The Abuse of Empire: Russia’s War on Ukraine and the Lies That Excuse It

I recently came across a video from Bruce Unfiltered titled "The Truth about Ukraine: It's Not About Democracy." A quick Google search revealed that he’s a right-wing goon and Reform Ltd activist. The video is pure Kremlin propaganda, word for word. Yet another example of how Western bias distorts perceptions of Ukraine while downplaying the brutal reality of Russia and its Soviet legacy. I try to remind myself that much of this stems from ignorance - a lack of historical knowledge and understanding - but it’s becoming harder and harder…

A big part of the problem is the privilege of never having been subjected to authoritarian rule. It’s easy to fall for revisionist history when you’ve never had to live through it. And of course, there’s the usual gaslighting and victim-blaming - ‘Ukraine provoked it,’ ‘NATO forced Russia’s hand’ - as if it’s some twisted geopolitical version of ‘her skirt was too short.’

The Abuser’s Mentality

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine mirrors the behaviour of an abusive ex who, in a blind fury, refuses to accept the loss of control. They don’t just plead or threaten - they destroy, rape, and murder, ensuring that if they can’t have their former partner, no one else can. They call it love, but it’s possession - a sick obsession rooted in the fear of being forgotten. Ukraine fights back, battered but unbroken, asserting its right to exist, while the abuser snarls, “You belong to me,” even as the world watches in horror.

Yet, right-wing apologists like Bruce Unfiltered bend over backward to blame “the West” and NATO, ignoring the undeniable reality of Russia’s imperialist aggression. This is nothing more than uneducated, privileged Westsplaining - the kind of lazy contrarianism that seeks to excuse and justify authoritarian violence while masquerading as “anti-war.” Ukraine is not some passive pawn in a Western game - it is a sovereign nation that chose independence and democracy, something Russia cannot tolerate because it undermines its own authoritarian grip.

Blaming NATO is a convenient deflection that ignores a fundamental fact: Ukraine wasn’t even in NATO when Russia invaded. Ukraine was nowhere near joining NATO at the time of the invasion. Despite Russian claims of feeling “threatened” by NATO, Ukraine’s membership was not imminent and had been stalled for years. Putin didn’t attack because of “Western provocation” - he attacked because he believes Ukraine belongs to Russia and has no right to self-determination. This is the logic of an abusive empire, not a defensive nation. Those who parrot this nonsense conveniently ignore Putin’s own words - in his 2021 essay On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, he outright denied Ukraine’s right to exist as an independent state, calling it merely an extension of Russia.

Furthermore, the claim that NATO’s expansion provoked Russia crumbles when you consider why Eastern European nations joined NATO in the first place. I vividly remember Poland joining NATO in 1999 - the overwhelming sense of relief felt by everyone after centuries of Russian aggression and the brutal subjugation of the post-WWII years. My own family still bears the scars of that awful time. For countries like Poland and the Baltics, NATO wasn’t an expansionist project - it was a lifeline. The same holds true today - Finland and Sweden didn’t join NATO out of hostility, but out of necessity, in direct response to Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine.

I am acutely aware that if it weren’t for a brief respite in Russia’s authoritarian leadership following the fall of the Berlin Wall - thanks to Boris Yeltsin - and Poland’s determination to finally ensure its safety by joining NATO, Russian bombs and drones would likely be murdering Polish citizens as well as Ukrainians today. Poland understood that security could never be taken for granted, and that proximity to Russia meant living under the constant threat of violence. The decision to join NATO was not about expansionism; it was about survival.

Ukrainians made a choice - they want to move away from Russia and become part of the European community. It is their right to do so, and we should listen to Ukrainian voices more. Their desire to join NATO stems from living in constant fear, worrying about when Russia will attack next - something privileged Westerners struggle to understand. While the rest of the world debates abstract geopolitical theories, Ukrainians live with the daily reality of Russian aggression, knowing that if they are not protected, another invasion is only a matter of time.

Westerners often take democracy for granted, but for many Eastern European countries that have experienced authoritarian rule, democracy is an ideal they aspire to. It is not perfect - sadly, even idiots can vote (and sometimes they elect a conman, dumber than rocks, a draft dodger, a rapist, and a convicted felon as their president),  but it remains by far our best option. It’s one of those things you don’t truly appreciate until it’s gone.

We need to think long and hard about what our values are. Do we truly stand for democracy, sovereignty, and human rights, or are these just empty slogans we use when it’s convenient? Ukraine’s struggle is a stark reminder that these values require constant defence. They are not self-sustaining - they can erode and disappear if we fail to act when they are under attack.

Looking at just the Cold War period - without even reaching back through centuries of Russian aggression - it’s clear that people in the West have very little understanding of how Eastern Europeans suffered. While Western nations worried about nuclear standoffs and political tensions, Eastern Europeans endured brutal repression, forced Sovietisation, secret police terror, and economic stagnation under authoritarian rule. Those who lived under the Soviet boot knew fear as a way of life - families torn apart by mass deportations, informants in every neighbourhood, brutal crackdowns on dissent, and an all-encompassing sense of paranoia. People could disappear overnight, sent to the gulags for the slightest hint of resistance. Food shortages, propaganda, and state-controlled economies kept entire populations under control, while any attempt to escape or speak out was met with swift and merciless punishment. The scars of that era still shape their societies today, making their desire for security, democracy, and independence from Russia all the more urgent. The West’s tendency to oversimplify or ignore these experiences only deepens the divide between those who understand the stakes and those who take their freedoms for granted. Nowhere is this more evident than in Berlin, where Westerners romanticise the fall of the Wall without truly grasping what life was like on its eastern side - where people lived under constant surveillance, lacking even the basic freedoms that many take for granted today.

This argument also disregards Russia’s own legally binding commitments. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum, part of the post-Cold War nuclear disarmament effort to make the world a safer place, saw Ukraine relinquish its nuclear arsenal - the third-largest in the world at the time - in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the U.S., and the U.K. Russia explicitly pledged to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. However, by invading Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022, Russia shattered that agreement, proving that its security assurances were worthless. Russia has demonstrated time and time again that it does not honour treaties or agreements. Meanwhile, the UK and the U.S. have failed to uphold their promises, turning their backs on Ukraine in its time of need. The notion that NATO forced Russia’s hand is laughable when Russia itself has repeatedly violated the very principles of sovereignty and non-aggression that it once pledged to uphold.

The Hypocrisy of Privileged Contrarians

What makes this brand of uneducated, privileged, right-wing contrarianism even more infuriating is that it so often comes from people who have benefited from the very freedoms, safety, and opportunities afforded by living in “the West.” They sit comfortably behind their screens, enjoying the rights, protections, and prosperity that liberal democracies provide, while lecturing Ukrainians - who are literally fighting for their survival - on how they should just accept subjugation to appease an imperialist dictator. It’s the height of hypocrisy.

These people aren’t interested in peace, diplomacy, or facts - they are apologists for authoritarian violence, and their rhetoric is deeply offensive. Real anti-war voices condemn the invader, not the invaded. Anything less is just intellectual dishonesty dressed up as geopolitical analysis. Attributing Russia’s invasion to Western actions is not only misleading but deeply insulting to the Ukrainian people fighting for their survival. Just as an abuser cannot justify their violence by blaming others, Russia cannot justify its invasion by pointing fingers at NATO or the West. The responsibility lies solely with the aggressor.