No matter how hard we try to be dispassionate and logical, our thinking is affected by our own experiences, by the background knowledge we have and by the assumptions they generate. In discussing Ukraine – which arouses understandably high passions – I want to explain to you some of the experiences which affect my own thinking.
I will start with childhood, when my world view was pretty firmly set. I spent much of my young life at my grandparents’ on my mother’s side, in Norfolk. In the spare room in which I would sleep, under the bed there were cardboard boxes full of periodicals that I, as an avid ten year old reader, devoured completely. They included large sets of The War Illustrated and The Boy’s Own Paper.
The War Illustrated was a weekly magazine produced in both the first and second world war, detailing the week’s key events with stories, photos and drawings. This was the second world war collection. It was sometimes remarkably stark – I still recall the report of the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and a companion ship by Japanese aircraft, of which the magazine somehow had aerial photos.
But in the early part of the war, known as the “phony war“, when not a great deal was happening to fill the magazine, it concentrated very heavily on the heroic Finnish resistance against Stalin’s Russia in the Winter War. There were, every week, photos of heroic Finns in white hooded winter gear, against a white snowy background, and stories of how they had skied up and down Soviet armoured convoys, destroying them, and were holding back a massively superior opponent amidst lakes and woods. After reading though many weeks of the periodicals, I felt intimately acquainted with the Mannerheim line and those big brave Finns, whose individual tales of great daring I lapped (no pun intended) up.
Incidentally, after writing that paragraph I read this article in the Guardian about Ukrainian quad bike patrols in the snows and the forests, knocking out Russian tanks with drones. It really is identical in content and purpose to the Finnish ski patrol stories, only updated for modern technology.
Then suddenly, from one issue to the next, the Finns were no longer heroes but were evil Nazis, and the Mannerheim Line was now definitely as German as it sounds. What is more, if marginally more gradually, the evil Communist tyrant Stalin, who had sent army after army unsuccessfully against the Finns and been executing his own commanders, was suddenly genial, wise Stalin. As a ten year old, I found the transition very hard to fathom, and being now romantically fully committed to the Finnish cause, I rather went off the magazines.
I tried to ask my grandfather to explain it to me, but whenever we mentioned “the war”, his eyes filled with silent tears. You see, those magazines had belonged to his only son, my mother’s only brother, who was to die aged 19 in a Mosquito bomber over Italy. That is why those magazines were still under his bed and had never been thrown away. Jack’s absence hung over my childhood, and I often felt myself a very inadequate substitute. Jack had been a very talented footballer, who had signed apprentice forms for Sheffield Wednesday, then perhaps the best team in the country. He had been a very talented musician, like my grandfather. Whereas I failed to excel at, well, anything.
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I was fortunate to be loved unconditionally. But I grew up with a real sense of the terrible loss, the waste, the void of war, of young lives lost that can never be replaced. I grew up with a hatred of war and of militarism. And of distrust of the official narrative of who are the goodies and who the baddies in war, when that official narrative can turn on its head in a week, as the magazines did with the Finns.
Well, it is now over 50 years later, and those are still exactly my sentiments today. And that parable of the noble/evil Finns is still relevant today. Because much of what is happening in Ukraine still reflects the failure to resolve who was on which side during World War II, and some pretty unpleasant underlying narratives.
You can see the line of thinking by which nations which had been suppressed, or risked suppression, by the Soviet Union, or by Russia before it, might see an alliance with Nazi Germany as an opportunity. Remember that the second world war was taking place only 20 years after the dissolution of the Hapsburg and Hohenzollern Empires. Even a nation like Poland had only enjoyed 20 years of freedom in the past 150, and that with some fairly dodgy governance.
That the Finns effectively allied with the Nazis has never been fully worked through in Finnish national dialogue, even in that most introspective of nations. Sweden hid from itself the extent of its elite collusion and fundamental integration into the Nazi military industrial complex for, well, forever. Probably no country advanced its comparative economic position more out of World War II than Sweden, that epicentre of smug, condescending European liberalism.
So in this mess you can see how a figure like Bandera, fighting for Ukraine’s freedom, can become a national hero to many of his countrymen for fighting the Soviets, despite fighting alongside the Nazis. The key questions in re-evaluation today, across those nationalities which fought the Soviets at the same time as the Nazis did, ought to be these – how much coordination with the Nazis was there, and to what extent did they participate in, or mirror, Nazi atrocities, doctrines of racial purity and genocide?
This is where Bandera and the Ukrainian freedom fighters must attract unreserved condemnation. They were heavily involved in genocidal attacks on Jews, on Poles in Ukraine and on other ethnic and religious minorities. Ukraine was by no means alone. Lithuania was very similar, and to only slightly lesser extent, so were Estonia and Latvia. In none of these countries has there been a systematic attempt to address the darknesses of the nationalist past. Ukraine and Lithuania are the worst for actual glorification of genocidal anti-semite and racist figures, but the problem is widespread in Eastern Europe.
Even Poland is not immune. Poles are proud of their history, and are very touchy at the fact that the millions of Poles who died in Auschwitz and the other Nazi death camps are often overlooked in a narrative that focuses, in Polish nationalist eyes, too exclusively on the Jewish victims. But the Poles are themselves in denial about the very substantial local collaboration between Poles and Nazis specifically against Jews, often with an eye to obtaining their land in rural areas.
This is where the story gets still more difficult. The neo-Nazi nationalists of Ukraine are an extreme manifestation of a problem across the whole of Eastern Europe, where ancient atavistic social views have not been abolished. I say this as someone who loves Eastern Europe, and who has spoken both Polish and Russian fluently (or at least has managed to pass the Foreign Office exams designed to test whether I could). Viktor Orban in Hungary, the religious right government of Poland, and yes, the far right voting electorate of Austria, are all on the same continuum of dark belief as the Nazi worshipping nationalists in Ukraine and Lithuania.
Let me tell you another story from my past, from twenty five years ago. I was First Secretary in the British Embassy in Warsaw. A highly respected elderly Polish lady, from an old family in the city, was our most senior member of local staff. I had asked her to set up a lunch for me with an official from the Polish Foreign Ministry, to discuss eventual EU accession. I made a remark about the lunch being enjoyable as the lady was both very smart and very pretty. Drawing me aside, our most senior member of local staff gave me a warning: “You do realise she’s Jewish, don’t you?”.
You could have knocked me down with a feather. But in four years in Poland I was to become used to bumping into matter of fact anti-semitism, on a regular basis, from the most “respectable” people, and particularly from precisely the forces and institutions that now bolster the current Polish government; not least the Catholic church.
These are highly sensitive issues and I know from experience I will receive furious feedback from all kinds of nationalities. But what I state is my experience. I should add that from my experience of Russia, society there is at least as bad for racial prejudice, especially against Asians, for homophobia, and for neo-Nazi groups. It is a problem across Eastern Europe, which is insufficiently appreciated in Western Europe.
I know Russia too well to have a romanticised view of it. I have lived there, worked there and visited often. I have very frequently expressed my frustration that many of those in the West who understand the ruthless nature of Western leaders, lose their clear sight when looking at Russia and believe it is different in that regard. In fact Russia is even less democratic, has an even less diverse media, even worse restrictions on free expression, and an even poorer working class. The percentage of Russian GDP lost in capital flight to the benefit of oligarchs and Western financial institutions is hideous.
As the West has entered more and more extreme stages of neo-liberalism, the general trend is that the West has become more and more like modern Russia. The massive and ever burgeoning inequality of wealth has seen western oligarchs now overtake their Russian counterparts in terms of the proportion of national GDP represented by their personal fortunes. In the West, multiplying limitations on free speech and assembly, the reduction in diversity of the mainstream media landscape, internet suppression of views through corporate gateways like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, increased direct or indirect reproduction of security service initiated content in the media, these are all making the West more Russia-like. To me, it feels like Western leaders are learning from Putin’s book.
Security service fronts multiply – the Integrity Initiative, Quilliam Foundation, Bellingcat are all examples, as now is the entire Guardian newspaper. Increasingly “journalists” merely copy and paste security service press releases. This is absolutely an echo of Putin’s Russia. In this war in Ukraine, the propaganda from the BBC is as absolutely biased, selective of facts and lacking in nuance as the propaganda from Russian state TV. One is the mirror of the other. Russia pioneered kataskopocracy in this era – the West is catching up fast.
To recount another particular experience, I was very interested two years ago in the arrest for treason of a Russian space official and former journalist, Ivan Safronov. The accusations refer to his time as a journalist, before he joined the space agency, and are that he passed classified information to Czech, German and Swiss recipients. There are parallels between the Russian espionage charges against Safronov and the US espionage charges against Assange.
I am particularly interested because in 2007 I investigated in Moscow the death of Safronov’s father, also called Ivan Safronov, and also a journalist. I believe Safronov was one of a great many journalists killed by various levels of the Putin regime, of which deaths the vast majority have passed completely unnoticed in the West.
Safronov worked for Kommersant, broadly the Russian equivalent to the Financial Times or Wall street Journal. He was defence correspondent and had published a series of investigations into procurement corruption in the Ministry of Defence and the real state of the Russian armed forces (you might see where I am heading with regard to the war in Ukraine).
Kommersant’s general independence had become a great irritant to Putin, and he had arranged for his close adviser Alisher Usmanov to buy up the title on an “offer you can’t refuse” basis. The editorial team was swiftly replaced. The dogged and highly regarded Safronov was more of a problem.
This is from my 2007 report:
Two months ago, 51 year old Ivan Safronov, defence correspondent of the authoritative Kommersant newspaper in Moscow, came home from work. He had bought a few groceries on the way, apparently for the evening meal. On the street where he lived, as he passed the chemist’s shop in front of the cluster of grim Soviet era apartment blocks, he met his neighbour, Olga Petrovna. She tells me that he smiled from under his hat and nodded to her. After a mild winter, Moscow had turned cold in March and Safronov held his carrier bag of groceries in one hand while the other clutched the lapels of his coat closed against the snow. Fifty yards further on he arrived at the entrance to his block, and punched in the code – 6 and 7 together, then 2 which opened the mechanical lock of the rough, grey metal door at the entrance to the concrete hallway. He passed on into the gloomy dank corridor.
So far this is a perfectly normal Moscow scene. But then – and this is the official version of events – Ivan Safronov did something extraordinary. He walked up the communal concrete stairs with their stark iron rail, until he reached his apartment. It is, in British terms, on the second floor. Instead of going in, he carried on walking, past his own door. He continued up another flight and a half of steps, to the top landing, between the third and fourth floors. Then, placing his groceries on the floor, he opened the landing window, climbed on to the sill, and stepped out to his death, still wearing his hat and coat.
Ivan Safronov thus became about the one hundred and sixtieth – nobody can be certain of precise numbers – journalist to meet a violent end in post-communist Russia. In the West, the cases of Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinienko hit the headlines. But in Russia, there was nothing exceptional about those killings. It has long been understood that if you publish material which embarrasses or annoys those in power, you are likely to come to a very sticky end…
Safronov had a reputation as a highly professional journalist, meticulous about checking his facts. He was by no means a sensationalist, but had over the years published articles which embarrassed the Kremlin, about bullying, prostitution and suicide among Russia’s conscript armed forces, and about high level corruption which deprives the troops of adequate clothing, rations and equipment.
