I was in Turkey to try to further peace talks, as an experienced diplomat with good contacts there, and as a peace activist. I was not there as a journalist and much of what I discussed was with the understanding of confidence. It will be probably be some years before I judge it reasonable and fair to reveal all that I know. But I can give some outline.
Turkey continues to be the centre of diplomatic activity on resolving the Ukraine war. It is therefore particularly revealing, and a sign of Western priorities, that I did not come across a single western journalist there trying to follow and cover the diplomatic process. There are hundreds of Western journalists in Ukraine, effectively embedded with the Ukrainian authorities, producing war porn. There appear to be none seriously covering attempts to make peace.
There was a sea change two weeks ago when Ukraine shifted to a public stance that it would cede no territory at all in a peace deal. On 21 May, Zelensky’s office stated that “The war must end with the complete restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.” Previously while they had been emphatic that no territory in “the East” would be ceded, there had been studied ambiguity about whether that referred to Donbass alone or also the Crimea.
The new Ukrainian stance, that there will be no peace deal without recovering the Crimea, has ended for now any hopes of an early ceasefire. It appears to be a militarily unachievable objective – I cannot think of any scenario in which Russia de facto loses Crimea, without the serious possibility of worldwide nuclear war.
This blow to the peace process was a setback in Ankara, and I should say that every source I spoke with believed the Ukrainians were acting on instructions conveyed from Washington to Zelensky by Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who openly stated he wanted the war to wear down Russian defence capabilities.
A long war in Ukraine is of course massively in the interest of the US military industrial complex, whose dripping roasts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have gone rather off the heat. It also forwards the strategic objective of severely damaging the Russian economy, although much of that damage is mutual. Why we live in a world where the goal of nations is to damage the lives of inhabitants of other nations is a question which continues to puzzle me.
Turkey has for now turned towards the more limited goal of ensuring that grain supplies can be shipped out from the Black Sea through the Bosphorus. This is essential for developing nations and essential for world food supplies, which were already under pressure before this war began. Turkey is offering to clear sea lanes of mines and to police the ships carrying grain from the port of Odessa, which is still under Ukrainian control. Russia has agreed to the deal.
Ukraine is objecting to this plan to export its own wheat, because it objects to the removal of the mines, which I should be clear were put down in the sea lanes by Ukraine to prevent amphibious attack on Odessa. There is monumental hypocrisy by the West on this, blaming Russia for preventing the export of the grain while it is actually blocked in by Ukraine’s own mines, which they currently refuse to allow Turkey to remove.
On 19 May this was the headline of a UN press release:
Lack of Grain Exports Driving Global Hunger to Famine Levels, as War in Ukraine Continues, Speakers Warn Security Council
As it states, Ukraine and Russia together account for one third of world grain exports and two thirds of world sunflower oil exports. Many of those who die from this war are likely to do so in developing countries, from hunger. The decision of the EU and US to target Russian and Belarussian agricultural exports for sanctions displays an extraordinary callousness towards the very poorest human beings on the globe, who cannot afford rising food prices.
Well, the headline here is that the USA and EU are pushing Ukraine to block any food deal, based on a number of objections including the reduction in the security of Odessa and the claim that Russia will sell looted Ukrainian grain. The view in both Ankara and the developing world is that the big picture, of millions facing starvation, is being lost.
The experience has made me so cynical that I am left wondering if the interests of the powerful agricultural lobbies in both the EU and USA are influencing policy. High world food prices benefit some powerful interests.
I blame Putin for starting a war that does nothing to redress Russian long term security concerns. But the truth is that politicians in the West are equally keen on this war. Boris Johnson yesterday was blatantly promoting it for his own survival. Anybody who makes any effort to stop the killing – Presidents Macron and Erdogan in particular – are immediately and universally denounced by the “liberal” media.
Yet what is the end result that the liberal warmongers wish to achieve? When we reach the stage that Henry Kissinger is a comparative voice of sanity, the political situation is indeed dire.
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Russia is winning the war. What is to stop it persisting? Russia has yet to impose sanctions on the West. Yet see what self-harm the West has inflicted by sanctioning Russia. Is it not likely that the combination of military force NATO can’t counter and economic sanctions the West can’t survive will allow Russia to “address its long-term security concerns”?
@Ewan. Russia is winning the SMO (not war surely?)?
Then why are they still struggling to win more than 20% of the territory of a neighbour whose population is less than a third of theirs?
John kinsella, Andrei Martyanov estimates that Russia has only deployed about 10% of its forces. Ukraine actually had more troops than those 10%. Yes Ukraine has only a third of Russian population, but Russia’s population is only a fraction of Nato’s and the biggest land mass to protect and commitments in other countries like Syria and still friendly ex Soviets countries. Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe after Russia. There is no way Russia was going to commit all its troops to one theatre. It actually thought the Zelensky government would fold and the army would not fight as it did. It was not wanting to kill its own slavs and former Soviet. Unlike Nato whos many invasions involved terrible carpet bombing of cities, infrastructure and overwhelming coalition of killing spree for decades in Afghanistan and Iraq. The deep reinforced defences on the contact line resemble the Maginot Line and trenches of WW1. Russia does not throw its solders over the top as we did in WW1 and in Blackadder
Thank you.
@Wikikettle The Russians are using the offensive methods devised between 1915 and 1918 by both sides and elaborated from 1939 to 1945. No side “threw its soldiers over the top”, that’s the English Literature Dept. version of the Great War.
Capturing 20% of a neighbour’s territory that has been preparing for years with miles of trenches and defences deeply embedded within civilian infrastructure is not winning , that’s an unfair assessment to me . also I don’t see the relevance of Ukraine’s population comparison question you ask …
Capturing 20% of a neighbour’s territory is winning if you were only ever intending to capture 25%. It’s easy to assign false goals to your opponent and then jeer at them for not achieving them.
SMO would certainly be more accurate. Have you revised your military assessment in the last few days?
Killing Nazis is a strong emotional issue for Russians. Every family has members who were murdered during WWII. They remember CIA support for Bandera post-war partisans. Russians have heard all US-NAYOYO promises, watched the treaties signed and quickly ignored. They know of the racist genocides committed and planned. They have undoubtedly concluded Western commitments are worthless. So they can’t leave any part of Ukraine as a base for further provocations.
US – NAYOYO did everything in its power to start this war with the intent of fatally weakening Russia. Washington has announced they will fight for 10 years to ‘win’ this war (We had to destroy Ben Tre to save it). Every President and Congress has implemented this foreign policy since Carter and Brzezinski. Systematic actions included breaking every statement, assurance, promise and treaty made with Russia. It involves directly threatening legitimate Russian leadership and government. It involved training and arming Banderite Nazis to kill Russians. The White West supported Bandera Nazi genocidal goals against even their own government, leaders, and ‘democratic system’.
Winston Churchill (1944): ”I have left the obvious, essential fact to this point, namely, that it is the Russian Armies who have done the main work in tearing the guts out of the German army.”
It won’t be the vacuous opinions of irrelevant Westerners that define this war. It will be blunt demands and brutal facts on the ground that define Ukraine’s public defeat. This war will end with NAYOYO humiliated, and Russian tanks shaking the ground at western borders.
“It won’t be the vacuous opinions of irrelevant Westerners that define this war. It will be blunt demands and brutal facts on the ground that define Ukraine’s public defeat”.
Exactly so.
Bernhard of Moon of Alabama has this response to Craig’s piece: Some Other People’s Thoughts On The U.S. Role In The Ukraine And Europe.
“Why we live in a world where the goal of nations is to damage the lives of inhabitants of other nations is a question which continues to puzzle me.”
It’s very simple. The fundamental principle of US culture is: “Winning isn’t just the most important thing, it’s the only thing”. So reducing the wealth of some other country by 20% at the cost of reducing your own wealth by 10% is a “win”. Increasing your own wealth by 10% while the other country increases its wealth by 10¼% is a “loss”
It seems like those who are capable of stopping the war are also the ones who will profit tremendously if it continues. The West are profiteers above all else (dressed publicly as humanists), they might profit but their dressing will come off. No one dares think long term anymore, it’s all about the next quarter’s profit. In Profit We Trust.
i’m sure others have pointed this out, but with all due respect
“I blame Putin for starting a war that does nothing to redress Russian long term security concerns.”
comes off as possibly willful ignorance. anyone who has followed this situation since 2014 – the true start of this specific conflict – knows who is to blame. unless you can convince me black sun wearing neo-pagan criminals are somehow babes in the woods as they mortar random civilian targets on a daily basis.
putin’s main mistake was not doing this 8 years ago. better late than never and it absolutely does redress security concerns by showing the naked emperor of NATO training and strategy. it has also led to previously westophile russians realizing the west ALWAYS mistakes kindness for weakness.
i know there’s a tendency for brits to think “good and proper” thoughts but the hedging of otherwise decent analysis with constant “now we all know putin is a satanic hitler” caveats gets old after a while.
