You could see this - and possibly a false flag operation - as Russia's justification in using nuclear weapons against Ukraine because 'they did it first'.

Why would they need assistance? Nuclear weapons are 75 year old technology they're not difficult if you already have a nuclear industry to supply the materials.

> Why would they need assistance?

Has nothing to do with the facts, the assistance is just a way to make the same propaganda be anti-US and anti-Ukrainian.

For the Russian side of things it's just their "the US is the source of all our problems" narrative. The accusation is stupid on its face as the US has done a great deal to try to stop nuclear proliferation. You can argue about its motivations but not its efficacy.

I read about it like two weeks ago. They are desperate to find a justification for their war crimes. Given that Putin himself has been caught saying multiple lies, there is no point giving any credibility to them. Their "special operation" is not going to plan and they will be trying to use any trick to find some support for their atrocities.

It is perhaps history's most justified war. (In that it has so many contradictory justifications)

1. Ukraine is run by the first Jewish Nazi president. So obviously they needed to be denazified

2. Russia does not want a NATO country on it's borders. That is why it invaded a country with four NATO borders

3. Ukraine has WMDs!

4. Ukraine is actually just a part of Russia, and the Soviet Union just messed up and drew a random border. No reason to care what the Ukrainians think

> Russia does not want a NATO country on it's borders. That is why it invaded a country with four NATO borders

Not commenting on the other points but I think the general idea was to create a border state between Russia proper and said NATO countries, maybe out of the whole Ukraine with a Russian puppet as president, or out of several Ukrainian statelets. If it matters I do live in one of those NATO countries bordering Ukraine.

I also thought the Ukraine as a neutral independent buffer state would be best for everyone. The problem is that Russia won’t allow Ukraine to be independent. It has to be a puppet state at least. There is a deleted Russian state news article describing their ambitions. This article was meant to be published after Russian victory in two days, but things obviously didn’t go as plannend.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20...

Russias hyper aggressive policy against Ukraine has bitten them in the ass. I believe a softer approach would have been better. Focus on strengthening economic and cultural ties. Have Ukraine to be Russia sympathetic country instead of a Russian controlled one.

That idea seems to be less relevant since there are Baltic states and Norway already bordering Russia.

Edit: If Russia really needs buffer - it is big country, they can create it inside Russia`s border. But they do not need this buffer because Russia`s army compared to NATO is nothing - buffer would not help. But Russia has more nuclear missiles then NATO. And that is more powerful then some mythical buffer zone.

the general idea was to install a Yanukovych 2.0 to disallow exfiltration of black money percentages to liberals, and not to the Russian oligarchs and connected presidency where it historically belongs to. democracy and free markets are a major disruption to their extortion business model.

plus they need Mariupol and the protected black sea harbors.

> Russia does not want a NATO country on it's borders. That is why it invaded a country with four NATO border

A country not in NATO, and with no imminent prospects of membership, unlike the five NATO countries that actually share a land border with Russia.

At best, this does absolutely nothing about the amount of NATO on Russias border.

And this isn't a war or invasion just an "special military operation".

Adding to your comment, in the Munich Security Conference on 2022-02-19, Zelenskyy said:

“Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFV5nw1UUNY&t=900s

That “Budapest Memorandum” is this one:

“Until Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, it had the world's third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile, of which Ukraine had physical but no operational control. Russia controlled the codes needed to operate the nuclear weapons through electronic Permissive Action Links and the Russian command and control system, although this could not be sufficient guarantee against Ukrainian access. Formally, these weapons were controlled by the Commonwealth of Independent States.”

“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has publicly commented on the Budapest Memorandum by arguing that it provides no true guarantee of safety due to Russia's coercive power. On 19 February 2022, Zelenskyy made a speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he said «Since 2014, Ukraine has tried three times to convene consultations with the guarantor states of the Budapest Memorandum. Three times without success. Today Ukraine will do it for the fourth time. ... If they do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt.» Putin used Zelenskyy's comments as part of his claims that Ukraine could develop nuclear weapons. Critics have disputed Putin's claims. This treaty has since been violated by Russia at the outbreak of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

This might be what some interpret as Ukraine seeking to acquire nuclear weapons in the near future.

That would be a very tendentious interpretation. Threats to revisit the treaty of 1994 - in the face of a threatened invasion which already violates that treaty - do not add up to active plans to acquire nuclear weapons.

This is a lovely spin. The Budapest memorandum was moot when Russia invaded in 2014. It is obviously even more so now.