He had recently returned from a large trade fair in Dubai, attended by senior representatives of Russia’s armed forces and defence industries. He told colleagues at Kommersant that he had learnt something there about corruption in major arms contracts, involving exports to Syria, Iran and other destinations. He had told his editor he had come back with a ‘Big story’. But, as usual, he was carefully checking up on his facts first.
Now his story will never be published.
I walk through the dirty Moscow drizzle to a police station in the foot of the apartment block opposite Safronov’s. The officer in charge is brusque. There are no suspicious circumstances and the case is closed. Why am I wasting his time, and trying to cause trouble? He threatens to arrest me, so I beat a hasty retreat to find Safronov’s flat, past the chemist’s shop, in the footsteps of his last walk. In the muddy yard between the blocks, unkempt drunks squat for shelter at the foot of scrubby trees, drinking cheap vodka from the bottle.
I look up at the top landing window from which Safronov fell. It doesn’t look terribly high. Outside the block entrance, I stop and look down at the patch of ground on which he landed. The surface is an uneven patchwork of brick, concrete, asphalt and mud. Here a passing group of young men found Safronov, writhing on the ground, conscious but unable to speak. It took almost three hours for an ambulance to come. According to Kommersant Deputy Editor Ilya Bilyanov, although plainly alive when finally taken away, he was declared dead on arrival at hospital.
A stout old lady beating her rugs in the rain gives me the combination to go in to the apartment building. Once through the heavy metal door, I am overwhelmed by the smell of fresh paint. . Everything in the stairway – walls, ceilings, rails, doors, window frames – has been covered in lashings of thick oozing paint, as though to cover over any trace of recent events. The paint has been slapped on so thick that, even after several days, it remains tacky.
I pass the door of Safranov’s flat and continue up to the top landing. At the cost of some paint damage to my coat, I pose in the window from which he allegedly threw himself. It is certainly quite easy to open and clamber out, but it is a bad choice for a suicide. Soviet flats are low-ceilinged, and I calculate the window is a maximum height of 26 feet above the ground. I don’t know about you, but if I was to kill myself by jumping, I would choose somewhere high enough to make death instant… As I peer down from the window I realise that, jumping from here, you are almost certain to hit the porch roof jutting out below. That is only about twenty feet down. The Moscow police claim that marks in the snow on the porch roof were the firm evidence that Safranov jumped.
Two middle aged ladies pass with their shopping. I explain that I am investigating Safranov’s death; it seems an improbable suicide. ‘Very strange,’ they agree, ‘Very, very strange.’ They go on to volunteer that Safranov was a pleasant man, had a very good wife, did not drink excessively and was much looking forward to the imminent birth of a grandchild. Plainly, everything they say is questioning the official version, but they do not wish to do so openly. They conclude by shaking their heads and repeating their mantra ‘Very, very strange,’ as they scuttle on into their flats.
Ilya Bilyanov, Safronov’s boss, is more categorical. Safronov was a devoted family man, very protective of his wife and daughter and proud of his son, about to start University. Bilyanov says: ‘He could not have killed himself. He loved his family too much to abandon them.’
For full disclosure, the report was commissioned by the Mail on Sunday. I make no apologies for that, any more than I apologise for appearing on Russia Today. Telling the truth is what matters, irrespective of platform. On the same trip I investigated the killings of half a dozen other individual journalists who had crossed the authorities.
I am fairly sure that today I would not be permitted to go around doing this; walking in to a Moscow police station to ask about such a death, or interviewing passersby in the street and work colleagues, would get me arrested fairly quickly.
I wrote recently about NATO, the western military and the arms industry’s continued interest in exaggerating the strength of the Russian military, and how at the end of the Cold War the new access of British defence attachés led them to find the real capabilities of the Soviet army had been exaggerated on a massive scale. I have repeatedly stated that Russia, with the economy of Italy and Spain, is not a military superpower.
The Safronov case further reinforced my personal knowledge that the Russian military is undermined by massive corruption. I have therefore not been in the least surprised that Russia has had a much harder time subjugating Ukraine than many expected. Some commentators have particularly amused me by claiming that you cannot compare defence spending levels because Russian defence expenditure is more efficient than American. They cited all the corruption in US defence expenditure, such as the famous US$800 toilet seats; as though Russia were not itself spectacularly corrupt.
At just the time of Safronov’s death, Russia brought in as Minister of Defence Anatoly Serdiukov, who made genuine attempts at radical reform and eliminating corruption. This brought him so many enemies he had to be replaced by current defence minister Shoygu, now in power for ten years. Shoygu has adopted a policy of showcasing new weapons systems while not rocking the boat on corruption.
Do not confuse the apparently dazzling achievements at the shiny end of the vast sums of money Russia has pumped in to weapons development, with the day to day business of defence procurement and military supply. Russian hypersonic ballistic missiles may or may not perform as advertised, but more relevant to Ukraine are the creaking vehicles which have not been maintained, the inoperable tyres, the lack of rations, the old fashioned tank armour.
One of the truths about the Ukraine war which western media is suppressing is that, if Russia cannot take on Ukraine without serious embarrassment, then Russia could not possibly take on NATO. It is a ludicrous proposition, outwith full scale nuclear war. It is fascinating to watch the western militarist establishment in full cry, simultaneously crowing over Russian military inadequacies while claiming that the West needs massively to increase the money it pumps in to the military industrial complex because of the Russian threat. The self-evidently fatuous nature of this dual assertion is never pointed out by mainstream media journalists, who currently operate in full propaganda mode.
Another Russian asset has proved as unreliable as its military: Putin’s brain. On 16 December 2021 Ukraine and its US sponsor were not just diplomatically isolated, but diplomatically humiliated. At a vote at the UN General Assembly, the United States and Ukraine were the only two countries to vote against a resolution on “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo‑Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”. They lost by 130 votes to 2, on a motion sponsored by Russia.
The United States, crucially, was split from its European allies and, almost uniquely, from Israel on this vote. Everyone knew that the vote was about Nazis in Ukraine, not least because the United States and Ukraine both said so in their explanation of vote. The entire world was prepared to acknowledge that the neo-Nazis in positions of power and authority in Ukraine, including the anti-semites of the Svoboda party in ministerial office, were a real problem. There was also a general understanding that Ukraine had reneged on the Minsk agreements and that the banning of the Russian language in official, media and educational use was a serious problem.
(I pause to note the US explanation of vote stated that the US constitution prevented it from voting for a motion calling for the banning of pro-Nazi speech, because of US commitment to free speech and the first amendment. It is worth noting that free speech in Biden administration eyes protects Nazis but does not protect Julian Assange. It is also worth contrasting the protection of free speech for Nazis with the de facto banning of Russia Today in the United States.)
The EU abstained on the vote, but all of the above problems were rehearsed in ministerial discussions that reached that decision. You can add to the above that it was universally acknowledged in diplomatic circles that there was no chance of Ukraine (ditto Georgia) being admitted to NATO while Russia occupied parts of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. Given NATO’s mutual defence obligations, to admit Ukraine would be tantamount to entering armed conflict with Russia and it was simply not open to serious consideration.
How Russia might have progressed from this strong diplomatic position we shall never know. There can seldom have been a more catastrophic diplomatic move than Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It can be measured very simply. From winning the proxy vote on Ukraine at the UN General Assembly by 130 votes to 2 on 19 December, Russia plummeted to losing the vote in the same General Assembly demanding immediate Russian withdrawal from Ukraine by 141 votes to 5 on 2 March.
This diplomatic disaster has been matched by military humiliation. Russia is a far larger country than Ukraine and it is pointless to pretend that Russia did not expect the military campaign to proceed better than it has. To claim now post facto that the attack on Kiev was purely a massive diversion never intended to succeed, is a nonsense. Elsewhere achievements are shaky. Capturing cities is different to holding them, and the myth that Russian speaking populations in Eastern Ukraine were eager to join Russia has been plainly exploded by the lack of popular support in occupied areas.
Putin’s heavy handedness has alienated what potential support for Russia existed outside the Russian controlled areas of Donbass. It is hard now to recall that prior to the coup of 2014, political support in Ukraine was balanced for two decades fairly evenly between pro-Western and pro-Russian camps. Both Russia and the West interfered from 1992 to 2014 outrageously in Ukrainian internal politics, each using the full panoply of “soft power” – propaganda, sponsorship, corrupt payments, occasional proxy violence.
Matters were brought to a head in Ukraine when Yanukovich was flown to Moscow and persuaded by Putin to renounce the EU Association Agreement which Ukraine was entering, in favour of a new trade deal with Russia. This evidently was a key moment of political choice, and Putin overplayed his hand as he lost out in the crisis that ensued. That Russian defeat in 2014 may not have been terminal if Putin had not responded militarily by annexing parts of Ukraine. In doing so, he alienated the large majority of Ukrainians of all ethnicities forever – as I stated at the time.
So now Putin can stride the stage as the macho guy who outfoxed the west and used his military to win Crimea for Mother Russia. But it is an extremely hollow victory. He has gained Crimea, but lost the other 95% of the Ukraine, over which one month ago he exercised a massive political influence.
The current invasion of Ukraine has differed from previous incidents like South Ossetia, Abkhazia or even Crimea in that it has been much more extensive, and entailed an attack on the capital, rather than simply occupation of the targeted areas. If Putin had simply massively reinforced Russian forces in the areas controlled by his breakaway “republics”, there would not be anything like the international reaction which has resulted.
One particularly unsavoury aspect of all this – and here we come back to Finland/Russia and the goodies/baddies narrative – is that all the massive problems of Ukraine are now utterly whitewashed by the western political and media class. There was general acceptance previously, albeit reluctantly, that the “Nazi problem” exists. It is now almost universally reviled as a Russian fiction, even though it is undoubtedly true.
Just a year ago, even the Guardian was prepared to admit that President Zelensky is linked to $41 million in dodgy offshore cash holdings and effectively a front for corrupt oligarch Kolomoisky, who looted $5.5 billion from Privatbank. Now, thanks entirely to Putin, Zelensky is viewed universally as a combination of Churchill and St Francis of Assisi, and any criticism of him whatsoever in the West will get you online lynched.
That the United States is becoming a kataskopocracy is witnessed by the willingness of the Biden administration to rip up the First Amendment in order to prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act, because the CIA and FBI demand it. It is also witnessed by the role of the security agencies in suppressing the truth about Hunter Biden and his corrupt links to Ukraine. The Biden laptop was, as I stated at the time and is now admitted even by the New York Times, an entirely genuine inadvertent leak.
You will recall that from when his father was Vice President, Hunter Biden was paid $85,000 a month by Burisma, a Ukrainian power company which Hunter never once visited and for which he did no discernible work. When his laptop was given to the New York Post, revealing salacious sex and drugs evidence and more importantly, blatant peddling of his father’s influence, the entire “respectable” mainstream media rubbished it as a fraud and, remarkably, Twitter and Facebook both suppressed any mention of it as “fake news”. This suppression was advocated by the US security services, contacting the media and the internet gatekeepers at top level, and conducting a public campaign through activating retired agents.
