Russian – Ukraine War Unprovoked?

Letters to the editor

Russian – Ukraine War Unprovoked?

Yvonne Zarowny, Qualicum Beach, BC

Volume 38  Issue 4, 5 & 6 | Posted: July 7, 2023

I experience it as very disconcerting that the western media, including National Catholic Reporter online, start the current NATO/Russian War occurring in Ukraine – as beginning with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

At the celebration of life for a former Canadian bishop, Bishop Emeritus Remi De Roo, a retired Canadian Senator, Douglas Roche – days before the ‘invasion’ – commented that NATO had been ‘poking the bear’ and soon we could be at war.

Days later, the unthinkable happened.

By ‘poking the bear’, Roche was referring to the USA led NATO alliance putting its missiles into nation-states that had been unaligned or ‘neutral’ (Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania) since the end of WWII.

This ‘neutral ring’ was done so Russia/the USSR would not have enemy weaponry on its borders and hence not feel threatened by the far superior weaponry of the NATO nations.  (See “The Heart of Doug Roche: Creative Dissent” under the Features Tab)

To grasp the significance of this, please remember the hysterical reaction of the USA when the former USSR dared to put missiles into its former ally – Cuba.

Today this is referred to as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

With modern technology, the NATO missiles going into these former neutral nation-states -could easily reach Moscow and much of Russia’s industrial and agricultural heartland.

Then NATO started to put them into Ukraine.

This would effectively cut Russia off from its only all-season port which was on the Crimean Peninsula.

What do you think would happen if American and Canadian shipping lanes were cut off from accessing the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Port of New York, the Port of Seattle, the Port of Vancouver (BC), all of the Miami Peninsula, the Panama Canal, and the Suez Canal?

That – in essence – is the importance of Crimea to Russia.

Please sit with that a moment – preferably in prayer – then tell me again how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was ‘unprovoked’.

I am waiting.

   

Yvonne Zarowny, Qualicum Beach, BC