LewRockwell By Sputnik News
Russia started the special military operation in Ukraine on 24 February, following a request for assistance from the Donbass republics. The latter had been suffering from Ukrainian bombardment over the past eight years as Kiev delayed the implementation of the 2015 Minsk agreements.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has suggested in an interview with The Economist that the Russian special military operation in Ukraine might have been avoided if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had done some of the things that Moscow have been insisting on for years.
Shinzo Abe specified that Zelensky should have made a promise that Ukraine wonât join NATO and should have granted the Donetsk and Lugansk Peopleâs Republics (DPR and LPR) a high degree of autonomy. The latter was specified in the Minsk agreements, which were signed in 2015 and essentially designed as a roadmap for the reintegration of the DPR and LPR back into Ukraine.
At the same time, the former Japanese prime minister admitted that Zelensky was unlikely to do any of those things…