This was the CNN headline:
The Biden laptop was leaked on 14 October 2020, three weeks before voting day in the Presidential election. Its suppression by the mainstream media, Twitter and Facebook, at the behest of the security services, is the biggest illegitimate interference in an election in modern western history.
That the Ukraine is the scene of so much of the corruption of Biden and son, but no criticism of the Ukraine is currently considered legitimate, has made now a very good time for the approved media to admit the banned stories were in fact true, while nobody is listening. We are also even seeing credulous articles on why Nazis are not really bad at all.
A Ukrainian oligarch was the biggest single donor to the Clinton Foundation, and the murky links between the American political establishment and Ukraine are still surfacing; it has plainly been a major honeypot for US politicians. The recent Credit Suisse leak, again sadly curated and censored by mainstream media, revealed Ukrainians as the largest European nationality involved, but the media gave us virtually no details – and those confined to two “coincidentally” pro-Russian Ukrainians out of 1,000 Ukrainian accounts. Whatever information on Ukrainian government linked oligarchs was contained in the Credit Suisse documents is suppressed by those who control them, which in the UK includes the Guardian newspaper and James O’Brien of LBC. In Ukraine the material was shared only with pro-government journalists.
I have been criticised severely on Twitter by those who believe that now, in wartime, it is wrong to say anything bad about Ukraine and we must solely concentrate on Russia’s defeat. To be clear, I hold Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to be not only stupid and vicious but also illegal, and to constitute the war crime of aggression. But we come back precisely to the angels and devils simplicity of looking for “goodies” and “baddies”. The Azov Battalion have not suddenly become less racist or brutal or Nazi-worshipping because they are fighting the Russians.
The real danger is that the heroic resistance to Putin’s invasion – and be in no doubt, it is heroic – will be a massive boost to the right in Ukraine, and the cult of “Glory to the heroes!” will be massively reinforced. The far right had more influence than Zelensky wished before this current invasion, and his ability to control them is limited. His personal standing is much enhanced. He may be a deeply fallible human being, but as a war leader he has been brilliant. He has exploited media to boost the morale of his armed forces and to rally his people, and been very effective in using international public pressure to rally practical support from foreign powers. Those are key skills for a war leader, and if “acting” is one of the skill sets needed, that makes it none the less true.
But I very much doubt the enhanced standing of Zelensky will enable him to counter the right wing nationalist wave that will sweep Ukraine, especially if resistance continues to be effective in containing Russian advances. Certainly measures that were previously decried by liberals, like the Russian language ban, now have wide support. I shall be very surprised if, once the dust has settled, we do not see much worse repression of ethnic Russians under the guise of action against “collaborators”. Far from denazifying Ukraine, Putin has boosted its Nazi problem.
Having damaged my own reputation for sagacity by my over-confidence that Putin would not be foolish enough to launch a full scale invasion, I am reluctant to venture any predictions as to outcome, but the most likely must be a frozen conflict, with Russia in control of rather more territory than before the conflict started. The Kremlin has appeared to backtrack its aims to securing the territory of its newly recognised republics, and still appears intent on seizing as much coastline as possible. Without a credible threat to Kiev, Zelensky has little motive formally to agree a ceasefire on this basis. Eventually we will reach some form of de facto stasis.
Now is a good moment to correct the myth that the population of Donbass is ethnic Russian and wishes to be united with Russia. I will make three points.
The first is that there is a difference between Russian speaking and ethnic Russian, and repeated census returns in Ukraine showed the majority in Donbass to identify as ethnic Ukrainian, though Russian speaking.
Secondly, the ethnic Russians were heavily concentrated in the urban centres and thus much more politically visible than the rural Ukrainian majority, and far quicker politically mobilised. This is precisely what happened in 2014 (and failed with tragic loss of life in Odessa).
The third is that many ethnic Russians have resisted the current invasion, and even Russian media has struggled to find evidence of mass enthusiasm in newly “liberated” areas.
In the western world, Russia has served as not only the evil empire that “justifies” massive arms expenditure, but as the evil genius behind all political developments that threaten the smooth course of neoliberalism.
This was brought to its highest pitch by Hillary Clinton’s ludicrous claims that it was Russian hacking that cost her the 2016 election. It was actually the fact that she was an appalling and arrogant candidate, whom the electorate disliked and black voters did not bother to turn out for in their usual numbers, and that she ignored the voters of rustbelt states and their concerns.
The security services were shocked by Trump’s aversion to starting new wars abroad, his maverick inclination to have his own take on relations with Russia and the Middle East, and his general lack of docility in the face of security service advice. (Much of Trump’s foreign policy was terrible, I am not attempting to say otherwise. But he was not the kind of docile, Obama-like tool the security services were used to).
The security services therefore worked against Trump his entire time in office, from boosting the Russiagate election hacking narrative, despite there being no evidence for it whatsoever, to quiet briefings giving credence to the appalling charlatan Steele’s discredited “peegate” dossier, right through to the suppression of the Biden laptop story. The Mueller inquiry failed to come up with any evidence of collusion between Russia and Wikileaks in hacking the DNC emails, because there was no such collusion.
Neither was there collusion between Wikileaks and Trump. The story the UK security services placed in their house journal the Guardian, on secret meetings between Manafort and Assange, was simply a lie. Throughout his Presidency Trump was subjected to a continual drip, drip, drip of briefings to the media from his own security services that he was, in some way, a secret Russian asset, Putin’s puppet.
The CIA commissioned from UC Global 24 hour secret taping of Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy, including in the bedroom, toilet and kitchen. This included meetings with his lawyers, but also many hours of private conversation with myself, with Kristin Hrafnsson and others. This too came up entirely empty on evidence of Russian collusion. Because there was never any such collusion.
Just as “Russiagate” was an utter nonsense, attempting to use Putin to explain the advent of Trump, so in the UK liberals comforted themselves by attempting to use Putin to explain Brexit. Like Trump, Nigel Farage and Arron Banks “must” be secret Russian agents too. The high priestess of this particular cult belief is Carole Cadwalladr. From having done good work in exposing Cambridge Analytica, which targeted political ads to Tory benefit using personal data which Facebook was greatly at fault in making available on its customers, Cadwalladr allowed the subsequent accolades to go to her head and became the security services’ tool in making ever wilder claims of Russian influence.
Cadwalladr’s task was easy because the UK’s liberal middle class simply could not come to terms with Brexit having happened. They could not understand that vast swathes of the working class were so alienated from society by the effects of unconstrained neo-liberalism, that they were led to grasp at Brexit as a possible remedy. That is not a comforting thought. Instead, Cadwalladr offered the much more digestible notion of Putin as an evil exterior cause.
With right thinking liberals on both sides of the Atlantic appalled by the advent of Trump and Brexit, there was no depth of Russophobe fantasy which figures like Cadwalladr and Steele could not plumb as an explanation and still find a willing audience, without being questioned too hard on actual evidence.
Again, I should be plain. Nations do interfere in each other’s democratic processes to try to get results favourable to themselves. It is a fundamental part of the job of spy services and of diplomats. It is what they are paid to do. I did it myself in Poland, and with quite spectacular success in Ghana in 2000 (read my book The Catholic Orangemen of Togo).
No nation interferes in other nation’s elections and political processes on the scale that the United States does, every single day. Today it is trying to get rid of Imran Khan in Pakistan as well as continuing its work against the government in Venezuela, Cuba, Syria and elsewhere. That there was marginal Russian activity I do not doubt, but not on any grand or unusual scale or with any particularly striking effect. And not involving Wikileaks.
One consequence of the invasion of Ukraine is that every mad Russophobe narrative of the past decade is now, in the public mind, vindicated. Including the remarkably unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Skripal and Navalny. It is now impossible to claim that there is any evil for which Russia is not responsible, without suffering a deluge of online hostility and ridicule. The western military industrial complex, NATO and the Western security services have all been enormously strengthened in their domestic position and control of popular opinion by Putin’s mad invasion.
There are aspects of Putin’s foreign policy which I have supported, and still do. Having inadvertently installed a pro-Iranian Shia regime in Iraq, the West sought to appease its Gulf and Israeli allies and “restore the balance” by replacing the Shia-friendly Assad regime by hardline ISIS and Al-Qaida linked jihadists. This may have been the most stupid foreign policy move in recent history, and thank goodness Putin sent troops into Syria to thwart it. On a more standard diplomatic level, Russia has played a pivotal and entirely commendable role in trying to end the isolation of Iran in nuclear agreement talks.
But I have always consistently opposed Putin’s invasions in the post-Soviet space, including the brutal destruction of Chechnya that brought Putin to power. I support Dagestani and Chechen independence, and have written consistent articles pointing out that Russia remains an Empire, with most of its territory not ethnic Russian and acquired contemporaneously with the conquests of the British Empire. I have consistently called for stronger and more effective sanctions, in response to the occupation of South Ossetia in 2008 and of Crimea in 2014. In 2008 I warned explicitly that the lack of a firm sanctions response to Putin’s aggression would lead eventually to war in Eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s actions are illegal but the US and UK, who launched an equally illegal and much more devastating invasion of Iraq, are ill-placed to be outraged. A de facto Russia annexation of South Ossetia must not be permitted, unless we eventually want a war of Eastern Ukraine.
NATO is part of the cause of the problem, not the solution. By encircling and humiliating Russia, NATO has created the climate in Russia so favourable to Putin.
That last sentence remains a key observation. It is the West’s unremitting hostility to Russia which has caused a Russian nationalist reaction and sustained Putin in power. The West’s military industrial complex needed an enemy, and had Russia developed in a more liberal direction it would have been a disaster for the militarists. So instead of working to plot a path for Russia into the European Union, it was forced to sit in the corner with a hat on saying “designated enemy”, while NATO continually expanded. That is the tragedy of the last three decades.
All of which ignores the fact that China is now the most dominant economic force in the world, and is probably the most dominant military force in the world, although Chinese wisdom in not recently deploying its military might on imperial adventures contrasts sharply with the United States. I am not sure when I last bought anything which was not made in China – including, to my amazement, our second hand Volvo. All this Russia/NATO antagonism will scarcely rate a footnote by mid-century.
I want to conclude with a plea for complex thought. I want to go back to the Finns and Russians at the start of this story, and the truth that “goodies” and “baddies” is not a helpful diagnostic tool for international relations. These things can be true at the same time:
a) The Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal: Putin is a war criminal
b) The US led invasion of Iraq was illegal: Blair and Bush are war criminals
a) Russian troops are looting, raping and shelling civilian areas
b) Ukraine has Nazis entrenched in the military and in government and commits atrocities against Russians
a) Zelensky is an excellent war leader
b) Zelensky is corrupt and an oligarch puppet
a) Russian subjugation of Chechnya was brutal and a disproportionate response to an Independence movement
b) Russian intervention in Syria saved the Middle East from an ISIS controlled jihadist state
a) Russia is extremely corrupt with a very poor human rights record
b) Western security service narratives such as “Russiagate” and “Skripals” are highly suspect, politically motivated and unevidenced.
a) NATO expansion is unnecessary, threatening to Russia and benefits nobody but the military industrial complex
b) The Russian military industrial complex is equally powerful in its own polity as is Russian nationalism
I could go on, but you get the point. I hold all those points to be true. The media and political class in the UK will trumpet a) and vehemently deny b). Many in the anti-war movement will trumpet b) and vehemently deny a). None of these people have any actual principles. They are simply choosing a side, choosing their “goodies” and “baddies”, their black hats and white hats. It is no more an ethical choice than supporting a football team.