I’d like to think(only sometimes) it is something all Western journalists/intellectuals must include if they dont want anything funny to happen to their platform, income or their freedom. But thats only because I am an uneducated buffoon and like to think we are living in the darkest timeline and have to look for hope between the lines. Imagination is a helluva drug.
It seems to have worked for the time being because Craig doesn’t even make the list of leftist anti-imperialist voices Paul Mason wants to silence.
And it is a long list.
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/06/07/paul-masons-covert-intelligence-grayzone/
I’m sure Craig and Jonathan Cook are reading through that story very carefully. As it explains why they are being stymied when trying to establish a bigger audience.
Very sinister indeed that someone like Paul Mason and his paranoid fantasies about Russian ‘puppet masters’ can see innocent people being labelled Putin puppets and be being brought to the attention of intel services. Aaron Bastani (Novara) and Jess Barnard, who has reached out to Paul Mason are quite upset.
You’d hope the intel services would be sufficiently savvy to remember most of the left-wing academics Mason is attacking, held those anti-imperialism, anti-NATO and anti-war positions long before the name Putin meant anything in the West. Thus they don’t need Russian ‘talking points’ to form views they’ve held for a long, long time.
This sort of crap is why Julian Assange is in so much peril. these Joe McCarthy wannabe detectives have convinced themselves of wider plots and scheming and their paranoia infects politics. try to reason and ask for evidence and it’s ” we know , we know” – i.e. they’ve convinced themselves. Like the Iraq war and ‘We all know he’s got them ‘ about WMD. An environment was created in which those questioning whether Saddam actually did have WMD, were laughed at by the political class.
Yes Mason’s a 99p shop McCarthy/Orwell who has been trying to police the left for years, hysterically so since the Ukraine invasion. Yet instead of being laughed out of public life he continues to be one of our intelligence services’ most valued journalists and has just been shortlisted fo a Labour parliamentary seat.
It was pretty obvious really.
If his highly unusual (for those on the left) effusive support for NATO; his calls for huge increases in the Defence budget plus support for Trident, and before that his Newsnight gig. Along with his vocal initial and continuing support for Starmer – if that lot weren’t collectively enough to raise suspicions. Then retweeting likes of Oz Katerji and Timothy Snyder(author of Bloodlands) – a fellow Penguin Random House published author should have left no doubt. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a close friend of Luke Harding too.
He’s trying to become a Labour MP now, no doubt Starmer won’t see any issue preventing that in the Grayzone’s new revelations. What a mess our democracy is in.
U Watt
I suppose these emails at least confirm something that CM has been saying here for ages; namely, that bellingcat is just a shop window or proxy for the intel services to push certain narratives they want propagating throughout the media. They are quite openly admitting that’s happening in these emails. If they are genuine.
Mason is claiming the emails ‘may have been’ doctored or falsified. That can potentially be evaluated.
The US Democrats tried claiming that with the WikiLeaks stuff, US ABC News happily repeating it:
https://blog.erratasec.com/2016/10/yes-we-can-validate-wikileaks-emails.html
The dkim signature iirc uses the email service providers’ private key(s) to encrypt a hash value of the email’s content. The client can then decrypt that using the known public key built into the client’s email app and if it all checks out and no alteration has been made in transit, a message pops up confirming.
> The client can then decrypt that using the known public key built into the client’s email app
The DKIM signature is indeed created using the sending server’s private key; it can only be verified using the sending server’s public key. But that public key isn’t “built into” the client; otherwise clients would have to store hundreds of thousands of public keys.
The public key is actually retrieved by the client from the sending server’s DNS records.
Jimmeh
That makes more sense. I put ‘iirc’ because it’s some years ago I read about this verification process and I couldn’t recall whether the pub key was client-side or server. Thanks for correcting.
I have as much respect and admiration for Craig as the next person but it is notable that in all of his recent blogs on Ukraine he has next to nothing to say about the role of the US in all of this.
” … in all of his recent blogs on Ukraine he has next to nothing to say about the role of the US in all of this.”
… so says Peter, under a blog article entitled “Biden Works to Prolong Ukraine War”.
Marr: “How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that journalists are…”
Chomsky: “I’m not saying you’re self censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting”.
Transcript of interview between Noam Chomsky and Andrew Marr (Feb. 14, 1996)
Kissinger? Wasn’t he the guy who ordered the use of agent orange to defoliate huge tracts of Laotian jungle, so as to be able to see the Viet Cong occasionally hiding there, and in the process poisoning billions of living things? He must know a thing or two about asymmetrical warfare, and in particular the fact that great powers can still lose wars!
Since the war in Ukraine has not solved any of Russia’s perennial security concerns, we can exclude such concerns as the real motive for the war. Another expressed intent is to prevent “genocide” of Russians in Eastern Ukraine, but we can dismiss this as improbable, given tthat the flattening of Mariupol’ and other cities, which were staunchly pro-Russian in the early 2000s, has killed many more Russians than the sporadic tit-for-tat shelling across the line of control which went on before the war.
Looking at the map, and at Putin’s speech where he called Ukraine an “artificial construct” gives the clues. The Russians have reverted to an atavistic concept of greatness, which is measured in square miles of territory conquered. Subject peoples may partake of it only to the extent that they are willing to cast aside their other identities and become “honorary Russians”–“nashi” that is, “ours.” Although the boundaries of this empire may seem to have natural limits–certainly it includes Odessa and the entire Ukraininan coast, and all the strategically important cities and regions east of the Dniepro–the beauty of it is it can be expanded whenever expedient. The benefits of expansion include wheat fields, coal, access to ports and industrial plants which can be either restored or looted, but the Russians are not doing any careful cost-benefit analyses; the benefits are simply “spoils of war” thrown casually onto the back of a truck. The purpose of the expansion is power itself, and one can never have enough of that.
So, how to respond? I am afraid a second world war analogy is inescapable here. The only way to defeat “Putler” is through military force. The Russians know this, too, and that explains their hysterical threats to strike targets in the West. The confidence trick of the accomplished gangster is to convince rival gangsters that he is a nutter, that he will stop at nothing, or in Putin’s terms, that burning the world to a cinder is a price worth paying to protect whatever he defines as Russia’s national interests. The problem with this is that there are only two answers: either submit completely to that world view and become an apologist for imperialism with a different flag (as Craig Murray seems to want to do), or fight it with everything you’ve got and try to restore “order.” I know which I regard as the lesser of two evils.
“Kissinger? Wasn’t he the guy who ordered the use of agent orange”
Don’t think so, spraying started in 1962 under the Kennedy administration. Kissinger didn’t come to office as Nixon’s Security Adviser until 1969 despite having previously referred to Nixon as “the most dangerous man running for US President”. You have to admit he got that right.
Ok, Pears, thanks for the correction. But Kissinger’s association with the Vietnam war still stands, I believe.
Neil Munro,
Indeed Kissinger was deeply involved with the Vietnam war – read on:-
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/alfred_nobel_and_the_real_prize_peace
Kissinger WAS the one who ordered the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, massacred thousands, and installed Augusto Pinochet. 1973
Agent Orange was first used by the British Armed Forces in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency. It was also used by the U.S. military in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War because forests near the border with Vietnam were used by the Viet Cong.
Yes provoking mass vaporization would be a such a wise way to restore “order”. A ww3 maniac presenting as the voice of reason.
And in your eyes, Iain, only the West can bear responsibility for mass vapourisation. The other side are an elemental force of nature, incapable of bearing any responsibility for their own actions, “nutters” before whom we must all make way because of their nuttiness.
You want to risk a nuclear holocaust in which you and everyone you know would likely die …. to win a war against “Putler”. Sorry Neil, that puts you high above anyone I’ve ever seen comment on this Ukraine business in the nutter stakes.
And yet the moral hazard is obvious. If both sides have nukes (or any other fearsome weapon) but only one side is ready to use them, then that side wins, and there is no reason for them to ever moderate their demands. The logic of appeasement leads directly to further aggression.
There’s only one “side” that’s ever used nuclear weapons. The likelihood is they that they would be the first to use them again.
“The logic of appeasement leads directly to further aggression.”
With that country, yes it does.
I think the idea that Russia is solely driven by a quest for power is naïve and dangerous and certainly does not stand up to the evidence. It does not consider the complex dynamics of the post-Soviet world situation in which the USA thought it could reinforce its No1 position by exploiting what it perceived to be Russia’s weakness, incorporate Russia into its own power base, and in doing so, exploit its rich natural resources for its economic ends.
