War in Ukraine: The Real Causes and NATO Expansion to the East
The prevailing narratives in Western media tend to present the war in Ukraine as a brutal unilateral aggression by Russia. But for those who look at reality in its entirety and refuse to accept ready-made formulas, this view appears at best partial. The causes of the war in Ukraine cannot be understood without considering the evolution of NATO's strategy in Eastern Europe and the deep geopolitical fractures that have emerged since the collapse of the USSR.
NATO Expansion: A Systematic and Provocative ProcessSince 1999, NATO has incorporated 14 countries from the former Soviet bloc, gradually reaching the borders of the Russian Federation. Far from being a series of “free and democratic” accessions, the enlargement has often followed the logic of political and economic pressure, fueling mistrust and a sense of encirclement in Moscow. George Kennan himself, architect of the policy of containment in the Cold War, defined NATO expansion as “the most fatal mistake of American policy”.
Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 are the two emblematic cases in which the Atlantic projection provoked a Russian armed response. Ignoring this dynamic means reading the Ukrainian conflict as a decontextualized event, ahistorical and functional to war propaganda.
The Donbass Conflict and the Failure of the Minsk AgreementsIn 2014, after the change of government in Kiev following the Maidan protests – openly supported by Western NGOs and US representatives – a civil war broke out in Donbass. The Russian-speaking populations of the eastern regions rebelled against a government perceived as hostile and anti-Russian in its identity. Kiev's response was to send in the army, with devastating consequences: over 14,000 deaths between 2014 and 2021 , according to the UN.
The Minsk Agreements , signed in 2015 with the mediation of Germany and France, promised negotiated autonomy for Donbass. But they were never respected by Kiev. Instead, Ukraine pursued increasing militarization with NATO support, while Western states looked the other way.
A Prepared War: Rhetoric, Weapons and TrainingAlready in 2020, according to several sources, the US and the UK had strengthened the military formation of the Ukrainian army , in an anti-Russian key. The shipment of weapons began well before February 24, 2022. In the meantime, Western public discourse was polarized: every critical voice was accused of "Putinism", and the possibility of a diplomatic solution was considered a surrender.
The reality is that the Russian invasion of 2022 , although very serious and dramatic, is not the beginning of the conflict , but its escalation. Presenting it as a bolt from the blue is an act of intellectual dishonesty. Russia certainly has its responsibilities, but they cannot be isolated from a context that is deliberately ignored.
Europe without foreign policy: between Atlantic loyalty and strategic disasterThe European Union, as a whole, has not sought any autonomous path. After having lost all negotiating capacity between 2014 and 2022, it has chosen to become a strategic appendage of Washington , approving self-destructive sanctions and fueling a war logic that now risks directly involving the continent.
European rearmament , presented as a defensive necessity, is in reality the symptom of a loss of diplomatic sovereignty and a subordinate vision of security. Talking about peace is now considered suspect; asking questions about the roots of the conflict is almost a crime of opinion.
For an honest and complete reading of realityUnderstanding the real causes of the war in Ukraine does not mean justifying the Russian invasion. Instead, it means recovering a realistic approach , capable of seeing the whole picture. Peace will only be possible when the peoples of Europe return to thinking with their own heads and hold their governments accountable for decisions taken without debate, in the name of a presumed unity of the West that increasingly resembles an imposed unity.
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