Welcome to the peace initiative for Ukraine in which you can contibute by raising your awareness as well as your consciousness[+] and spirit to the modes[+] of neutrality[*], decency, respectfulness, wisdom[*], objectivity, mastery of the intellect, surrender (ego and mind to God’s will), and finally peace (inner then outer). To properly grasp everything, we recommend reading the articles of this peace initiative in the order that we[*] designed it, which is listed in the Contents. So if you haven’t read the previous articles, we urge you to do it, please. Did you read the Intro to this “Beware of Propaganda” segment? Please, do so for a better grasp of the topic of this article.
Another expression, besides unprovoked and invasion, which is pushed by the Ukrainian and the Western propaganda machine is “illegal” (as in “illegal invasion”). Here we provide evidence about Russia’s SMO being in fact legal as the argument can be made that Russia has exercised its right to self-defense under international law, given that the war started in 2014 by Ukraine attacking the ethnic Russians. But there is much more to it.
Since the European Commission called[+] Ukraine's invasion of the Russian Kursk region "the right to self-defense", following the same logic, after a 8-year long Ukrainian aggression against Russian ethnic minority, Russia's invasion of the Ukrainian regions must be called "the right to self-defense" too, as double standards are not allowed by law.
Ever since Russia launched its Special Military Operation[+] (SMO) in Ukraine the “experts” from NATO countries went into overdrive to shout it from the rooftops that this is illegal. Funny enough only the “experts” from a handful of NATO countries are claiming that while the experts from the rest of the world, around 90% of the world are not agreeing with that.
No court of law has come up with such verdict; only the court of propagandists. Like in any court of law, there are always two opposing legal teams that both blame to be right under the law. This is because the law can be interpreted in many ways. So, all pro-Ukrainians interpret it that it is illegal just because it is against them, and all pro-Russians interpret it that it is legal. Since we are pro-both, we need to neutralize this among the Westerners by shining light on the claims that it is indeed legal under international law, so please allow us to explain and provide evidence.
A war per se is not illegal under international law.[+] Starting a war is not illegal either. The UN Charter does not prohibit the use of war. The Security Council even has the possibility of declaring war (articles 39 to 51). This time the particularity is that it opposes permanent members of the Council. While the US fights forever wars and claims all its wars to be just, whenever their enemies, like Russia, fight wars, it claims them to be unjustifiable, illegal, and unprovoked. Anyone using brains can see through their hypocrisy.
Before we get into it, let us not forget that the NATO countries that are calling Russian actions “illegal” are the very countries that invaded many more countries that are not even on their borders or in any way threatened them. We will cover some of it in further chapters but here we just point out the fact that, for instance, the US with its NATO allies has waged illegal, aggressive, and unprovoked wars against more countries than we can count. US regime has killed 20-30 million people[+] (plus millions of dead US soldiers) since WWII, invaded[+] and executed hostile incursions into other countries' territories more than 200 times[+] (according to the US Congressional Research Service report[+], 469 foreign military interventions[+][»] – not all were hostile) in 84 countries with the catastrophic toll of many millions dead, wounded, and displaced! To name just a few, such as Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Somalia. And this doesn’t even count the numerous proxy wars the US has fought via surrogates (e.g., through the Contras in Nicaragua, various jihadist groups in Syria, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the war against Yemen).
The point is, for the US and NATO to condemn Russia’s military operation in Ukraine as “a violation of international law” is, at best, “the pot calling the kettle black” or “adulterers casting stones” where they are projecting while accusing Russians of the very wrongs that they themselves are guilty of to the nth degree. Still, the fact that the US is so obviously hypocritical in this regard does not necessarily mean Washington is automatically wrong. In the end, we must analyze Russia’s conduct on its own merits. The point is though, to be fair, if we ought to condemn Russia, then we should start by condemning the US and its NATO allies who have done it first and on a much greater scale. It is shocking that they got away with all their invasions and even get to assume moral superiority over Russia, with the public actually doing their bidding. A clear case of mass mind control. And that's just one of many other agendas pushed through brainwashing, such as global warming, Covid-19, China, Israel, North Korea…
“It was no longer possible to tolerate this outrageous attitude towards the people of Donbass1. To put an end to this genocide, Russia recognized the people’s republics of Donbass and signed treaties of friendship and mutual aid with them. Based on these treaties, the republics appealed to Russia for military aid in rebuffing the aggression. We rendered this aid because we simply could not do otherwise. We had no right to act otherwise. I would like to emphasize this point and draw your attention to it: if our troops had acted only within the people's republics and helped them liberate their territory, it would not have been a final solution, it would not have led to peace and would not have ultimately removed the threat – to our country, this time to Russia. On the contrary, a new frontline would have been extended around Donbass and its borders, and shelling and provocations would have continued. In other words, this armed conflict would have continued indefinitely. It would have been fueled by the revanchist hysteria of the Kiev regime, as NATO deployed its military infrastructure faster and more aggressively. In this case, we would have been faced with the fact that the attack, the offensive weapons of the alliance were already at our borders. I will repeat – we had no alternative for self-defence, for ensuring Russia's security, to this special military operation. We will reach the goals we set. We will certainly ensure the security of Russia and our people and will never allow Ukraine to be a bridgehead for aggressive actions against our country.” – Putin on 16 March 2022[+][+]
According to the 24 February 2022 address[+] by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin[+] (who graduated from the Department of Law – International Law Branch – of the Leningrad State University) on the eve of SMO, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in the execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on 22 February 2022, to defend Russia and the Russian people, he decided to carry out a special military operation in accordance with Article 51 (Chapter VII)[+] of the UN Charter, which states: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence…”
While the UN Charter prohibits unilateral acts of war, it also provides, in Article 51, that “nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense…” And this right of self-defense has been interpreted[+] to permit countries to respond, not only to actual armed attacks, but also to the threat of imminent attack.