It does not consider NATO’s own quest for power through expansion, and it does not consider the historical factors, long past and more recent, that are hard to understand from a western perspective.
There is a lot more substance to the idea that Russia is more reactive than proactive to the circumstances in which it has found itself.
Mystification of Russia. The idea that this petroelite is interested in anything other than power is profoundly naive.
As opposed to the US? let’s count the interventions, shall we?
What Russia is doing in Ukraine is not an “intervention.” It is a land grab. The US has not done that kind of thing on that scale since they took Texas off Mexico.
NM – You should consider which country, since 1945, has invaded, bombed, subverted, organised coups, and backed or created terrorist organisations, aimed towards 70+ countries in the world. I’ll give you a clue – it wasn’t Russia or China. (They may have done similar things, but only to the tune of single figures each – nowhere near 70).
PS You are no credit to your namesake.
Neil Munro, tell that to the child prostitutes around Subic Bay in the Philippines. Your first sentence can pass as “fair comment” but the rest of it is factually not true. The number of US bases in other countries is approaching a thousand, in well over a hundred countries. That is not a land grab, it is a globe grab.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has probably made it less likely that Ukraine will attempt to reclaim Crimea, which is both a perennial security concern for Russia and the most likely catalyst for a wider war that might lead to a nuclear exchange.
This is no longer about Crimea. It is about the whole of East and South Ukraine as a first installment. Nuclear weapons are unlikely to be used in any case except as a threat to prevent effective conventional assistance to Ukraine.
NATO has been pushing to encircle Russia for 25 years or so. This is not “defensive”, this is consistent with the US policy of containment which brought us to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The “encirclement” thing is a red herring. Russia is the biggest country in the world with a nuclear arsenal to match the US. There is no way to encircle them even if that was what NATO was trying to do. And there would be little point in doing it because Russian weapons can cross continents and even be fired from outer space.
The so-called “encirclement” thesis is a convenient way for the Russians and their apologists to disguise the fact that nearly all their neighbours feel threatened by them and therefore seek to join NATO. As the current war and numerous historical examples show, the perception of threat from Russia is entirely justified.
Countries are not press ganged into NATO. They join voluntarily, usually through a referendum or a vote in a democratically elected parliament.
The “expansionism” of the US consists in saying “yes” without attaching too many conditions. So we have ended up with an enormous unwieldy bloc which makes decisions by consensus and in which several members like Turkey frequently go and do their own thing.
Russia had its own version of NATO, the Warsaw Pact, but it fell apart because it did not give the member states peace and prosperity, nor indeed civil and political liberty. Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia all experienced directly what it means to be kept in a bloc by force.
The Baltic states were subsumed directly into the Soviet state. About a third of their populations were politically repressed – either shot or sent to camps, and this was followed by mass in-migration from other parts of the Soviet Union.
Despite all the propaganda about the rights of constituent nations to secede, the Soviet state was held together by force, and its rule was so unattractive that as soon as a leader emerged who did not have the stomach to continue holding it together by force, all its constituent republics voted to leave it.
Now Putin wants to put it back together, but without the socialist ideology, the new “Soviet” state will be a purely Russian imperialist project, offering nothing to other countries except subjugation.
> so as to be able to see the Viet Cong occasionally hiding there
Defoliation is a policy invented by the British, in Malaya. They would defoliate a 200-yard strip on either side of roads they needed to use. You could say the purpose was so that they could see their enemy; but that makes it sound as if the purpose was to kill the enemy. The purpose was really to prevent enemy ambushes, which was achieved by removing the cover.
I am increasingly loathe to discuss this war with people I know or meet as they seem to be incapable of rational thought!
Russia has won this war. They won it early – before the first shot was fired. It is now only a question of how many die and how much collateral damage is done to Ukraine, Russia and the rest of the world in particular as always the poorest.
There is nothing that can be done to change this fact. Putin, who is a very bad man no doubt, is also a very clever man and has outplayed the west. Ukraine, much like Afghanistan was, is a pawn in a bigger game and will be sacrificed.
It is just so hard to separate what will be from what should be in the simple minds of the general populous.
The parallel I bring up is the Russo-Finnish Winter war of 1939-40. The Finns fault brilliantly, tenaciously and with immense courage inflicting huge losses on the Soviet Army. And then they sued for peace giving Stalin MORE than he had asked for before the war. And where is the Finland Russia border now? It has barely moved since the end of WW2.
Furthermore – the experience of the Winter war gave the Soviets the harsh lessons they needed to survive the Nazi onslaught of 1941 and ultimately defeat the Third Reich [I maintain Hitler would never have been defeated without the Soviet contribution.] I am still grateful to the Red Army for this. Let’s just hope there is not another major land war in Europe after the inevitable end of the Ukraine catastrophe. Supplying weapons to Ukraine now is futile, they will not turn the tide and will just give Russia samples of (admittedly outdated) Western equipment to examine.
Alas, we have a clown in Downing Street and a geriatric in the Whitehouse. Any voices of reason are drowned in the spin cycle of the MSM.
And meanwhile it is 50ºC across the middle east. The world burns while Biden fiddles…
“And meanwhile it is 50ºC across the middle east”.
A nice sunny 34 degrees in Damascus.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/170654
43 in Baghdad.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/98182
28 in Tel Aviv
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/293397
But don’t let the facts deflect you from your narrative.
https://www.met.gov.kw/Forecasts/kuwait.php
50ºC Thursday in Kuwait. For the record.
Fair enough. But that is not the same as “across the Middle East”. It gets very hot in Death Valley – in July 1913 five consecutive days were above 54C. Yet San Francisco, less than 500 km away, is famous for its temperate climate all year round.
It has always been very hot in the Gulf. I remember reading in Herb Elliott’s memoir “The Golden Mile” that when his plane stopped at Bahrain on the way from Australia to the Rome Olympics in 1960, it was 115F in the shade – that’s 46C in modern money.
the climate is changing. it’s getting hotter overall.
“Yet San Francisco, less than 500 km away, is famous for its temperate climate all year round.”
San Francisco is on the coast, therefore not in any way a reliable comparison.
Fat Jon, Kuwait is also “on the coast”. The point is that a high temperature in Death Valley does not mean high temperatures all across California, just as a high temperature in Kuwait does not mean “50ºC across the middle east”.
@AAMVN It’s been a while but I recall that the first invasion of Finland was by local reservists who were outfought and the second go was by Red Army regulars. You might also note that at Changkufeng in 1938 and Khalkhin-Gol in 1939 the Red Army trounced the Japanese Army to the extent that the Japanese imperialists never dared try it on with the Russians again.
On the other hand, that’s exactly what a country would say if it had just been defeated by a country a fraction of its size.
> the simple minds of the general populous
I hate it when commentators assume that everyone is simple-minded except them.
FTR, “populous” means “having many people”. Only a simple-minded person would substitute that word for the word “populus”, which just means “the people”.
Spot on Mr M.
“Why we live in a world where the goal of nations is to damage the lives of inhabitants of other nations is a question which continues to puzzle me”.
That is such a simple matter that I am astounded Mr Murray pretends to be puzzled. Surely such questions are “Diplomacy 101”. Governments engage in diplomacy only when, and because, they do not feel confident that they can get what they want by violence. Therefore any study of diplomacy must be based upon an understanding of war and the other forms of violence which characterise the state.
There is no such real, concrete thing as a “nation” – it is a windy abstraction which people agree to treat as a real thing for political and economic motives. There being no such thing as a nation, it cannot have goals. Goals are ideas in the minds of individual human beings, which some of them choose to blend with windy abstractions the better to confuse ordinary people. In the case of Ukraine, it is blindingly obvious that all the harm there has been caused by a small number of rich, powerful people who wish to destroy the Russian people’s ability to defend itself and its natural resources so that they can plundered, like those of Europe, the Americas, most of Africa, Australia, etc.
Michael Hudson’s “Superimperialism” and his other books explain in some detail how this process of modern colonialism works.
Yes. Bit disingenuous of Craig to say that. It’s obvious that the US and to a large extent the UK and EU, is run by, and for the benefit of, people with very large amounts of money in the bank – or elsewhere.
“The experience has made me so cynical that I am left wondering if the interests of the powerful agricultural lobbies in both the EU and USA are influencing policy. High world food prices benefit some powerful interests”.
Reading that sentence absolutely staggered me, once again. How can anyone possibly be so naive as not to see that:
1. Of course powerful agricultural lobbies heavily influence policy; and that
2. Much more importantly, high food prices and actual scarcity are one of the things that any government fears most. History shows that nothing is more effective in putting people on the streets, often with weapons, and determined to overthrow (and possibly kill) the rulers whom they blame for their families’ hunger. The introduction of murderous terrorists into Syria in 2011 was carefully timed to follow one of the food shortages that periodically occur for reasons that are beyond the control of governments.
