The provided text argues against the widely accepted narrative that Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked. It asserts that Western actions, particularly NATO's eastward expansion and interference in Ukrainian politics, served as long-term provocations. The author cites warnings from figures like George Kennan and William Burns, alongside Vladimir Putin's own statements, highlighting Russia's consistent opposition to these moves. Furthermore, the text suggests that the 2014 Maidan uprising was not a purely spontaneous event but rather was significantly influenced by Washington, leading to a civil war in Donbas that predated the 2022 invasion. Ultimately, the source contends that the conflict was "cultivated, warned against, and made inevitable" by decades of Western policy, emphasizing that the narrative of an "unprovoked war" ignores crucial historical context.

The story we’ve been told is simple: in February 2022, Vladimir Putin woke up one morning, decided to invade a peaceful, democratic Ukraine, and launched an “unprovoked war.” That’s the official narrative. But history is never that simple.

From the 1990s onward, Moscow warned that NATO expansion into its backyard was a red line. Gorbachev and later Yeltsin were assured that the alliance would not creep eastward. Yet step by step—Poland, Hungary, the Baltics, talk of Georgia and Ukraine—NATO advanced. To Washington, enlargement was “stability.” To Moscow, it was encirclement.

The real break came in 2014. Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, leaned toward Moscow on trade and energy. That was unacceptable to Washington and Brussels. When mass protests erupted in Kyiv, the U.S. wasn’t a bystander. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Senator John McCain both appeared on the ground, cheering the crowds. In a leaked call, Nuland infamously dismissed Europe’s hesitance—“F*** the EU”—while handpicking who should form the next government. To Moscow, this was regime change with CIA, State, and USAID fingerprints all over it.

The revolution ousted Yanukovych and installed a Western-leaning government. Overnight, Ukraine shifted from Moscow’s orbit to Brussels’. What followed wasn’t peace. In Donbas, the Russian-speaking east rose in rebellion. Kyiv responded with force. Shelling, rockets, and artillery fire turned towns into rubble. Between 2014 and 2022, more than 14,000 people died in a grinding low-intensity war. For people in Donetsk or Luhansk, the war didn’t begin in 2022—it had already been burning for eight years.

This backstory matters because it reframes 2022. Putin didn’t invade a neutral neighbor out of nowhere. He acted after decades of ignored warnings and eight years of bloodshed in the Donbas. Was the invasion brutal? Yes. Was it unprovoked? Hardly.

Critics will call this “carrying water for Putin.” But acknowledging how the West lit the fuse doesn’t absolve Moscow of blame. It explains why Russia saw the stakes as existential. When Ukraine amended its constitution to commit to NATO membership, Moscow heard one message: eventually, U.S. missiles could sit 300 miles from Moscow. For a nuclear power that lost 27 million lives in World War II, this wasn’t abstract.

The West believed sanctions would collapse Russia’s economy and that Putin would face regime change. Instead, Moscow built its own military-industrial base, deepened ties with China, India, and the BRICS bloc, and weathered the storm. Far from isolating Russia, the war accelerated a global realignment away from dollar dominance.

Meanwhile, Ukraine—brilliant engineers, fertile farmland, energy transit routes—has become a pawn. Western politicians invoke democracy while oligarchs, defense contractors, and energy interests profit. Hunter Biden’s Burisma board seat was not an outlier; it was a symptom of how entangled Washington had become in Ukraine’s internal affairs.

This isn’t a defense of Russia’s invasion. It’s a reminder that wars don’t appear overnight. They build. They escalate. They ignite only after a fuse has been laid. In Ukraine, that fuse was NATO expansion, the 2014 coup, and the long, bloody stalemate in Donbas.

The world didn’t start burning in 2022. We just finally saw the explosion.

Don’t Blame the Latte: Your Burn Rate Is Eating You AliveThe Silent Reason You’re Always Broke

There’s a meme that won’t die: “Don’t blame me for my daily latte—it’s not why I can’t afford a house in America.” But here’s the rub: it isn’t the latte by itself. It’s the latte plus the Starbucks sandwich, the DoorDash dinner, the Amazon Prime, the Netflix, the Disney+, the YouTube TV, the Hulu, the gym membership you never use, the $1,200 phone you upgrade every two years, the Uber rides, the subscription boxes, the automatic monthly charges you don’t even notice anymore. Add them up, and suddenly you’re living like a Gordon Gekko yuppie from Wall Street—without actually being rich. That is your burn rate. And your burn rate is the silent killer of wealth.

Most people don’t even know the term. In business, burn rate is how fast a startup burns through its cash. If your expenses outpace your revenue, the company dies, no matter how good the pitch deck looks. Now zoom out: your life is a company. Your paycheck is your revenue. Every “normal” convenience you’ve convinced yourself you’re entitled to is an expense. And most Americans are burning cash at a startup’s pace without ever realizing it.

Think about it: a Starbucks venti caramel macchiato with extra pumps? Call it $7–$8. Add a pastry—because of course you did—and you’re at $12. Do that five times a week, and you’ve quietly spent $250 a month on coffee shop culture. That’s three grand a year. Add DoorDash: one burger meal for $14 becomes $28 after delivery fees, service fees, and tip. Do that three times a week? Another $350–$400 a month, five grand a year. Now add streaming: Netflix, $16. Disney+, $14. Hulu, $18. HBO/Max, $17. Paramount+, $12. YouTube TV, $73. Amazon Prime, $15. Suddenly your “cheap entertainment” costs $165 a month, nearly $2,000 a year.

Keep tallying. The $1,200 iPhone with $40 monthly insurance. The $80 unlimited data plan. The fast fashion wardrobe that falls apart every season. The gym you don’t use. The Uber you grab instead of the bus because it’s “just ten bucks.” Before you know it, your “burn” is $3,000–$4,000 a month just to maintain a lifestyle you think of as normal. That’s $36,000–$50,000 a year—money that could be a down payment, an index fund, or a cushion against the next emergency.

Contrast that with 1965: Dad made $6,900 a year. Mom stayed home. They had two or three kids. One family car, maybe a black-and-white TV. Vacations were once a summer, maybe to the beach or Grandma’s house. There was no burn rate in the modern sense. They didn’t pay subscriptions for entertainment—they had three channels. They didn’t replace phones every two years—they had one rotary phone on the wall for decades. A “splurge” was meatloaf with ketchup or maybe a color TV. Today’s “middle-class normal” would have looked like Rockefeller living to them.

Now, I’m not wagging my finger. I’ve lived both sides. I rent a studio apartment. I cook bulk ground beef, eggs, and butter. I buy my watches used on eBay, my bags secondhand. My coffee is Café Bustelo brewed at home. My rower is a 20-year-old Concept2 I got for cheap. And still—I fall into the same trap as everyone else. I subscribe to every damn streaming service. I justify little “conveniences” that pile up. I know the burn rate game.

Here’s the brutal truth: if you make $70k a year and your burn rate is $50k, you’re broke. If you make $200k and your burn rate is $190k, you’re broke. And no revolution, no socialism, no political system is going to fix that. Because the second you normalize luxuries as entitlements, you’ve built yourself a treadmill. And treadmills don’t make people rich. They just keep you running.

Stop telling me a $7 latte doesn’t matter. Stop telling me the subscription stack doesn’t count. Add it up. Run the numbers. Look at your burn rate. That’s why you’re not rich.