One final thought on the tone of the coverage of the war both of the media and of supporters of the official western line on social media. Though affecting to be sickened by the atrocities of war, their tone is not of sorrow or devastation, it is triumphalist and jubilant. The amount of war porn and glorying in war is worrying. The mood of the British nation is atavistic. Russians living here are forced on a daily basis to declare antagonism to their own people and homeland.
I have had great difficulty in writing this piece – I have worked on it some three weeks, and the reason is a deep sadness which this unnecessary war has caused me. In the course of my typing any paragraph, somebody has probably been killed or seriously injured in Ukraine, of whatever background. They had a mother and others who loved them. There is no triumph in violent death.
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On post-Soviet Russia, you’re a crashing bore, except for you linking western and eastern autocracy, that’s a step forward; well done.
I can tick all the a’s and all the b’s in agreement.
I still can’t agree with Craig that taking Crimea was wrong. Illegal yes, but then it would have catastrophically weakened Russias national security. No major power would countenance losing their 24-7 naval access to the high seas. It was never going to happen on anyone’s watch.
You make little reference to what I view as a civil war in Donetsk and Luhansk. That civil war has been fought since the Maidan Coup in 2014. A conflict that has taken 14,000 lives.
One thought keeps entering my mind. If there is an agreement to be made, it could involve Donetsk, Luhansk, some of the southern seaboard and some of the territory bordering Russia being treated as ‘Occupied Territories’ Probably outlandish, but this whole mess is crazy.
The reality is that the west would probably like nothing better than a lengthy war of attrition, with Ukraine and Russia knocking seven bells out of each other. This would simply bleed Russia of resources, in a tactic that similarly hastened the downfall of the Soviet Empire. It worked with that empire, why not with the Russian Empire?
It’s a neat idea that puts no NATO/Western boots on the ground…_
You make it sound like Putin wasn’t very clever starting this war…
Well he wasn’t was he? Again, this is white hat/black hat thinking; Putin got this wrong, therefore he has always been wrong about everything.
I don’t think people necessarily think Putin was wrong, so much as that he was lying through his teeth about just about everything, including the claim that Ukraine has more of a Nazi problem than Russia does, what “denazification” even means (by most neutral observers’ reckoning, it mostly means destroying everything that’s not Russian), who attacked whom, what the people of Russia, Donbas, Crimea, Ukraine, etc. actually want with their respective countries and regions, etc. Misinformation and more misinformation, and many people on this blog are falling for it spectacularly.
Martinned
Ukraine hail someone (Stepan Bandera) that killed jews, poles, russians side by side with german nazis. Thousands of civilians were executed point blank by this man and his gang. See the red and black flag in the video below? That is Bandera/UPA flags.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIDl9zPiyIE
Nazi parties are forbidden in Russia by the way, in Ukraine the nazis are not only accepted and hailed but they are also running around with weapons given to them by the west in this war killing people.
That’s just more dualism of exactly the same type; Putin was wrong about the war and lied when he said he had no intention of invading, therefore he must have lied about everything else. No-one who isn’t hopelessly naive or terminally stupid thinks that someone like Putin gets to be leader of a country like Russia and stays there without telling an untruth or two. The argument that he is capable of lying means that he always lies is a non-sequitur of the first water.
Otherwise, on the basis that it is impossible that, from the time anyone learned to talk to now, they have never let a single untruth pass their lips, I should not believe a single thing anyone says.
The mistake, I believe, is to assume that Putin’s actions were a personal knee jerk reaction to events in Ukraine. IMO, Putin’s actions were planned over many months, if not years, and gamed and all the repercussions assessed – by a team of military and political staff.
All plans fail, to some extent, on first contact. As military planners concede.
The mistake is to assume the current situation wasn’t foreseen and that a way out does not exist. I don’t see Putin making the mistakes of Afghanistan and getting bogged down. At the end of the day he could just declare ‘job done’ and withdraw. But, I suspect the end game will be very different as the objective may be to ensure that NATO/USA and the EU understand fully what a ‘red line’ is.
“Putin’s actions were planned over many months, if not years, and gamed and all the repercussions assessed – by a team of military and political staff.”
and they still could have got it wrong. There is no doubt that, whatever the military outcome of this war, Russia has lost in every other aspect, if only because now “every mad Russophobe narrative of the past decade is now, in the public mind, vindicated.” It is quite possible that they underestimated the effect on Western countries of the effect of years, decades and, in the case of the UK, centuries of Russophobia on those countries’ inhabitants. Perhaps they knew and, like Millwall supporters, just didn’t care. Whichever way, it was a mistake.
@ Martinned, not very clever sums up my opinion nicely.
Craig is not the only serious journo on this story. Peter Hitchens from the Mail on Sunday is well worth the time. This is his piece from last Sunday…_
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10679743/PETER-HITCHENS-USA-wants-war-drive-Russia-Stone-Age.html
Is that the same Peter Hitchens who spent every day of the last month or two making excuses for the invasion on social media?
Yes. Once a Red, like his deceased brother Christopher (until he became a cheerleader for Bush-Blair invasion of Iraq).
Thanks Craig, much insight and careful judgement in this. Remember though, as the media chooses not to, the words of the old sheepdog Bernie Sanders, proselytizer for Biden and Hillary, Russiagater and loyal servant of the War Party in DC. On the floor of the US Senate on the eve of the invasion he pointed out that the two imperialists are NOT the same and that Russia has been deliberately provoked by the United States, right on its borders, in the homeland of Kruschev and Brezhnev ..
“Does anyone really believe that the United States would not have something to say if, for example, Mexico or Cuba or any country in Central or Latin America were to form a military alliance with a U.S. adversary? Do you think members of Congress would stand up and say, well, you know, Mexico is an independent country and they have the right to do anything they want. I doubt that very much.”
https://cnsnews.com/article/washington/susan-jones/sen-bernie-sanders-hypocritical-us-insist-we-do-not-accept-spheres
Thank you for this thoughtful, constructive, extensive article clearly written with a lot of painful heart and brain searching. It supports my long standing belief that helping students to accept and work with cognitive dissonance is one of the keys to the development of critical thinking, and is hard to achieve.
As for the general perspective, this is a far superior article to one I read yesterday on Labour Hub https://labourhub.org.uk/2022/04/03/the-bankruptcy-of-a-one-sided-anti-imperialism/ by two French academics. This was an attack on what the authors described as “campsism” i.e. always seeing things politically from one side or another. The “campsists” in their firing line are the radical left, who they see as blaming only USA and NATO without accounting for the imperialism of Russia, against whom they then proceed to rail “campsistically”. I think this approach is intellectually dishonest.
I have certainly experienced a degree of intellectual dysphoria throughout this situation particularly when hearing in the next room ( I do not watch it directly) BBC or ITV news presenters droning sonorously on Russia’s current evil acts while I might be looking at, say, a South Front, Patrick Lancaster or some other video that is showing the equally evil acts from the Ukrainian side.
What I find most helpful about Craig’s article is that it helps us to think about the complexities involved in a genuinely “non-campsist” way. I think the contents will occupy us for some time to come.
Thank you for this article. I’ve noticed that our ‘news coverage’ on TV seems to lack news. I can understand that there obviously are human interest aspects in war but I can reach the end of a news programme knowing no more about the facts of the Ukraine War than I knew at the start. It does rather seem that the news outlets are telling us how to feel rather than telling us facts.
Coverage elsewhere has been dumbed down so that it can be spoon-fed to us. You are the only journalist who tells the truth, as awkward and contradictory as that may be.
> It does rather seem that the news outlets are telling us how to feel
I’m heartily sick of the parade of sobbing grandmas that dominates the news bulletins. It’s not just Ukraine; the coverage of the Shropshire maternity scandal is also dominated by vox-pops. I got doorstepped once by a vox-popping journalist; the resulting coverage was so mendacious and distorted that I vowed never again to speak on the record to a journalist.
If we’ve got to have heart-on-sleeve vox-popping, I’d like to hear the views of Russian-speaking citizens of Donbas, Moscow, and Rostov-on-Don (I realise there are certain difficulties reporting from inside Russia just now!). At the moment it’s all rubble-strewn streets in Ukraine, and sobbing grandmas.
What are the withdrawing Russian units in the north doing? Where are they going? How many are left? Apparently Bellingcat and “security sources” are no longer providing a newsfeed to the MSM. Most “factual” coverage in the last week has been press releases of one kind or another.
Donbass Insider
No idea of who they are but interesting.
Try a web search for Gonzalo Lira, a wordy and often vulgar Chilean who is stuck in Kharkiv. The long established US blog, naked capitalism, reports that he is a former contributor so he is a known individual.
CGTN (https://www.cgtn.com/) , China Global News TV ? has corespondents on the ground. I think on both Ukrainian and the Donbas Republics” sides.
Forgot. Try search for
Patrick Lancaster youtube Ukraine
An American who has been living in the Donbass Republics for several years
Well, this is why I donate money to you. Unfortunately the length of this article is probably required because of the lack of knowledge about the details. This has been a problem with some of your other articles. The background information is not there and further reading is required to understand it – especially when it is counter intuitive.
I have found that John Mearsheimer’s lectures have been helpful in filling in my lack of knowledge about other roles that NATO fills in Europe, for example. I now realize that you actually underplayed the role of NATO in non-military creating, shaping, and perhaps most importantly stabilizing Europe. I now find myself fearful of a future with NATO and fearful of a future without NATO.
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Personally I think that Putin hand was forced in this operation.
Ukraina prepared to destroy LDNR/DNR resistance, just like it was done to Serbian Krajina by Croatia.
It is not possible for Putin to allow this: he will lose whole nation support.
Yes, (not like in liberal democraties) autocrats really need people support.
In reality, Pution was OK for 8 years of unstoppable bombing of Donbass – Ukraina was blocked from NATO until LDNR/DNR exists.
So something really changed.
So, it seems like preemptive strike. I do not know real targets, but it’s at least taking all borders of Donbass region under control.
I think the game changer was Zelensky talking about getting nuclear weapons on Feb. 19 at the Munich Security Conference in the presence of Kamala Harris.
It seems my previous comment may have been eaten – what I wanted to say was thanks for writing this considerate, exhaustive and well-argued piece. I find much to agree with and hope for peace to arrive with wings.
Thank you Craig . I was beginning to think I was in a class of one. Last year I came across Consortium news and found a lot to agree with on matters like Julian Assange, Palestine, the influence of the Neo-Cons and such like. Although I was surprised at the invasion, I could see it couldn’t be regarded as something they had been forced to do in the interest of security. The Israeli claims of self defence are almost more convincing. I had commented on a few articles and they had been posted after moderation. When I disputed the account that the Russians were parsimonious in their use of force, the defenders were to blame by using hospitals, schools, civilian buildings thus drawing Russian fire and that the Far Right only 2% or so in the elections and there were other reasons for intervention, I was not usually published even though I gave reasons and evidence . The couple that did get through received replies which gave a very one sided account.