The Ukrainian regime, which is just as much in the pay of Washington as the terrorists in Syria, Libya and elsewhere, seeks to make the Russians look bad by every means in its power – which almost always involves lies, exaggeration, and projection – the attribution to one’s enemy of the crimes one has committed. (Another tactic with the pawmarks of Washington all over it).
If Mr Murray thinks that he is only now becoming cynical, where has he been for the past 50 years?
“I blame Putin for starting a war that does nothing to redress Russian long term security concerns”.
And yet Mr Murray continues to bang his head energetically against the wall. Why on earth must he blame Mr Putin for taking the absolute minimum of steps to preserve Russia and the Russian people from resolute, energetic, cynical, murderous, amoral enemies who are absolutely determined to destroy Russia and plunge its people, once more, into the hideous servitude and impoverishment of the 1990s?
Agnostic as I am, it is impossible not to see a parallel between the continual plotting, day and night, of the Washington and NATO creatures and the medieval image of the Devil and his legions going about tirelessly, seeking by all means to tempt, weaken, undermine, and finally destroy all humans. They literally never stop, pause, or even consider. They destroy Yugoslavia, Afganistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and vigorously attack Syria, Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, and China. When the attempt to start a revolution Kazakhstan was snuffed out, they immediately turned to fresh mischief in Ukraine. Meanwhile they drum up hostility to China. Anyone who even tries to resist them in any way at all is marked for destruction.
And Mr Murray somehow fails to notice any of this. When will he get it through his head that We Are The Bad Ones?
Good points Tom. The older I get the harder it is to convince myself that Biblical evil isn’t a real thing… 🙁
How could Biblical evil not be real? It has been the language of the world since the flight from Egypt.
Thanks for bothering to go to Turkey and report back, ehh, what you can report on. IMHO in these polarised times there is no need to hold back for a system that has only the establishment in mind, a system that does not want CM style openness or redress.
Here is Tulsi Gabbard on the issue of Ukraine, I hope she means it. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/505uQahvKvg
Incidentally, Turkey is in no position to lecture others on invading their neighbours. Having stolen the whole Antioch region during WW2 while the French had other problems, Turkey has during the past few years moved large armed forces into Syria, effectively annexing a large area along Syria’s northern border.
Just another hypocrisy.
Both Turkey and the US control portions of Syria whilst stealing their oil and wheat but that’s ok.
Just as it’s fine to kill literally millions of Iraqis over some non-existent WMD – but if a few Ukrainians get killed (mostly by their own fault) all the world’s blue-eyed, fair-skinned Aryans are up in arms.
I don’t think Turkey is lecturing others on invading their neighbours; at least I haven’t heard any such word from the Turks. They’re acting as intermediaries, to arrange a settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Your claim of annexation isn’t worth anything either. There has been no claim of annexation. Occupation, yes, annexation, no. There was a claim years ago that Erdogan wanted to restore the Ottoman empire, a claim made by his enemies, not by Erdogan himself. The Ottoman idea was for the creation of a federation much like the British Commonwealth, but even that disappeared a long time ago. Erdogan is, as always, paranoiac about the Kurds, and desires to protect the Sunnis in Syria (i.e. the jihadis).
By the way, the Turks didn’t invade Antakya/Antioch. That’s incorrect. They blackmailed a weak French government, mandatory power in Syria, into handing it over, much like Hitler’s blackmail of the west over Czechoslovakia, which had happened the year before.
@Laguerre, the British and French knew that Hitler’s demands over Sudetenland were a pretext for a war with all of Czechoslovakia. They blackmailed the Czech government into ceding Sudetenland to pull the rug from under Hitler’s casus belli. They avoided a war and kept the Russians out of central Europe (VVS aircraft had already arrived at Czech airfields). Confronted with such bad faith, Stalin did a similar deal in 1939 because he was evil, not a Realpolitician like the Western owners of slave empires.
.
The results of World War Two, in which the Soviet Union ended up being one of the victors, show that Stalin was indeed a Realpolitician. Certainly more of a one than Churchill.
Stalin did a similar deal in 1939, not because he was evil, but because he was a Realpolitician, unlike the Western owners of slave empires. There, fixed it for you. Russia was in no position to take on Germany in 1939.
I was being ironic.
Laguerre – 9:11
That’s a difference without a difference.
‘ The World Revolution of Westernization: The 20th Century in Global Perspective.’ by Theodore H. Von Laue might be worth a read to explain some of the mentality of how it sees itself and how it sees the West.
Laue says that Russia is always playing catch-up to the 1st westernized nations.
After WW2 Russia realised that it had to defend its western territories from encroachment or all-out attack. Germany was a westernized power and was used by the Allies to penetrate eastwards. Ukraine now seems to be the same sacrificial lamb, as Mr. Murray implies in his post.
Worth a read!
It does seem to me that enhancing the ordinary Russians self confidence is the main outcome of the nato/Nazi nexus that was formed over a long period.
Following their lighting operation in defeating the Kazakhstan attempted coup; victorious across Syria and Africa and handy backup in Venezuela. It is pretty clear that the morale and pride of ordinary Russians of all ethnicities is the main winner.
The idea that Russians may be anti Islamic is blown by the magnificent alahakbar boys and their smiley leader – not by chance have these selfies been regularly broadcast is it?
The concept that only conscripted canon fodder are sent to fight is equally nullified by many volunteers flocking to join be properly trained and deployed as fresh troops.
Just look at the scenes of the returning battalions from the front lines after their 3 months of duty on the front lines. It is less staged than most such events , though they are getting better with their narratives of children , cats and little old ladies with the Soviet flag! But it is genuinely heartfelt by the civilians turning out to cheer and greet their soldiers.
This must have been a known outcome by the Western Planners of the inevitable defeat to Russians on a conventional battlefield. So why do it?
It can only be because the calculations would have been that it will allow a possible cleavage between Russia and the other multi polarists, as generations pass, hoping that Russia will become the willing guardians of the Racist western-zio-woke values that we have been inculcated with for a century now.
Ridiculous I know, but there is no other explanation!
Unless our great gamers have completely cocked up – again.
“One thing must be understood here – humanity is dealing with a brilliant, incredibly strong and ruthless group of people who have built the structure of the world in which we live. Their conceptual apparatus does not take into account such concepts as “humanism”, “kindness”, “compassion”, etc. The main thing is numbers, the main thing is profit”
— Sergei Glaziev
I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that it is not just imperative for Russia to win for Russia itself but also for the rest of the world. If Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar are right then the future economic system, helped by Glaziez, will be more socialist and humanist in design.
There is a certain manic evil that has been emanating from the West these last months which seems to be showing it’s true face. A face that is contorting into the image of its own heart.
“I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that it is not just imperative for Russia to win for Russia itself but also for the rest of the world…”
Precisely the way I see things, St Pogo. The sooner Mr Murray and those who think like him awaken, the better for all of us.
I switched to TV news channel Al Jazeera last night and their correspondent, an English reporter, replete with blue hardhat and vest with ‘press’ adorned on the front was reporting from somewhere in eastern Ukraine, I didn’t catch where. He said his reporting crew had visited four separate villages and every local they’d spoken to told them they were waiting for the Russians to arrive – not in fear but in hope! I was somewhat taken aback. Anecdotal admittedly but if that allegiance problem is representative of parts of the East, Ukraine will have far bigger problems than simply fighting the Russians. The East may be a lost cause after nearly decade of conflict with Kyiv’s forces.
Not that our own BBC, Sky or wider western media would honestly report local opinions like those. Western media is increasingly consolidated and tightly controlled by an interconnected wealthy elite, an elite who think keeping their own citizens dumb and in the dark is not only narratively convenient in aiding their secret strategic goals, but justified.
We have been in a war against Russia for decades. Now Russia has stood up and been brave enough to confront the USA. Despite having only 140 million population and a defence budget of 60 billion. The US population is over 300 million and a defence budget of 700 billion. Total Nato budget is 350,300 billion, I’ll leave it to you to add up the total Nato populations in Europe. Russia, in my opinion is going to stop the domination of world economy and politics by an out of control military power that has caused millions of deaths, kept the Global South impoverished, while stealing its resources. The British Empire and the rest of the European Colonialists have been the cause of most of the world’s problems today. The US has just carried on and taken over the reigns. A country is not Sovereign if it belongs in the orbit of Nato, EU, the IMF and World Bank. All of which have rooms in the Pentagon. A country is Sovereign if it can trade freely with anyone it wishes to, can Military defend itself, not allow political interference by foreign NGOs for decades, trade in any currency it wishes to with a third party, its political class work for the majority of its population, provide universal health care, education, cheap housing, good public transportation and invest in infrastructure. By these metrics, Russia and China have shown the world how to govern. In contrast the Collective West have propogandised their own populations and destroyed their economies by feeding the arms manufacturers, who as donars control their politics. Thats why President Putin is hated so much in the West, yet admired by the majority of the worlds populations if not their elites, who have their loot in Western Banks and property and children in its private schools. If you think Russia is a weak economic and military power, I suggest you read Alexie Martyanov. If you want to know how US has had a free lunch for decades, I suggest you read Professor Michael Hudson. The only language a bully understands is that of a Military and Technical Response. Russia has given up on trying to be accepted by the West and neither US or Nato can regime change it. All the smaller countries of the world have seen a new path for their development using the Multi Polar route of Sovereignty and Independence away from the US’s own “Rules Based Order”.
