You are confused about what imperialism is. Imperialism is not having border disputes. Ukraine did not exist until the USSR created it, it’s name is literally “borderland” (ukrainia, krai = border). Russia has been involved in a number of military conflicts, all of them at its borders. The US, meanwhile has had 5 times as many military conflicts as Russia has had since 1992 and those conflicts are all not on the US border. They are not border disputes, they are extractive dominance projects.

The RF has stated that the reason it took Crimea and the reason it is taking the Donbas is NATO expansion. You don’t have to believe them, but you do have to look at the history.

Ukraine and NATO had no involvement in Ukraine until late 2013. In late 2013, NATO and Ukraine held their first join military exercise. A few months later, the Yanukovich government fled the country when a group of armed right wingers invaded parliament. That’s a coup, by definition. It was at that moment that Russia chose to take Crimea - not because it was proactively engaged in a imperialist ambitions but because it was reacting to the changing conditions on its border. Crimea specifically was strategically critical for Russian defense because of Sevastapol and the Black Sea. That was pure reactive chess, not imperialism.

The SMO in the Donbas was stated to be for the same reason. NATO movements on the border had become indistinguishable from genuine military threats and Russian national security couldn’t survive that. If we look at the history, we see that from 2014 onward NATO and Ukraine greatly increased their military integration, with Ukraine cedeing more and more sovereignty over to NATO. It was a game of chicken, ultimately, and the US and Ukraine were both monitoring Russian reactions continuously because they were fully aware that what they were doing would eventually provoke Russia. They were very open about the fact that “security” did not include Russia and that any Russian security concerns could be dismissed out of hand. That’s exactly how you create security crises. And that’s what happened.

Imperialism is not when one country responds to nuclear provocations at its border by partially invading another country and holding territory that has significant historical overlap with changing borders. Imperialism is when you use your economic dominance to create vassal states and then use their economic subjugation to create political subjugation and then use that political subjugation to expand your own military at the expense of the vassal’s sovereignty and security. Ukraine is in ruins because of American imperialist ambitions.

I suggest reading “Imperialism the (current, at the time) Highest Stage of Capitalism” by Lenin, it might help give you a better idea of what Imperialism actually is, note: Russia is Capitalist right now, but not Imperialist. The only Imperialist countries in the world right now are all Capitalist ones, and they are all allied against the Global South. Any countries fighting back against this Imperialist Bloc are fighting an Anti-Imperialist fight.

The Imperialist countries in question are the usual gang, US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, ETC. basically the countries you are taught are “good countries” are actually bad countries, and the countries you are taught are “bad countries” are actually good countries (give or take, overly simplestic)

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