He lays the entire fault of the current war at the feet of the west for giving military aid to Ukraine and playing footsie with them re: NATO.

At no point does Mearsheimer accept that the west's intervention was caused by Russia invading Crimea in 2014. He mentions the Crimean invasion in passing like twice, but more of a "well this thing happened", not as the crux of the entire conflict, which it is.

Prior to 2014 in the Yanukovych administration, Ukraine repeatedly and publicly asserted it wouldn't join NATO. That it had no interest. That it would be a helpful, but neutral European state, but he was ultimately pro-Russia (because he was in Russia's pocket). Ultimately to Yanukovych's demise.

And this is where things get complicated. I'm sure you (Chuck) know this, but a lot of other readers may not. Feb 2014, the people of Ukraine launch a revolution against Yanukovych. There were several reasons for the revolution (a lot of police state and pseudo police state shit from that regime and a lot of Russian oil billionaires having the ear of Yanukovych), but the primary one was that Ukrainians viewed Yanukovych as essentially a puppet for Putin. Ukraine and the EU had been working on a trade deal for a couple of years. Yanukovych killed the deal at the last minute and said, "nah, we're good. actually, we're going to do a deal with Russia, instead."

So now Russia sees Yanukovych deposed and think, "ah, shit, there goes our guy in Kyiv" and Russia moves a bunch of troops to the Ukraine border and 5 days after Yanukovych is voted out, the Russians invade Ukraine. Charitable readings of this from a Russian standpoint would say that the Russians were taking preemptive defensive measures. That the Yanukovych ouster was a signal that Ukraine was going to westernize. However, there's a major fly in this ointment.

One day before Russia invaded Crimea, Ukraine installed an interim government. That interim government also stated it had no intention of joining NATO.

The Russians invaded Crimea because the idea of not having a puppet in Kyiv made them uneasy and they wanted Sevastopol. The Russians took Crimea in March of 2014 and *STILL* the Ukrainian government said, "we have no interest in joining NATO." The Russians saw the power vacuum as an opportunity. When they received essentially an international finger-wagging at the Crimean invasion, they said, "fuck it, let's take the Donbas, too." And still there were only strongly worded letters (and strongly painted pictures) from the larger community.

It was only after Crimea and after months fighting in the Donbas that the Ukrainians said, "uhhh, little help here?" and asked about formally joining NATO in the fall of 2014 after the new Ukrainian government was elected in October. Eight months after Crimea. Six months after Donbas.

Russia was the instigator. NATO was not.