I would say: “A face that is contorting into the image of a” rapacious T. Rex
The question that continues to puzzle me is: why is the EU willing to make sacrifices in order to preserve US hegemony?
As a European, I’d like Europe to be independent of the USA, and I think a lot of Europeans agree with me. But the politicians think only of kowtowing to Washington. Why?
Money, lots of money. That’s why the politicians kowtow to Washington, because that’s where it comes from.
Nah, the current EU leaders (except Macron to a degree) are fools and being led by the nose. EU money doesn’t come from Washington.
Who said it was EU money? To take Tony Blair for an example, who provided him with a well-paid sinecure when he left office? Nick Clegg, who’s he working for now/
What do Tony Blair and Nick Clegg have to do with the way EU decisions are made? You’re talking about what happened 10 or more years ago. The problem is now.
Was it so long ago that the UK left the EU that you have already forgotten that it was part of the EU when those two were in power, or are you one of those who has never really accepted that the UK was in the EU at all?
Possibly because they see it as a lesser evil than Russia’s Mafia state.
Russia doesn’t have a mafia state. the US has been interfering in elections in europe for a long time.
https://www.rferl.org/a/wikileaks_russia_organized_crime/2236673.html
If Assange had pissed off Vlad he’d already be dead. Poisoned or ‘accidentally’ fallen from a high window.
Some clues for you –
“These are some of the allegations”
“authenticity has yet to be confirmed”
“The documents reportedly quote”
“Gonzales also allegedly accused”
“suspected of carrying weapons”
“suggesting that Putin may have known”
“damaging allegations contained in the cables”
“The documents reportedly quote him”
“U.S. diplomats reportedly accuse”
“The cables also contain allegations”
“information that later proved false”
The term “Radio Free” is prefixed to several radio stations which were set up by United States Central Intelligence Agency to deliver news to countries strategically important to the foreign relations of the United States. The official stations are: Radio Free Afghanistan Radio Free Asia Radio Free Europe Radio Free Iraq Radio Free Syria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free
If you ask Assange his opinion he would probably prefer the Russian way rather than a slow lingering death by mental & physical torture for himself and worst of all his wife & family!! at the hands of pure evil doers such as Pears Morgaine!
“If Assange had pissed off Vlad he’d already be dead. Poisoned or ‘accidentally’ fallen from a high window.”
Very true, but the West prefer the highly sadistic alternative; of leaving people to rot slowly in prison, whilst continually changing the rules in order to keep them there.
Which would you prefer?
” Some clues for you – “
Careful language to avoid being sued for libel under the UK’s unbalanced laws.
Libel only applies to lies, so thanks for confirming that.
” Libel only applies to lies, “
If only life were that simple.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/Research/research-impact-case-studies/reforming-englands-libel-law
” They need not show that the publication was false, nor that it had caused or was likely to cause any particular loss. Both are presumed as a matter of law. “
The problem can also be proving to the satisfaction of the court that a particular statement is true, defendants in libel trials can still be lumbered with crippling legal bills. Ask Craig!
Ah so that’s why every newspaper article in the country is entirely in the form of questions, is it?
“Careful language to avoid being sued for libel under the UK’s unbalanced laws.”
Bollocks. Give it up will you. It’s the CIA for God’s sake. They lie, cheat, and steal.
Mike Pompeo About CIA : We lied, We cheated, We stole (26 Apr 2019) – TeleSUR English (YouTube, 1m 23s)
Yes, that’s what they are paid to see.
“Possibly because they see it as a lesser evil than Russia’s Mafia state.”
That’s no reason: why should the EU kowtow to either the USA or Russia? Russia is no threat to the EU; its economy is less than a fifth of the size of the EU’s, and its military is struggling against just Ukraine (total population 44 million, but that includes the southeast where a lot of people want to join Russia anyway).
The question that continues to puzzle me is: why is the EU willing to make sacrifices in order to preserve US hegemony?
You only need to own a relatively small number of people in the media and politics in order to get a whole country to act in ways that are directly detrimental to the interests of its own people. Look at Scotland under Sturgeon’s SNP.
The USA has had decades to ensure European leaders are thoroughly indoctrinated in its approved ideologies and are loyal to its interests. I suspect that, as in this country, only those politicians who will be subservient to the dollar and NATO are allowed to be considered “electable”. Meanwhile the rewards are obvious: who’s the current head of NATO? A Norwegian politician, of all people, despite his country’s reputation as a peace-maker, not a war-monger.
100% right, Roger.
Because the EU is fundamentally and intrinsically neocon neoliberal economic project. It therefore aligns well with the US politically.
I Bet there’s lots of interesting, and sorry details to be disclosed from Turkey.. Glad you were there Craig.
As for vital Grain supply’s –
According to a statement, issued on Wednesday, the alleged act of arson was down to the unwillingness of the “militants” to leave grain supplies to Mariupol’s residents. As a result, according to the military, more than 50 thousand tons of grain were destroyed.
“This inhuman crime demonstrates to the entire world community the ‘true face’ of the Kiev regime, which, in fact, uses the methods of food terrorism against its own people,” it claimed.
JUNE 8, 2022 BY NEWS WIRE –
https://21stcenturywire.com/2022/06/08/ukrainian-nazis-burn-50000-tons-of-grain-in-mariupol/?
To my knowledge both the EU and NATO had already told Ukraine that they had to ‘defend their borders’ if they wanted membership of either and any negotiated settlement giving ground would not be acceptable either. And, I assume, this is why they reneged on the Minsk Agreement.
Now the US is, and will continue to, reap the benefit of Russian gas and oil not being sold into the European Market. The previously heavily subsidised with tax breaks fracked gas is now extremely profitable and as less and less Russian oil and gas goes to Europe over the next year or two then the US will reap the benefits of increased sales at higher prices whilst not having to subsidise it anymore. I’m not sure how much of the European gas market the US can actually take but certainly it isn’t minimal. They have every interest to prolong this as not only will they benefit, it also means that Europe will be impoverished considerably. This benefits the US too as it will end with a repeat of the post war (ww2) period where the US boomed and Europe suffered great financial hardship for many years. This coming on the heels of COVID will certainly help the US out. The extreme sanctions on Russia seemed ‘oven ready’ to quote Boris and this made me suspicious that they had already planned for this exact scenario – maybe naive to think they wouldn’t but it seems like they have planned not just FOR this scenario but indeed created it. Biden was in Maidan in 2014 talking to Right Sector before the coup. A protest that had EVERY demand met, made more, had those met and asked for a new government – when even THAT was agreed to they refused to wait for an election and went ahead with the coup. Now, after things having chuntered along for some years ‘suddenly’ they heat up again when Biden returns, this time as POTUS. Prior to the Ukrainian call up of all men of fighting age they had an army of half the amount of men that Russia had. They had less materiel too. But with the aid coming from around the world the only thing that will now limit them is manpower. So just how many of Ukraine’s men are to be sacrificed in this war. A lot don’t have much training and are new to this, Many won’t have had fighting experience and those who did have were already fighting in Donbass trying to take it back since 2014. The Russians ARE the aggressors here but this entire war, the stated reasons for it and the ACTUAL reasons for it mean there is much more to it. The TV news isn’t even showing ‘war porn’ Almost nothing pertaining to the actual fighting is ever shown. Rare and brief maps are shown of locations of fighting, who has what land (usually anything this in depth is shown in the middle of the night on BBC World News) We see library clips of tanks being destroyed (Russian) and the like but 99% of the coverage is about the people and their suffering. This SHOULD be covered, it’s usually ignored in war, but this shouldn’t be the ONLY thing that’s covered. It’s not even war porn, it’s just propaganda. We’re being spoonfed what to think and not being told anything remotely factual about the war and the reasons behind it lest we disagree with it..
As an 83-year-old UK working class Socialist I feel 110% certain that this article by Craig Murray is quite brilliant, for me anyway!
Since the arrival politically of Jeremy Corbyn I have learned? about a frightening political war-mongering Western Media which is 99% utterly criminally corrupt and in my small opinion makes the Nazi Propaganda machine of the 1930s seem a bunch of complete amateurs!
