Did Washington Provoke the War in Ukraine?
🎧 Podcast Episode 193 with Scott Horton
“Why would Russia do such a thing?” That’s the question most of us asked on February 24, 2022, as Russian forces invaded Ukraine. The media answered in unison: because Vladimir Putin is a power-hungry tyrant bent on rebuilding the Soviet Union. It was, as countless headlines put it, an “unprovoked attack.”
But was it truly unprovoked?
In this episode of the Bigger Than Me Podcast, I sat down with anti-war author and foreign policy expert Scott Horton, who says no. In fact, he argues, “The title of the book is Provoked because what did they say? The American War Party? What did they say about the war in Ukraine? Unprovoked attack. … They’re so insistent on this public relations terminology because they provoked it. It’s because they’re guilty.”
Horton’s latest book, Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, is a meticulously sourced 678-page investigation of U.S. foreign policy, complete with 7,900 citations. His goal is simple: to tell the truth, as he sees it, about how we got here.
NATO Expansion and the Red Line
Horton argues that NATO expansion was the original sin. Since the 1990s, the U.S. has pushed NATO eastward—despite repeated warnings that doing so would be seen as a direct threat by Russia.
“The entire American foreign policy establishment knew for 30 years … that of course we’re going to have to make a special exception for Ukraine. … A contest with Russia over Ukraine is just going to lead to a war.”
Even as American leaders denied Ukraine formal NATO membership, they ramped up military cooperation, weapon sales, and intelligence sharing—creating a situation where Ukraine had the risks of NATO affiliation without the protection.
“What it amounted to was America giving Ukraine de facto NATO membership without the Article 5 guarantee. In other words, we were making promises we couldn’t keep—and that Russia wouldn’t tolerate.”
Color Revolutions and the 2014 Coup
Beyond NATO, Horton says the U.S. has a long history of interfering in Ukraine’s internal affairs.
He points to the 2014 Maidan uprising, where the U.S. openly supported protesters seeking to oust the elected (but pro-Russian) President Viktor Yanukovych. A leaked call between U.S. officials Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt revealed the U.S. was directly involved in selecting Ukraine’s next leader.
“She’s deciding who should be the prime minister, who should be in charge of security … She says, ‘We gotta glue it, we gotta midwife it.’ They’re openly orchestrating the outcome. That’s regime change.”
The result, according to Horton, was that Russia saw Ukraine not as an independent neighbor, but as an American proxy on its border—a red line.
The Minsk Accords and the Broken Peace
One of the most overlooked parts of this story is the Minsk II agreement, a peace plan signed in 2015 to end Ukraine’s civil war in the Donbas region. Horton believes Washington and Kiev never intended to uphold it.
“They never meant to live up to Minsk II. They were just buying time to arm up Ukraine’s military to fight later.”
This isn’t speculation. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted as much in 2022, telling a German newspaper that Minsk II was meant to give Ukraine time to build strength—not reach peace.
For Russia, Horton says, this amounted to betrayal and further justification for intervention.
A War That Ukraine Can’t Win?
One of the most powerful parts of my conversation with Scott was when we discussed the ongoing bloodshed. He believes the war is unwinnable for Ukraine and that continued Western support only prolongs the suffering.
“The losing side just insists that if only we stay longer, it’s going to work at some point. But they end up losing anyway—just with more people killed and more resources wasted.”
Horton compares it to Afghanistan and Vietnam: wars that continued long after it was clear they couldn’t be won, sustained only by political ego and the fear of admitting failure.
“Russian Talking Points”?
A common criticism lobbed at Scott is that he’s repeating “Russian talking points.” I asked him how he responds to that.
His answer: receipts.
“I wrote a 1,000-page book with 7,900 citations. You think I cribbed that from some Russian website I can’t read? Give me a break. Anyone who reads the book knows it’s just the truth.”
He’s not defending Putin or excusing the invasion. He’s exposing the context—the decades of American decisions that contributed to it. He makes no bones about his position:
“I don’t care about Moscow. I barely even care about Washington, D.C. What I care about is telling the truth and preventing people from dying in stupid, unnecessary wars.”
