the wrongdoings and become friends.
The friendship was reinforced by the 300th anniversary celebration of the Pereiaslav Treaty, in which Chruschtschow gave Ukraine Crimea. One could argue that it was a poisoned gift, however; in doing so, Chruschtschow wanted to hit two birds with one stone - appease the ukrainians and delude Ukraine with russians, since by that time, 72% of Crimea's population was russian, and when Ukraine regained independence, only 10% of Crimeas citizens held Ukrainian language as a national one. During Chruschtschow and Brezhnev rulling time, Ukraine became the soviet heavy industry flagman; ore mines, metalurgy, chemistry. High tech was focused on the military industry, while the light industry was forgotten and neglected - this in time will hurt Ukraine pretty badly, who, upon regaining independence, realised that no-one needs military things and you won't get full from eating coal. Dnieper Hydroelectric Station was rebuilt, the first nuclear power plant in Chernobyl was oppened.
In the spring of 1991, Ukraine regained independence. However, Moscow didn't want to let them go, therefore the "Commonwealth of Independent States" was established (in which the word "Independent" was only a formality). Ukraine, while being the second biggest country by population in the Soviet respublic also was one of the poorest; the nation went into political, economic and social crisis. The politicians didn't rush to enforce painful, but very much needed reforms, instead, they printed so much money, that inflation came, and latter - hyperinflation. No one knew how to build democracy. President Kuchma started doing massive privatisation, which in turn transformed Ukraine into a giant corrupt oligarthian state. The nation became pissed off and went to the streets, when government-criticising journalist Gongadze was killed, however, it wasn't proved that the president ordered the killing. Kremlin was sure that cheap gas will keep Ukraine in it's orbit, however, unlike Belarus, which didn't resist such unconsensual intimacy, Ukraine was leaning more and more towards the west. At first, Moscow didn't look seriously into these outbursts by Ukraine, since it was busy with the war it started in Chechen, nor was the west thrilled with idea of taking in Ukraine. Afterwards, then anger lessened, and Ukraine and Russia signed
cooperation and partnership contract, in which, Moscow acknowledged official Ukraine borders, including Crimea. The first diplomatic crisis occurred near putin; in Kerch channel russia suddenly started building a dam. Kyiv acknowledged that as an attempt to re-draw the nations' border lines. The real irony began when, after a year, Ukraine was electing its new president and Moscow openly supported a pro-russian Yanukovych. However, putin failed to slip him in; the Orange Revolution began, the vote was invalidated and a pro-west candidate, Viktor Yushchenko was elected. In response to that, Russia halted gas exports to Ukraine twice.
In 2008, Bush the Younger urged Ukraine and Georgia to start negotiations for membership in NATO. These plans were slowed down not only by russia, but also by France and Germany, who weren't too eager on the idea. In 2010, however, Yanukovych became president, but his attempts to legalize russian language as second national in regions were ended with protests. After that, Ukraine struck an association deal with the European Union, but in 2013, just a few months left till the official signing of the document, Moscow forced Yanukovych to decline the deal. Afterwards, Moscow declared an embargo on Ukrainian products and started not only massive opposition protests but also Maidan.
Unrests started in Ukraine, Yanukovych fled to russia, and russia, breaking it's own signed pact, occupies Crimea and Sevastopol. Russia started increasing it's military in west Ukraine Donbass region, in Doneck and Luhansk established "People's Respublics" which are subject to Russia. A bit late, THE Kyiv government elects a new president and manages to push back the separatists, then russian military enters the conflict, and at Ilovaisk, west of Doneck, ukrainian forces suffer a major defeat, which became a breakthrough in the Donbass war. Even tho truce agreement was signed in 2015, war is still going on today. As of today, we can probaly see what "deescalation" attempts with Russia led to. Ukrainians, who were fed up with communism, decided to end it once and for all - banned the communist party, started tearing down Lenin statues. Why is russia so sucked into Ukraine? Because if Ukraine manages to achieve full independence, this might be a signal to other post-soviet states that they can get rid of influence, fear, and transit into a better quality of life, where all your finances aren't sucked into the pockets of a collective criminal clan.