You’re not wrong. One of the most prolific warmonger scribblers – a possessed Mccarthyite – recently penned a book called How to Stop Fascism. They seem intent on making us doubt our own sanity.
Reading through the Grayzone’s piece again it raises all sorts of troubling questions/implications. A couple of delusional Joe McCarthy wannabes can:
People like Paul Mason and others are a great threat to free speech in the West; he wants liberal MSM to be the only source of information. He berates the Tory govt and Johnson, while working closely with the Foreign Office and other State organisations to close down real dissent using tactics akin to those a modern day Stasi would use. And most troubling of all, he seems to be in a position to make good on his threats.
I agree Goose Paul Mason who wants to be Labour and Starmer’s Minister for Public Enlightenment, are, a great threat to free speech, alternate media, tenacious stalwarts such as George Galloway and organisations such as ‘Stop the War’ and others.
mark golding-
And you can wager the BBC 2’s daily politics show and BBC 1’s Question Time would have no issue inviting him on as a guest and completely ignoring this story. How many UK journalists, TV news editors, press journos etc are similarly linked to intelligence agencies or their cutouts? How can we talk about defending our free press, if we don’t truly know whether we have a free press?
Notice too, how these revelations haven’t drawn comments from the Labour party’s leadership? Surely anyone compiling sinister ‘evidence wall’ type string diagrams featuring sitting Labour MPs. And talking about going after academics, should be immediately be barred from standing as a candidate for the party – they should lose their membership pending further investigation. People have been kicked out for far less.
That’s where we are at as a society. It’s like some club with its own omertà among the media elite in London – the knowing smirks, the nods and winks, an integrity initiative on steroids. It’s why we’ve lost our democracy and why every party is full of the same identikit, interchangeable centrist politicians.
“most troubling of all, he seems to be in a position to make good on his threats”.
Yes, it is instructive to see the media blackout on this shocking exposure of one of the country’s better known journalists. I have no doubt he will be allowed to continue at the New Statesman and will probably also be selected as a Labour candidate despite everyone knowing what he is. Mark Golding is right: do not be surprised to see Mason end up a minister in a Starmer regime.
If the media didn’t report it it never happened!
Reads like an Orwell quote doesn’t it.
Kinda surprised Craig and this blog didn’t make it on to Mason’s map. Some will view that as proof positive Craig’s still ‘one of them’ lol.
Aaron Bastani whose Novara media outfit did make his map, seems to believe Mason is probably nothing more sinister than some fantasist James Bond wannabe; an outsider, who’s using intel jargon phraseology in an attempt to feel like an important player, examples: white label organisations, clean phones, human intelligence (HUMINT), though Mason bizarrely uses HUmINT.
Again, regardless of his status, this man seemingly has access to the real deal professional intelligence organisations, and high-level govt access to pitch his wild schemes to. A dangerously deluded prat like this should have no business pitching anything based on his Spice infused fevered imagination. Most of the political class are gullible enough to lap up his McCarthyite nonsense too. Even the much criticised Nina Jankowicz sounded a note of caution on jumping to conclusions – probably the only exercise Mason gets? Jankowicz explaining many posting on social media just genuinely believe those things, so attaching a ‘manipulated by dark forces’ motive is a stretch. People post here in support of the Russian invasion, I don’t agree with them, but they always elaborate on why, and I wouldn’t dream of jumping to any Paul Mason-type conclusions about their motivations.
Bastani speculates that Mason’s password was probably something laughable, thus easily discovered. Paulmason1984 would seem pretty apt.
He also pinpoints “The Black Community” and “The Muslim Community” as nefarious actors. Craig is probably subsumed within the dark force “Scottish Nationalism”.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was Paul Mason.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was Paul Mason.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was….
Fancy that , a fascist wearing the cloak of an anti-fascist. Gotta admit he had everyone fooled. Ruining the lives of left-wing academics simply because he disagrees with them .. And trying to destroy fellow journalists’ careers because he has some hunch or wild theory .. F’ckin outrageous and infuriating behaviour.
As an undergraduate at Princeton University, I used to enjoy reading back copies of Goebbels’s prestige weekly Das Reich in the university library. For the past 30 years or so, I have been a subscriber to the Washington Post. So I can make the comparison, and, in my opinion, the writers for Das Reich were far more talented.
A balanced article from Al Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/6/9/is-russia-inching-towards-victory-in-ukraines-donbas-region
The war is now one of attrition in Donbass – which may favour Russia.
I dont think there is a war in Ukraine with Russia. Its only one battle among many fronts (countries) waged by US with its servants in Nato to somehow stop the inevitable development and progress of countries to breakaway from its grip. After using Ukraine (to destruction) US will in my opinion, use Poland to carry on the bleeding of Russia, as Lloyd Austin said. Everything has been planned and in the works for decades. You don’t have to use Russian sources but our very own western sources, Pentagon briefings and talking points. Of all the you tubers I have found Brian Berletic of The New Atlas almost unique, in his use of sources from the west which when read carefully and sought out, confirm our long term strategies. The Rand Corporation papers on both Ukraine as a way to break up Russia and Taiwan as a way to stop Chinas development. US aims in Ukraine do not tally with supporting Ukraine, yet they have achieved all their goals at its expense : stopped North Stream 2, stopped Europe buying Russian gas and oil, forced Europe to militarise, buy US weapons, loan money from IMF, stop Europe from becoming independent of US dictat and stop German leadership of Europe. Inventories and stocks of old weapons shipped off to Ukraine under lend lease and orders for new weapons to boost profits. Up to the last moment US actually supported Hitler, then decided to support Russia to prevent Germany dominating Europe and threatening to take over British colonies along with Japan. Blockading Japan prior to Pearl Harbour and the resulting attack opend the door for US to break its Neutrality act and enter the war and take over from British Empire. Russia was only supported to fight and bleed Germany till the wars end, then it was to be the new enemy, already pre planned. The Japanese blockade pre Pearl Harbour is what China fears today. Both Japan then and China today, huge manufacturing countries with no natural resources of their own. Wholly dependent on sea routes and easily blockaded choke points a the Mallaca Straits. So when China tries to establish the belt and road routes to have an alternative to sea transport via land routes, for its imports and exports, through countries like Pakistan and Myanmar, the US via its NGOs and funding of minority ethnic and religious groups cause disruption and chaos. Brian Berletic of The New Atlas has excellent evidence based from Western sources on this and many countries like Thailand where US works on a set formula for decades towards regime change. Ukraine didn’t just happen overnight !
Many in Russia blame President Putin for not intervening in Ukraine much earlier as US NGOs and Nato moved in. Many in Ukraine also thought that the new coup regime was going to be a disaster and voted for Zelensky ! President Putin and Lavrov rejected appeals by the people of Donbass to recognise their independence, in a hope that Minsk would be complied with. All to no avail. The Western world is propogandised to believe Russia simply invaded a Sovereign country. It was a huge call for Russia to react the way it was eventually forced to, (and hoped it would by US). Thailand as Brian Berletic has pointed out, is formulating a law to outlaw all foreign financed NGOs to stop US political interference in its affairs. I hope that many other poor countries follow suit and these NGOs pack their bags and huge funding back to the poor of US people.
@Wikikettle: who are these “many” who blame Putin for not invading earlier?
(Not just TV presenters I hope.)
And how do we know their opinions?
The Russian state trod very carefully for more than two decades while establishing Russian sovereignty. The Russian boss class then trod even more carefully when flexing its muscles in places like Syria. Now it is fighting the US at a time and in a place of its choosing; it’s all going rather well geopolitically speaking. The Russian advance is inexorable and tactics that limit Russian casualties are being used “l’artillerie conquiert, l’infanterie occupe” but “Quoi qu’on fasse, on perd beaucoup de monde” (Whatever you do, you lose a lot of men.” Charles Mangin).
It was Chamberlain who until almost the last moment in effect supported Hitler. It was the US (and British public opinion) that forced him to abandon appeasement and go to war with Hitler.
What could possibly go wrong ..
The British government, as ever following the U.S. lead, is sending longer range missile systems to Ukraine for the first time. The government described the M270 weapon system they are despatching as a “cutting edge” military asset which can strike targets up to 80 kilometres away “with pinpoint accuracy.” Ukrainian soldiers are due to be brought to Britain for training in how to use the missiles.
By Christopher Nineham
Stop the War –
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/06/08/faced-with-donbass-defeat-us-uk-up-the-ante-in-ukraine/?
It’s an American weapon system, not British, whose production stopped as long ago as 1983 after a final delivery to the Egyptian army (who are not allowed anything anywhere near cutting edge, in case they use it on the Israelis). So another round of useless old junk delivered in minuscule numbers (3 or 4) to Ukraine. Not exactly game-changing.
