Is this a conspiracy theory or is there something in it?

[Friendproblem123]

Someone I know who has form for conspiracy theories just sent me this (in response to me posting sympathy to Zelenskyy after the row yesterday.

can anyone in the know please shed any light on whether this is true please?

x.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status/1895751157651251687

LOL 😆

Do you need some tin foil for your hat?

This is literally a thread about a guy who regularly appears on Russian state TV 🤷🏻‍♀️His argument only focuses on outlining the Russian perspective and sympathies, accusing NATO of having pushed Putin into attacking Ukraine. Sachs is trying to reframe Russia as the victim in the Ukraine war. It is Russian propaganda,
Putin who barely raised a fuss over Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO yet we are expected to believe that the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO as so real and so dire that it necessitated a full-scale invasion.
Putin called Ukraine an artificial creation “on the lands of historical Russia” and said “Russia was robbed” by the creation of a separate Ukrainian Soviet republic. According to Sachs his real concern was NATO 🙄
It requires believing that without NATO membership, the ex-Soviet Baltic States would today remain free and independent of Russian domination and war. I’d argue their NATO membership is the only reason the Baltics are not getting attacked while non-NATO Ukraine is getting attacked
Russia has always used propaganda as tool in warfare why would you think that it’s hokey to be concerned about it, unless you are one of those who are lapping up the propaganda whilst simultaneously telling yourself you’re a “free thinker” 😂

The people who post all day on MN and are obsessed with bots - as a Venn diagram, are a circle.

What people need to do is step away from social media and the internet for a while, touch some grass and breath.

Are bots a thing? Sure? Is propaganda a thing? Sure? However, the bot hunting and panic is almost bordering on hysteria. People need to maybe step away from the internet for a bit. The huge problem on here is people calling bot when they don’t have the same opinion and trying to shut others down.

Here you go voxukraine.org/en/open-letter-to-jeffrey-sachs

There was no agreement made that NATO would not accept application from countries east of existing members after the USSR fell. It’s bollocks.

Not only was any such guarantee never given by anyone, but that agreement would have had to be made by NATO which would have had to change its constitution.

As to the warnings about X and TikTok, I wholeheartedly agree, but I think that should really be a warning against believing randoms on all social media platforms - Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn, Insta, Reddit etc etc.

I don’t understand why that letter keeps getting posted - it’s interesting but contains absolutely loads of links, most of which don’t offer insight into the actual situation, but link to what someone once said etc and- as above- it’s from a group of unknown people who I, personally, have no idea whether to trust or respect the views of.

The "Open Letter to Jeffrey Sachs on His Position Regarding Russian War on Ukraine," is being shared because it’s literally the guy in the video and it’s important because it is addressing his biased stance on the war in Ukraine. It was authored by a group of economists, including many Ukrainians, led by notable figures such as Yuriy Gorodnichenko (University of California, Berkeley), Anastassia Fedyk (University of California, Berkeley), Ilona Sologoub (VoxUkraine NGO), and Bohdan Kukharskyy (City University of New York), among others. The letter was signed by over 300 economists from various institutions worldwide, reflecting a broad academic coalition.
The primary authors and signatories include:
-Yuriy Gorodnichenko, a prominent economist at UC Berkeley, known for his work on macroeconomics and economic policy, who has been vocal about Ukraine-related issues.

• Anastassia Fedyk also at UC Berkeley, specializing in finance and behavioral economics.
• Ilona Sologoub affiliated with VoxUkraine, a Ukrainian think tank focused on economic research and policy analysis.
• Bohdan Kukharskyy, from the City University of New York, with expertise in international economics.

The full list of signatories includes academics from institutions like Columbia University, Stanford University, and the London School of Economics, indicating a collective effort by scholars with diverse backgrounds united by their concern over Sachs’ statements.

Why Was It Written?
The letter was written to critique and challenge Jeffrey Sachs’ public statements and writings on the Russia-Ukraine war, which the authors argue contain "historical misrepresentations and logical fallacies." Sachs, a well-known economist and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, had repeatedly suggested that NATO expansion provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and that the U.S. played a significant role in escalating the conflict. He appeared on platforms hosted by Russian propagandists like Vladimir Solovyov and proposed peace plans that the authors viewed as aligning with Kremlin narratives.

The authors identified several problematic patterns in Sachs’ arguments, including:

1. Denying Ukraine’s Agency**: Suggesting Ukraine lacks autonomy in its decisions, particularly regarding NATO aspirations.
2. Blaming NATO**: Framing NATO enlargement as the primary cause of Russian aggression, ignoring Russia’s imperial ambitions.
3. Undermining Ukraine’s Sovereignty**: Implying Crimea and Donbas could be ceded to Russia as a viable solution, contrary to international law and Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
4. Echoing Kremlin Propaganda**: Promoting peace plans that mirror Russia’s demands, such as “demilitarization and denazification,” terms used to justify the invasion.