Ukraine could be a new Russia, Russia, without Putin, which, for some reason, doesn't really appeal to Putin, who in advance keeps repeating like a broken record that Ukraine is his and Crimea was only temporarily given to Ukraine for administration, which, by the way, is a very handy naval military base. Russia's propaganda goal is simple; to form an illusion that a country after Maidan fails to function on its own. The division of Ukraine into the "west" and "east" parts has been a nonstop topic since the collapse of the Soviet Union. And it does exist; eastern ukranians are for the liberal market economy, while the west side is much more suspicious about it, however, despite their differences, the general understandment that Ukraine isn't Russia, exists. Polls done after Maidan show that 60% of ukrainians support the integration into Europe. Kremlin desperately wants to prove that they are one nation, because of Kievan Rus, Treaty of Pereyaslav, constructed facilities. Ukrainians, on the other hand, grow full of forever friendship, de-ukranization, Holodomor, open invasion against them and blackmail.
Ironically tho, Russia is historically a branch of Ukraine, without its own identity and a fuckload of complexes.
Regarding Russia:
Mentality:
Starting from the October revolution, which in my opinion was biggest intellectual tragedy of Russia, when russian peasants revolted and killed all of its nobility and intellectuals, therefore enforcing the degraded intelectual rule for centuries to come. This especially is notable later on in the Soviet Union, when it prosecuted and jailed its scientiscs and intellectuals; because the union saw them as thinking danger; the Soviet Union didn't need thinking, it needed blind following of orders and loyalty, which was also enforced by copiuos amounts of
alcohol, always freely available and propagated. Interesting note; Russia used to "drunkify" the population as a russification tactic even before the Soviet Union, at Tsar times, mostly in it's occupied lands; drunk population think less and are much easier to control; an attitude that transferred into the soviet rule without problems. The Soviet Union did an amazing job breeding weak willed individuals who turned in their neighbors for a few pigs, who kissed governments' ass for additional ham, when they nationalized everything beforehand, thus inducing artificial shortage, and people who collaborated with Soviet criminals who committed atrocities. The Union rewarded these traits, quite literally. This mentality is the backbone of Russia, even today.
The not-so-super-Super-Power
Another mith is Soviet Union being a super power.
The lease:
It was American, and British, lend lease material that kept Russia in the war. Westerners are too quick to give Stalin credit for what their own parents / grandparents actually accomplished.
The USSR during WWII built 109,000 tanks of all types. The United States supplied the USSR with over 425 MILLION TONS of steel during the war, enough to build over 16 MILLION tanks.
Every single tank that the USSR built during the war was, in effect, built with American Steel. How many tanks and artillery pieces would Russia have built without the 425 million tons of American steel? How would the Red army have survived without the 500 million pounds of pork, 600 million pounds of sausage, 2.4 Billion pounds of canned meats, 500 million pounds of beans and millions upon millions of pounds of other American foodstuffs? Do you think the 100,000+ Studebaker trucks provided to Russia had no use at all? In large part the WWII Red army was fed, clothed, armed and transported by American goods.
Without American trucks, food, clothing, tools, raw materials of every imaginable sort (steel, aluminum, molybdenum, magnesium, chromium, mercury, tungsten etc.) Russia could not have produced those numbers of tanks, artillery and aircraft. They could not have supported them in the field; they could not have fed or clothed their own troops. Yes they tied down the majority of the German Army, but they would not have done so without American aid. At best they would have fought a long drawn out defensive battle against the Germans but they would not have been able to go on the offensive, at worst they would simply have been over ran and knocked out of the war by ~1943.
The oft stated claim that "the Allies could not have won without Russia" is exactly 180 degrees off from the truth as Russia could not have won without the Allies, mainly America. Could the allies or the US in particular, have won the war against Germany without Russia? Yes, I believe the US would have won regardless of Russia. For one simple reason: the Atlantic Ocean. Germany could not have defeated the US without invading the US, and that was simply beyond Germany capabilities. Germany industry was no match for American industry; the US would have defeated Germany regardless of Russia. The same cannot be said of Russia as Russia had no Ocean separating her from Germany and Russia industry was not on par with American industry.
Soviet Inventions:
Why invent when you can steal? From cars: Moskvic - Opel Kadett B, Volga - Ford Falcon, to Space Shuttles: Buran - Columbia.
Even the "famed" kalashnikov was invented by captured german scientists, who were under the supervision of former communist youth Mikhail Kalashnikov. The gun itself was based on the StG 44, created by Hugo Schmeisser. Fun fact: Kalashnikov did not invent anything else during his lifetime; perhaps he ran out of ideas.
One of the more recent, now "Russian" inventions: Armata T-14 tank, which broke down in its opening rally in 2015. Shortly after, Russia announces that it's bringing back the T-80 into service.
Fun fact: the Armata T-14 design was based on a rejected German 80's tank model. Another fun fact: in the parade, the tanks' main turret was made out of cardboard, because a huge chunk of money that was supposed to go into its constuction got "lost" on its way.
The Soviet Union technologically went leg to leg with America until America introduced a variable element, when the Soviet Union's technological advancement suddenly stopped.
Can you guess why the Soviet Union didn't invent any technological breakthroughs?
The Soviet Union was never a global super power, but they desperately wanted to portray themselves as such, and ironically, the USA helped them a lot in that regard.
The reasons?
America, as a big democracy and human rights defender, stood still and looked the other way, when it came to the Soviet occupied territories and their cry for help, coming from those nations, since the soviets paid off their lease to them with stolen cash.
America, in order to justify this inactivity, latter on created a two-layered beast that it pushed on it's citizens;
The simple anger towards everything communism for the loons, while at the same time creating media with subliminal hidden messages, where Soviet Union is portrayed as equal force super power that America just has no way of facing them and that it must be acknowledged, subtly hinting at the future cooperation with them. And the viewers felt very sophisticated when they "unraveled" these hidden messages and elevated themselves above the loons. This is especially prominent in movies of the time; every single movie where these future sympathy pieces are hidden are rated really high on IMDB. And thus began the great sympathy towards something that you do not know nor understand, but by gods, it makes you feel sophisticated and better about yourselves.
And it carried on into the 21st century, where you see russia as a neglected child, instead of a war criminal that committed atrocities. And you keep getting surprised that it keeps committing more and more of those, when it keeps getting a pass.
Why is this important? Because after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it helped the public form a rosy picture of Russia, which, in the meantime, used the peace-time to put its agents and figureheads deep into the democracy world itself, now successfully vetoing any actions against it's own criminal activity. It's sad that an open war in Ukraine was needed for the west to finally open at least one eye, and even now, I'm not sure if it will stay that way.
By the way, a friendly reminder that The-Great-Super-Power took a year and a half trying to take an airport from a country that it personally demilitarized before the invasion itself, and they "took it" by bombing it to the ground with 40 year old GRAD missiles.
Soviet Union was never a superpower, it was just an inflated balloon of lies, corruption and propaganda.
I also highly recommend checking out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APjV2h0iG-U (has english subtitles) if you're interested more towards the topic.
Moving on into more recent times.
Now, let's take into account that today's russia decided to "inherit" the heritage and assets of the Soviet Union after its collapse. Who inherited it? Former KGB, that was very prominent in the Soviet Union and its rule. Why did Russia decide to inherit such a notorious baggage and the responsibility that came with it? After all;
1. Nazis AND Soviets started world war 2 by signing Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and splitting independent countries (Fun fact: Stalin helped nazis build their war machine by supplying them with iron ore and other goods from 1939 to 1941).
