Look, there is no doubt that capitalism without regulations is a bad thing, especially when you have powerful forces so easily able to manipulate it and the concept of "free markets" turned out to be a sham, but it is still the best economic system we have come up with to date. It needs to be closely regulated though - something that many right wing politicians are desperate to remove across the globe.
There is also no doubt the US foreign policy and meddling in foreign countries has fucked things up in places like the Middle East and Latin America. There is also a lot of good though that came out of it. It's easy to focus on the bad and forget about all of the good
But, that's not what this topic is all about. It is about Ukraine and you seem confused and misinformed on the topic. Ukraine has been a tumultuous region throughout known history, but without going back a thousand years, let's focus on the important bits.
There were already ethnic Russians living in the area a century ago. During the USSR days many more Russians were brought into eastern Ukraine and many Ukrainians were sent on holiday to sunny Siberia. The end result is the situation in eastern Ukraine. Crimean Oblast is a particularly interesting area. Here is a short hint into the developments that led us to today
Ukrainian citizens voted to leave the USSR in 1991. It was around 92% if I remember correctly.
Moving on then to the mid 2000s...
There were two candidates in the 2004 Ukraine presidential election: Yanukovych and Yushchenko.
Yanukovych was the primate minister and was supported by previous president, Kuchma, and the Russian Federation. Yushchenko was pro West and had the goal of joining the EU. Yanukovych won by a narrow margin, but there were widespread allegations of vote rigging and intimidation, especially in eastern Ukraine. Massive street protests erupted in Kyiv and other citiies - the Orange Revolution. The supreme court of Ukraine declared the results void and another election saw Yushchenko as the winner.
Yushchenko's reign saw him pushing towards improved relations with EU, straining the relationship between Russia and Ukraine further. 2010 presidential elections came and Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, once allies during the Orange Revolution, became enemies and thus the presidential race became a 3 way race. Yushchenko's popularity had plummeted by this stage. Our old pro Russia friend, Yanukovych, emerged as the winner with 48% vs 45% for Tymoshenko. Many of the pro-Orange revolution voters stayed at home due to the feud between Tymoshenko and Yushchenko.
Yanukovych tried to dismantle democracy in Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He put Tymoshenko in prison, for example, in the hope of dismantling his oppositiopn. Yanukovych continued to push the country closer to Russia and did not sign the Ukraine - EU association agreement in November 2013. This resulted in protests on the streets of Kyiv and ultimately lead to the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, thus giving Russia the pretext to enter the country under the guise of peacekeepers.
I am genuinely not sure where your feelings about the US and the importance of multiple world super powers fits into all of this. Unless you are suggesting that it's good for Putin and Russia to take over other countries and become a super power once again, because it's good for world peace. The proxy wars fought around the globe during the cold war suggest your hypothesis is flawed.
From Vlad himself. He wrote an essay about it and everything... back in 2006, or 2008. I can't remember.