Russia’s SMO complies with the exercise of self-defense. Putin was “referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border” and to the need to denazify Ukraine. He also referred to SMO's objective to defend the Russian people in Ukraine in the execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on 22 February 2022.
“The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation. It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory.” – Putin said
Professor of International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Daniel Kovalik explained[+][+] why Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is legal under international law. Russia exercised its right for self-defense. Here comes the evidence.
But before we dig into it, let's just nip in the bud any possible hypocritical objections by Western authorities, who believe in fictional[»] Western “rules-based order” in which they and their allies are the only ones who have the right to act in self-defense, as in the US Democrat mantra[»]“rules for thee and not for me”[+][+] “or my allies” – Israel[»]. So, let us remind such hypocrites of only a few recent examples:
🔵 President Biden ordered[+] US military forces to conduct self-defense strikes on facilities in eastern Syria. The US is in Syria illegally, illegally stealing Syrian oil and they have the right to self-defense but Russia had no right to conduct self-defense after Kyiv regime2 had killed thousands and thousands of ethnic Russians who protested the new undemocratically self-appointed anti-Russian regime that on their first day voted to ban the free further use of Russian language?! According to American rules-based order, Americans do whatever they please wherever they please but their rivals such as Russians have no right to act in self-defense in Ukraine, where millions of Russians (dual citizens) live and who have been killed for many years there. Who supports such folly?
🔵 President Biden and his administration called[+] Israeli attacks in Palestine (killing thousands of civilians, thousands of children, destroying most of civilian residences and infrastructure) as “Israel's right to self-defense”, so according to the same logic Russia may also attack Ukraine under the same pretense of “Russia's right to self-defense”. Ukrainians have killed more ethnic Russian civilians than Hamas did Israelis, many of who had dual citizenship as they were not just Ukrainian but also Russian citizens.
🔵 In the context of the US attacks on Yemen[+][+] in January 2024, the US authorities, such as Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, claim[+][+] the right to self-defense “whenever necessary to protect our partners and our interests”. Well then, the same right has Russia. If Kyiv regime was attacking ethnic Russians, even if they are not Russian citizens, they are more than just Russia's “partners” but Russia's diaspora, which gives them every right and obligation to defend them. As if Americans would not do the same if their expats or folk were being killed by the neighboring hostile regime!
🔵 If the US president’s power of self-defense includes anticipatory self-defense[+], then surely the same applies to the Russian president too! If the US Constitution (Article II) authorizes the president to protect the US from anticipated attacks or to deter attacks, then surely the same applies to the Russian president too! With NATO deploying troops and establishing military bases across Russia's borders, such as in Baltic states, Poland, Turkey, etc., Russia has every right to feel threatened, especially given NATO's hostilities towards Russia and given all NATO's bombardments or invasions of many countries and orchestrating violent regime changes across the globe, including in Russia in 2011-2013[+], 2017/2018[+], 2019[+], 2021[+] (failed attempts).
🔵 If, according to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin[+], the US reserves the right to act in self-defense against those launching any attack against US personnel, then Russia reserves the same right. As it is well-known and documented, Kyiv regime had conducted countless terrorist attacks on Russian citizens and Russia before Russia launched its SMO in 2022. For instance, on 14 June 2014, between 200 and 300 protesters attacked Russian Embassy, overturned[+] several cars of embassy staff and replaced the Russian flag with the red-black flag of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (which collaborated with the Nazis in the WWII and committed genocide massacres of the Poles, Soviets, Jews, and Roma people). The protesters demanded that the personnel of the Russian embassy should immediately leave Ukraine. Is this a civil society? Kyiv regime did not protect Russian personnel and did not prosecute the attackers. Russian personnel was forced to evacuate in February 2022, which is probably one of the reasons why Russia attacked the next day. Not a single day went by without ethnic Russians coming under shelling attacks since April 2014[»].
🔵 The EU has legalized murdering civilians as ”the right to self-defense”[+] – what applies to Ukraine, should apply to Russia because under the law, there is no double standards! Regarding the Ukrainian attack on the Russian city Belgorod[+] on 30 December 2023, killing 25 civilians and wounding 108 more with prohibited cluster munitions, EU spokesman on foreign affairs Peter Stano said[+]Ukraine has the right to defend itself, despite the fact that many civilians and no military personnel were killed, and no military facilities were hit. About that attack, when asked about France's position, a spokesman of the Foreign Ministry in Paris said[+] that Ukraine was “acting in self-defensein accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter”. Spin doctors among NATO media[+] presented deliberate hitting a Christmas market on a Saturday (peak shopping time) with cluster bombs as "seeking to stir up discontent" apparently. Well then, to avoid double standards, if a Ukrainian attack on Russia and its civilians is an “act of self-defensein accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter”, then surely also any Russian attacks on Ukraine can be classified as the same!
🔵 In March 2024, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said[+] at the European Union summit in Brussels that the income from Russian assets does not belong to anyone, therefore it can be used for military aid to Ukraine. This is the so-called Western “rules-based order”! If you invest or put your money in the EU, your earnings do not belong to you but to the EU or whomever the EU wants to give it! They do not even hide it that if they do not like you, they will just steal your money, as if this is legal in the EU! Politico reported[+][ꚛ] that Latvian central bank governor claimed that without stealing there’s no winning! Imagine if Putin did that with all the Western assets in Russia, what a smear campaign they would launch against the evil Putin! If the West had any credibility left in 2024, this has surely destroyed it and with it any resemblance of the rule of law there.
