Rostislav Vladimirovich Ishchenko. Ukraine in global politics (№ 437775)

The United States, each time “doubling the stake”, that is, trying during the next crisis not only to win back the losses of the previous one, but also to win an unconditional victory, brought the confrontation with Russia to a level where defeat for both sides (not only for Moscow, but also for Washington) means not just a loss of face or a loss of status, but the destruction of statehood, at least in its current form. The last doubling of the stakes occurred in 2013, when the US and the EU provoked an armed coup in Kyiv, sanctified the rise to power in Ukraine of outright Nazis and Russophobes with their recognition, and entered into a confrontation with Moscow in the zone of its vital interests. This is an undisguised invasion, which until 1945 and the advent of such a deterrent as nuclear weapons, would have been unambiguously regarded as a casus belli.