The Bigger Picture: A Broken Foreign Policy
Scott Horton’s work goes far beyond Ukraine. He’s written books on Afghanistan (Fool’s Errand) and the broader War on Terror (Enough Already), both of which argue that U.S. foreign policy is not about defense—but empire.
He sees the same patterns over and over again: U.S. support for extremist groups abroad (like the Mujahideen or Syrian rebels), color revolutions dressed up as democracy promotion, and military interventions that cause chaos, not peace.
“America is the world empire. None of this is legitimate at all. And they lie to you from morning to night.”
If you think that sounds radical, that’s exactly why Scott’s voice is so important. In an era of media echo chambers and PR-driven narratives, we need dissenters who aren’t afraid to ask, what if we’re the ones who started it?
Final Thoughts
This conversation was humbling. Like many of you, I grew up hearing that Russia invaded Ukraine out of nowhere—that this was a good-versus-evil story. But the truth, as always, is more complicated.
Scott Horton doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but he brings decades of research and thousands of sources to the table. He challenges us to stop repeating slogans like “unprovoked” and instead ask: what came before this? Who made the decisions? What were the consequences?
If we truly care about peace—and about truth—we owe it to ourselves to ask the hard questions.
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📘 Get the book: Provoked – Scott Horton
📝 View all 7,900 citations: scotthorton.org/provoked/notes
🎙️ Listen to the full episode: Bigger Than Me Podcast
Thank you for having this talk with Scott Horton! I learned so much in all the styles of politics and war making. Another eye opening in the layers of what is some one's idea of truth. The truth does come out in time but often not in time for any peoples' or groups' benefit.
The claim that NATO provoked the invasion is more complex. I think expansion not a helpful strategy (although understandable for those countries that signed up.) But what was the real relationship between Russia and NATO; was it as Putin claimed? I wrote: While NATO's presence near Russia’s borders was a concern, Putin has more than once specified the actual grievance. Before his “special military operation” in February 2022, Putin had clarified that the problem was not NATO itself, but the creation of anti-Russia entities “in territories that were historically ours” (Al Jazeera 2022). Examining the Kremlin’s evolving stance toward NATO is also illuminating. During Boris Yeltsin’s presidency in January 1994, security assurances were critical in facilitating the Trilateral Statement among the US, Russia, and Ukraine signed by Presidents Clinton, Yeltsin, and Kravchuk. This agreement paved the way for the transfer of nuclear warheads from Ukraine. In December 1994, a Memorandum on Security Assurances reaffirmed commitments by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom to uphold Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and existing borders. It also pledged to refrain from threats or use of force against Ukraine’s territorial integrity or political independence (United Nations 1994). In 2000, Putin discussed the potential for Russia to join NATO with U.S. President Clinton, as revealed in interviews by David Frost in 2000 and Tucker Carlson in 2024. However, this idea, previously raised by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 and documented by David Hoffman in the Washington Post, was ultimately not pursued by NATO (Carlson 2024; Hoffman 2000). Contrary to the argument that NATO expansion was a primary provocation, Robert Person and Michael McFaul, in their work “What Putin Fears Most” (2022), cite numerous instances where Russian leadership demonstrated willingness to collaborate with NATO. For instance, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the Russia-NATO Founding Act in 1997, outlining a broad agenda for cooperation. Putin supported NATO's invocation of Article 5 at the UN Security Council for the 2001 intervention in Afghanistan and facilitated military assistance, including allowing U.S. military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Putin acknowledged NATO's role and expressed readiness to expand cooperation, suggesting that the enlargement of NATO would cease to be contentious with improved relations (NPR 2001). Addressing the Baltic states’ NATO accession, Putin remarked, “We cannot forbid people to make certain choices if they want to increase the security of their nations.” He also expressed absolute conviction in Ukraine’s engagement with NATO and emphasized the legitimacy of NATO and Ukraine’s mutual decisions regarding their relationship (Kuchma 2002; President of Russia 2002, 2010). At the 2010 NATO summit in Lisbon, then-President Dmitry Medvedev affirmed cooperation on missile defense and expressed optimism about future relations with NATO, with no mention of NATO expansion (Person and McFaul 2023). This array of Russian positions suggests NATO expansion has been generally anticipated by the Russian leadership, maybe not celebrated, and opportunities for collaboration with the alliance are sometimes seriously considered and are even acted upon.