It’s was a joint project and production ceased in 2003; 1983 was the year the first version entered service.
Nearly twenty years old is still not “cutting edge”.
Pears Morgaine
Not according to Wiki, who must be completely and 100% misinformed.
I never heard about it in a British military context. I presumed they had a few, which they found useless, and so dumped on the Ukrainians.
Yes according to Wiki, Laguerre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M270_Multiple_Launch_Rocket_System
The British Army haven’t found the M270 MLRS to be useless, otherwise it wouldn’t currently be employed by 26 Royal Artillery (as well as 101 RA Reserve). The main reason it has been largely superseded by the M142 HIMARS in the US is that the newer M30 & M31 guided rockets have a far greater range than M26 unguided ones (70km vs 30km), meaning that potential targets are now very likely be in range of tarmac roads – so there is little requirement for the off-road capabilities of the M270’s caterpillar-tracked chassis which, unlike HIMARS, cannot fit into a C-130 transport plane.
“The British Army haven’t found the M270 MLRS to be useless, otherwise it wouldn’t currently be employed by 26 Royal Artillery (as well as 101 RA Reserve). “
You have a very rose-tinted view on why the British Army buys what it does. Perhaps you should talk to an ex-soldier.
What needs to be focused on is where this war is going. History points to another world war. Every empire eventually faces the war it is trying to avoid – its own destruction. Of course nobody wants nuclear war…
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
Peter mcloughlin. I agree, there is no pressure release valve in US politics to stop all these battles on so many fronts and countries from escalation to a nuclear exchange. Russia is determined to rid Nato from its borders and Nato is determined to regime change and break up Russia.
Yeah. In many ways Biden + Nuland are far more dangerous a combination than Trump and his team.
For under Trump, there is mounting evidence that the US military top brass and those at the State Dept assumed he was mad enough and erratic enough, to order something totally crazy should the US get into a war. Thus they acted as a restraint. No such restraint is in place now with what’s widely assumed to be a more ‘sensible’ leadership.
So no, I don’t buy the argument put forward by some that no major wars or interventions happened under Trump because he’s somehow instinctively less inclined to favouring military solutions. Remember he talked about blitzing North Korea ‘with fire and fury like the world has never seen’. Hardly a dovish President. Those around him contained him.
The British Empire dissolved without a war with its successor the US. Likewise with the USSR.
Well, I, for one, am completely comfuzzled as to the complexity and multi polar, inanity of it all. Italy faces starvation without wheat from Ukraine and David Lammy claims the Russians are blocking the port of Odessa to starve Afghans, when the Ukrainians are refusing to allow Turkey to send minesweepers to open the port. Who started it? Well…. The US planned a coup to instate a nazi president who cut off all services and funding for Donbass. I watched a documentary by a French journalist showing the intended siege against the 11,000 who died in the ‘separatist’ region of Russian speakers. So all funding of nazis was blocked by the US in 2018. But now we are providing weapons.
And Kolomoisky? He funded Hunter Biden and the 26 labs in Ukraine? He funded Zelensky’s acting career. His bank crashed after he bought real estate in the US, and Zelensky had billions in his bank account. And K and Z have Ukrainian Israeli joint citizenship. And Biden was initially planning a unilateral attack on Iran but Kissinger negotiated a deal whereby Putin protected the territorial integrity of Iran and Israel against an attack by the other. And the deal was renegotiated by Netanyahu who has now retired. So Putin is the obstacle. But dollar hegemony and Russian oil and gas, and Syria.
And Europe.
And ‘fuck Europe’ said Victoria Nuland.
But China. Taiwan. But Afghanistand, Al Qaeda, and Daesh. But China selling arms to Saudi now. And to Imran Khan who has been coup ousted.
Surely this is all wrong?
Russia doesn’t want Islamic terrorist incursions. China can see the advantage to weakness in Europe and Russia if we knock each other out.
Whose interests are we serving?
What happens if we place strategic weapons in Ukraine that were banned by the Minsk Agreement?
Nuts! It is all MAD
The head of Interpol is very concerned about the supplied weapons ending up in criminal hands.
Interesting article explaining why pumping in arms may result in unexpected blowback.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/03/07/big-risk-of-weapons-vanishing-as-over-20-countries-send-arms-to-ukraine/
From the piece:
In 2019, for example, two Ukrainian soldiers attempted to sell 40 RGD-5 grenades, 15 RPG-22 rockets, and 2,454 firearms cartridges for a mere 75,000 Ukrainian hryvnia (approximately $2,900).
In 2020, a rocket launcher was found in a dumpster in Zhytomyr. That same year, in Odessa, the Security Service of Ukraine discovered 18 RGD-5 grenades, 12 F-1 grenades, and 2 anti-tank mines in a nearby power facility that a service member had stolen from a military base. The servicemen sold at least two grenades before his arrest.
European leaders must be praying these missing weapons won’t eventually be used in a future Paris Bataclan theater type attack, or to carry out some political assassination.
“European leaders must be praying these missing weapons won’t eventually be used in a future Paris Bataclan theater type attack, or to carry out some political assassination.”
OTOH, they will no doubt come in handy for the next terrorist outrage that takes place just before an important election, as has by now become customary in Europe.
There is also the question of Legal accountability for environmental destruction in Ukraine:
https://ceobs.org/legal-accountability-for-environmental-destruction-in-ukraine/
Some of the background impacts are discussed here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/07/dead-dolphins-how-nature-became-another-casualty-of-the-ukraine-war
Perhaps one the most environmentally-conscious ways to try to stop conflicts is by judicial assassination, but I guess leaders might be fearful of what-goes-around. Still, by the time the ICC investigates environmental damage we could be years into an ecocide. Supplying yet more environment-destroying weapons (which as Interpol apparently warned will end up in the hands of criminals anyway) seems a failure of ethics and imagination.
@Sleeping Dog: If you rule out assassination of despots and also rule out supplying weapons to their victims, all that is left is surrender.
@John Kinsella, see above, “a failure of ethics and imagination”. I can imagine quite a few alternatives to surrender, just based on my familiarity with historical narratives and political science. I suppose an article might be devoted to the question of “why wars end”. Anyway, there are other kinds of warfare going on simultaneously than the one that requires military hardware. Side point: even modern military hardware is typically double-edged. I have wondered about the question of what happens when poorly-trained militias are given heavy weapons in city-defence roles, for which Simon Webb’s book Secret Casualties of World War Two: Uncovering the Civilian Deaths from Friendly Fire is thought-provoking.
Hi,
I see nobody here comments on British mercenaries in Ukraine. Do your media report on them?
Andrew James Hill, Shaun Pinner, Aiden Aslin?
Russian news say the latter 2 are sentenced to death.
Yes, our foreign minister has condemned the ruling as a sham. Our media was quick to support the trial and decision of the Russian POW but condemns this. I would have thought that any trial should be after the conflict is over though.
Not sure really on the law of this. As mercenaries are they really POW’s under international law or not?
Legal questions are not my field of expertise. Hopefully some experts may comment on this. The British mercenaries are under Donetsk legislation now, not under Russian. Looks like a death penalty is legal there.
I’ve seen a Wiki entry, someone was quick to add the info on Aiden Aslin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiden_Aslin
On Shaun Pinner an article
https://www.gazeta.ru/army/news/2022/06/09/17903438.shtml
says:
“Pinner Sean was wanted in the UK for participating in hostilities in Iraq and Syria, and was recognized as a terrorist in the UK. In this regard, Pinner Sean came to the territory of Ukraine to participate in hostilities Pinner served in the British Armed Forces. He later opened a business, but went bankrupt in 2018. Then he came to Ukraine. Since that time, he lived in Mariupol with his wife, a citizen of Ukraine.”
So many scary news these days, now a death sentence! We haven’t heard of death sentence for maybe decades here in Russia.
Unfortunately the fact that they have been tried by the DPR is missed by the BBC that bastion of Russian disinformation which just a few minutes ago in its “news” headlines talked about the mercenaries being condemned by “the Russians”, seemingly ignorant of Russian death penalty laws being in a state of long term suspension, which I knew. The “news” went on to air the claims that Mariupol is in danger of a massive cholera outbreak. Nothing of course about reconstruction efforts taking place etc.
Crispa, it’s media wars.
Another example is the average Ukrainian female image they promote nowadays. Interesting, this is a light-skin blue-eyes Nothern European type of appearance. Blond hair, ashes or flax shadow of blond. In a nutshell, it’s Pole type of appearance.
When in our ‘folk memory’ Ukrainian women are чернобрива, черноока Галя – tanned skin, dark hair, dark eyes. Southern type of appearance. Myself being a remote descendant of Zaporozhie cossaks, and a native Russian, knowing much of folklore songs and other cultural evidence, I find this new narrative amusing.