2. Nazi concentration camps also took direct inspiration from pre-dating collaboration with the NKVD, Soviet gulags, that predate them, and where "enemies of the union" were shipped en masse.
3. Stalin's "torch-men order" - Stalin’s order No. 0428, issued November 17th, 1941. It declares that Russian partisans in German uniforms, particularly those of the Waffen-SS, were to destroy all settlements within a swathe of about 40- 60 km depth from the main battle lines and to ruthlessly kill the civilian population. With these tactics, it was important to leave a few survivors, which would report the supposed German terror attacks.
4. Killed, deported insane numbers of people in occupied countries.
5. Mass rapes by soviet troops.
6. Ethnical cleansing and forced russianification in occupied countries.
7. Instilling widespread corruption in occupied countries.
ect.
Narrowing down, let's take into account the "achievements" of the Soviet occupation in its occupied countries. Taking Lithuania (population 3 million) for example:
The countrys economy, which before occupation was higher then Norway's, was completely destroyed. After the occupation, the soviets killed/deported 200000 of the most intelligent, patriotic Lithuanians (what do you think that does to a country, with a population of 3 million?) and invited Russians to settle in now "vacant" apartments (The russification as in Ukraine, really rings true here as also) as well as taking their wealth. People who were invited weren't the brightest ones; mostly folks happy to take free property, and as for today, lamenting how great the Soviet Union was, renting run-down soviet era apartments to teenagers in the hopes that they'll renovate them for free. They are also re-electing corrupt pro-Russian politicians who steal from the budget and induce stagnation.
It is quite hard to remove these figures from power. The wealth was, as you might be aware, pooled into the state - center of the Union, Moscow, and in ravaged countries, stamps were introduced instead.
And here we come to the primary reason why Russia decided to inherit the Soviet Union; soviets invaded 17 countries and milked them of their income for 50-some years. That's quite a lot of money.
Keep in mind that Russia did not pay for its war crimes.
And so, the KGB, now FSB, decided to inherit that "collective" wealth; that's where most of your oligarchs are from today. Wash the money in swed-banks in former occupied countries (Russian Laundromat) due to leftover corrupt figureheads now working in those regional bank branches and lay them down in "neutral" Swiss banks.
Due to through occupation induced corruption, this milking continues even up to today, although at much lower levels. Contrary to popular belief, when the Soviet Union collapsed all the shit that was in it didn't magically vanish, it just took a different form. Also, an interesting coincidence; the more democratic and closer to the European Union the country is, the less prominent it is in it.
However, Russian oligarchs, who receive the bulk of this money, do not want to let it go.
That's also why a lot of formerly occupied countries are still stagnating; they are trying to clean up that leftover shit, which is, unfortunately, quite hard, as we can now see from a live example - Ukraine, where people, as in many former Soviet Union countries, become pissed off that their earned wealth vanish into collective mafia pockets.
The most disappointing thing about this is that they use their wealth to try to "wash" away their criminal activities, which is made super easy by the profit-first mentality of capitalism-bred media over-their-heads corporations.
Another fun fact: if putin and his mafia would stop threatening everyone with war to back off, to FOREIGN countries they would have to answer for, to name a few:
Post Soviet Union collapse financial and organized crimes in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Spain
The killing of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his family in 2010
Shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014
Instigating Brexit in 2016
Trump's election in 2017
Supporting numerious dictators and their regimes
(to be continued...)
And that's not counting the apartment bombings in 1999, nor the wars it started within its "sphere" (Georgia 1991, Tajikistan 1992, Chechnya 1994 and 1999, Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014, Syria 2015), or Soviet War crimes or confiscation of property from Chodorski - the list does go on.
Short summary:
FSB (former KGB) stole a fuckload of cash from occupied countries, and whenever they feel threatened that the law might clamp down on them and they would have to answer for their crimes, and lose their
stolen cash, they start threatening everyone with war. They also would like to continue milking Ukraine of it's cash if that's all the same to you guys.