🔵 In the UK, there is a legislation called the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870[+] which bans Britons from fighting in the "military or naval service of any foreign state" that is at war with a country that the UK is "at peace" with. Leaked Pentagon papers in April 2023 indicated[+] Britain had three times more special ops soldiers[+][+][+] in Ukraine than any other NATO ally. In March 2024, Russian authorities released[+][+] the number of “arrived” and “eliminated” foreign mercenaries and the total of British mercenaries arrived by then was 882 with 360 of these confirmed killed. Were the killed buried as criminals or heroes? And, did the survivors get arrested upon returning to the UK? You know the answers. This is the so-called “rule of law” in self-anointed “civilized world”! This is the so-called Western “rules-based order”!
The US, for one, as well as its allies in the recent Iraq War[+] (2003-2011) – the UK, Australia, and Poland, have no right to oppose Russia's claim to its right to self-defense because they themselves claimed that as justification to invade Iraq and kill its leader Saddam Hussein as well as 113.728 civilians[+] and up to 71.544 soldiers.
Then-US Vice-President Cheney had asserted[+] the right of the United States to use force preemptively against a state (Iraq), in order to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction. He approvingly quoted a former Secretary of State who had said: "The eminence of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the huge dangers it involves, the rejection of a viable inspection system and the demonstrated hostility of Saddam Hussein combine to produce an imperative for preemptive action." The National Security Strategy of the United States of America uses the language of preemptive force, noting[+]: "For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack."
The U.S. Defense Department defines a preemptive attack as one "initiated on the basis of incontrovertible evidence that an enemy attack is imminent." There is incontrovertible evidence that NATO-backed Ukraine planned an attack on Russia (Crimea):
➡ on 24 March 2021, Ukraine’s President Zelensky issued a decree[+] for the recapture of the Crimea[+] – he signed National Security and Defense Council Decree no. 117/2021[+] (sealing the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine of 11 March 2021) to pursue strategies to prepare and implement measures to ensure the de-occupation and reintegration of the Crimea peninsula, including military measures[+][+] and began deploying his forces to the south of the country.
➡ in April 2021, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, said[+][+] that President Zelensky’s administration will seek nuclear weapons if not accepted in NATO which Zelensky confirmed[+][+] on 19 February 2022 at Munich Security Conference. What did they need nuclear weapons for? To use it against Russia!
➡ on 23 August 2021, further disregarding the will of people of Crimea and their right to self-determination, at a (initiated by Zelensky) summit of the Crimea Platform for the “deoccupation of Crimea” in Kyiv (attended by delegations from 46 countries)[ꚛ], Zelensky pledged[+][+] to return Russia-annexed Crimea and subsequently gathered troops for an offensive. Russia has responded to Ukraine’s threats and provocations by amassing 122.000[+] troops near Ukraine's border since November 2021. By early December 2021, the NATO-backed Armed Forces of Ukraine amassed 125.000 troops[+][+] not at the borders with Russia to defend from an alleged Russian threat but at the borders of Donbas with the obvious intent to increase the attacks on the ethnic Russians there, which they then started mid-February, according to OSCE Special Monitoring Mission[+][+]. Only then Russia launched its SMO on 24 February to defend the millions of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine.
➡ Before Russian intervention, on 1 February 2022, Ukraine formed[+] the Territorial Defense Forces (TDF) as the new branch of the Armed Forces serving as a military reserve force – what for?! Of course, Russia would not allow Ukraine’s plan to “deoccupy” Crimea nor let ethnic Russians to be killed and terrorized.
➡ on 4 February 2022 (20 days before Russia launched its SMO in Ukraine), the US sent its troops – 3.000 new soldiers[+] and by 18 February6.000 American service members[+]– to NATO states on Russian borders and Germany even though Russia had not threatened any NATO states in any way. This was clearly not meant to defend NATO as there was never any imminent threat to any NATO member but an utter intimidation and threat to Russia's security.
The US and NATO as a whole thereby again violated the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation[+], under which the alliance pledged not to do "additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces" in new member states since 1997. On 19 February 2022 at the Munich Security Conference (before Putin sent troops to Ukraine), US Vice President said[+]: “We have deployed an additional 6.000 American service members to Romania, Poland, and Germany.” What for? Against Russia, of course, and against the Founding Act. Also, NATO claimed that in 2016, it has deployed an additional substantial number of more than 4.500 troops to states on Russian borders – Baltic states and Poland. Deploying the US and NATO troops in countries on Russian borders is as unacceptable as if Russia or China deployed their troops off the Florida coast, in Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico, for instance. What would the US do if Russia or China deployed thousands of their permanent or rotational troops in countries on their borders? The US should follow the Golden Rule[+] of not doing to others that which they do not wish to be done to them! The US should have learned from history – the Cuban missile crisis[+] in 1962. Russia claims that NATO military exercises such as in the Black Sea[+][+][+][+][+], annual Operation Atlantic Resolve[+] in Eastern Europe, and Spring Storm drills every year in Estonia[+][+][+] also violate a key part of the Russia-NATO Founding Act, as NATO pledged not to move its military infrastructure on the territory of new members. Also, NATO pledged to strengthen mutual trust and cooperation as well as committed to building a stable, peaceful, and undivided Europe but since 2014, it has broken those commitments by arming Ukraine to kill Russians living in Donbas. NATO supported (trained, armed, and funded) militants in eastern Ukraine who had been killing the Russians there since 2014. Russia, on the other hand, honored the Russia-NATO Founding Act by not threatening or using force against any NATO member. NATO claims that the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a violation of that Act, using it as an excuse to subsequently further break its own pledges. With a peaceful annexation of Crimea, after Crimeans (mostly ethnic Russians) declared independence from Ukraine (after the new unelected, US-appointed Kyiv regime banned the use of the Russian language), Russia prevented a war there, which was in line with the Act's commitment to build a stable, peaceful, and undivided Europe.