Thus I found myself at odds with people who otherwise I might have agreed with.
I have an OU history degree but after retiring from teaching became a counsellor and I know about schizoid defences, denial and projection. People who have strong ideological positions, religious, political or social can easily get in a binary view of the world. It is possible true of all of us to an extent but we can try to monitor our bias. Like Kipling’s poem ‘take account of their doubting, too’.
However, it is not a comfortable position and I began to wonder. So it was good to see that you acknowledge that both views can be true to an extent.
I have shifted my view in that I looked again at the elections in Belarus. I don’t think one can doubt that Lukashenko didn’t get 80% + or – a percent, of the vote and that the people rejected his type of govt.
I acknowledge that the Americans did try to arrange the govt of Ukraine to suit themselves but there were millions of people who could think for themselves. I have an anti-vax conspiracy friend who sends me ‘proof’ of the vaccine conspiracy. A lot of of it derives from the idea that a few people ( Rothschilds, Bill Gates or the CIA) can dictate an hidden agenda to a whole nation who passively follow it. We lots of examples of states with all their resources unable to implement their agenda.
It seems to me a factor must be the preference of people in Belarus and Ukraine, especially the younger ones, for a European future rather than the conservative, authoritarian, nationalistic model of Putin and Lukashenko, is a greater threat than some future membership of NATO. The people of those two states have links with Russia and ideas can’t be kept out with tanks. Therefore, Putin and his circle decided to act thinking it would be an easy victory. A lot of foreign policy is for domestic consumption to boost the grasp of the ruling party. One thinks of Trump’s actions around Israel and Iran. He had to be talked out of an attack following his defeat.
The problem with censorship and lack of real opposition is that a leadership can get out of touch with reality.
Finally, I have come to think that we need a European defence pact with the economies of scale in procuring weapons , more independent of the USA. We do need to patch some of the deficiencies in our defences but the cost need not be anything like what Jeremy Hunt suggested, almost matching the US. It could remain an ally of the US but have more independence.
“I have come to think that we need a European defence pact”
We need so many things more urgently than that. The EU lot are infinitely more likely to attack and destroy other countries than be attacked themselves. This recent urging of the Germans to militarize frightens me.
The usual criticism of the EU countries is that they are unwilling to do enough in the defence field.
Yes, we do need other things.
Ah Fortress Europe !
Ian, What exactly ties ‘Europe’ need defending from?
BrexShitheads? Deregulation? Prolific raids by Wall St and billionaires?
Some refugees and economic migrants?
It definitely doesn’t need to pay 2% ‘fire insurance ’ to the gangster thugs of the MIC and still be under occupation by Yankees who came to fight Nazis- does it?
It needs the capacity to defend itself in various ways as you suggest. In the military field the only conventional military threat is Russia and the various national forces need to be able to combine and meet standards of efficiency and effectiveness to be able to resist. It has the resources to be able to manage its own defence without the US. It is possible to be open to the world and well defended.
Agreed except for the Russia ‘threat’ bit.
Try again why would Russia need to threaten any of the old and decrepit resource free economic basket cases on QE hopium on its western flank?
I’d have thought it more likely future visits as tourists bringing the hard currency Rouble to EUropean countries desperate for work and money for our kids in service industry careers all their lives.
A friend of mine lived in Belarus for a bit and he has friends there who passed this on to him from Novesti. ( this is the English obviously but I clicked he translate from the Russian )
It was posted at the time of the invasion but soon taken down. My assumption is that they would be following an editorial line dictated from above and this was thought to be embarrassing after the attack stalled. It might, I suppose, be an individual’s view.
The question is ‘did the Russian Government originally intend the annexation, actually believing they would be welcome?’
My assumption was they would do a swift raid, destroy military installation and retreat to the newly declared republics. Quite what their current aims are in not clear. So I hope this gives people something to muse over.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html
Excellent and very human article. I particularly agree with your (a) (b) statements: both true.
That said:
– didn’t the CIA/Nuland irredeemably push Ukraine over the edge into polarisation in 2014, and empower the Nazis?
– could Russia have simply allowed the Azov battalion to march in to Crimea and Donbass in 2014 massacring as they went?
– could Russia have abandoned Sevastopol?
– could Putin have survived any of the above in internal politics?
The Russians claim that in Jan 2022 the Ukraine had assembled an army of c. 100,000 – armed and trained by NATO – that was about to invade the ‘rebel’ Donbass
If that is true – and I don’t know that it is – what should Russia have done? They had attempted negotiation unsuccessfully.
The conflict in Ukraine was not opened by Russia on February 24, but by Ukraine a week before. The OSCE is a witness to this. In reality, Kiev’s troops attacked their own population in Donbass on the afternoon of February 17. There had been no fighting for months, but the observers of the neutral organization observed 1,400 explosions per day as of the afternoon of February 17. Immediately, the rebel provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, which still considered themselves Ukrainian but claimed autonomy within Ukraine, moved more than 100,000 civilians to protect them. Most retreated to the interior of Donbass, others fled to Russia.
https://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/reports/?filters=&solrsort=ds_date%20desc&rows=50
https://www.voltairenet.org/article216293.html
You wrote quite an essay, with too many subjects discussed. But allow me to comment on 2 of bullet points.
1. Regarding the allies attitude toward USSR and Winter War, the negativity toward USSR originated in the impotence of the “Phoney War.” Gamelin, the French C-in-C, believed that the allies could start an offensive operation no earlier than in the Spring of 1941, provided that England sends 40 divisions to France. The French public and Chamber were divided between strong calls for peace with Germany and calls “to do something”. However, “to do something” for the French centrists meant fighting somewhere but not on French soil; hence the idea to intervene on behalf of Finland and to send 15,000 troops there. It is really fun to read the debates in French Chamber on March 19-20, 1940. In just 2 months, the German might will crush their country in just 40 days, yet these morons were dreaming of bombing Moscow, not Berlin. In GB, Chamberlain’s government was more realistic and aimed at cutting the iron ore supply from Sweden to Germany, and for them this whole idea of helping Finland was just a smokescreen. Of the 2 divisions supposed to land in Norway, only one battalion will go to Finland. The rest would “guard communications and provide logistics”, heh-heh. But Daladier blew it by disclosing the plans to general public (some say he drank too much that day).
2. “… am fairly sure that today I would not be permitted to go around doing this; walking in to a Moscow police station to ask about such a death, or interviewing passersby in the street and work colleagues, would get me arrested fairly quickly.”
So why don’t you give it a try?
Chas. Freeman, the distinguished US diplomat, told students that a diplomat must be able to see things from the perspective of those on the other side he seeks to influence. Same for soldiers. There is little in this article that gives evidence of an effort to do so. Which is a shame. I hope not typical of British diplomacy or military doctrine.
A suggestion is that this was an impulsive move by a delusional Putin.
I rather think it has been planned concretely since 2014 and as a possibility since the 2007 Munich conference.
If that is so: what exactly was the spark that made the actual decisioin to start it on 24 Feb?
Additionaly as a diplomat with wide experience including in Africa, how do you evaluate the reaction of the world?
Ok – against the (illegal) war, but also overwhelmingly (90% of the world’s population) refusing to sanction Russia and insisting that the US does worse. (Only the ‘5 eyes’ anglo sphere, the EU, Japan and Soth Korea are behind the US, and I am not so sure about some of them)
We can note too that:
– overnight the US was on its knees to Venezuela and Iran, meaning that the US was also taken by surprise and hadn’t game planned it.
– Saudi are selling oil in Yuan, India buying it in Rupees
– China in particular seems to regard itself as already in a (currently economic) war with the US and have real interest in close ties with Russia (If the US does a maritime embargo, Russia is indespensible to China for energy and food)
– Pakistan and India have given the US/UK a very brusque brush off: they seem more worried that their old pals Russia and old enemies are getting cuddly with the Chinese
…defying US sanctions and the Saudis selling oil in Yuan is really something new: an eartquake. Previously the world cowered and complied to the vastly over-used US sanctions: see the article in the current LRB.
90% of the world seems to think – certainly hope – that the US financial (petro dollar) hegemony is ending. The world is watching to see if an embattled and partially isolated US is prepared to annoy the world by attempting to sanction them for *not* sanctioning Russia.
The petro dollar could collapse very, very rapidly: which I think explains the almost suicidal use of PR and media assets to shore up the war.
As you noted with your childhood story – if the myth of the saintly, brave and just Ukrainans and impossibly evil, incompetent and stupid Russian falls apart in Europe and N. America (it already isn’t believed in the rest of the world), then the whole tower of cards could collapse.
Joseph Mellon
“The US was also taken by surprise and hadn’t game-planned it.”
When you can command the whole of Europe to grovel to Nato, why would the neocons need to worry about the fallout? Neocons move fast and break things. Psychopaths do not aim to win, merely to destroy the cosy uncertainties which it is the role of government to maintain.
Ukraine is one of the fault lines where any provocative non-diplomacy would easily trigger war. Like setting off earthquakes by disturbing the stability of the earth’s crust.
I fundamentally disagree with CM on blaming Putin. How many decades of neocon warmongering do we have to experience before Europeans dare to name the aggressor?
I deeply resent Craig defending the Nazis in Ukraine as heroic. The Russians are heroic, defending Europe against US manufactured Fascism.
OK, if he wants to rehabilitate himself with his Tory contacts after being soiled by prison, he can slime out on the kitchen floor when the humans are asleep.
This whole article stinks of Atlanticism, which is precisely the quality he most despises in Nicola Sturgeon.
well said I think Craig is still at heart a establishment supporter.
I’ve learned a new word: kataskopocracy. I hope that the harmless drudges of Oxford give due credit to its originator when they update their tome next year.
It’s not a new concept of course. It’s been around for decades. I’ve just never heard or read the word before.
A prominent former CIA officer has said (I paraphrase him here) The first thing you need to understand about the Central Intelligence Agency is that it’s not an intelligence agency. USG has an entire alphabet soup of intelligence gathering agencies to do that stuff. The task of the CIA is to subvert, subborn and sometimes to destroy, any government which refuses to bend the knee to the will of the Godalmighty Empire. I (I’m now using my own words, not his) would emphasise that the democratic governments who refuse to pay obeisance are the prime targets.
Not only CIA, but SIS too. A classic example of that is the joint venture between those two agencies to overthrow the democratic government of Iran in 1953.
Take a look at the official Report which is available on the Cryptome site. Search term is Operation Ajax.
Or, closer to the facts:
“The task of the CIA is to subvert, subborn and sometimes to destroy, any government, including its own, which refuses to bend the knee to the will of the Establishment. “
Craig. I agree with most of what you’ve written, though it is far too long and covers too much ground. I’ll start by saying that my father’s family moved to the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia in the late 17th century along with the Austrian military who’d recently defeated Poland. They lived there until the end of WW2 when Ukrainian nationalists, or NAZIs, exhausted the supply of Jews to murder and turned on other groups in Galicia, especially people of Polish origin. One massacre, unfortunately, led to my own grandmother being killed and dumped in a ditch by the roadside along with another sixty men, women, and children.
Despite the length of your piece, I still think it’s superficial and doesn’t give an accurate picture of the incredible historical and political complexity of a place like Ukraine. I don’t think you fully appreciate the ‘ethnic’ questions relating to the territory of Ukraine. I don’t think you use the term ‘ethnic’ properly. I, personally, am very critical of the entire concept of… ‘ethnicity’ in Ukraine especially and for that matter elsewhere. From my perspective ‘ethnic’ identity is a rather dangerous concept that seems to have replaced or re-branded the even more suspect concept of ‘race’ in recent years. For obvious reasons, ‘race’ in a European context became a taboo subject after WW2.
If one examines the ‘ethnic’ history and profile of just the area of Galicia one finds that there are so many ‘ethnic identities’ there, often parallel and over-laping indenties that it soon becomes almost meaningless to talk about ethnic Ukrainians having a ‘distinct’ and meaniguful ethnic identity compared to other social or ‘ethnic’ groups in the same geographic area. And this is only Galicia, which was and is a kind of ‘ethnic’ quilt or tapestry.
I think you’re grossly over-simplifying the ‘ethinic question’ in Ukraine. You are far too influenced by the dogmas of Polish nationalism, to put it bluntly. Though I’m perhaps being unfair to you.
Eastern European nationalism is also a highly complex subject to get into here. It’s linked, intellectually, to the rise in the 19th century of European romanticism and the, equally dubious ideas relating to the ‘volk’ and ‘people’ as categories that almost came to embody ‘religious’ significance.
Then you also start talking about… ‘freedom’ as if this idea is also crystal clear and unproblematic. It’s as if you don’t see the difference between ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’, let alone how they function within the boundaries of the modern state and the complexities of society, policitcs and economics! This is probably becaue you embody many of the best, and worst, traits of the archetypal… ‘Liberal.’
I commented on another blog a few weeks ago that the City of Lviv typified matters. Now its part of Ukraine, but was the city of Lwow from 1919 until 1945 when it was Polish and before that the AH Galician city of Lemberg.
Eastern Europe in particular seems to be based on post-war artificial territorial boundaries.
I’ll attempt to be very concrete about events in Ukraine. I too was sceptical about Russia intervening in Ukraine, basically because I thought it was a baited trap created by Poland, the UK and the United States, and that for that reason alone, Russia would be extremely unwise to walk into it. I think, as is obvious now, that the ‘West’ wanted and wants to turn Ukraine into a new, bigger and even more bloody and destructive, version of Afghanistan, and hopes to see Russia sink into the mud there and become mortally wounded with regime change following from another military defeat. If Ukraine has to be sacrificed in the process and tens of thousands die; well, we don’t really care. It’s a price worth paying, surely, to bring Russia to its knees.
It’s a proxy war between the most reactionary and militant forces in the West and Russia. The ‘heroic’ Ukrainians are merely pawns, sacrificed with a shrug. The very idea that Western politicians ‘care’ about the fate of Ukrainians, when they don’t give a fuck about their own people; is frankly… absurd. A ghastly rhetorical flourish signifiying next to nothing. Arguably, the Russians, have closer feelings about the people living in Ukraine because for centuries they’ve been part of each other culturally, policitally, historically and economically. One can’t just superimpose Polish nationalist dogmas on Ukraine and expect to understand what’s happening theref!
The reason the West poured so many weapons into Ukraine, so much money and time training their army, was so they could be used to fight Russia at some point. The war was coming. The only question was when exactly. About the only part of the Ukrainian state that worked, was the military and even that couldn’t have existed without massive western support. Ukraine wasn’t a ‘democracy’ at all. It was a western backed military machine dragging an increasingly impoverished country behind it as cover. The only ‘value’ Ukraine had for us was because of its military, and the backbone of that military was heavily armed and ideologically militant/radical ultra-nationalists, or… Nazis.
I don’t think I’d have waited so long before ordering a military intervention in Ukraine. Putin was too soft and too senitmental by half. I certainly wouldn’t have waited until the Ukrainians went on the offensive or became a full member of NATO.
Michael K,
Excellent contribution and personal history that adds to the discourse.
I have read elsewhere a poem by a Russian advising the Europeans not to get involved in the borderlands as they would not understand the blood feuds which go back centuries to the tussles of the AustroHungarian and Russian empires 300 years ago.
That still holds true. I don’t think we need lectures from a state that is much younger than that history the hodgepodge USA.
In terms of grand strategy of Extending the US by the refugees of Europe who dream of returning to conquest their ancient homelands and dividing the central Asians to make them easier to eat up – the prey has formed an effective counter strategy of a Thousand Needles.
The war against the World and enslavement of its peoples has been raging for centuries and is finally at the end of its crass hegemony.
As other posters have said, I will at some point be reading this brilliant article again at least once. Funnily enough (not ha ha), the last thing I did on my laptop last night was type out and post a comment about the Skripal saga. I’ve been doing a lot of further research about the episode the past few days and, as such, come across things that I hadn’t come across before….. for example, an article in the Sun entitled/headlined ‘NOVICHOK TIMEBOMB Russian spy poisoned by nerve agent designed to take FOUR HOURS to kill so attackers ‘had time to flee UK’’, posted on April 8th, 2018. And late last night it occurred to me to do a search re >inconsistencies in the skripal story<, and at the top of the list of results was Craig's article entitled 'Pure: 10 points I just can't believe about the official Skripal narrative', and the second article listed (having read the '10 points' article at the time) was entitled 'The Holes in the Official Skripal Story', and so I clicked on it, read it, and then typed out and posted a comment. The website/blog in question is called SHOAH – The Palestinian Holocaust, and the only thing I noticed last night is that just prior to the article itself it says 'By SHOAH' (posted on July 13, 2018). Anyway, as I then found out, comments are moderated, and when I checked back earlier today, my comment was STILL waiting to be moderated, BUT, I then noticed that it said that the article was by Craig Murray!
Phew! Sorry about that! Anyhow, as I've said before, in this and other blogs, I have little doubt that the whole Skripal saga was staged and, as such, have pointed out numerous inconsistencies in the official narrative, AND implausibles, not least that Putin would have an assassination (attempt) carried out just TWO days before the 'celebrations' to mark 100 days to go to the World Cup Football, and just THREE months or so before the tournament kicked off, and which Russia was hosting for the very first time (not that it would have made any difference if it WASN'T the very first time). And what is happening to Russia now – which I have no doubt was all part of the plan going back to before 2014 – has just reinforced my belief that the whole Skripal episode (along with Russiagate and all the rest) was staged, and for the obvious reason – ie so as to 'transform' Putin into an evil, reckless person etc.
Anyway, I came across the following article recently, linked to in an article about Jeremy Corbyn by Peter Oborne – ie an article in The Spectator posted on March 16, 2018, and entitled 'Jeremy Corbyn is right about Russia', which is very interesting for a number of reasons:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/jeremy-corbyn-is-right-about-russia
And we have to ask: what became of Sergei and Yulia Skripal? According to the official story, both are still alive and in presumably in some sort of ‘protective’ custody.
Why hasn’t Sergei been brought out for an “I was poisoned by the evil Putin” interview? Why on earth would Yulia stay in the ‘West’: she was engaged in Russia (to an FSB man!), her family, job and social contacts were there. She was only visiting her old dad on holiday (supposedly) and only accidentaly poisoned. Not a cheap from her or her father: who previously phoned his aged mother at least once a week. We must fear that the UK state (that is ‘us’) has murdered them.
There appears to be no-one in Westminster or the MSM, that is prepared to ask the simple question of the Government/PM:
“Can you please confirm, with proof, that the Skripals are still alive ?”
As such, the only logical assumption is that they are dead ?
One interesting point was that there was a massive cyber attack on on the Salisbury police and emergency services at that time.
I haven’t seen this reported before.
This was recently in the Sunday Times so I assume it’s true.
And can I just add that isn’t it odd how – as far as I’m aware – we didn’t hear anything regarding March 4th, 2018, from the Skripals themselves via the police or whoever AFTER they both were fully recovered (not that I believe they were poisoned anyway). In the Real World, they would of course be questioned at length by the people investigating the episode once fully recovered, and especially regarding their movements and whereabouts in those ‘missing hours’. And, most importantly, did they return home after going to the cemetery on the Sunday morning, and prior to then going into the town center. And you would of course want to determine how they BOTH happened to come into contact with the Novichok on the front door handle!
I just this minute did a search to see which other MSM posted the ‘four hour’ story, and both the Mail and the Express did so, AND, so did Craig, in a piece entitled Knobs and Knockers, which I suspect had a different take on it to the Sun and the Mail and Express! None of the broadsheets or the BBC or Sky or Channel 4 News appear to have covered it though………. I wonder why not???
Couldn’t be because they knew it was a complete nonsense, and that the vast majority of their readers would think so too!
PS Designed so that the assassins would have the time to do a bit of window shopping in Salisbury, and then flee the country.
And re my 17:20 post, I think we can be absolutely certain that there was lots of CCTV footage of the Skripals whereabouts on the Sunday morning (although none of it was passed on to the MSM as far as I’m aware), and ditto the villains of the piece of course!
If you want a blow-by-blow dissection of the Skripal affair especially on the Salisbury details the Blogmire blog has an incredibly detailed set of posts. Unfortunately the blogger has since seemed to fallen down a dual rabbit hole of excessive religiosity and COVID conspiracies theories but much of his and others research on the Skripal Affair that he reports provide detailed support for Craig’s analysis.
I’m sorry to say that Mr Murray has completely gone off the rails with this article. As I commented before, his thinking is built on sand as his assumptions are so grotesquely wrong. If anyone is interested in understanding what is going on, I suggest:
http://johnhelmer.net/how-to-read-the-war-in-reverse-without-outsmarting-yourself/
Couldn’t you at least provide a couple of examples of where CM’s “assumptions are so grotesquely wrong” ? Or should we simply take your word on that, and go and read a completely different account? After all, the latter has your approval, so obviously everything there is gospel.
Seriously, a lazy dismissal of everything is not exactly the most stunning rebuttal one might produce.
LOL. When are the Russians going to understand the basic facts?
1. Ukraine will not cede territory to Russia – Russia might still think in terms that might determines sovereignty, but ultimately Ukraine won’t accept that (nations don’t just give up land because they are attacked).
2. In approximately 2.5 months Russia will no longer have the ability to wage a conventional war of any kind. (not enough tanks / troops – its army will be reduced to just enough to defend Moscow). Please see https://vk.com/operation.z2022 (after you have read about 1500, it is impossible to see this as anything but a complete tragedy for both Russia and Ukraine; they don’t even appear to be updating anymore – to suggest this was ‘planned’ is ludicrous and discredits the lives of the many Russians that have already given their lives). Another good reference is https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop (the attrition rate is as plain as daylight – this is an incredibly vicious war). As soon as the Russians get into their heads that militarily they will lose and that their only real hope is to negotiate a retreat then the sooner this bloodshed can end.
3 There are enough weopons in Ukraine that Lukashenko has no hope of holding Belarus when this is done (remember Belarus rebels are fighting with Ukraine and it is certain that some ATGMS RPGS, Stingers, drones etc will be stolen). More alarming is the prospect of Chenya III – Kadyrov fighting other Chechen rebels in Ukraine is literally insane – Putin may even consider that an existential threat. Once the Russian army is done – where are all the remaining weopons going? (there is no way that Zelenski will be able to easily control this). An insane war on every level.
Basic facts are that Ukraine have already lost, according to Ukraine themselves, as far as their military is heavily destroyed. Not to mention Ukraine still get a rejection from getting into Nato?
“Russia has destroyed most of Ukraine’s defense industry – presidential adviser”
https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/russia-has-destroyed-most-of-ukraines-defense-industry-presidential-adviser
If you think about it, how could Ukraine win over Russia that is stronger in the battlefield? Of course they could not win this war.
Yes, but they haven’t lost. They’ve stopped what the Russians thought would be a quick and easy invasion and successfully counterattacked in some areas, and forced the Russians to withdraw and change their plans in others. Even if Russia does defeat the country, it won’t defeat the people. The UK has already said it’s preparing to support partisan warfare in Ukraine and I assume other nations are too; there could be years of very brutal resistance ahead. At some point Russia would realise it wasn’t worth the blood and resources and leave.
By the way, prior to 2014 Ukraine’s biggest export market for defence equipment was…. Russia. Nearly a third of its kit came from Ukraine and they still haven’t found replacement sources for much of it.
Pears Morgaine
Russia managed to get what they want thus they have won, Ukraine have had their military destroyed to great extent, there won’t be any Nato for them = they have lost.
Of course Russia is leaving along with their goals being finalized. You know this is not an occupation: you said it yourself, it is an invasion.
Russia is not dependent on defense equipment from Ukraine – who told you that? ?f anything Russia have a huge domestic military industry.
“Russia is not dependent on defense equipment from Ukraine – who told you that? “
Probably the same person that told him that the Russians thought it would be a quick and easy war.
Overview of the Ukrainian defence industry from 2014.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2014/07/30/saving-ukraine-s-defense-industry-pub-56282
Has Russia ‘de-Nazified’ Ukraine? No. It won’t be de-militarised until its armed forces are overwhelmed and disarmed and that’s a fair way off yet. Occupation follows invasion and Russian troops won’t be able to leave until the country is pacified and stable with a compliant puppet government installed.
It was Scott Ritter and his ilk who predicted a quick and decisive victory for the Russians and it’s clearly what the Russians were expecting themselves. It was obvious from the outset though that they had lost the element of surprise and would be up against a people fighting a defensive battle for their homeland over ground of their own choosing.
Pears Morgaine
I’m not sure we are anywhere near knowing who has “won” or “lost” at the moment. But I suspect that the ability of the UAF has been severely degraded to the point that it will never achieve anything more than temporary and local superiority for some time.
There is plenty of evidence that the Russians have set themselves limited operational objectives, in line with the initial aims outlined by the rus government at the beginning of the operation. It looks like those operational objectives continue to be achieved. If the situation on the ground is anything like the one that is becoming evident then the Russians are making spectacular headway against (let’s face it) a NATO armed/trained and supported modern, dug in army that has had years to prepare. And the Russians are swapping the lives of their men for the lives of civilians. Deliberately it would seem. There is no NATO scorched earth policy here. There seems to be real recognition that if they do shock-and-awe then they will be condemned for the rest of time.
I am not sure what “winning” or “losing” will look like in this case. I suspect no one does, which is why there is so much scepticism about the Russian Exit Strategy. But they will certainly have achieved the de-militarisation of Ukraine, and probably have gone a long way towards de-nazification.
Pears Morgaine
You were wrong then, Russia was not the the biggesst export market for Ukraine.
“Of the foreign countries that support Ukraine’s export-driven defense industry, one stands out. Russia was the third-largest buyer of Ukrainian defense-related products from 2009 to 2013 after China and Pakistan.”
https://carnegieendowment.org/2014/07/30/saving-ukraine-s-defense-industry-pub-56282
As for denazification, I believe Russia would try to solve majority of that issue through talks with Ukraine even though considerable Azov fighters died in Mariupol battles.
The AKA army is surrounded in the Donbas if they put any resistance they will be destroyed.
“Occupation follows invasion and Russian troops won’t be able to leave until the country is pacified and stable with a compliant puppet government installed.”
Who’s going to stop them? In any case Ukraine already has a compliant puppet government.
Andrew,
Ha ha ha ha – is that the latest script for the 77th bots?
Even if your imaginary rabbit friend narrative has the slightest semblance of credibility – Russian military being depleted – I suggest you look at the very real treaties that they have signed with the Chinese and other SCO members about SECURITY.
Do you know what Armageddon looks like in the west? It’s empty shelves and no Chinese goods being unloaded at the ports.
The war is lost you guys just don’t even understand the weapons and battlefields it is determined on.
Well said Von Runsted!
Tom Welsh
So it would appear that CM’s Atlantacist contacts have failed to tell him somehow that this is a war of aggression as usual by the US/ Nato against Russia. Obviously not the perfect time to tell us that Nato’s perfectly manicured fingernails might have traces of blood on them, or that their chessboard wargames have as usual gone drastically wrong.
When Nato’s plan goes totally pear-shaped, who in the EU are going to send troops to Ukraine, knowing that if they do, cruise missiles will be despatched to destroy them? Old man Biden don’t know nothing , do know something, something keeps goin, horribly wroooooong.
A great read, thank you.
A great article.
Whilst I don’t agree with everything in it, I look forward to the discussions that will flow from it.
“Viktor Orban in Hungary, the religious right government of Poland, and yes, the far right voting electorate of Austria, are all on the same continuum of dark belief as the Nazi worshipping nationalists in Ukraine and Lithuania.”
Bye bye Craig
Very interesting comments regarding this post, especially from Karl and Ewan – thanks. What really puzzles me is the attitude of the EU. The EU surely can’t consider Biden an improvement on Trump. A few years ago, the EU was talking about its own defense strategy, I thought implying it didn’t want to continue with NATO and certainly didn’t trust Trump. The EU, especially Germany, has a long history of doing business with Russia way back before the break up of the USSR. As we all can see, they are very dependent on Russian gas. It underpins their economic prosperity and can’t be replaced by green energy in the near future, or US LPG gas supplies in the long future even. Nordstream 2 was a done deal pretty well. Russia has lots of resources other than gas and a lot can be gained from increasing trading ties with it not shooting them down with American led sanctions etc. Europe is a pretty powerul block in its own right and doesn’t need to be told by the Americans how to conduct its economic, foreign or military policy. Ukraine has been a running sore on the edge of Europe for years – Angela Merkel is reputed to have convinced Obama not to give weapons to Eukaine years ago. So what changed? None of this issue regarding sanctions, sending arms to Ukraine etc etc is in the interests of the EU economically, militarily or as far as I can see morally. Ukraine could easily continue to be a much worse running sore between the EU and Russia for years. It is not in the EU’s interest. Why don’t they say so? I realize the Baltic states and perhaps Bulgaria and Romania may not like strong ties to Russia but
as part of the EU – a very powerful trading block – what have they to fear really? The way the EU is behaving could destroy them, and at the very least have lasting repercussions for decades.|
Rosemary MacKenzie
Why did that light that shone so brightly , US imperialism, suddenly shine so dim?
Mr. Murray, this article is definitely your magnum opus while I have been visitng this website. Two passages especially stand out for me:
“It is fascinating to watch the western militarist establishment in full cry, simultaneously crowing over Russian military inadequacies while claiming that the West needs massively to increase the money it pumps in to the military industrial complex because of the Russian threat. The self-evidently fatuous nature of this dual assertion is never pointed out by mainstream media journalists, who currently operate in full propaganda mode.”
and:
” It is the West’s unremitting hostility to Russia which has caused a Russian nationalist reaction and sustained Putin in power. The West’s military industrial complex needed an enemy, and had Russia developed in a more liberal direction it would have been a disaster for the militarists. So instead of working to plot a path for Russia into the European Union, it was forced to sit in the corner with a hat on saying “designated enemy”, while NATO continually expanded. That is the tragedy of the last three decades.”
a fitting précis of the main thrust of the article which just might get the “either black or white” thinkers who frequent these pages to stop and think a bit more carefully or even think for themselves for a change.
The US will not tolerate the idea of any country being its equal, let alone all countries being treated as equals. All must be subordinate to it. The collapse of the EU as an independent, equal power globally is one of the USA’s main goals in this ruthlessly confected war.
An interesting and thought-provoking article which contains a disappointing and cheap smear of Orban instead of the hard work of explaining what he thinks is wrong with Orban’s politics, and why.
I think the world is divided into goodies and baddies. Goodies are democracies. Baddies are everyone else, including Russia, at the moment. And I think Hillary Clinton would have made a great President.
But baddies can repent and democratise, as happened in the Hispanophone world in the last quarter of the last century. It could happen in Russia, once Putin is out and someone like Navalny is in – a Gorbachev for the present century. It could happen in Africa, given time, thanks to the influence of the Commonwealth and its values, including not least that of the late Duke of Edinburgh. I saw his memorial service and noted his great good influence in and through his award scheme for young people. His occasional putting his foot in during public events is something I would not defend, but those unfortunate pronouncements IMHO are nothing compared to his good influence.
The trouble with dictatorship is arrogance, that the state knows what is good for the people better than the latter. The temptation and danger of this kind of thinking exists even in democracies, so that the late great Madeleine Albright’s “Fascism: a warning” which I’m now going through is a very timely warning.
If there’s one thing to feel sad about in democracies it is not past associations with Nazis, but the present way in which power corrupts – I’m thinking of Victor Orban in Hungary, or Erdoğan in Turkey.
I presume you are posting from the U.K. (or possibly the U.S.A.). You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that you live in a democracy. The trouble is, I can’t make my mind up whether your’e taking the piss and only posting to get a reaction from other posters. Surely someone in this day and age can’t be really as naïve as you seem to be?
By the way, Madeleine Albright is a good source to go to if you want to know about fascism – a worthier acolyte of the Führer would be hard to find.
Under British democracy you have two main parties that are both pro-imperialist, pro-apartheid, pro-Saudi, both bought off by rich businessmen. Two wings of the same establishment. The “opposition” is a mockery of the term. The USA is even further advanced down the antidemocratic path. The EU has a policy of permanent austerity budgets for eurozone members. The only thing Albright is known for, as you know, is expressing approval for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children.
“I think the world is divided into goodies and baddies. Goodies are democracies. Baddies are everyone else, including Russia, at the moment. And I think Hillary Clinton would have made a great President.”
As an example of how dualism always leads to erroneous thinking, this would be difficult to beat.
People can write nonsense favouring Russia, just as they can criticise Western goverments, because these are free countries.
To illustrate, here’s an updated joke:
At sunrise Putin goes up to the roof of his palace (the one Navalny made a good video of on Youtube, remember?) to greet the Sun.
‘Good Morning, Sun!’ says he.
‘Good Morning to you too, President Sir!’ replies the Sun.
At sunset Putin goes up again.
‘Good Evening, Sun!’ says he.
‘**** off, I’m in the West now!’
It’s called living in a free country.
“People can write nonsense favouring Russia, just as they can criticise Western governments, because these are free countries.”
But if you write the truth about the Scottish judicial system, you get thrown in jail for contempt of court, or if you write the truth about what the government of the USA is up to, you have to flee for your life or end up in jail, too, or both. It’s called living in a “free” country.
Since you seem fond of old jokes, here’s one for you:
If an empire is ruled by an Emperor, a dictatorship is ruled by a dictator and a kingdom is ruled by a king, who rules a free country?
My understanding was that 14000 have died in eastern Ukraine since 2014. I also believe that the majority of these deaths were in the Donbass, caused by shelling and fighting orchestrated by the Kiev regime. Putin states that he was asked for help to protect the Donbass fighters from a force of over 100,000 Ukrainians, many of whom are far right. He provided that help. Ukraine has a military of well over 400,000 and I imagine that Putin and his generals realised that it would not be a walk in the park. I listen to LBC a lot and to a man and woman presenter they are pro sanctions and some seem to want to explore increasing intervention including boots on the ground. James O’Brien will not tolerate disent it seems. They are proud patriots, The Guardian just acts as a stenographer telling us, inter alia, that the mayor of somewhere in Ukraine has seen Russia commiting hellish war crimes. No analysis, no balance. No opposing viewpoints. Sounds like propaganda. NATO member Turkey has not imposed meaningful sanctions. India has told the political pygmy Truss to take a hike on sanctions. Farting, dementia Joe Biden has threatened China with something or another. To no effect. It is an almighty mess and if the USA has been the choreographer of this I would not be surprised. I dont think this is at all complicated to follow.
There is one paragraph here that I feel represents rather comprehensively my failure to find common ground with aspects of Craig’s expressed perspective, so far as it goes, on the invasion of Ukraine.
“This diplomatic disaster has been matched by military humiliation.”
Has it? Is this something we are supposed to take as obvious? It is hardly obvious to me.
When I work, I do the best I can with the tools I have, and take pride to the extent that I demonstrate my hard-earned knowlege of how to use them. You seem to be under the impression that I ought to be ashamed if someone down the block (who may not even be in my own line of work) isn’t impressed with the state of my tool collection.
“Russia is a far larger country than Ukraine and it is pointless to pretend that Russia did not expect the military campaign to proceed better than it has.”
I simply do not follow your line. You do not seem to be marshalling any points of fact or proposing any cogent rules of inference to support your assertion that might be susceptible to a probe.
Q: “So, How is it going for Russia, militarily?”
A: “Allow me to tell you: Badly, according to one Craig Murray, and *surprisingly* so.”
Q: “Oh, I see. Is it pointless to pretend otherwise?”
A: “Oh, Yes”
“Russia has 3 times the population of Ukraine, therefore it’s obviously taking too long!” or something of that sort.
Hopefully this lemma will be fleshed out in a later version?
“To claim now post facto that the attack on Kiev was purely a massive diversion never intended to succeed, is a nonsense.”
You are presumably contradicting an assertion someone else has made, but not giving them the benefit of a name so that people might decide for themselves whether or not what this person asserts is nonsense.
Here is Scott Ritter asserting what you seem to be calling nonsense (two alternative links that lead to the same content): https://twitter.com/RealScottRitter/status/1508813631311466496
https://nitter.net/RealScottRitter/status/1508813631311466496
I find his argument more convincing than yours. Of course, since you share only your conclusion and keep the argument in support of that conclusion to yourself for some reason, there isn’t much contest.
“Elsewhere achievements are shaky. Capturing cities is different to holding them, […]”
It is *you* who define capturing cities as an “achievement”. If I’m not mistaken, you did this in your last essay touching on Ukraine as well. What makes you think Russia has that aim?
In his address on 24 February,
https://web.archive.org/web/20220318220543/http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67843
Putin lays out three objectives:
1) demilitarisation
2) denazification, bring to trial perpetrators of certain criminal acts against civilians
3) elimination of potential for existential threat to Russia developing on Ukrainian territory (No NATO)
I don’t see the capture of cities in that list.
Upon reading your last essay on the topic of Ukraine, I got the feeling that you had not actually listened to Putin’s speech. Because, if you had done so, you would not have made certain misrepresentations of what Russia was aiming to achieve in Ukraine. You seem to be continuing in that vein here. (Another logical possibility is that you have indeed listened to it, but assume –probably accurately– that the vast majority of your readers have not done so. But I do tend to discount this alternative, since to impute such bad faith to somebody I so respect –and on so many independent grounds– causes me considerable distress.)
“[…] and the myth that Russian speaking populations in Eastern Ukraine were eager to join Russia has been plainly exploded by the lack of popular support in occupied areas.”
This is simply a fog of rhetorical smoke concealing a straw man, a set of moveable goal posts, and who knows what else.
There were referenda held in Donetsk and Lugansk, under less-than-ideal conditions. (And testing propositions that might have been stated less ambiguously than they in fact were. Or so I recall reading on Wikipedia.) But whatever else is true, they were certainly more democratic than the 2014 putsch in Kiev, and they indicated a desire for independence from Kiev on the part of those polled.
Q: Why does Ambassador Murray so sloppily characterise a quantified desire for independence from putsch-controlled Kiev as an “eager[ness] to join Russia”? And why do you call it a myth, when referenda were indeed held?
A: Aren’t you being uncharitable! That isn’t what he meant. He wasn’t refering to Donetsk and Lugansk.
Q: In that case, whose wishes are being mythically distorted?
A: Eastern Ukrainians. Other Eastern Ukrainians.
Q: And, according to Murray, who exactly has asserted that these other Eastern Ukrainians were pining for union with Russia?
A: Well, they are difficult to locate. Perhaps they were blown up by the exploding myth?
Q: Shall we measure the support, or lack thereof, for …whatever proposition is supposed to lack popular support in occupied areas?
A: No. No need. It is already plain.
Scott Ritter. A month ago he was dismissing the Ukrainian army, saying it had no chance against Russia’s ‘superior forces’, talking about a swift, decisive victory that would be all over in a week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDXMRlWO79U
From about 23 minutes, if you don’t want to subject yourself to the whole thing.
Now he’s had to change his tune and Ukraine suddenly has a force so superior it’s going to need lots of complicated and time-consuming manoeuvring by the Russians to defeat. You really believe he knows what he’s talking about?
If Putin isn’t after capturing cities please explain the ongoing siege of Mariupol and how he’s going achieve his stated objectives if he doesn’t hold the centres of power and communication; ie the cities.
” 2) denazification, bring to trial perpetrators of certain criminal acts against civilians “
Would that include his own troops do you think?
“If Putin isn’t after capturing cities please explain the ongoing siege of Mariupol and how he’s going achieve his stated objectives if he doesn’t hold the centres of power and communication; ie the cities.”
From the earliest records of warfare, the siege of Troy, capturing cities has been difficult and usually the attempt to do so has gone badly. There are countless examples in history of this. The best plan with cities of little military significance has always been to simply bypass them. They are no longer even the “centres of power and communication”, simply centres of population. Mariupol is under siege because it is full of Ukranian troops and therefore is militarily significant (see aim 1) above). That doesn’t make capturing cities per se part of his core aims.
Yes Stalingrad and Berlin too but nonetheless it has to be done. Hitler’s failure to take Moscow when he had the chance was one of his biggest mistakes, and the Russians evacuating and burning the place down before Napoleon arrived proved to be decisive.
In 1812 Moscow had no strategic importance. It was not even the capital of Russia. It did not really matter if Napoleon took Moscow or, say, Vladimir or Voronezh, they were all the same with some differences in size only. However, in 1941 Moscow was a major communication hub and a major industrial center. Soviet Union had very few railroads bypassing Moscow north to south, and most were single-track. So taking Moscow in 1941 would have cut the country in 2 halves effectively.
Today 267 marines from the remnants of 503th battalion surrendered in Mariupol.
Why did Stalingrad have to be captured? The Germans went there to secure the oil fields, which were not in Stalingrad. Stalingrad is a textbook example of why it is a bad idea to get bogged down trying to capture cities.
Also, as far as Russia’s concerned, Mariupol isn’t in Ukraine, it’s in the newly-recognised republic of Donetsk, unlike Kiyv, Kharkiv or any of the other cities you think the Russians need to take.
Excellent critique. Mr Murray is indeed impressive, but I don’t get his viewpoint here. Perhaps one of his few blind spots.
“[…] and the myth that Russian speaking populations in Eastern Ukraine were eager to join Russia has been plainly exploded by the lack of popular support in occupied areas.”
I am sure that just such a myth has been propagated, although by who, I don’t know, certainly not our MSM. However, despite all the talk of Russian-backed separatists from that MSM, at least it was reported by them that Donetsk and Luhansk wished to be independent rather than be a part of Russia. In addition, the same MSM has been very slow in coming up with examples of the lack of popular support in the one area that was supposed to have shown a desire to be part of Russia, Crimea.
Of course most thinking people will agree with most of what you say – the main point being that most people divide the world into “goodies and baddies” (the former being not only always right, but also intelligent, courageous etc whereas the baddies are not only always wrong but also stupid, cowardly etc).
However, I think you are mistaken in assuming that the mass of people can be won over to a more rational attitude. Most people either cannot think coherently, or do not want to. Writing a long, careful explanation is not going to change that. I fear you have wasted a lot of your time trying.
By the way, the EU is even worse than the UK. So far at least, the British authorities (to their credit) have not completely blocked news/comment sources that conflict with NATO propaganda. When I last checked you could still reach the Russia Today website rt.com from Britain. Here in the EU, it’s blocked, by explicit order of the EU Council. Of course, rt.com contains “propaganda”, that’s obvious to everybody – but so do the BBC, Guardian, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and all the other major European media including their websites.
Over 10 years ago I visited Moscow. A Russian tourist agent in London advised going there during the annual ‘Victory over the Nazis’ celebrations; principally because the city is on its best behaviour and a strong impression of all things Russian would be in full view. On the day of the big parade I found myself having to walk further and further out of the city centre to get a decent vantage point. The wide pavements were shoulder to shoulder with onlookers, behaving very much like a happy football crowd, full of good humoured anticipation. I found myself standing next to a local Moscovite who spoke impeccable American English; the result of a university exchange back in the ’60s. We were watching the interminable lines of wheeled hardware in dark green; tanks, artillery, rocket launchers etc.. My new found guide dismissed all this as rubbish. He said,’ You just wait, it is worthwhile. You English think that you won WW2 with your Spitfires and Battle of Britain. Russia defeated Germany. We lost 27 million people. Never forget that, it explains everything’. Just then the column of hardware on the ground slackened, but far in the distance there was an increasing roar that rumbled within the ribcage. Then suddenly, just above the Prospekt at roof top height, streamed, beyond any scifi set piece imagined by Kubrick or Speilberg, a flight of massive supersonic nuclear bombers with bomb bays gaping wide. They flew as slowly as possible, crackling with monstrous power, so that the crowd had a full experience of their military totality. Whereas previously the crowd had been simply in contented muted conversation, now, as one, they let out a primeval roar of appreciation. ‘You see’ , said my new friend, ‘we Russians will not tolerate that experience again’.