My Grandpa Was Right: “You Can’t Trust the Russians”

I posted three weeks ago, on February 19, what my Grandpa said to me when the Russians shot Sputnik up into earth orbit on October 4, 1957, “You can’t trust the Russians,” even though we were looking at it on TV. He was wrong about sputnik. Of course, those were the early years of the Cold War, and my grandpa had good reasons for believing that.

Turns out my grandpa was right about right now. Early last year, the Russian madman, President Vladimir Putin, started gathering his Russian soldiers and their military equipment near Russia’s border with Ukraine and Belarus’ border with Ukraine as well, since its president is an ally of Russia. But all along, Putin kept telling the world it was only a military training exercise.

No, YOU CAN’T TRUST THE RUSSIANS. Why did we believe that? In 2014, Putin had sent his troops across that border with Ukraine, invaded portions of eastern Ukraine, took all of its plum territory, the Crimea Peninsula, and annexed it to Russia. Sure, during that time a voting referendum was held in Crimea, and the results showed that more citizens wanted their territory annexed to Russia than didn’t. But some unbiased authorities claim it was not a free and fair election. Nevertheless, why should the world have believed Putin early this year when he kept saying he was not going to invade Ukraine when he had just done it eight years prior? The man is such a liar! My grandpa was right, YOU CAN’T TRUST THE RUSSIANS.

What would have happened if the West would have said to Putin, “You have a big country. You can train your military forces in lots of places in Russia besides near Ukraine’s border. If you don’t begin to move those troops out of there pronto, we will move just as many of our troops to the other side of the border, thus in Ukraine.”

Yes, NATO is a defense organization, but to me that would be defense. And yes, Ukraine is not a NATO member. But it had been begging to be a NATO member since the early 1990s. President H.W. Bush was in favor of it to be done then. But NATO members refused due to Ukraine not measuring up to its rules, including about political corruption. But in my opinion, NATO should have relaxed its rules, accepted Ukraine’s membership, and then it could have helped Ukraine to overcome its problems. It would have been in NATO’s best interests because look what is happening now.

Some U.S. government authorities, many analysts, and several retired U.S. military generals are now predicting that Putin will not stop at Ukraine, that will overtake it and invade other eastern European countries, and that NATO will eventually have to be involved in fighting Russia, and that will be a worse fight than if the West, or NATO, confronted Russian troops in Ukraine now.

NATO, which includes the U.S., is scared stiff right now! It’s because Putin the liar played the nuclear card last week. He did it twice. He implied that if any Western nations interceded in the war in Ukraine, which he refuses to call a “war” and deceptively calls it only a “special military operation,” that he will use nuclear weapons against them. On February 27, he said he had put Russia’s nuclear forces in “special combat readiness,” which is a heightened alert. He had said that if any leaders of nations intervene to stop Russia in Ukraine, it could lead to “consequences they have never seen in their history.” He then spoke of Russia’s nuclear weapons. It was on obvious threat to use nuclear weapons.

So, Russian President Putin lied repeatedly about saying he would not invade Ukraine, and then only days later, with no provocation whatsoever by Ukraine or the West, Putin gave the command, even pronouncing it publicly to the world, for Russian forces to invade and take over Ukraine. YOU CAN’T TRUST THE RUSSIANS, and now Ukraine and perhaps other nations may pay the price for it.