➡ in February 2022 (before Russian SMO[+]), OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine reported[+] a massive spike[+] in Ukrainians shelling at Russian ethnic minorities in Donbas, thus on 13 February 2022, OSCE had to withdraw from Donbas due to deteriorating security conditions as Ukraine was violating the Minsk accords[+][+].
➡ 18-20 Feb 2022 at Munich Security Conference Zelensky announced[+][+] reacquiring nuclear weapons and US Vice President encouraged him to join NATO by praising his desire to do so[+]. Zelensky (in his ignorance, he treats it as it is a treaty although it is just a memorandum and nonbinding[+]at that) claimed that Budapest Memorandum[+][+] (on nuclear disarmament of Ukraine) is no longer valid hinting at Ukraine reacquiring nuclear weapons just as Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, said[+] in April 2021.
US Embassy in Minsk officially asserts, as evidenced here, that Budapest Memorandum is nonbinding when it suits them
must begin this argumentation on Russia’s right to self-defense by accepting the fact that there was already a war happening in Ukraine for eight years preceding the Russian military incursion in February 2022 (as we explain and lay out the evidence in a separate article[*]). Although a conflict started earlier, an actual armed conflict or war started in April 2014[»] by the Kyiv government against the ethnic Russian minority living in the Eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region – the Donbas war which claimed the lives of around 14.000[+][+][+] people, many of them children, and displaced around 1,5 million more even before Russia’s military operation begun. The Kyiv government, and especially its National Guard consisting of neo-Nazi battalions, carried out attacks against ethnic minorities with the intention of destroying, at least in part, the ethnic Russians precisely because of their ethnicity, which is genocidal. As reported by Reuters[+], there were 30-some right-wing extremist groups operating in Ukraine, that have been formally integrated into Ukraine’s armed forces, promoting an intolerant and illiberal ideology with hatred towards ethnic Russians, the Roma peoples, and members of the LGBT community as well, and they acted out this hatred by attacking, killing, and displacing these peoples. Reuters reported also increase in both public hate speech, including by public officials and magnified by the media, as well as violence. As reported in Newsweek[+], Amnesty International had been reporting on these extremist hate groups and their violent activities since 2014.
To make things worse, in 2017[+] and 2019[+][+], the Kyiv government passed new language laws which made it clear that Russian speakers were at best second-class citizens. Such legislation only underscored the Ukrainian government’s desire to destroy the culture, if not the very existence, of the ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
As we will explain more thoroughly in another article on linguistic genocide[*], Ukraine violated the human linguistic rights[+] of Russians and Ukrainians (ethnic Russians and Russophones) living in Ukraine, which is another reason why Russia had a legal right to conduct a military operation to defend those human rights of its diaspora after all other political or diplomatic efforts failed to force Ukraine to comply with international law.
Just imagine what would France do if opposition parties of Switzerland or Canada or Belgium would violently overthrow democratically elected government and ban French language in Romandy or Quebec or Wallonia and killed thousands of French-speaking protesters and called them terrorists?! Or what would the UK do if Ireland's new repressive regime would ban English language and killed thousands of English-speaking protesters and called them terrorists?! Or, what would Sweden do if Finland's new revolutionary regime would ban the Swedish language and killed thousands of Swedish-speaking protesters and called them terrorists?! Putin tried for 8 years to resolve the issue through diplomacy but found out that Kyiv and its backers never meant to implement the Minsk agreements[+][+] and were only trying to fool him[+][+][»][+] to buy time to militarize Ukraine to kill the resistance and the (ethnic) Russians. Would France, the UK, or Sweden wait 8 years to use force to stop their diaspora from being killed every day?
Ukraine banned the free use of the Russian language since 2017[+] (started the procedure in February 2014) with even stricter language laws[+][+] in 2019, which violates even the Constitution of Ukraine as well as international law the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights[+], the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages[+], ratified by Ukraine in 2003, and Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights[+]. International law mandates the rights of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities to enjoy their own culture, profess their own religion, and use their own language[+]. Linguistic rights[+] include, among others, the right to one's own language in legal, administrative, and judicial acts, language education, and media in a language understood and freely chosen by those concerned.
Even the usually pro-West (anti-Russian) Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed alarm about these laws in an early-2022 report[+]. Also, the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s top advisory body on constitutional matters, said[+] that several of the law’s articles, including article 25, failed to safeguard minorities’ linguistic rights. Also, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a report[+] expressing concern about the legislation regulating the use of minority languages in Ukraine
Moreover, in 2021, the Organization of World Peace reported[+] that Ukraine has officially committed to fighting Russians to take back control over the Russian annexed Crimea when on 24 March 2021 President Zelensky signed the Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Decree no. 117/2021[+] to pursue strategies to prepare and implement measures to ensure the de-occupation and reintegration of the peninsula, including military measures[+]. Given that the residents of Crimea, most of whom are ethnic Russians, are quite happy[+] with the current state of affairs under Russian governance, Zelensky’s threat in this regard was not only a threat against Russia itself but was also a threat of potentially massive bloodshed against a people who do not want to go back to Ukraine. A threat against Russia and its citizens is yet another reason why Russia had a legal right to conduct a military operation to defend itself.
