Russia has never invaded a neutral country and Ukraine has never been a free actor. Therefore, Ukraine cannot be considered neutral.
This claim is misleading. It appears often in political commentary on social media or opinion pieces rather than from credible historical sources. The statement combines two separate claims: that Russia has never invaded a neutral country and that Ukraine has never acted independently, both of which oversimplify the historical record.
Ukraine became an independent country in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union and has been internationally recognized as a sovereign state since then. In 1994, Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum, agreeing to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. For many years after independence, Ukraine pursued a non-aligned foreign policy and was not part of NATO.
Reliable sources such as the Council on Foreign Relations, BBC News, and Encyclopaedia Britannica document that Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. At the time of the 2014 invasion, Ukraine was still officially non-aligned and not a NATO member, meaning it could reasonably be considered neutral in terms of military alliances.
Tracing the claim back to historical evidence shows that Ukraine has functioned as an independent state for more than three decades and has made its own political decisions, including periods where it chose neutrality. Because of this, the claim that Ukraine has never been a free actor and cannot be considered neutral is not supported by the historical record.