The letter refutes these points with historical evidence, such as Russia’s violation of the Budapest Memorandum (1994) and the Minsk Agreements, and emphasizes that Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership was a response to Russian aggression, not a provocation of it.

Why Is It Important?
This open letter holds significance for several reasons:

1. Academic Integrity It represents a rare public rebuke from a large group of scholars against a prominent colleague, underscoring the stakes of maintaining factual accuracy in academic discourse, especially on issues of war and geopolitics.
2. Countering Disinformation. Sachs’ visibility gave his views considerable reach, including in Western media and Russian propaganda outlets. The letter aims to correct the narrative, particularly for audiences who might take his credentials at face value without scrutinizing his claims.
3. Moral and Policy Implications: By challenging Sachs’ portrayal of the conflict, the authors advocate for a stance rooted in international law, Ukraine’s sovereignty, and a clear moral compass—principles they argue are essential for a just resolution to the war.

The letter’s importance lies in its effort to uphold truth and accountability in a high-stakes debate, pushing back against a narrative that could influence public opinion and policy in ways detrimental to Ukraine’s survival and global security. It serves as both a scholarly critique and a call to action for informed, principled engagement with the ongoing conflict.

OP the advice we give to our Yr 5/6 students, at the primary school I work in, is if you want to verify if something is true on the internet you need to triangulate. By this we mean check 2 other, reputable, sources and see if the information agrees.
Asking on MN is unlikely to be helpful as a lot of people have an agenda or a particular view and some may be bots. It’s easy for confirmation bias to creep in on a social media forum such as this.
Check yourself by using 2 other reliable sources.

It’s absolutely not bordering on hysteria. You are just over exaggerating (possibly bordering on hysteria).
People are just pointing out that they are active on MN.
It is well known that both UK and overseas governments use social media to influence opinion.

Even if we agreed that the mere possibility of Ukraine joining Nato caused it that would mean nothing. There is no international right to keep neighbouring countries defenceless for your own peace of mind. No special right to slaughter a people for being keen on having a defence.

Putting better locks on your front door can't be used in court to excuse home invasion, rape and murder by a local gang.

The video says that the US would be just as upset but they have no special right either. Their own arrogance is why some of them feel Russia had a point.

As for the UN suggesting that regions of the Ukraine ought to have autonomy we only have to consider if they told the UK that they were giving Scotland full independence on a whim or if they said half of London will be independent because a lot of people have come to live there from countries that don't speak English.
As it is I'm half expecting Trump to offer The Falklands to Argentina in return for some concession.

We don't need degrees in diplomacy or politics to say the Russian invasion was immoral do we and everything Ukraine has done since has been in self defence. Putin could have stopped at any time.

I happen to think President Trump was the best thing that could have happened to the US. He was the only one who could halt the crazy stuff going on and get it back on track. He is arrogant, but that's what it takes to say to say "we're going to run America my way"

But while he is doing great work back home he seems to be making things worse over here.

It's a more complicated situation than he suggests.

Yanukovych was accused of electoral fraud, leading to the Orange Revolution. He was later voted in fairly, but suddenly pulled back from his pro-EU policies under Russian pressure. There were then massive popular protests against him. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViktorYanukovych and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan

Russia occupied the Crimea in 2014, then funded rebels in the Donbas. That conflict had been going on for nearly 8 years when Russia launched a full invasion. At that stage, Ukraine was not realistically going to become a NATO member. That, and Zelenskyy's alleged Nazism (he's Jewish) were a pretext for war. It seems most likely that Putin developed imperialist urgings during his long period of isolation in 2020. He can talk for hours about the historical justification, as he sees it.

Even if we agreed that the mere possibility of Ukraine joining Nato caused it that would mean nothing. There is no international right to keep neighbouring countries defenceless for your own peace of mind.

Exactly. And personally from that video, I'm not convinced there is proof that the US planned to use the countries around Russia as its own power base.

Lots of us do and we report as well as call it out :)

It t be a lot less disruptive if you just report it. There's plenty of people on here I disagree with; I don't go around calling them Zelenskyy bots/shills.

Anyway, as far as Sachs is concerned, he's not "just" a talking head - he was special advisor to the UN secretary general for a couple of decades, is currently a professor at Colombia University, is an economist and policy advisor on sustainable development. He's coming to the end of his working lif now and most of it has been spent trying to find solutions to poverty. He's neither a shill nor a bot.

Some of what he says is not a full representation of the situation - as myself and a pp pointed out he's downplayed how russian leaning (and corrupt!) Yanukovich was. Also this early peace deal that he says Zelenskyy walked away from - as I said before that's not how it was reported - it wasn't even reported that way in Russia. According to the Kremlin, Putin was the one who rejected the deal. He also sacked the guy who set it up, so that seems feasible. Maybe Biden was also encouraging Zelenskyy to continue to fight and not negotiate, but it doesn't seem to have been an overriding factor in the war continuing at that stage.