In April 2021, there were well over 538.000 residents[+] of the Donbas region of Ukraine who were also Russian citizens (they had dual citizenship). And by the time when in February 2022 Russia launched its SMO3[+], according to the members of Russia’s Security Council[+], some 700.000 of the 4,6 million inhabitants of the Donbas region already had a Russian passport and some 500.000 more have applied for one. They were not immigrants or refugees but the natives of the region. These were formal Russian citizens which Russia was legally obliged to protect from harm.
To put it into a perspective, what would the US do, if 700.000 American citizens living across the border in Ontario in Canada or in Mexico City were being terrorized and thousands were being killed there?
In other words, not just ethnic Russian Ukrainians but Russian citizens were being subjected to attacks by neo-Nazi groups integrated into the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and right on the border of Russia, which is one of the reasons why Russia had a legal right to conduct a military operation to defend its citizens after all other political or diplomatic efforts[+][+] failed to force Ukraine to cease fire.
Clearly, this situation represents a compelling case for justifying Russian intervention under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine[+] which was relied upon to justify the NATO interventions in countries like the former Yugoslavia and Libya.
Furthermore, Articles 106 & 107 of the United Nations Charter legalize Putin’s every action in Ukraine! And beyond! Articles 106 and 107 of the UN Charter give Russia, as the legal successor of the victor of World War II, the right to take all measures, including military, against any country for attempts to revive Nazism. Russia has the legal right to punish Nazis anywhere (according to the UN Charter).[+]
Furthermore, as early as 1974, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314[+] reaffirmed “the duty of States not to use armed force to deprive peoples of their right to self-determination, freedom and independence.” However, Ukrainian state violated that UN resolution 3314 since April 2014[»] by using armed force to deprive Donbas peoples of their right to self-determination, freedom and independence. When Ukrainian unelected, US-appointed[+][+][+] regime did that, what did UN or international community do? They contrived fake Minsk Agreements[+], which all the signatories other than ethnic Russians admitted were fake – Ukrainian President Poroshenko[+][+], former German Chancellor (2005-2021) Angela Merkel[+],and former French President (2012-2017) Francois Hollande[»][»][+][»] admitted that they double-crossed Putin[»] and Donbas leaders to buy time to arm Ukraine to fight Russia (to kill Russians). In other words, ethnic Russian Ukrainians and Russian citizens living in Eastern Ukraine were being shelled, massacred, terrorized, and discriminated against by the will of French President Hollande and German Chancellor Merkel. Why is no one holding them and Ukrainian President Poroshenko accountable for being the accessory to crimes against humanity? Because the UN and international law are controlled and ruled by NATO states and as such UN became dysfunctional.
In the Article 7 of that UN General Assembly Resolution 3314[+], it is declared that nothing could in any way prejudice the right to self-determination, freedom and independence of peoples forcibly deprived of that right, nor the right of these peoples to struggle to that end and to seek and receive support, in accordance with the principles of the Charter and in conformity with the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States[+].
That Declaration worked out the most authoritative and comprehensive formulation so far of the principle of self-determination. According to this document "the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations" embraces the right of all peoples "freely to determine, without external interference, their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development" as well as the duty of every State "to respect this right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter". It further added that "the establishment of a sovereign and independent State, the free association or integration with an independent State, or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination", thus stressing, as the critical issue, the methods of reaching the decision and not the result.
Russia’s special military operation was launched in compliance with Security Council Resolution 2202[+], in order to implement the Minsk Agreements, validated by the resolution itself. However, the NATO equates this public security operation to ensure ceasefire in Donbas with an “aggression” in “clear violation of the United Nations Charter” because it suits their agenda of vilifying Putin and Russia so as to get the world leaders to impose sanctions on Russia and provide Ukraine with weapons needed to defeat NATO’s rival Russia. They failed.
That UN resolution endorsed the “Package of measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements” but Ukraine did not implement and never intended to implement it, (as revealed by all signatories on their side – Poroshenko[+], Merkel[+],and Hollande[+] admitted that they double-crossed Putin and Donbas leaders to buy time to arm Ukraine to fight Russia, to kill Russians), which is why Russia took measures to force Kyiv to implement the Agreements, including a comprehensive ceasefire, withdrawal of all heavy weapons by the Ukrainian troops (Russia was not obliged to do anything), local elections “On interim local self-government order in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions”, ensure release and exchange of all hostages and unlawfully detained persons, ensure safe access, delivery, storage, and distribution of humanitarian assistance to those in need, full resumption of social transfers such as pension payments and other payments, and withdrawal of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, as well as mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine.
Russia launched its SMO to enforce that UN resolution and not to occupy Ukraine but after Zelensky refused to implement both Minsk agreements and that UN resolution, as well as all other treaties with Russia, the Kyiv's violations of law prompted Russia to terminate all its obligations towards Ukraine, which Russia had legal right to do. The principle of reciprocity in the Law of Treaties dictates that the injured party (in this case Russia) should not be called upon to comply with its obligations under the treaty when the other party (in this case Ukraine) fails to comply with those obligations which it undertook under the same treaty. In other words, legally, Russia was not obliged to comply with its obligations under any treaty as soon as Ukraine failed to comply with it. Therefore, Russia was not obliged to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. Russia then respected the right of ethnic Russian people, who are indigenous people of disputed territories, to self-determination, which is enshrined in the UN Charter and already granted to Kosovo and other former Yugoslav Republics (Slovenia, Croatia, B&H, North Macedonia, Montenegro), and even to Ukraine in 1991, South Sudan[+], etc. Therefore, Donbas and Crimea have the same right to self-determination as Ukraine and all these other republics.
