US animosity toward Russia root cause of Ukraine conflict: China Daily editorial

Any proposal that fails to address the root cause of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict will not bring an end to the fighting and secure a comprehensive, just and lasting peace, as urged by a resolution the United Nations Security Council passed on Thursday, just hours before the conflict entered its second year on Friday.

Instead of just focusing on what happened over the past year, the international community should not ignore the fact that it is the United States' animosity toward Russia that has driven the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's continuous eastward expansion. This has led to Moscow changing its view on the West, from a partner in the distance to an enemy at the gate.

That the Cold War bloc has been relentlessly pushing eastward while Russia is still suffering from the aftermaths of the collapse of the Soviet Union has aggravated Moscow's sense of insecurity. It is that threat to Russia that has been unprovoked, rather than Russia's "special military action" in Ukraine, which is just what the US expected to reap from what it has sown.

That's why the US is in no hurry to help end the conflict. It wants it to drag down Russia and reassert its authority over Europe. Not to mention the tremendous profits it can make by selling arms and energy.

For Russia, the West's actions represent a security crisis. For the US, the conflict, which it frames as being a struggle between democracy versus autocracy, is not only the culmination of its years-long campaign to debilitate Russia, but also an opportunity to stake a claim to the moral high ground by criticizing those countries which refuse to join its unilateral sanctions on Russia.

Countries should look objectively at the rights and wrongs of the matter rather than let themselves be swayed by the moral burden the US is trying to put on them.

Among the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, China is the only one that has not joined the US in its sanctions on Russia or provided Ukraine with arms, nor has it provided support to Russia regarding its "special military action". Its position on the Ukraine crisis is neutral and it continues to urge the belligerents to agree on a cease-fire and talk.

China's ties with Russia are not subject to any party's approval, nor its relations with Ukraine. And the crisis is not in China's interests.

As the position paper China issued on Friday states, the security of a region will not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs, and the security of a country should not be pursued at the expense of others.

It is absurd for Washington to try and claim the moral high ground while it continues to impose sanctions on Russia, which are unauthorized by the UN and have no legitimacy in international law, continues to supply ever more advanced long-range weapons to Ukraine, and encourages its NATO allies to do the same.

In waging its proxy war against Russia, the US is the primary aggressor. Putting a stop to those actions is the very first step to creating the necessary conditions for a cease-fire and peace talks.

Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis. But although Ukraine is a sovereign state, it is being funded and supported to such an extent by the US club, that even if Kyiv wants to talk with Moscow, so long as Washington doesn't want it to, Kyiv has no choice but to continue to fight.