You can't ask for much consistency from the West, especially from the Americans. The US left the ABM treaty of the INF, supported the Kosovo independence resolution in 2008, left the JCPOA treaty on Iran's nuclear weapons, does not respect the Minsk Protocol signed in 2014, does not support any resolution to ban arms in the space, invaded Syria and Iraq without passing any UN resolution.
The US and the West simply don't even respect the world order they created after World War II. In terms of violating treaties and agreements, Russia can be interpreted as a "holy" nation compared to other nations, even more so the US and Europe.
A good summary of the Crimea issue for China:
Shifting the subject and aiming at the bilateral Russia-Ukraine issue, the West is running a publicity campaign that I haven't seen for a long time around this supposed Russian "invasion" in eastern Ukraine. It appears that Russia simply decided to attack Ukraine in January or February 2022 with over 175,000 troops.
Satellite photos showing Russian movement:
The US believes there is an increase in troops near the Ukrainian border, but no significant movement has been tracked through open sources. Assertions about Russian troop concentrations are rather vague. In any case, by the time the invasion preparations reach a certain stage, we would see large formations of troops moving close to the Ukrainian border. And we've seen this many times already (with much less media and diplomatic attention from the West). This time around, we see much quieter Russian moves that could be interpreted as preparations of some kind for action in Ukraine (but might not be) and we see enormous attention to this from the Western press and political circles. It looks weird.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, an anonymous State Department source is quoted as saying that Ukraine has been told NATO membership is unlikely in the next decade. Biden after the conversation with Putin, declared that Ukraine should respect the Minsk accords, while Zelensky affirms that the Donbass situation will not freeze, this demonstrates that the Ukrainian president wants to drag NATO into a confrontation against the Russians, but the West is not falling into the conversation of Ukrainians. The Ukrainian Army feels strong because they received the Javelins anti-tank missiles and Bayraktar drones, Ukrainian troop morale is at the top due to the delivery of these systems, even with the US Defense Secretary refusing to send more equipment to Ukraine, even with the Ukraine's defense secretary begging Austin to send equipment during a visit to the Pentagon.
The West talks a lot about the concentration of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, but it does not talk about the position of the Ukrainians. The Ukrainian Army is close to the Donbass front line, with more than 100,000 soldiers, which would be equivalent to half the national army, Zelensky simply does not have the courage to advance because he has not yet received a green card from the West and a promise of military aid if things don't go as planned, the rotation of Ukrainian troops is much higher from the front line to Donbass than Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, and even the number of Russian troops near Ukraine is not at its highest level. 2021.
Zelensky simply wants to violate the Minsk agreement by invading Donbass ending the autonomy that was given in the protocol signed in 2014, the Russians reacted to this and now there is an intense and continuous tracking of Russian troops and nobody talks about the advance of Ukrainian troops.
Finally, in recent years, I have seen many published reports of Ukrainian artillery moving near rebel-held areas. A war continues to rage with Russia, apparently continuing to provide enough support for the breakaway regions of Lughansk and Donetsk to keep them afloat.
Sources:
