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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Terrific writing Craig, exceedingly insightful based on your long experience and an excellent reminder of the complexity of this horrendous situation. Anyone who glibly parrots that you are not a journalist should be shown this piece. The account alone of your visit to the scene of the murder in a drab Russian block of flats of the kind I have visited myself, is piercing in its detail and the Kafka-esque atmosphere that prevails there and is the epitome of quality reporting. (Pay attention, Dorrian and co.)
I have no intention of offering an opinion on Ukraine because while you can clearly see what is deeply wrong and distressing, there are no easy answers. The amount of posturing and taking sides, the repeating of internet memes and desperate attempts to claim a superior pov are just grim rubbernecking. Thankyou for sklfully setting out the essential background and horrendous complexity of these events where, as usual, civilians who simply want to get on with their lives suffer the most appalling tragedies.
Hardly posturing to say that an unprovoked invasion is illegal under the UN Charter, as was the invasion of Iraq.
John Kinsella
The invasion if Iraq was preceded by 15 years of infiltrating Kurdish young men and indoctrinating them against Saddam Hussain in camps and in Iran. A joint effort by UK and US. Same in Ukraine but worse.
The military preparations for this war have been much easier because Ukraine is in Europe. Vast quantities of weaponry have been exported by the same culprits to Ukraine, thankfully now destroyed by Russia. Military planning for this war was devolved to France , according to Ukranian helicopter pilots shot down in this war.
I believe posturing is now an actual Olympic sport.
Bravo! This is the sanest document I’ve read in a long, long, time.
But I agree with DiggerUK. Maybe Craig could address his comments.
A.M., I would be equally interested in your opinion…_
About 22 years ago I lived in Russia. I was amazed at how many beggars were there (Moscow) and even more struck by who they were. Mostly Old women were begging on almost every street corner in central Moscow because their pensions had become worthless because of the insane corrupt policies of Yeltsin and the shock therapy economic policies instigated by the Wall Street / City of London advisers.
Naturally, the corruption in Russia was widespread but I also found many Western corporations taking full advantage of it to maximise their profit margins.
When Putin came to power after being anointed by the Western controlled oligarchs and their handlers in Wall Street/ City of London, he emasculated their powers and raised the pensions plus he began paying state employees their wages instead of having to wait months for it.
He is ruthless, however, he is nationalist and refuses to be another puppet, just like Johnson, Biden, Macron, Trudeau etc for the Wall Street/ City of London central bankers.
It is also noticeable in this article how certain facts are omitted. When Gorbachev agreed to the unification of Germany, he was verbally guaranteed by Genscher, Baker etc that the former Warsaw Pact would not be allowed to join NATO. This didn’t happen. In addition, NATO began installing missile systems in these former Warsaw Pact countries on the pretext they were to deter Iranian missiles.
Meanwhile, Russia was refused permission to join NATO. At the 2007 Munich Security conference, he asked the West not to return to the relationship it had with Russia (USSR), they refused.
Putin is many things but being stupid is not one of them; the writing was on the wall.
“Naturally, the corruption in Russia was widespread but I also found many Western corporations taking full advantage of it to maximise their profit margins.”
What is the word ‘but’ telling us in this sentence and is what it is telling us true?
It should read
‘Naturally, the corruption in Russia was widespread with Western corporations taking full advantage of it to maximise their profit margins.’
This would be because the corruption was instigated to give advantage to western corporations.
“ is what it is telling us true?” Having witnessed first hand the extent of corruption and the Western corporations taking advantage of it, without doubt, it is true.
For example, I knew a number of Western business men in Moscow whose methods involved bribing most of the state officials involved in their business : the local police, the utility services, the tax official, local government officials and so on. I asked had they employed these methods before ? Oh yes, came the reply, in Africa .
Who ultimately benefited from these corrupt practices? Not the ordinary people or those struggling to establish a legitimate business but the Western business and banks did very nicely out of it !
You sound as if Russia was corruption free until Wall Street came in. ROTFL ???
Not at all, just as there always has been corruption in the US, UK, Germany, Italy, France, Norway etc. The difference is when state employees are not being paid for months, peoples living standard goes into freefall because of hyper inflation due to insane Neo Liberal economic policies fostered onto the Russian Federation by Wall Street/ City of London through the Yeltsin administration then corruption will exponentially increase!
Fascinating. Thanks for that anecdote.
Attn: Craig
Getting started with your tome I encountered this:
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.
The line I see is an instilled ‘other that is bad’ with anything doing with the Soviet Union and an abject refusal to even consider what might have motivated the position taken by them.
You overlook the control 3rd Reich Germany (3RG) had on Finland’s neighbours and the vulnerability of Petersburg was exposed, the home port of their Baltic Fleet. Yes Finland inertly succumbed to 3RG but the Soviet Union assured access to the Baltic sea through a negotiated understanding that allowed that control, that ‘understanding was returned after the war (with an exception)’.
Not only had the Hapsburg and Hohenzollern empires expired, so did the Imperial Russian and the Ottoman empires and the British and French empires were financially mortally wounded, finished off by the subsequent war. Only the Japanese and nascent U.S. empires maintained relative economic health.
And as I recall a scattering of European history, maybe had Napoleon not used Polish troops in the invasion of Imperial Russia, Poland would have had a greatly different history than the one it may have earned.
It appears I am in for a long and tempestuous read. My history differs from yours in places. Thank you nonetheless.
Der Spiegel ran a story from the previous Finnish PM or so. Apparently, Putin said to him I look over to Finland and I see a Finn if you join NATO I will see an enemy.
I share your views to a large extent, it is indeed important to expose Manichaeist thinking as such. In particular, I share the view that Russia is in no way a positive counter-concept to the West, but in many ways a combination of its negative sides. I also believe that both the takeover of Crimea and, even more so, the attack on Ukraine constitute gross mistakes by the Russian leadership.
However, one point, although mentioned, comes up short for me – the fact that the West is the driving force behind the events. Or, to put it very concisely, that we are confronted with a hegemon that wants to defend this position by really all means. The Russian intervention in Syria was to save the naval base in Tartus. The takeover of Crimea was to save the naval base in Sevastopol. Both are of paramount importance for power projection in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea respectively. After the ongoing regime change attempt in Syria, the military intervention there was without alternative. After the 2014 coup in Ukraine, Putin could have intervened in Ukraine with infinitely less effort than 8 years later without having to seize Crimea. In all the time since then, the nato states have established themselves in Ukraine, i.e. on Russia’s borders. Not Russia on the US-American borders. Economically, the country has gone downhill continuously, Ukraine has been de facto bankrupt for years and is only being saved from this de jure by loans from the IMF, EU etc. The Ukrainian population voted with their feet, emigrated. Zelensky was elected with a large majority because he promised a different course from Poroshenko, which he then failed to keep, due to internal, but above all external, pressure.
It is relatively easy to diagnose mistakes, but difficult to point out alternative courses of action. What do you do against an aggressive opponent who is getting closer and closer to you? A victory in the UN General Assembly is nice, but worthless.
Zelenski is indeed a master of media representation, but shouldn’t it be said that he is doing everything to involve nato in the war? And wouldn’t that mean the outbreak of the third world war? A possibility that is apparently denied in the text.
Complicated and dissonant, without mention of resource shortages, depletion and the broader global economic meltdown.
Yet, despite that 15 years ago,
we accept the idea that somehow Mr Putin chose to go to war.
Craig’s conflicted truths suggest no one decides these things.
As an aside I think I spotted the Totnes building society lady in your office in Poland.
Chris Hedges’ Waltzing to Armageddon deserves a mention too; it was good to see him with Craig in London last week.
No room in Craig’s eurocentric view for the global repercussions available at the Indian Punchline either.
So much to do, so little time!
Thanks, Craig – true journalism (at a price), way beyond the tawdry recycling of the likes of Wintour, Sabbagh, Elgot, Harding, Chulov Cadwalladr etc…
Agree, it would be an excellent idea for our host Craig to have melded insights offered by ‘Indian Punchline’ blog written by another career diplomat diplomatic M. K. BHADRAKUMAR who writes mainly on Indian foreign policy and the affairs of the Middle East, Eurasia, Central Asia, South Asia and the Asia-Pacific. His 30+ year career was devoted to assignments on the territories of the former Soviet Union and to Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/
Amazing article which exposes more than anything else what garbage we are fed by all media in the UK. Whether right or wrong at least there is some intellectual justification and some strong relevant historical knowledge. All UK media is void of any detail of any history and is a pathetic excuse to justify a proxy war. It is quite shocking to see this absence of knowledge is easily communicated throughout the UK and we even have flag waving in schools and shops. People just buy what is broadcast rather than reading and evaluating journalists. However, in the UK, if you are a proper journalist and maybe don’t conform, it must be understood you will be tortured and jailed.
Gary – I and others I know basically refused to be affected by the UK MSM any longer and the past 5 years I have never bought a newspaper for myself, haven’t watched a single BBC news programme (nor ITV or Channel 4). I simply assume now that these are government propaganda organs and have zero value as sites of journalism. In fact they actively seek to destroy journalism.
The only way to break the MSM stranglehold is for millions of Britons to simply stop consuming it.
The danger in that response, Rhys, is that you become completely out of touch with mainstream public opinion hence incapable of seeking to alter it.
Yes, do skim through it if you can bear it BUT always assume the opposite is probably true of what is written/said. And/or, ask yourself, why are they reporting this at this moment in time? You won’t go far wrong. Reading between the lines is a useful skill.
As if independent journalists were free to work and publish safely in Russia. ROTFL ???
I don’t think I am alone in hoping for a Russian “win” (whatever that looks like) over the Evil Empire at this time. I can’t help myself. My growing anger at the amount of Ukrainians and Russian soldiers that are dying makes it worse. This entire situation was entirely preventable, and I am firmly in the “The West engineered this” camp. We need regime change – or at the very least a multi-polar world – because the current psychopaths in charge cannot be allowed to act with impunity any longer.
Simon.
If you listen to Western liberal media they are all as one in telling the Ukranians that they can win this war.
That is misleading at best and cynical at worst.
This whole thing is a US play and Ukraine is their proxy for trying to tie down the Russians in the Ukraine as they were in Afghanistan.
That way the US can get down to the more serious business of preventing China expanding their reach and economy across the parts of the non Western World.
Tie Russia down there and then they cannot join in in the defence and collaboration economically with China.
But this US play is having the opposite effect of prising Russia away from China and is forcing it further into economic and military co-operation not less.
The problem is The Western World thinks IT is the world and doesn’t realise that three quarters of the world’s population do not like the US the EU – UK etc because in various ways they have come across these nations before and were robbed.
The new thinking from Africa to South America and where the China Belt Road Initiative is in operation is that we’ve tried the west and its ways and now we are trying the Chinese ways.
The US does not like that and we should all expect more proxy wars where the US doesn’t get directly involved, but encourages other countries to fight the wars on their behalf.
Pakistan and India had better watch their backs, and that’s just for starters.
The Afghans defeated both the USSR (with arms and supplies from the US) and the US. But the Ukraine, with arms and supplies from NATO and the us cannot defeat Russia?
Ukraine borders Russia, unlike Afghanistan for US, and so like the Nato depot that was bombed by a hypersonic missile 10 miles from Polish border, killing “volunteers” from Uk etc and destroying Nato equipment, Russia will just keep missiling Nato logistics as they enter Ukraine in a future insurgency. Russians may lose their patience and bomb the shit out of Ukraine like they did in Chechnya and Georgia, notwithstanding the MSM narrative, up to now the Russians have refrained from destroying infrastructure and sparing civilian casualties, unlike US/UK/EU shock and awe methods in Libya, Syria, Afganistan, Iraq, etc
It was also missiled while airforce 1 was parked just over that border as dozy Joe munched on pizza and drooled to the Marines that they would be going over that border – again!
How many Western are blister soldiers have been destroyed so far IN Ukraine- we are not to be told. But there will be mass mourning in some of the garrison towns- but no coffins being shipped back – nothing left to shift.
“Russians have refrained from destroying infrastructure and sparing civilian casualties”?
Tell that to the (Russian speaking) people of Mariupol.
“up to now the Russians have refrained from destroying infrastructure and sparing civilian casualties”
The people of Mariopul are particularly impressed with the compassionate restraint of the Russian military.
And right now the US is taking its revenge on Afghanistan by starving the entire country. Unreported and apparently deemed acceptable by our media, who I suppose will argue denial of female rights makes starving women and children to death a proportionate response. Sanctions should be included amongst WMD.
The bad guy in this conflict is clearly Putin – the murder of a mayor and her husband being among the latest of many war crimes being reported.
Meanwhile, here’s an updated joke.
Stalin and Putin are travelling on the new train Zatvatchik, which breaks down.
‘Fix it!’ orders Stalin, but the train stands still.
‘Shoot everyone!’ orders Stalin. But still it won’t move. Then Stalin dies.
‘Close the curtains,’ orders Putin, ‘and tell to RT to broadcast that we’re moving!’
I salute the good guys – the democracies of the word, Churchillian Zelensky and the heroic soldiers of Ukraine.
слава україні!
Good to see a few posts that are not Putophiliac (sic) fan posts.
I post on an Irish politics forum. It is remarkable how many new pro Putin posters have appeared in the last month or two.
Words like troll and shill come to mind.
Amusingly, the Russian embassy in Ireland (ironically on Orwell Road in Dublin) is finding it difficult to source heating oil supplies as suppliers are refusing to deliver!
It’s rare to encounter such sophisticated, heterodox thought. No wonder you are impressed.
Heterodox? It’s the only thought permitted in Russia. Or 15 years behind bars.
Your desperation is stinking like a poisoned rat in the house.
Really do show us the eye witnesses who saw Putin come at night to murder people in the villages because he has such a blood lust and needs to kill a dozen a day with his bare hands like a demented Caesar from the Dominate phase of the Roman Empire.
We are infact that dying Empire and what will be left of us in the future centuries? Probably only the language and your comments which will show the denialism of the dying empire and its servants.
You seem to like jokes – here’s an old one for you:
Q. Why has there never been a coup d’etat in the U.S.A.?
A. Because there isn’t an American embassy in Washington.
That reminds me of the joke that the Covid epidemic in 2021 forced American Republicans to organise a coup at home instead. Organised by Russia-lover Trump naturally.
Zelensky has just given a moving speech at the UNSC about atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. I hope that those responsible will be brought to justice, even if they consider themselves immune.
Meanwhile two jokes about freedom of speech
Someone asks RT: ‘What is 2+2?’
The reply: ‘Ask Putin.’
Russian dentists have become expert at extracting teeth through the nose, since no-one can be persuaded to open their mouth.
Слава Україні! The fascists these days are on the Russian side of the border.
Trump has only ever loved one entity in his life – himself.
@Simon, “hoping for a Russian “win” ” !?!?!?!
Is that an example of the philosophy of supporting the lesser of two evils?.. or are you asking us to decide if we should vote for Franco or Pinochet?… or should I choose between a rapist or a paedophile?
Or are you asking me to decide which of the evil empires I support?
Debate here, on this issue, at this time, is run in full view of a lot of dead people.
I see dead people, do you?…_
DiggerUK calm down old chap. Did you see my reference to the bodies piling up? I suppose you “could” view me as supporting the lesser of two evils. But I don’t view the Russians/Russian government as evil, so where does that leave us? I see “our” side as evil though. Going back all the way to the East India Company and beyond. We are not the good guys at all, ever. Nothing “we” do has ever been for the betterment of the wider world, or even the local world. Ever. Sure our regimes have made concessions over the centuries, but they were grudgingly made and quickly reversed where politically possible. “We”, the west, the Anglo-saxon-ruled world, are a scourge on the planet. And the rest of the world sees us for what we are now, and are justifiably fighting back. So take your phoney equivalence and tell it to someone who cares. Because the dead keep piling up, because of “our” actions, with the support of the useful idiots that elect our governments.
Hoping for a Russian win is a simplification, even the Russians themselves won’t come out of this feeling triumphal given their losses, and that they consider Ukraine to be historically Russia and visa versa, for them, I think, this is a civil war more than a war between two different countries. So no winners or losers there.
For me I see this more as a struggle to escape the present unipolar world, in which the USA and their allies/lakeys are able to do what they want when they want. China is powerful economically but does not seem willing to go as far as countering the Western block, I don’t know if this comes from their traditions or a lack of confidence but the result is the same, they are not a counter power. Russia, however, despite being much weaker, still functions as a one as they continue the traditions of the Soviet Union in this respect. The result of this war will decide to a great extent whether we are in a multi or mono polar world.
None of which really implies that there are goodies and baddies, but maybe it will force the West to hesitate a bit next time a Libya situation comes along, it was the criminal destruction of Libya that really brought home to me how a dangerous a world dominated by one power is.
Bruce H
I agree it’s an oversimplification, which is why I put the “win” in quotation marks. I agree also that the “win” will be a multipolar world. Interesting that it took you until Libya to realise what a criminal regime the West is. For me it was Vietnam.
When the Vietnam wars took place the world wasn’t mono polar, so you have just successfully destroyed my argument 🙂
Back to the drawing board.
As refreshing as this article was, I can’t help but think your unfortunate prison time has you reporting on a more favorable Western bias. Journalists have been forgetting their duty in the West for a good reason, and it isn’t their salary but their freedom (Assange seems to be alone in this; sadly I am sure there are others that have not achieved that fame to reach my ears). I am a complete knobhead (guaranteed) so I am likely to be wrong. It could be the childhood biases you opened the article with; those are very hard to conquer and push aside, and I cant help thinking, does the UK hire diplomats that aren’t in line with their agenda? Keep up the good work of not sounding straight out of the MSM at least, refreshing. I appreciate the effort in untangling this mess. It’s no easy task for one single person.
“In the West, multiplying limitations on free speech and assembly…”
It’s happened recently in Australia:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/curbing-our-freedom-the-nsw-bill-that-should-never-have-become-law-20220402-p5aaat.html
As always, this is a lovely piece of writing Craig and a passionate outline of why war is futile
I do not for one minute doubt your experiences in Russia in the early 2000s, and that corruption and violence remains an issue in Russian society- although there are some indications that this has become less so over the intervening years, and that without a doubt, despite the corruption, the Russian armies have been substantially modernised and updated over that period.
However, I am curious why you make no mention of a number of key issues
Paul, re: “3.The role of oil and the money…” All wars such as in Ukraine today, are over resources. Given that we are already past peak-fossil extraction, and that Energy Returned On Energy Invested is rapidly decreasing to uneconomical levels for extraction activities to expand, surely anthropic CO2 emissions will decrease automatically anyway?
And thus, surely the claim humans face an “impending global climate catastrophe” will be abated by such EROEI factors?
Further, since ‘re-newables’ rely on fossils to build, maintain and grid balance, and always will (due to fossil derived process heat beyond electrification, and battery energy density will remain orders of magnitude too low to replace diesel in mining & refining) how do we avoid / manage de-growth?
https://www.postcarbon.org/our-people/nate-hagens/
The War in Ukraine is not about energy Natasha. Russia is an energy-rich country; Ukraine isn’t particularly. It’s about Putin going slightly mad – maybe more than slightly – and thinking he can re-establish the Russian Empire, as well as stand up to NATO. The War in Afghanistan wasn’t about energy either. It was about the US trying to get Bin Laden, then, after they’d eventually managed that, funnelling taxpayers’ money into large contracts for US corporations.
If the energy returned vs energy invested in fossil fuels is declining, it will only accelerate the adoption of renewables, as well as nuclear power. As I explained to you on the Alex Salmond thread, renewables don’t need fossil fuels to build and maintain. In a net zero carbon world, mining equipment can be run on biodiesel from oil-seed rape etc.
nope. Putin is not trying to reestablish the Russian empire. He’s meeting a threat from NATO and the US, using yet another proxy (Ukraine in this case).
Thanks for your reply Preztelattack. Can I ask what threat might that be? Why would the US/NATO want to invade / destabilise Russia and risk all-out nuclear war? What does Russia have that the US/NATO can’t get far more easily elsewhere?
it wants regime change in Russia. It wants to use the Ukrainians the way it did the Mujahedin to bleed Russia. The only lesson the US learned from Vietnam is that these wars can be long and costly.
Nope. Regime change is undertaken ONLY when you are certain that the nrw regime will be more aligned with your interests. There wasn’t such a situation in Russia. The West has learned to live with Putin who was a difficult yet predictable counterpart.
The West does not have anyone realistically capable to replace Putin up their sleeve, and there’s always a risk that the subsequent regime will be less cooperative.
The West did not start this war. The order to start hostilities came from the Kremlin, and the Kremlin even broadcast that moment on TV.
It’s dangerous to believe that Russia doesn’t have its own policy objectives, its own independent security services, its own politicians and diplomats working only for Russia; and instead believe that Russia is only a passive pawn in Western games.
History books tell us that Russian policymaking can be as self-centred, cruel and uncompromising as that of the US or UK.
Ukraine is a stark example of Russia’s political thought and skills.
Thanks for your reply PA. I agree with Kashmiri. The US doesn’t want regime change in Russia, not least because it could lead to civil war in a state with thousands of thermonuclear warheads dotted around its landmass. Biden might have said it, but then he’s basically senile and comes out with all sorts of non-sequiturious shit.
Kashmiri
Nope. This is possibly the last in a long series of wars initiated by the US + poodles. Yugoslavia had no pet stooge. Iraq had no pet stooge. Syria no pet stooge Libya nonetheless stooge. It’s just a classic US badly conceived , bloody , piece of political malfeasance, like all the rest. Psychos don’t die , they just change their spots.
“Why would the US/NATO want to invade / destabilise Russia and risk all-out nuclear war? “
The answer to that, of course, like the answer to all straw man arguments, is that they don’t. What they want to do is destabilise Russia without invading and without risk of nuclear war. They’ve already done it once, Yeltsin’s regime gave Russia a taste of that destabilisation and the Russians are not keen to go through that again.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. Assuming that they can avoid nuclear war, why does the West want to destabilise Russia if it means most of their companies with Russian operations have to leave and take major losses on their Russian assets?
The West didn’t cause the collapse the Soviet Union in the early 90’s; it collapsed of its own accord. I’m sure that it would have preferred a more gradual break-up and transition to a market economy under Gorbachev, if only because there would have been less chance of things going seriously tits up than under piss-head Yeltsin.
Dear Lapsed Agnostic,
The threat that Pretzel Attack refers to is (or was) multi-pronged: Zelensky had threatened to leave and ignore the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, and to find ways to reacquire nuclear weapons; the Russians had information that Ukraine was hosting biological research laboratories under US government sponsorship and influence; and as others here have remarked, Ukraine was preparing to ramp up its harassment (including violence and killings) of Russian-speaking people in the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
Thanks for your reply Jen. It typically takes over a decade to develop nuclear weapons: look at Pakistan & North Korea. Iran still hasn’t managed it. Most of the Ukrainians involved in nuclear weapons development in Soviet times will now be dead. Biological weapons are not generally very effective, particularly against protected troops. If they were, they wouldn’t have been banned. Same goes for chemical weapons.
The breakaway ‘People’s Republics’ were controlled by the separatists, so the Ukrainian government couldn’t have harassed them except by shelling. In my view, Russia would have been within its rights to stop that, if it occurred, by forcibly establishing a demilitarized zone in Ukraine up to 25km from the de facto frontlines, which would have resulted in minimal civilian casualties.
The war in Afghanistan was about restoring the Opium crop that the Taliban had got the farmers out of and into cash crops that were actually needed.
You guys are resorting to plain lies now – it makes you sound insane – it’s like trying to make us all believe that Santa Claus is actually real long after we knew that it was only daddy pretending!
Pathetic. ?
Thanks for your reply DG. And there was me thinking it was because Al-Qaeda had just flown two airliners into the twin towers and killed nearly 3000 Americans.
Seriously, if the US had wanted to restore Afghan opium production for some unfathomable reason, why didn’t they overthrow the Taliban shortly after July 2000 when the ban was first announced, so that farmers could begin planting in late 2000 and likely have a bumper crop in 2001? The truth is the US didn’t care much either way about Afghan opium in 2001, as it was getting hardly any of its illicit heroin from Afghanistan then (and it still isn’t); most of theirs came from Mexico & Colombia.
Instead of poppy, in late 2000, Afghan poppy farmers mostly planted wheat which, even though it was fetching near-record prices due to several years of drought, still led to widespread hardship in the countryside as farmers couldn’t make enough profits to pay back loans etc. Ban or no ban, in 2001, many farmers were already preparing to plant poppy again well before 9/11.
If you want a far more detailed account of what was going on vis-a-vis Afghan opium production around 2000/1, then read ‘A State Build on Sand’ by Dr David Mansfield, who’s widely acknowledged to be the leading expert in field.
At the moment, it seems that history is about to repeat itself as the Taliban also appear to have gone mad and, even though their economy is in meltdown, have just announced another ban on poppy (as well as on cannabis and crystal meth production) which, if it can be enforced, is almost guaranteed to lead to widespread unrest in the Pashtun heartlands, and quite possibly to civil war between the Southern Talibs and the Haqqanis etc.
you probably thought that because you didn’t realize Al Quaida was largely Saudi. Bush Jr. made a similar mistake in Iraq , after all they all look alike right?
Thanks again for your reply PA. I’m well aware that the 9/11 hijackers were mostly Saudi, and that the attack was orchestrated by the Balochi/Kuwaiti Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Nevertheless, bin Laden was the Al-Qaeda figurehead that the US wanted above all else.
“The War in Ukraine is not about energy Natasha”
All wars are, ultimately, about resources. Historically, it was always land and hence food. Now it’s mainly energy. If this one is not about energy, why was almost the first act by the EU the cancelling of Nordstream2?
Thanks for your reply Bayard. Not all wars are about resources. The US invaded Afghanistan because that’s where they thought Bin Laden was. If they’d have thought he was in Togo and Togo refused to hand him over to them, they would have invaded Togo.
Germany didn’t cancel Nordstream 2 until several days after the War in Ukraine started. They only did so after Russia started hitting civilian areas and pictures started emerging of Ukrainian civilians being killed or injured.
the Taliban didn’t refuse to hand him over. The Taliban requested evidence. they got an invasion.
“The US invaded Afghanistan because that’s where they thought Bin Laden was. “
They invaded Afghanistan to prevent a pipeline being built. You are confusing causes with casi belli.
“Germany didn’t cancel Nordstream 2 until several days after the War in Ukraine started.”
It’s not as if the US hadn’t been trying to get them to do it for years before that. Do you think they have clairvoyants in Washington? Perhaps they do since they seemed to think they knew when the invasion was going to happen to the very day, only they got it wrong.
Thanks again for your reply PA. The Taliban initially only offered to allow OBL to be put on trial by an Islamic court if the US supplied evidence of his involvement in 9/11. A few days after the US invasion of Afghanistan started, they said he could be put on trial in a third-party country if the US would call off the invasion. The US rejected both of these offers.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. The US company Unacol expressed some interest in *building* a pipeline through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea, until the Taliban blocked it due to the US imposing sanctions on them for not handing over OBL in connection with the attacks on the USS Cole and the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The most likely reason the US knew that Russia was going to invade is because they have moles high up in the Kremlin, though not high up enough to be able to tell them the exact date.
“the US company Unacol expressed some interest in *building* a pipeline through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea, until the Taliban blocked it”
Ah, sorry, I got that wrong, the US invaded Afghanistan to allow a pipeline to be built. Why invade a country when you can just send in a snatch squad to do some extra-judicial killing, as eventually happened?
“The most likely reason the US knew that Russia was going to invade is because they have moles high up in the Kremlin, though not high up enough to be able to tell them the exact date.”
If the US really had a mole high up in the Kremlin, the last thing they would do is broadcast information that suggested they had such a mole.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. The thing is the Unacol pipeline never got built, even when Afghanistan was relatively peaceful from 2002-06. In October 2001, the US knew that OBL was probably in the Tora Bora mountains of Nangarhar province but they didn’t know exactly where, and even if they did, he’d have most likely been surrounded by heavily armed fighters, rather than a couple of bodyguards like in the compound in Abbottabad.
There were probably hundreds of people in Russia that knew a full-scale invasion of Ukraine was going to take place a few weeks before it did. So which one is the mole? If not, are they just better at guessing / mind-reading than I am?
LA, are you seriously suggesting that the US invaded another country, simply to kill one person? I know the Yanks are trigger-happy, but that’s pushing it, even for them.
Thanks again for your reply, Bayard. Not just OBL but also the al-Qaeda fighters located within Afghanistan. I perhaps should have been clearer. It was certainly nothing to do with opium or natural resources.
This means that Putin was slightly mad when he made his Munich speech in 2007 and that all those US Government commentators were also mad.
Could be.
Thanks for your reply, jrkrideau. There’s a bit of difference between saying something in a speech 15 years ago and instigating an invasion of a sovereign country which leads to thousands of violent deaths – including perhaps your own. No countries which share borders with Russia have joined NATO since 2004.
We are certainly ruled by barbarians lacking the sophistication, sincerity and determination to, for instance, undermine the criminals who planned, supported and prepared the annihilation (Shock & Awe) of Iraq that murdered, maimed and traumatized so many Iraqi children in that 19th March 2003 massacre of a sovereign state.
A conation in a number of ways, the thought that the Ukraine war is a sore, resentful coward’s proxy war by UK and her owner against Russia holds water. Ultimately the intention from the Northwood Galeotti crew is to bog down and then push an economically execrated and shunned Russia into the arms of China for survival. A weird, albeit well-thought-out blueprint by human military instigators who learn and think differently to most; for instance thinking a broken Russia in the arms of China subjugates her position on the world stage and sabotages Putin’s nationalism triggering his demise.
Evidently few have been burned, saddened or enlightened by Craig’s subliminal message in a his post here which I must highlight again to show those war-mongers, plutocraps and deranged control fanatics their scheme will falter.:
‘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.’
This is true on both sides. See for example Rob Lee’s excellent thread.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1511080696424636420?cxt=HHwWiIC5leX4t_gpAAAA
It is probably true in all wars – it takes time for the initial euphoria to wear off. In both Vietnam and more recently Afghanistan it took some time before the impossibility of doing anything except leaving eventually sunk in. The Vietnam experience was particularly haunting for America – many came back with irreconcilable feelings of betrayal and guilt that lasted a generation. I suspect the same awaits much of Russia.
Putin’s time will eventually come to an end. The young (< 25 years) don't connect with him and don't like him. Ultimately he will need to plan for succession – the current hollowed-out state without opposition is a real problem for Russia. Young smart Russians who want LGBT and want a voice often see emigration as the best way out. The brain exodus arguably inflicts more damage to the Russian economy than western sanctions (which are mostly a long overdue shock correction to globalism – one might observe the sanctions also hit China in that investors become risk aware – the feeling is the S & P 500 will rise this year despite business's chucking billions out of the window – mostly driven by money returning to safe markets and the end of globalization).
New business opportunity is to be found in Uzbekistan and Armenia. There was a lovely story about credit card tourism.
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-credit-card-tourism-sanctions-uzbekistan/31780174.html
Just as London's centralized power base, holds back regional centers – Moscow normally does the same; but the sanctions create new business opportunity in the satellites – for many hardly a bad thing. Moscow's rich will find ways to get the things they want – but it involves spreading the wealth out.
what euphoria? those wars were never going to accomplish anything else. any “euphoria” is being drummed up by the media, using faked atrocities.
Faked atrocities? Why doesn’t Lavros&co. state that raping and looting are unacceptable and that Russia will do its part to help investigate and bring to justice anyone involved in war crimes? An international team will be looking at the evidence – it would be beneficial for someone from the Russian side to be a part of that team – if nothing else to bear witness for the future. The Russian response to simply dismiss as fake news is actually quite sickening.
It would also be helpful if Belarus/Russia would review the videos of soldiers sending stuff home from Belarus and look into the tracking numbers of packages etc (all of which is recorded). Obviously looting is not as serious as some of the other stuff – but the fact that no visible attempt is even being made to investigate and put a stop to what appears to be happening is appalling.
like the one in Bucha. using the same script as in Syria. always cooking up lies to push war. Remember the Maine?
“Why doesn’t Lavros&co. state that raping and looting are unacceptable and that Russia will do its part to help investigate and bring to justice anyone involved in war crimes? An international team will be looking at the evidence”
If they did, how would you know about it and if you did know about it, would you believe it?
When you find yourself talking to someone who obviously doesn’t believe a word you say because it’s you saying it, the wisest course is to stop speaking.
Yes indeed Marc , yesterday’s newspapers suddenly all happily posting photographs of a dead body in a far away place on the front pages is the shock that is having to be administered to the British psyche to push the emotional reaction, in a fading interest in that far way place that has NOTHING to do with all our day to day lives here.
The cancelling of Russian/ Russians/Music/Writer’s and CATS is the desperation to build an enduring hatred of the other as the petty Caesars draw us behind a curtain to keep as their servile slaves for the next few generations. Making us poor enough to maybe even be ready to mass enroll for another bite in their never ending story of the Great Game.
They are clearly deluded as the troll stories being tried out here today.
This is very good. i don’t agree with you on all points, as I have my biases as well, but this is quite a nuanced take on a complicated, multilayered real world depressingly abysmal situation. I have been similarly depressed and frustrated since it started.
I just want to thank you for the effort, as I know it was difficult for you.
Just one point. In drawing parallels of similarities in persecution of journalists, you neglected to mention your recent experience of Scottish justice. I think it would have been appropriate.
I am not sure you can say Blair and Bush are war criminals, since they seem to travel the world without fear and there are no indictments against them. Perhaps it is better to say they ought to be considered war criminals – however since, like Putin, they only ever launched special military operations and while aggressive war might illegal, there seems to be a loophole whereby special military operations are not.
This is an interesting claim: “I support Dagestani and Chechen independence”, the question should then be why not Donbass independence? As far as I can tell – surprising as it may seem – Russia seems to have successfully reconciled the overwhelming majority of Chechens and Daghestani back within a Russian multiethnic state. Witness the large number of Chechens volunteering to fight in Ukraine. It would be more exact to say that Dagestanis and Chechens have a right to self-determination, which like all rights to self-determination doesn’t extend to unilateral secession.
After the Ukrainian neo-nazi militias announced they were going to clear Bucha near Kiev of saboteurs and collaborationists and the appearance of a large number of dead Ukrainians wearing white armbands (“to clear” may be euphemism, but I am fairly sure it is not a euphemism for “take them to a nice coastal resort and feed them canapes and strawberry daiquiris”), it is going to be very difficult for Russia to unilaterally withdraw from any occupied territory now. They may never have intended to withdraw from Kherson, but now it can surely only happen if transferred to an international body of peacekeepers.
This is an interesting tweet/clip
https://twitter.com/spriter99880/status/1511116916697571335?cxt=HHwWjoC9nYu1yPgpAAAA
The “inspirational” Zelensky seems to be working on two levels. I don’t believe the civilians of Bucha were so unaware as to continue wearing white armbands after the Russians departed. The white armbands presumably have been deliberately attached to the victims to signify their collaborationist status.
Zelensky talks with a forked tongue – on one side he declares to an international audience this is a Russian war crime, on the other he signals to the occupied territories the fate that awaits them when the Russians leave.
Inspirational, indeed.
This twitter thread is also popular with the pro-Russian twitter community
https://twitter.com/antiwar_soldier/status/1511086358110027791?cxt=HHwWnoCygazCuvgpAAAA
Short and long is that many of the dead can be dated to March 11 and March 20 and he/she believes probably related to Ukrainian shelling as they attempted to retake Bucha. The white armbands is because residents were trying to signal they weren’t hostile to the Russian army. Presumably someone removed the white armbands and tied them around wrists to frame the scene more to their liking.
Journalists like to write stories about targeted drone strikes, but in reality the bulk of the destruction on both sides is from old-fashioned artillery. So if you see an a street full of destroyed Russian armor, then it is bog-standard shelling that caused it. And shelling that disables tanks in urban areas also kills civilians.
If there was a battle going on, why would civilians come out of their houses and mill around tanks that are being shelled by artillery? And why, if those civilians were killed by Ukrainian artillery, would they have bullet holes in the backs of their heads, have their kneecaps shot out, have their fingers broken, etc etc?
Hi Neil,
Like you I haven’t seen any independent autopsy reports. Most likely the civilians had come to collect rations from a Russian military truck, a drone spotted a lot people surrounding a military truck and the operator assumed they were soldiers out in the open and proceeded to direct artillery fire at them.
After that all that was required was for some bright spark to remove the white armbands from their arms and tie them around their wrists.
And when the autopsy reports come out, they’ll be fake. And when independent investigators conclude these were Russian war crimes, they’ll be hoodwinked. And when locals speak about the horrible things they witnessed, they’re liars. Etc etc.
Neil, I think you might be suffering from a deep gnawing fear I might be correct.
Sean, I’m afraid of lots of things. Do you have something specific in mind?
Neil, the point is that you, I or anyone else in the West aren’t going to see those autopsy reports, hear those independent investigators or listen to those locals because we won’t be in Ukraine and we only get to see what it is decided that we are allowed to see. Both sides are always going to claim a monopoly on truth which makes it obvious that both are lying, leaving us none the wiser. Before the war, the independent investigators published a lot of information that was most likely true and no-one took the slightest bit of notice except people like Craig and, apart from people who follow this blog, he was ignored, too.
No sean_lamb the Iraq war was certainly not a ‘special military operation’ it was a blitzkrieg that incinerated some 374 toddlers and teens while eating their early morning breakfast. Those that survived the Baghdad attacks and as inquisitive children their curiosity attracted them to the gleaming cluster bombs dangling from low branches near their homes which when pulled tore limbs from bodies.
I called Blair a war criminal when he visited my son’s school at Walton High and he just gave a rather weird smirk.
“I called Blair a war criminal when he visited my son’s school at Walton High and he just gave a rather weird smirk.”
Wasn’t that his normal expression?
“This is an interesting tweet/clip
https://twitter.com/spriter99880/status/1511116916697571335?cxt=HHwWjoC9nYu1yPgpAAAA”
It is very strange but every time I post a pro-Russian twitter account in the comments here, they end up being banned within a few hours.
This is the 2nd time this has happened.
The clip itself is found in lots of places – here is a different tweet containing it:
https://twitter.com/eye_southern/status/1511201376440930308
Thank you for an alternative view as ever
Thank you for your comprehensive expression of the complex situation.
Understanding that the world is not split into good and bad actors is a help to avoiding conflict in the future.
The invasion into Ukraine and the destruction caused is awful and criminal.
Excellent analysis and adding a lot of very pertinent historical context. But if I may there are some other points in no order, worth considering as to why we got here and how this situation became inevitable. Tied to all this has been the inexorable march of capitalism from one of industrial capitalism to that of the rentier capitalism leading to neoliberal globalism. This one-way progression has led to the discreditation of any other economic or social organization of the world. This has been led by the USA in stages. In the period between the end of the second WW the USA has strengthened its hold on Europe both militarily and economically and politically. During the 50s and 60s there were strong communist parties in France and Italy polling at over 30%. These movements have been progressively weakened and even socialist parties in the true sense barely exist in Europe now. This was a deliberate action by the USA to discredit socialism and communism. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the initial aim of Gorbachov was to continue a form of mixed economy but maintaining a strong socialist state structure. However, from being the darling of the west, Gorbachov was very quickly discarded in favour of Yeltsin and western disaster capitalism was enforced on Russia. It can be said that the current system of Russian oligarch kleptocracy was created by the west which even bypassed corporatism. Whereas the original Yeltsin era Russian oligarchs were pro-west, the total ruin of Russian living standards during that period has resulted in the backlash which gave rise to Putin. Putin’s main ‘mistake’ was not getting rid of the oligarchs. What happened since is that we now have a set of pro-western oligarchs, with money sequestered in the west, and ‘bad’ oligarchs loyal to Putin. The situation in Russia today is therefore the direct result of western interference in the 1990s. Witness that the system in Ukraine is not far off that of the Russia at the time of Yeltsin. What is also very interesting but not much talked about is that the strongest opposition in Russia after the end of the Soviet Union has been the communist party and is still the strongest single party of opposition to Putin. In fact, if you visit the web pages of this party you will find them very critical of Putin’s action. But this is not opposition to Putin that is encouraged by the west, they would rather support the much weaker Navalny.
From the military point of view, the Balkan wars were also the other major humiliation for Russia and the war against Serbia by NATO has left scars which are compounded by the inexorable expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia. This is now the main trigger for this war.
Another important observation is on the diplomatic front. Although Mr Murray mentions the votes in the UN and general assembly, in the real world most of the second and developing world countries have ignored the calls for boycotting Russia. The attitude has been to let these imperialist based nation fight amongst themselves this is not our war. This is a very serious development which has potential implications on the dominance of western economic grip on these countries and perhaps a turning point in the rentier capitalism that goes with it.
The role of the EU is also very important in these developments. The EU has now been exposed not as a purely economic trading organisation but as a potent political arm of NATO with more interest in aiding the aims of the US rather the interest of its own citizens. In fact, the solidarity between NATO and the EU has just exposed the lack of democracy in Europe due to these two organisations. I have never been a Brexiter but I now clearly see the sinister side of the EU.
Thanks for this Craig. Most of the information I read is from pro-Russia sites, since I no longer trust the BBC and the Guardian – it is useful to get a different perspective.
I think Putin’s success has to be judged against his stated objectives, not the objectives that have been projected onto him. The US has spent 8 years and tens of billions of dollars creating an army, building extensive fortifications and arming them to the teeth. I think the US will be disappointed that this has been completely smashed in just 6 weeks. I am sure they hoped their investment would last longer than that. What’s more, several NATO bases have been blown to pieces and tens or hundreds of NATO staff killed with not a whimper from NATO in response. I think the rational conclusion is that the Russian military has scored a devastating victory that has shocked NATO to the core. The narrative that it is weak, poorly equipped, etc just will not fly.
Wow
” I think the US will be disappointed that this has been completely smashed in just 6 weeks.”
On the contrary, I think they will be delighted. It means another few billion dollars can be given to the US arms industry to replace them.
If the Russians are indeed going to smash the Ukrainian army in six weeks they better get a move on, as by my calculations tomorrow marks the six week anniversary of Putin’s special operation to de-Nazify Ukraine.
Leaving aside the greater question of who did what in Bucha, a curious aspect is the presence / or not of the Azov Battalion.
Multiple Kyiv friendly sources have the Azov Battalion “cleansing … the city” of “saboteurs” and “accomplices”.
https://standpointzero.com/2022/04/04/the-bucha-massacre/
Firstly, is it physically feasible for the AB to have been in Bucha late last week in sufficient numbers to merit a mention? Before the conflict the AB was routinely referred to as being c. 1,000 strong. It’s not unreasonable to accept the general understanding that most if not all of the AB have been besieged in Mariupol for a period of weeks (it’s the city of their foundation after all).
Secondly, why (whether true or not) would Kyiv friendly sources place the AB in Bucha at all? Five weeks ago the AB were an embarrassing liability to Kyiv. Has the impact of the war dragged Kyiv to the point where the AB have been rehabilitated as “simple patriots”? Have we reached the point where Kyiv is pushing “# Im with Azov”?
In one of his latest broadcasts from Mariopul ( see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRtLFT2sbBg ) Patrick Lancaster explains how the white armband is used in this conflict to show that the wearer is not part of the Ukrainian military. To an Azov fighter this would likely make you a collaborator, subject to execution.
It is noteworthy too that some of those bodies have their hands tied using those white armbands.
Russians leaving an area where they have essentially successfully won, are most unlikely to conduct mass shootings ( several days after they have left ) leaving the evidence scattered along the road where there can be recorded by a video drive by.
This has all the markings of just one more Western contrived propaganda event. That our mainstream media blindly passes it on as factual news is to their great shame.
The problem with your version is that there is absolutely no evidence for that. Ukraine invites the world to come to Bucha to investigate, collect evidence, etc whereas Russia arrests you for holding up a placard. Does that not tell you anything about which side is more inclined to be telling the truth? And that’s before you even look at the evidence, interview witnesses, etc.
Neil
Ukraine invites you. As if.
Go and look yourself. Now the Russians are no longer occupying Bucha, you are free to do so
If Ukraine is “inviting the world”, why is Britain blocking a UN Security Council investigation?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60981238
Debunking Russian bullshit, so easy even the bbc can do it
No one is blocking a UN security council investigation.
What was blocked was Russia’s request to discuss (and I quote the Russian government) “the terrible Ukrainian provocation in Bucha”.
Hardly impartial.
And the UN secretary general, not Russia, is calling for an independent investigation. Let’s see who blocks that.
As more information comes out it seems to confirm that it was the Azov Nazi’s who were responsible.
Our governments need to inform the Russian government that when their forces leave places which they have occupied, they must protect the Ukrainian civilians they leave behind from arbitrary punishment from their own extreme Ukrainian soldiers.
Perhaps this could be role given to some type of armed, but neutral, peacekeeping force.
Civilian casualties are always useful in the propaganda war. If the enemy doesn’t provide them, you can do it yourself.
but I’ve been told in comments that they have “reformed”. i guess that means they hide their murders or blame them on Russians.
The Azov Battalion might have started off as a battalion of roughly 1000 fighters, Viv, but it’s grown substantially. Officially, it became a regiment in 2015, and recently chapters have sprung up in Kharkiv & Ivano-Frankovsk and probably other places. Its heartland may be around Mariupol, but it maintains offices in Kiev/Kyiv.
Here’s a good article about it from 2014 in the Graun:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/azov-far-right-fighters-ukraine-neo-nazis
The bit about them hating Putin because they think he’s a Jew made me laugh. I’d be interested in learning how they explain away Zelensky though. They probably believe that his mother kidnapped him from a neo-natal intensive care unit shortly after a free-spirited tourist from northern Sweden unexpectedly went into labour in Kiev/Kyiv in the late 70’s, and convinced him at an early age to always dye his hair and to use a sunbed in the winter.
An interesting article but did you look at the date? 10 Sep 2014… things may have changed a bit since then, they mentioned President Poroshenko near the end which is why I checked the date. The Azov brigade has gone to regiment strength, apparently, and they have also spread throughout the Ukrainian army.
Thanks for your reply Bruce. I mentioned the year in my above comment; I’m not trying to deceive anyone by pretending it’s current. The Azov Battalion / Regiment grew in size to about 3000 in 2017, but then tailed off to about 1000 (battalion size) in 2021 as the fighting in the Donbas largely subsided into static trench warfare with occasional shelling. However, membership has recently exploded due to the war and its build-up, and could now be more than 5000 strong. It is officially part of the National Guard (i.e. gendarmerie) and not part of the Ukrainian Army.
Anyway, here’s the Beeb’s Ros Atkins using people’s licence fee money to explain why it’s okay to give Azov lethal weaponry free of charge and show them how to use it because they’re only 10-20% Nazi:
https://twitter.com/BBCRosAtkins/status/1506988213637890048
@L.A., this Guardian article has been posted by a few posters on other sites as well.
Reading it again this time, the comment I find more noticeable is the off-hand reference about hoping to go back to Kiev and sort things out there when the breakaway states were dealt with.
For those fools who urge a boycott of all things Guardian, wise up, read this piece.
With friends like ‘Dmitry’ in your army, Zelensky better watch his back…_
Thanks for your reply Digger. Yes, I can well imagine that many Azov members thought that Petro ‘Military, Language, Faith’ Poroshenko was an incorrigible bleeding-heart leftie who needed to go.
But while we’re discussing neo-Nazis called Dmitry, do you know about this character?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Utkin
Staying with tattoos, have you come across this character?
https://twitter.com/BosozokuTerKen/status/1505952934223261698
Not sure if he’s connected with Azov, but apparently he’s called Artem Bonov and has somehow managed to flee Ukraine as it’s too scary. Can you imagine if you offered to give your spare room to a refugee and he turned up? I’ve had a go:
“We go drink in bar now?”
“Er, er, yeah Artem – but why don’t you wear this XXL polo neck sweater and this flat cap in the pub like British people. See? They really suit you. You look like Peaky Blinders – British people love that shit.”
Still at least you’d probably get a table on a Friday night – though maybe not in dirty Leeds.
An hour later:
“Your mate’s a ****ing Nazi, pal. He’s got a ****ing wolfsangel tattoo on his face – the insignia of the ****ing SS Das Reich Division who carried out loads of ****ing war crimes during World War 2.”
“Er, er, no, it’s an ancient heraldic symbol – used, for example, in the municipal arms of Dassendorf, in the district of Lauenburg, Schleswig-Holstein.”
“Is that what some **** on Twitter has told you?”
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again:
Ukrainian neo-Nazis are being welcomed in the US Senate and armed to the teeth in their own country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlh6gJmmlN8
Simply put, this is not a war of imperial aggression by Russia on Ukraine. It is a war of imperial aggression by America on Russia – with the Ukrainians tragically serving as cannon fodder for the Americans.
But on the other hand, I followed Craig’s link to the times article about “now Nazis are not that bad” and read that, in fact, the Azov Battalion have changed a great deal since their formation and deny that they are Nazis, even themselves using the word Nazi as an insult. Why would nazis use the word “Nazi” as an insult?
So we’re supposed to believe that the Nazis have reformed, see? Like how western media whitewashed al Qaeda, once they became useful in Syria.
A much simpler explanation – they know what bad PR is.
Hell, even Zelenskii says that the Nazis fighting for his regime “are what they are”. But now we’re supposed to believe that it’s all different now, the swastikas and white power slogans are just for show.
Go on, pull the other one.
Neil
Maybe Nazis would use ‘ Nazi ‘ as an insult for propaganda purposes, to make themselves look cuddly and cute?
They have called for ethnic cleansing in Central Europe and Jhelensky has passed a law that Russian-ethnic Ukranians have no rights. I know he’s just an actor, but the message from his sponsors is inflammatory.
Russia is not emotionally drawn by inflammatory speech, but by an actual attack on 17 March against Russian-ethnic Ukranians which gave them a legal opportunity to counter- attack.. The US has done everything in its power to prepare for this war, then start it as soon as covid stopped. Well, not the US, a handful of Ukranian banderites, Nazis, in the Democrstic Party, aided and abetted by far right Tories currently in government here.
These worse than neocons, neonazis in power in the US and UK have started this war for reasons that non- psychopaths cannot fathom. However , the best thing to do with psychopaths is not to try to understand them, which is impossible for you and I, but simply to believe the opposite of their propaganda outlets.
The Thatcher Tories gave me a nervous breakdown by continually trashing peace and lying. I don’t intend to allow this shock tactic to repeat the experience.
Sit down and quietly reverse everything the Tory media have told you about this war.
Russia is quite capable of dealing with this pathetic attempt at regime change by the incompetents in Washington and Downing Street. They’re long used to the tactics of the USUK psychopaths and Russia is better armed in long distance missiles.
The USUK never fight their own wars. They get proxies to do it, and die in the process.
Neil,
” … I followed Craig’s link to the times article about “now Nazis are not that bad” … “
I find it hard to believe that you have read this far and are actually as naive as that comment makes you look.
If you actually believe that then, unless you actually are a Nazi, you have my sympathy and I would advise you to learn fast.
Do you even know what a Nazi is, you appear not to? By definition a Nazi is a Hitler-supporting, genocidal antisemite. Do you know any Hitler-supporting, genocidal antisemites who are “not that bad”.
There are no “nice” Nazis. Craig drew attention to that article to illustrate the degeneration of British/western media that are providing crude propaganda cover for a diabolical situation.
First they told us there were no neo-Nazis, it was just Russian propaganda. Then they said there are only a few neo-Nazis, like in any country. Now that they can’t get away with that (it’s a huge problem) they start telling us that they’re really not such bad neo-Nazis. I believe the BBC have even referred to “moderate neo-Nazis”.
It is barely believable for those of us who have parents or grand parents that fought in one or even two world wars that British media can have degenerated to this level – but they have.
If you believe any of that you need to wake up, fast, son.
If you’re just a common-or-garden troll, or worse still … , then you know where to go.
I suggest you read the linked article yourself for an alternative point of view, if you’re open to such a thing.
As for being a troll, your reflex response in calling someone a troll simply because they disagree with you speaks volumes.
Neil,
Oh dear me.
I had read the article before Craig linked to it.
I didn’t accuse you of trolling, I only questioned it. The consistency of your negative responses, clearly unsympathetic to the tenor of the site, inevitably gives rise to the question.
I suggest you try reading the linked, and Craig’s, article again.
And wash your teeth before you go to bed.
“Unsympathetic to the tenor of the site”? Seriously, wtf? If you read the linked article, you’d know it was nothing to do with Nazis being moderate, but about whether or not ab are nazis. And if you read Craig’s article, you’d know that he thinks Russia’s actions are despicable. And as for this “you’re a troll” and “clean your teeth” nonsense, how old are you?
“By definition a Nazi is a Hitler-supporting, genocidal anti-semite.”
There is much more to Nazism than that. Their primary hatred is of Communists, socialists and Trade Unionists, which explains the Odessa massacre, not to mention the banning of all opposition parties and the imprisonment or disappearance of their leaders.
The Nazis also hated slavs, which is why the Ukrainian Nationalists deny being slavs themselves and join in with such enthusiasm to eradicate Russians.
The Nazi hatred of Jews was justified, in their ideology, by the kindred of Jews with Bolsheviks, and their opposition to nationalisms. They got on well enough, as Ken Livingston pointed out, with Zionists who welcomed the expulsion of Jews from Germany and deplored the integration of Jewish people into secular European societies.
The sad truth is that, nature abhoring a vacuum, Ukrainian fascism has become close to being the official ideology for the past twenty or so years. The Ukrainian education system has been re-written to teach children to hate Russians and to honour the OUN with its long and sordid record of hatred of Russians. Many of the youngsters indoctrinated in this way, often using materials provided by NATO governments are among the Azov militia men torturing Russian speakers, killing POWs and assisting the imperialist media in arranging provocations and staging massacres, employing the bodies of their own victims.
For all you budding neo-Nazi hunters out there, have a look at the arm of the soldier being presented with a medal by Donetsk People’s Republic leader / Kyle Rittenhouse’s dad lookalike Denis Pushilin. Is that not a (slightly modified) death’s head insignia – as sported by the Waffen-SS, in particular the Totenkopf Division responsible for the worst war crimes in the former Soviet Union in the second world war – along with a valknut symbol favoured by neo-Nazis?
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1511099362239201292
So assuming it’s not been photoshopped, it looks like it’s neo-Nazis fighting neo-Nazis in Mariupol – which would be fairly hunky-dory by me were it not for all the civilians getting caught in the crossfire.
The term “Nazi” has always been an insult. That’s why the NDSAP were called “Nazis” in the first place. They pretended it was short for “National Socialist”, but in fact it was a shortened form of the name “Ignatius” and meant “Bavarian bumpkin”.
Even if I do not support the war, there is no way but for the russians to win (as far as Ukaine will not become a Nato member), but there are some bothersome aspects to this military operation.
I do not know how many videos I have seen where russian POWs have been caught, being humiliated or even killed on video. They are totally defenseless. It is like no one is really in charge of the operation, no operation seems to be thoroughly planned. If soldiers are left behind in a battle, I would assume there are efforts to save and help these soldiers left behind/caught by the enemy but it’s like, if a russian soldier is left behind, he is on his own in enemy territory!
Same with some footage from the battlefield, just take this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g68MmLrGvM
Why do you amass, what 20-30 tanks, in one place like that if you have not have taken out ukrainian military capabilities in the area in advance?
“I do not know how many videos I have seen where russian POWs have been … killed on video.”
One?
Neil
One? Oh no multiple and I am not even searching for such content. Just today I came by another such video.
I only found one, googling a moment ago. You must have several links as you have “lost count”…? By the way, have you seen any images of Russian atrocities … or are they all fake?
The chances are that they are all fake. They are not exactly difficult to make and are guaranteed to be lapped up by the supporters of whichever side they show as the victims.
Neil
Exactly! You do not know about these crimes because you have been told they are “fake news” and so on by your media, you have swallowed disinformation unfortunately and thus becoming somewhat of a useful idiot defending or denying these crimes.
These are often videos you cannot “google” they are spread on different forums and on social media, here is one from today, I would not advice watching it though.
https://southfront.org/execution-of-russian-pows-by-afu-and-georgian-fighters-on-march-30-video-21
Two? You should go to Mariopul and tell the locals you’ve found two videos of Ukrainians behaving badly. I’m sure they’ll be as impressed as I am.
It’s a pity I’m an idiot and don’t have your superpowers for telling fake videos from real ones. Oh, hang on, it wouldn’t just be that the fake ones are those that contradict your pre-formed opinion and the real ones are those that reinforce it, would it?
What evidence do you have that ” b) Ukraine … commits atrocities against Russians” (apart from defensive measures as a result of the Russuan invasion)?
There was the Odessa inferno. I believe even the BBC mentioned that in 2014. As of now (Azov now?), God knows how many atrocities are going on. Even the Guardian showed videos of Ukranian soldiers kneecapping Russian POWs with assault rifles.
James
Past years there have been a civil war in Ukraine, on one side russians living in Ukraine have been hit very hard. Look up Donbas, Donetsk etc and what happend in these regions past 6-8 years.
Then you have warcrimes by Ukraine during this actual war: missile attacks that have killed many civilians that I am sure you have already seen otherwhise I could provide videos of it.
See, the Geneva Convention apparently doesn’t apply if you claim to be fighting a defensive war.
Feral Finster
Like the Israelis claim about a few Nov 5 rockets from Gaza. Russian soldiers dying fighting the Nazis of the Democratic and Tory Parties in Ramadhan will die as martyrs. Since when was the Geneva Convention used to excuse Nazism? The mind boggles at these psychopaths’ reasoning.
I have seen plenty of videos of Ukrainians shooting Russian prisoners. If I have seen them then the western media has and made a deliberate choice not to air them. Unfortunately my technical skills are lacking to link them.
Just copy & paste the URL from your web browser LeeL.
Unlike many other commentators I view Craig’s attempt to make sense of the Ukraine as somewhat biased and one sided, though rather typical for a liberal of his temperament.. Craig seems to thinkthat the only man in Russia that counts is Putin a doubtful supposition, in any large polity there are always factions and rivalries Wilileaks, I believe, released a report from the U>SAssociation Agreement” Well maybr Putin did advise him that it was a bad deal, but so did many others because it was a bad deal causing cost of living rises for many poor people.Then of course “Putin overplayed his hand”
Good article – as someone else said, one of Craigs best, although I personally don’t wholeheartedly agree with it all. What I would say is that, whatever the rights and wrongs of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, right now I support any actions of Russia and China which increase the possibility off the decline and fall of the US empire. This including the invasion of Ukraine, which unlike the much more numerous US wars, at least has a semi-justifiable reason behind it. There are indications that in most of the world (except for the usual suspects,) the US is regarded as the biggest threat to the survival of humanity, and as far as I can see this is undeniable. Russia’s and China’s actions in de-dollarising is the main tool to achieve this end.Without the economic power of the dollar, subsidised by the rest of the world, the US will have to become a normal country, with normal sized armed forces.
The US’s most abject subject, the EU will either destroy itself through self inflicted sanctions, or more likely, distance itself from the current servility to the empire – either of which will weaken the US. (It’s incredible to compare the entities sanctioned by: EU – 490, Canada – 413, Australia – 407, but US – 118 and UK – 16! And also that the US said two weeks ago that they would stop buying Russian oil – they are still buying it at the same level).
“whatever the rights and wrongs of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine … I support Russia”
Wow. That’s amazing. I’m gobsmacked.
The people dying, both Ukrainian and Russian, don’t give a crap about your, or Putin’s, esoteric historical obsessions.
Dropping bombs on civilians is wrong … Oh, wait, you don’t care about the rights or wrongs. My mistake.
Even if what you wrote were true, Ukraine is but a pimple on the arse of Iraq alone. That the United States and UK pretend to care about Ukraine is the local Mafia clan pretending to get upset about a rash of shoplifting.
Iraq was bad, Ukraine is bad. Can they not both be true? And how do you know people like myself are only pretending to care?
It’s called ‘Westsplaining’, Neil, and isn’t interested in what ordinary people in Eastern Europe and Russia think, or experience.
one killed several hundred thousand people and displaced millions more as refugees. one involved a war created out of lies, and one is a defensive response to hostile actions by a foreign power on the border. I don’t know what you are pretending, but I haven’t seen you caring about the thousands killed in Ukraine over the years preceding this, or the blatant regime change in 2014.
I don’t see you calling every debunking of the pretexts for America’s invasion of Iraq “Baathist propaganda” or whatever.
Although there is a significant difference. Russia spent the last eight years trying to reach a diplomatic solution, and being rebuffed over and over. Promises were made, and promptly broken. Minsk 2 followed the original Minsk Agreement, which Ukraine also broke. Western “guarantors” of Ukraine’s obligations refused to do anything to pressure Ukraine follow through.
The United States, by contrast, was seeking any pretext to make war upon Iraq.
The ‘rights and wrongs’ you mention are minor compared with the huge amount of damage done by the US. Tens of hundreds of thousands at the very least, in Ukraine, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Chile, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Greece, Cuba, Yugoslavia, El Salvador, Korea etc. The most important thing in the world is to stop the US government from their 70 year long exercise in mass murder. If you think otherwise, you are an accomplice in this orgy of illegal wars and mass killings of innocent civilians.
I agree Jams, but I dont see this filthy Empire going away quitely. They have dropped nuclear weapons on civilian settlements before, I have only seen them devolve since then. The giant will likely go down swinging. It is the greatest danger facing the human race, we can only hope for a quite fade. From the statements they give, I only hear ‘if we cant have the world, no one will’. The folks who grew up on Cold War propaganda are currently in control, Russophobics in control of nukes. Interesting times.
Two? You should go to Mariopul and tell the locals you’ve found two videos of Ukrainians behaving badly. I’m sure they’ll be as impressed as I am.
It’s a pity I’m an idiot and don’t have your superpowers for telling fake videos from real ones. Oh, hang on, it wouldn’t just be that the fake ones are those that contradict your pre-formed opinion and the real ones are those that reinforce it, would it?
As you mention Maropol I can only suggest you take a look at a few of Patrick Lancaster’s video reports actually in the town now. He is talking to locals in film after film, all now on youtube.
I hope he survives though, he’s right in the middle of it.
There are literally hundreds of videos of Mariupol residents thanking the Russians for rescuing them from the Azov, which was sent to Mariupol in 2014 and operated a reign of terror ever since.
One woman in particular expressed a desire to go to Moscow and then kiss every last brick on Red Square.
I’m sure you’d call them fake, as they do not support your priors.
“Putin responded by annexing parts of Ukraine” Yes indeed the Crimea and if he hadnt the Yanks would have taken over Russias most important navel base and a territory of enormous histotical identity for Russians.Putin would have been lucky to have kept his head.
For me the real failure of this analysis is not the rush to judgement, but the assumption that this is “Putins mad invasion” I dont think that Putin is mad. I think that he and his advisors have had seven years to think about there next moves. How well, who knows, to early to tell
Don’t forget that Crimea has twice voted for independence or some kind of autonomy (too lazy to check) in the 1990’s. After the Maidan and the immolated protestors in Odessa, one can understand Crimeans being happy to welcome Russia.
I have been moving towards the explanation that the war is more about re-incorporartion of Ukraine into Russia and away from pluralistic European identification . Novosti may-or may not- represent the official view. My hunch is that if t did not, it wouldn’t be published.
This extract gives a view which suggests the aim is to take control of Ukraine. “Denazification can only be carried out by the winner, which implies (1) his absolute control over the denazification process and (2) the power to ensure such control. In this respect, a denazified country cannot be sovereign. The denazifying state – Russia – cannot proceed from a liberal approach with regard to denazification. The ideology of the denazifier cannot be disputed by the guilty party subjected to denazification.”
This is the whole article. https://ria.ru/20220403/ukraina-1781469605.html
All very confusing, innit.
Past narratives contradict current.
Current contradict past.
Bad is good. Good is bad.
Confused?
You should be.
That’s the point.
“the US and UK … launched an equally illegal and much more devastating invasion of Iraq”
My dear sir, it’s different when WE do it.
“he was not the kind of docile, Obama-like tool the security services were used to”: that notable observer of the American scene, Steve Sailer, has suggested that Obama may be from a CIA family on his mother’s side.
The propaganda war is directed at the sheep in the Collective Entitled West. The Elites and political class are scrambling to somehow escape from the economic collapse about to befall us. A few think they can apply for residency in NZ and build nuclear shelters. Saudi and Gulf States oil refineries are toast. The suez canal can be paralysed by one ship. We have been in a war against Russia for decades and now openly wanting Regime Change in Moscow. The fact is that the Russian people and the vast majority of the populations of the world support Russia, not US UK EU and Nato. Playing about with Russian foreign reserves and preventing it making its Bond Repayments is making a mockery of the global financial system and exposing the banking institutions as the frauds they are. The global South which has been raped off its resources and kept in poverty, is about to overthrow its Elites with their assets in London and Switzerland and kids in western private schools. Central America, Latin America, Africa and Asia support Russia.
Wikikettle.
Couldn’t agree more.
The wind of change is blowing and all the trust that used to exist in the West is collapsing before our very eyes.
I note very carefully as to how Indian commentators are no longer taking the crap and not bowing to the US’s bullshit,
And it is deserved as the neo liberal economic nonsense is falling apart not just in the world but in the Western World.
It no longer works!
Alternative policies are on the rise and the Swift system only covers 40% of world payments.
Now fair enough 60% of other world payments are less but still significant and the other countries will go with that and add to it and fair play to them.
There is a paradigm shift going on and good luck to the 4/5ths of the world who are not playing the US game.
It’s great to see the backlash.
Thank you for writing it nevertheless.
It is a rare thing to see someone keeping a (relatively) cool head under these circumstances.
Many thanks for yet another important piece, Craig.
While doubtless well intentioned, some of your critics seem to venture on the “too many notes” side
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU
just as others seem to want not only more notes, but fresh themes and variations too.
As I find it difficult to always find the correct length and frequency for my own site, Forthzando.com, I am not about to join either side: I’m just grateful for what you produce as and when circumstances allow and for the many knowledgeable and thoughtful BTL commentators who respond to it.
I pretend to no knowledge of Central and Eastern Europe beyond travel and friendships acquired there.
My current concern is what the present conflict is revealing about the UK, its interests and alliances – and how we can positively contribute to helping our fellow citizens here have a better understanding of that than the monochrome banalities of the mainstream media and most of our parliamentary representatives.
https://forthzando.com/ukraine-needs-our-hearts-and-our-heads-too/