Germany and France also violated the Minsk agreements and that UN resolution 2202 as they did not do their part of the deal – they did not use their influence Ukraine to facilitate the implementation of that Package of Measures and they did not facilitate social transfers. As all of the pro-Ukraine signatories admitted, they did not intend to implement the provisions of the Minsk agreements but only used it to buy time to arm Ukraine to fight against the Russians.
Still, there is more to consider regarding Russia’s claimed justifications for intervention. Thus, not only are there radical groups on its border attacking ethnic Russians, including Russian citizens, but also, these groups have reportedly been funded and trained by the United States with the very intention of destabilizing and undermining the territorial integrity of Russia itself.
As a former CIA official explained to Yahoo News in a January 2022 article[+]: “The United States is training an insurgency… the program has taught the Ukrainians how ‘to kill Russians.”
To remove any doubt that the destabilization of Russia itself has been the goal of the US in these efforts, one should examine the very telling 2019 report[+][+] of the Rand Corporation4 entitled ‘Overextending and Unbalancing Russia’, one of the many tactics listed is “Providing lethal aid to Ukraine” in order to “exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability.”
The US has made many well-documented attempts at both destroying[+] Russia and regime change[+][+][+][+][+] in Russia, such as backing and funding pro-Western, anti-government NGOs ("advancing the cause of civil society in Russia" was seen by Russia as disguised efforts at regime change) and Putin’s weakest political opponent5, Aleksey Navalny[+][+][»][»][+][»][ꚛ][+][+][»], as well as encouraging opposition leaders to undertake mass unrest to undermine the Russian elections[+], such as tweeting[+] "The open protest of Russians against President Putin and his war is a very courageous act," and the so-called "Russia reset" policy undertaken by the administration of President Barack Obama in 2009 with the real purpose of regime change[+]. Whereas this intention was disguised before, since 2022, they don't hide it any longer, making open calls[+][+][+][+] for overthrowing Putin. The Biden administration has gone out of its way to make sure that its program of communicating directly to the Russian people to promote domestic discontent inside Russia is part of an overall strategy to remove Putin from office. A concerted effort by the Biden administration to gather evidence of alleged Russian wrongdoing in the conflict and hold officials, including Putin himself, accountable is another evidence that the US has been openly seeking to impose charges against the Kremlin that could bring into question the legitimacy of its leadership. And this is only on top of all the explicit cases of defamation of Putin over many years.
Furthermore, Russia had the legal right to defend itself against NATO's nuclear threats as NATO has been militarizing Ukraine to kill Russians since 2014. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov[+] told media during a joint news conference in Moscow on 30 January 2024:
"Since NATO declared us the main threat, in fact an enemy, we have regarded all nuclear weapons of the member countries of the alliance (the United States, Britain and France) as a single nuclear arsenal aimed against the Russian Federation. In our doctrinal documents, we proceed from this very premise. You know that the US also keeps its nuclear weapons in five European countries and trains the citizens of these countries to use tactical nuclear weapons. Under all circumstances (as I have already said), we consider all nuclear weapons of this NATO troika to be a single nuclear arsenal and accordingly make our plans to reliably ensure the security of the Russian Federation. The configuration of this arsenal may change, but the essence does not. I assure you that this is fully taken into account in our planning."
NATO has also attempted many times to change regime in Russia, like some NATO states did in many other countries, against which Russia had the legal right to defend itself. All US-backed coups or rebellions attempting at regime change failed, such as in 2011-2013[+], 2017/2018[+], 2019[+], and 2021[+]. Also, adhering to their usual “divide and rule” scheme, some NATO states attempted to break up Russia (like they did with the Soviet Union) by backing jihadists in Chechnya to separate from Russia, which led to two bloody wars between Moscow and separatists fought between 1994 and the early 2000s (with the final counter-guerilla operations concluding in 2009) that killed tens of thousands of people and destroyed the Chechen capital Grozny. Chechens who now fight with Russians in Ukraine said[+][+]:
“We have witnessed for ourselves how outside parties sought to infect us with their foreign ideology in order to further their larger struggle against Russia. We ended up realizing that the best way to protect ourselves from being destroyed by these foreign agents was to align ourselves with Russia. In doing so, we discovered that the Russians shared our same desire to live in peace, free from outside manipulation. We see in the Banderist6 forces in Ukraine the same evil that we saw in the foreign jihadists who came to fight in Chechnya. We worked with Russia to destroy this evil back in the early 2000’s, and today we are working with our Russian brothers to destroy the same evil as it has been manifested in Ukraine.”
“We still remember how they (the so-called collective West) supported separatism and terrorism by encouraging terrorists and bandits in the North Caucasus. Just like in the 1990s and the early 2000s, they want to try again to finish us off, to reduce us to nothing by turning us into a weak and dependent country, destroying our territorial integrity and dismembering Russia as they see fit. The failed then and they will fail this time.” – Putin on 16 March 2022[+][+]
In summary, there is no doubt that Russia has been threatened with concrete destabilizing efforts by the US, NATO and their extremist proxies in Ukraine since 2014. And Russia has witnessed what such destabilizing efforts have meant for other countries, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria to Libya – that is, nearly a total annihilation of the country as a functioning nation-state and killing of two heads of those states. It is hard to conceive of a more pressing case for the need to act in defense of the nation.
All things considered, Russia had a right to act in its own self-defense as well as denazification by intervening in Ukraine, which had become a proxy of the US and NATO for an assault – not only on Russian ethnics within Ukraine – but also upon Russia itself.
