Russia-Ukraine war

Summary

One video traces the war to Russia's 1783 conquest and 2014 annexation of Crimea before the 2022 invasion; another has Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blaming NATO expansion and financial interests instead.

What it argues

1. Crimea's conquest and transferPolitics

   Catherine the Great's army seized Crimea from the Crimean Tatars in 1783, Solotheman Geopolitics says, giving Russia a Black Sea port that never froze. Khrushchev transferred Crimea to Ukraine in 1954; Ukraine became independent with Crimea inside it when the USSR collapsed in 1991. Crimea's shift between Russia and Ukraine began two centuries before today's war.

2. Broken pledge, 2014 annexationPolitics

   Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1994 after Russia pledged in the Budapest Memorandum to respect its borders. After Yanukovych fled 2014 protests, unmarked Russian troops occupied Crimea, which voted to join Russia in a referendum the UN called illegal. Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea broke its own 1994 pledge, the video says.

3. 2022 invasion and NATO disputePolitics

   Russian troops crossed Ukraine's northern, eastern and southern borders in February 2022, aiming to take the whole country within days, Solotheman Geopolitics says. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says Russia repeatedly offered to settle on terms favorable to Ukraine, chiefly by keeping Ukraine out of NATO. The two videos give different reasons for the 2022 invasion: Crimean history versus NATO expansion.

4. Arms makers and NATO expansionEconomics

   Kennedy says military contractors Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing and Lockheed pushed NATO expansion to lock in buyers. New NATO members must conform to NATO weapons specifications, creating a trapped market for those firms, he says. Kennedy ties NATO's growth to arms-industry profit rather than Ukrainian security.

5. Aid figures and loan framingEconomics

   Kennedy says the US had committed $113 billion to Ukraine by March 2022, plus $24 billion more, with Biden then seeking $60 billion further. He says Mitch McConnell stated the money mainly funds American defense firms, and Tim Scott called it a loan rather than a gift. Kennedy argues the aid is structured as a loan so conditions can be imposed.

6. Asset sales to multinationalsEconomics

   Kennedy says loan conditions forced Ukraine into austerity and to sell state assets, including farmland. DuPont, Cargill and Monsanto bought 30% of that farmland; he says Blackrock owns those firms and later won Ukraine's reconstruction contract. Kennedy says financial interests behind the war's financing also profit from rebuilding Ukraine.

7. Domestic division strategySociety

   Kennedy says keeping the American public divided is a longstanding strategy. He cites Republican-Democrat conflict and racial division as examples of this strategy. Kennedy frames the war's financing as part of a broader strategy of social division.

Open questions

• The two videos give differing central causes for the war; the material does not reconcile them.
• Solotheman Geopolitics does not detail events after the February 2022 invasion began.
• Kennedy does not specify sourcing for the aid figures, asset-sale percentage or the Blackrock contract claim.