Vladimir Putin’s Fake Because.
Vladimir Putin exploited the situation in eastern Ukraine, particularly the Donbas conflict, to justify Russia’s actions, including the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 full-scale invasion. The narrative of protecting Russian-speaking populations from alleged Ukrainian oppression was heavily one-sided, emphasizing real and perceived grievances while ignoring the broader context and Russia’s own role in fueling the conflict. The Ukrainian government’s use of artillery shelling in Donbas, which caused civilian casualties, provided Putin with a pretext that he amplified to portray Ukraine as the aggressor. Below, I’ll break down how Putin leveraged the separatist situation, the one-sided…