On NATO though, he is roughly accurate. There's been books written about this and all manner of studies and it is a matter of record that, prior to the north Atlantic council, a number of representations were made by heads and secretaries of state and indeed the head of NATO to Gorbachev that NATO would not encroach eastwards, "not one inch" as per the often reported (at the time) promise from the USA. It was these representations that Gorbachev reported back to the Kremlin and on that basis together with the minsk agreement stipulating that Belarus and Ukraine form a united space with Russia, they consented to progress to greater cooperation.

Of course it was only a few years until former Warsaw pact countries began joining NATO.

The argument has always been whether the representations were binding. NATO says not, Russia says they are. But there's no argument that they were made. You only have to look at newspapers including USA press to know that this happened, and saying it happened is not a conspiracy theory. Saying they were binding isn't a conspiracy theory either.

@HauntedBungalow

So let's imagine we're neighbours. You like yellow colour, I like green which you dislike. I painted all internal walls in my house green. I don't suggest you paint yours green, but I did it to mine. Does this give you the right to enter my house with brutal force and kill me?

Ukraine has always been pro West and wanted to join EU. It does not matter in the world where law rules what Russia wants, Ukraine (as well as any other county) has the right to join any alliance it wants assuming members of that alliance are happy to accept it. Who in sane mind would say that Ukraine ever had any intention of attacking Russia??
Your post is exactly what all these russian bots are saying, that russia was provoked etc etc.

Following your logic - Scotland has been repeatedly talking about independence. Does this give England right to bomb it? No? I though so

The poster is stating what happened, not defending, excusing or critiquing it.

it’s so hard to have a conversation about history with the expectation that you somehow have a side to defend. History is what it is, people are just asking about accuracy

I'm just going to ignore the bullshit about yellow walls and Scotland.

Putin's precise beef in 2022 happened in the context of this decades of encroachment which NATO saw as fine because the promises it made weren't binding and Russia saw as not-fine because the promises were binding. Additionally there were several specific points of dispute and derogation by first the US and then Russia after the 1990s rapprochement - in Kosovo, wrt ballistic missiles, etc. So that's the background.

Specifically in 2022 it wasn't that Ukraine "wanted to join the EU" but Russia considered the USA had meddled with the Maidan uprising and ensuing atrocities, that NATO and individual NATO members were conducting a proxy war with Russia by providing Ukraine with weapons, logistics and on the ground training

It isn't a question of right or wrong : everyone involved has their own agenda. Wars aren't fought on the basis of good vs evil although each leader will tell you that they are because that's how they justify the massive loss of life involved in modern warfare.

The poster is stating what happened, not defending, excusing or critiquing it.

Thank you! I'm glad that someone got that. I get that we in UK are allied with Ukraine but things either happened or they didn't, and this did.

Jesus, until a couple of years ago it was a fairly pedestrian viewpoint that NATO expansion could long term lead to problems because of the assurances it gave Russia. Now we're at the stage where people are questioning whether or not the assurances happened at all.

We are not questioning what NATO did or didn't.

We are questioning the right of any country to attack another country which is doing something that the former doesn't like.

You seem to position Russia's actions like something understandable and thus acceptable. It' not.

Except that they’re not just “stating what happened” it’s absolutely not a neutral account. It’s really just echoes the pro Russian stance. Sachs DID have an illustrious career but seems to have lost his fucking mind after 2020. Various sources ( not just the long list on the Vox Ukraine letter) now refer to him as a Putin Cheerleader for his downplaying of Russia’s role, he’s an amplifier of state propaganda. He appears on Kremlin-backed platforms like Vladimir Solovyov’s show and Russia’s First Channel, where he’s often echoing Moscow’s narratives e.g blaming NATO expansion for the Ukraine conflict and ignoring the sovereignty and autonomy of Ukraine whilst omitting evidence of Russia’s imperialistic ambition and aggression. It’s not an accurate or balanced account when you discount or ignore this. it matters when you frame Russians invasion of Ukraine as a defensive one against NATO’s expansion, Russia already borders NATO countries.

Ask Tony Blair, he's quite the expert on attacking other countries for doing things he doesn't like, see Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The username bgates is a psycho is never going to be giving a balanced unbiased opinion

Absolutely this is true. Jeffrey Sachs is a hugely knowledgable, intelligent and experienced in the field of geo politics. He is also an economist. This is a small snippet of his recent speech in the European Parliament. He is definitely not a conspiracy theorist.
The Western media, just like the Russian media, will post a ridiculously one sided view, which could be termed propaganda. People need to learn t critically evaluate what they are fed rather than just swallowing it!

I can't comment on the rest of your friend's opinions though. That's a different matter.

He’s a Russian asset who amplifies Russian propaganda. I think you might be projecting about the swallowing of information 👀