Russian territories became de facto Ukrainian colonies in 1991
The territories in which Russia has conducted its special military operation (and which following democratic referendums Russia annexed in September 2022) are all territories that historically belong to Russia and where Russians and their ancestors have lived for centuries. During Soviet Union those territories were administered to Kyiv or Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic jurisdiction under the premise that these territories remain under Moscow governance. However, when Ukraine declared independence and seceded from the Soviet Union and Moscow in 1991, those former Russian territories became de facto Ukrainian colonies. Ukraine colonized or occupied them. The people of those regions, mostly Russians, were never given the right to self-determination. They remained part of Ukraine as long as Ukrainians were friendly to them but when in 2014, Ukrainians started to discriminate against them (e.g., prohibited using their native Russian language, Russian TV channels[+], books, magazines, etc.), terrorize, persecute, and kill them, forming a de facto apartheid state*, then Russians first protested and when protests were ignored and violently suppressed, then they declared independence in May 2014 right after Odesa massacre[+][+][»].
*Here is one of many evidence of apartheid regime as evident from the speech[»][»][»] by then-President of Ukraine Poroshenko, who declared segregation policies in a notoriously bombastic political speech on 23 October 2014 when he threatened to oppress and discriminate against children and civilians of ethnic Russians in Donbas as in an apartheid state: "We will have a job - they don't. We will have pensions - they don't. We will have the support of people - children and pensioners - but they don't. Our children will go to schools and kindergartens, and they will sit in their basements. Because they don't know how to do anything! That's how, that's how we will win this war." He was referring to the Civil War in Donbas[+][+][+] that he conducted with his anti-Russian policies and sending neo-Nazi battalions to Donbas to kill and terrorize civilians who did not obey him.
By law[+], self-defense by Russians living in Ukraine could be legally exercised after assessing the principles of necessity, proportionality, and imminency. Meeting these criteria is evident in the context of a prolonged war in Donbas[+][+][+] (2014-2022), the exhaustion of all peaceful means (Minsk Agreements[+]) to end it, and violations of jus cogens norms7[+], IHL8 rules, and good faith.
Dozens of resolutions by the UN General Assembly support national liberation movements in their struggle for independence and self-determination, including armed struggle. Just for instance, Res. 2105[+] of 1965 condemned Portuguese colonialism in Guinea-Bissau.
Other legal precedents are UNGA resolutions regarding Namibia and South Africa 35/35[+], Namibia and Palestine 37/43[+], Lebanon 38/17[+] and 45/130[+] affirming Right of peoples to self-determination/Struggle by all available means – Importance of the universal realization of the right of peoples to self-determination and of the speedy granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples for the effective guarantee and observance of human rights: Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.
All these resolutions openly recognized the right to use force against foreign illegal occupation, which it considers a serious threat to international peace and security. This and many other similar UN resolutions serve as a legal precedent to legitimize the armed struggle of Russians living in (formerly occupied) Ukrainian territories who reserve the right for independence and liberation from Ukrainian domination and occupation by all available means, including to seek and receive armed support from motherland Russia.
Furthermore, the Declaration on Friendly Relations (Res. 2625[+] of 1970), which reflects customary law, recognizes the right to resist against foreign forcible actions that deprive people of their right to self-determination. For Russian natives in (formerly occupied) Ukrainian territories, Kyiv regime is a foreign force that deprives them of their right to self-determination.
Furthermore, resistance and armed struggle against a colonial occupation force is not just recognized under international law but specifically endorsed. In accordance with international humanitarian law, wars of national liberation have been expressly embraced, through the adoption of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949[+], as a protected and essential right of occupied people everywhere. The Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions of 1977[+], in its Article 1(4), classifies conflicts in which peoples are fighting against alien occupation and discriminatory regimes as armed conflicts. Individuals engaging in such “fighting,” if captured, should be afforded the status of prisoners of war, meaning their fighting is legitimate.
Historical evidence overwhelmingly supports that self-determination is rarely achieved without the use of force and armed struggle. This is why the UN acknowledges armed resistance movements and their right to fight for independence and liberation by all available means, including armed fight as well as to seek and receive armed support (e.g., from Russia).
Finally, it is worth emphasizing that the right to resist and self-defense is subject to the rules of international humanitarian law, including the respect of the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants. So, in short: Right to resist, including armed resistance: Yes. Right to indiscriminately kill or target civilians: No. It’s as simple as that.
Kosovo's independence precedent
As we finish this shortened list of Russia's legal justifications for SMO[+], we’d like to also point to an existing legal precedent – Kosovo's independence precedent[+]. By law, this precedent from 2010 should apply to all other separatist movements involving similar legal issues, a major humanitarian crisis, and a risk to regional stability.
If NATO states had the right to bomb Serbia over Kosovo, then Russia reserves the same right over a similar issue in Ukraine – just like in Kosovo, for a long time, there was a major humanitarian crisis in Donbas and a risk to regional stability, which is why Russia has been bombing Ukraine to secure the right of these regions to self-determination and independence. Repeated oppression of a minority is prohibited and as the Kyiv government didn't comply (by committing oppression of the Russian minorities), the oppressed minority should have been allowed a “remedial secession” to exercise their right to self-determination regardless of the Ukrainian state's right to territorial integrity – but this right has been denied to them.
