Russia Has A History Of Invading Other Countries During The Olympics. Will History Repeat Itself Next Month With Ukraine?

Russia, Russia, Russia. What are you sneaky Russkies up to this time? First, you mass tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands?) of troops on the Ukraine border. Well, actually, let me back up. First, you tried to squash Ukraine’s plans for closer ties to the EU and NATO by invading Ukraine in 2014 and biting off big parts of its territory. Oh, and you also shot down a Malaysian Airlines plane and killed all ~300 people onboard. Fast forward to now, and then you massed a whole bunch of troops on the border in what looks like a textbook preparation for an invasion.

And now, you’re talking with China about their upcoming Olympics.

Uh-oh.

So what’s the big deal, you Havok Journal readers might ask? I mean, it’s just two communist bros talking communist bro stuff between their two communist states. What could go wrong?

A lot, actually, because Russia historically gets all invade-y when the Olympics are distracting the world in the background. After Georgia made noise about creating closer ties with the West, Russia invaded them literally the day before opening ceremonies. Prior to that Russia invaded Afghanistan on 24 December 1979, the day before Christmas and shortly before the 1980 Olympics started in February. The next Olympics are scheduled to begin in a matter of days, and while that would be an excellent distraction for the world while Russia gets its land-grab on, the host of the upcoming games is no other than China. And China probably doesn’t want Russia to screw anything up for their big show.

Russia doesn’t want to–and can’t afford to–run afoul of China’s powerful president. This is, after all, the man who intimidated the entire world into not using the “xi” variant of COVID-19 because the letters look the same (but are pronounced differently in English) as Xi’s last name.

Everyone in the world is scared of China right now, and most of Europe is scared of Russia. It has gotten so bad that even perpetually-neutral Finland and Sweden are now making noise about joining NATO, which appears to be the only thing that will stop Russia from taking whatever it chooses, from whomever it chooses.

Russia probably won’t invade Ukraine before the start of China’s Olympics. It might not invade during it. But after? Yeah, things aren’t looking good for the Ukrainians. I guess time will have to tell if history repeats itself in yet another Russian neighbor state.

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Scott Faith is a veteran of a half-dozen combat deployments and has served in several different Special Operations units over the course of his Army career. Scott’s writing focuses largely on veterans’ issues, but he is also a big proponent of Constitutional rights and has a deep interest in politics. He often allows other veterans who request anonymity to publish their work under his byline. Scott welcomes story ideas and feedback on his articles and can be reached at havokjournal@havokmedia.com.