Besides Kosovo, the UN has also recognized the unilateral declaration of independence of several other states[+], including Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 19919, whereby in Slovenia there was no humanitarian crisis or repeated oppression of the minority, no serious and persistent breaches of the human rights of the residents. This is to say, that if all those former Yugoslavian regions had the right to secede, then also all the Ukrainian regions should have been given the same right. Like Russia in Ukraine, some NATO states have bombarded former Yugoslavia to enable independence movements of those republics that were then later annexed by the EU and NATO or in the process of doing it. If all those former Yugoslavian regions had a legal right to declare independence and then join the EU and NATO, then the same right should be given to all self-declared independent republics in Ukraine to join Russia. Otherwise, international law serves only NATO interests and as such is not international law but NATO law.
Furthermore, there are many other cases where the states’ right to territorial integrity has been violated but the violators have not been held accountable. But in a severe case of double standards, the same violators want to hold Russia accountable for doing the same.
For instance, the US is currently occupying Syria! Former US President Trump admitted[»] that he left troops in Syria only for oil, to steal oil from Syrians. Why is he and the US not held accountable for occupying and stealing natural resources? What right do they have to occupy it and why is the world not freezing US assets and imposing sanctions on the US and banning it from Airspace, SWIFT[+], and all the same international sporting events that Russia is banned from, like Olympics, World Cup, Formula One, Davis Cup, etc.[+]?!
Another example, Israel has been occupying Palestine since 1947[+][+][+][+], violating its territorial integrity, as well as the UN charter and numerous UN resolutions, killed more than 5 million civilians[+] and made Gaza into a world's largest concentration camp[+][+] with 2,3 million people in “an illegal blockade”[+]!!! They treat Palestinians as animals and then complain when they act as animals to them! Israel was established as a state in 1948[+] by stealing land from Palestinians, conducting ethnic cleansing and genocide. The UN allowed it due to strong Zionist lobby. There was some sort of international recognition but Israel has violated the UN partition plan and related UN resolutions. Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem is unrecognized internationally. The West Bank and Gaza strip have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. What right do they have to occupy it and why is the world not freezing Israeli assets and not imposing sanctions on Israel and banning it from Airspace, SWIFT[+], Eurovision Song Contest, and all the same international sporting events that Russia is banned from, like Olympics, World Cup, Formula One, Davis Cup, etc.[+]?!
Double standards are unlawful. So, it is not Russians who are engaging in illegal activities but NATO countries.
Donbas[+][+][+] is a coal mining region that was part of eastern Ukraine from 1922-2022 (now part of Russia) consisting of two Republics - Donetsk and Luhansk - where most residents have been Russians for centuries. In 2022, after Bolsheviks defeated the Ukrainian nationalists, Lenin gave that part of former Russian Empire with mostly ethnic Russian residents to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine under condition that it remains part of the Soviet Union and under Moscow governance (Kyiv administration) but in 1991, Ukraine violated that agreement by breaking off from the Soviet Union and from Moscow, and since 2014, Ukrainians had been demolishing all Lenin's monuments, therefore they have no rights to claim the territories he conditionally granted them. Since Ukrainians hate Lenin and Stalin so much that they demonize them, then in the Russian view[+], it is only fair to give back all the land[ꚛ] that Lenin and Stalin allocated to Soviet Ukraine, without even asking the locals’ permission (the majority were ethnic Russians in Donbas).
Donbas is colored in blue but only a far east part with Luhansk
we refer to Kyiv as a regime[+] due to its oppressive and repressive policies, corruption, and foul treatment of its ethnic minorities, such as the ethnic Russians, violating their human rights, tyrannizing, and killing them since 2014.
Aleksey Navalny was Putin’s weakest political opponent who never posed any threat to Putin as he was very unpopular in Russia – with his party, he had only around 2% liberal pro-West supporters who oppose Russian traditions and conservative values and as traitors team up with Russian enemies
Banderists[+] are Bandera followers or neo-Nazis — Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera was an anti-Semite leader with Nazi ideology collaborating with Nazi Germany in executing ethnic cleansing & killings of Jews and other perceived subhumans including Slavs, Gypsies, gays, etc. during WWII. Nowadays are Bandera followers (millions of them) in power in Ukraine, mostly occupying military and police forces
Similar to the situation in the former Soviet Union with non-Russians feeling subjugated by Russians, Non-Serbs wanted to part because they believed that a strong central Yugoslav federal government permitted Serbia, the largest republic in size and population, to dominate them and the government. Croatia and Slovenia were economically stronger and had different political aspirations as well as different religion (Catholics vs. Orthodox). They didn’t want communism any longer, whereas Serbia insisted on the old autocratic communist regime.
Serbia's resistance to negotiating a loose confederal arrangement has led Slovenia and Croatia to take steps toward secession from Yugoslavia. The federal government has then resorted to military action to preserve the union.
The Yugoslav constitution said nothing about a right to succession but included several provisions that could deny the right to secede. Article 5 required the consent of all republics and provinces before the borders of Yugoslavia could be altered. Secession disrupted the foundations of the order, stirred up national hatred, and threatened the existence of the state, thus Article 203 nullified a republic’s right to secede. Article 244 of the constitution also prohibited secession by guaranteeing Yugoslavia its territorial integrity. Article 283 gave only the Yugoslav Assembly the power to determine alterations in the state's boundaries.
In other words, under Yugoslav constitutional law, the republics had the right to self-determination, and, consequently, the right to self-government but did not have a right to secede (unless the federal government and all of the republics and provinces agreed to it.) And succession right was not yet recognized under international law anyway.
The right of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo to determine their own political, economic, social, and cultural development is an issue that has consequences for ethnic minorities around the world, particularly in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. Since the fall of Eastern Europe's communist regimes in 1989-1991, nationalism has become an increasingly potent force. Nationalism has encouraged ethnic minorities to voice demands for recognition, the restructuring of governments, and even the redrawing of borders. The Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, for example, have successfully asserted their independence.
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