—
Can I suggest my favorite Pole opera singer perfomance, to illustrate the type of appearance I refer to, and to entertain the community with some truly good music?
https://youtu.be/mVUpKIFHqZk?list=PLvowIPoyZDEN0mypqvpmlV6HWDd3k6Me2
They are top of the news today.
I think they had Ukrainian passports. British policy in that case is not to intervene in what happens to British nationals in the country of their second nationality. But any notion of adherence to law and principles by the current government is quite beyond imagining. Johnson fancies intervening in the question, so they do. It is Johnson’s caprices that count. I presumed the death sentences were intended to encourage other foreign volunteers to leave and go back home, and when they had served their purpose, the death sentences would be commuted.
This is what happens when your fireign minister ckears and encourages Uk citizens to fight in a non NATO country.
These three gave been caught and very likely be an example to others who are still supporting the Asovskies fighting for Bidens shady agenda.
So what? they knew that this is not a wedding and they went there for the money. Good riddance, not much different to islamic terrorists , also being used by the greedy warmongers of this world.
“So what? they knew that this is not a wedding and they went there for the money. Good riddance,”
They’e not mercenaries, nevermind, they’re soldiers in the Ukrainian army and so are entitled to Prisoner of War exemptions.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/10/ukraine-shaun-pinner-and-aiden-aslin-not-and-never-were-mercenaries-16802495/
This raises the question of what exactly a “mercenary” is. It’s far from obvious or clear. My Concise Oxford English Dictionary has this helpful contribution:
mercenary
n adjective primarily concerned with making money at the expense of ethics.
n noun (plural mercenaries) a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army.
DERIVATIVES
mercenariness noun
ORIGIN
Middle English: from Latin mercenarius ‘hireling’, from merces, merced- ‘reward’.
Except in the most desperate of conditions, all soldiers are paid whether they are fighting or not. So the aspect of being paid is not of the essence.
The dictionary definition emphasises that a mercenary is a soldier paid to fight for a foreign army, presumably as opposed to that of his own country. By that standard, all three of those recently tried are definitely mercenaries.
They may have Ukrainian passports, but if their primary nationality is UK they are still fighting for a foreign army. It is the easiest thing in the world to issue all foreign fighters with Ukrainian passports, along with paybooks (if any) and weapons – that doesn’t make them Ukrainians except in the narrowest legalistic sense.
That said, there is a huge amount of hypocrisy and double standards surrounding the whole issue of mercenaries.
Finding a particularly loose defiinition and then twisting meanings to fit hardly gives an authoritative answer. To be more specific, the important point is whether those men are recognised as mercenaries by the Geneva Convention, which grants protection to legitimate combatants in armed conflicts. Article 47 of the Geneva Convention Protocol I offers this definition:
“Art 47. Mercenaries
According to that definition the men are not mercenaries, but legitimate combatants, and are therefore granted combatant immunity from prosecution as PoWs. The actions of the DPR court (which is not recognised as a legitimate justiciary by the UN) therefore contravene the Geneva Convention and amount to a war crime.
They both lived in Ukraine since 2018; not as if they went there solely to join up.
Will it be ‘good riddance’ if Ukraine executes any of the thousands of mercenaries Russia has brought in from Chechnya, Syria and the Wagner group?
The death penalty should be condemned regardless of why it’s imposed. It could prove counter productive here anyway, no Ukrainian is going to surrender if they know they’re going to be shot. They’ll fight to the last.
Pears Morgaine
I’m sure Ukraine will get around to executing prisoners. The only reason they haven’t is that they have to look nice for their American/NATO sponsors. They were very, very, fast to put Russians on trial. And those Russians did their public confessions, looking very sick as they did so. It didn’t look very voluntary.
In any case, if those Brits were “in the army”, and captured in the Mariupol dungeon, they were certainly members of the Azov battalion, and thus of a certain extremist political persuasion, which makes them much the same as the jihadists so loudly condemned by our infernal government.
Ukraine abolished the death penalty in 2000; Russia has just had a moratorium since 1999 and is withdrawing from the ECHR so no legal barrier to re-introducing it. In Ukraine it would require a change in the law and withdrawal from the CoE/ECHR, but in a way you’re right. Ukraine’s ‘sponsors’ as you put it would in the main deplore any executions. The Russians meanwhile are celebrating the death sentences imposed by their puppets in Donetsk. Tells you all you need to know really.
As I said, it can’t be justified under any circumstances. Not by truly civilised nations.
The civilised states of the west end of Europe don’t go in for judicial murder but that’s because they do them by other means (cf Menezes, Assange, etc). I hope that the Allies don’t stoop to the level of the US terror state; I hope that it’s a ploy to gain de facto, if not de jure recognition from Bimbo.
May 1996 Eltsin issued a decree to abolish death sentence in Russia. The last executed was Sergey Golovkin, August 1996. Golovkin was a serial murderer and pedofile, who tortured and killed 11 boys (proved, 13 victims he claimed himself).
There are people in Russia who truly believe that death penalty is a necessary measure.
Checking your list of truly civilized countries, I fail to find US or Japan there, Pears. Also, the choice of words feels a bit… Well, have you heard of Social Darwinism? ‘Nice’ theory that took place of ‘scientific racial theory’, after it was proved non-science.
“Russia has just had a moratorium since 1999 and is withdrawing from the ECHR…”
“Withdrawing” , eh?
“On March 15, the committee of ministers of the Council of Europe decided to expel Russia from the organisation, of which the ECHR is part, in response to Russia’s deployment of troops to Ukraine in February.”
Russian parliament votes to withdraw from ECHR:-
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/7/russia-exits-european-court-of-human-rights-jurisdiction
Yes Japan and the US still retain the death penalty which puts them in company with the likes of Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabis and Syria. Aside from being a barbaric throw back to less civilised times it’s been proven not to be an effective deterrent (didn’t prevent Sergey Golovkin from offending) and however good a justice system is there are always going to be miscarriages.
“Russian parliament votes to withdraw from ECHR:-“
That must have been a bit of legalistic tidying-up, since they’d already been kicked out. It’s a bit like the man who’s been thrown out of the night club picking himself up, dusting himself off and saying, “I’m leaving now”.
Something like that. According to the article they were due to be kicked out on the 16th March but withdrew on the 15th.
So you agree that they weren’t withdrawing so that they could reinstate the death penalty, as you implied?
It removes a legal barrier to its re-introduction is what I said.
I know what you said, I was referring to what you implied.
If the three men were recruited to the UA and wearing the UA uniform then they aren’t mercs.
What of the Wagner group? Are they mercs?
They live in Ukraine, with Ukrainian wives. They volunteered for service before the war started. They are not mercenaries.
Jeffrey Sachs (always good), on the ‘New Economic Thinking’ Youtube channel, provides one of the best reviews and explanations of how the US has dragged the world to this situation that we are now in that I’ve so far seen.
He locates the inception of the problem in the US Neo-con think-tank ‘Project For The New American Century’ (PNAC), which included Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush among others. Though Sachs doesn’t actually use the term PNAC, when he speaks of Wolfowitz and Cheney that’s what he means.
The whole interview is well worth watching but see specifically from 20:40 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d4D2EKGfv4
It’s also well worth noting that one of the founders of PNAC, Robert Kagan, is married to Victoria Nuland who is, of course, effectively the Governor-General of Ukraine.
As an aside, the same Yt channel also has an excellent interview with Chris Hedges discussing the history, development and advance of Neoliberalism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2jyzp09_g8
It is a coincidence that when Ukraine went through the Holodomor [famine] it was due to the policies implemented by Lazar Kaganovich
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933
Mark B. Tauger
Slavic Review
Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 70-89 (20 pages)
Published By: Cambridge University Press
Better to read some real history instead of parroting the versions invented by the Ukrainian Nazis. The famine was mainly due to natural causes. Even Robert Conquest came to accept this. If you do not know who that is, George Bush bestowed the Medal of Freedom (sic) on him for services rendered, which should tell you what he stood for!
Of the dozens of more academics who have written on the Holodomor, Tauger is the only one to reach this conclusion and his methodology for ignoring official statistics has been widely criticised.
The others who’ve written on the subject are no doubt simply pro-Ukrainian, and anti-Soviet. There were lots of the latter around in the old days. I too believed the anti-soviet stuff, when I was a kid, but then I grew up.
Another example of modern distorted narrative.
If you ask any Russian over 40 what the expression “голодающие с Поволжья *starving Volga region inhabitants” means, you will learn that the expression has become a common expression used up to today, when referring to a person who absorbs food too greedily.
Its original meaning described a massive famine throughout the Soviet Union. Please note, Volga is very far from Ukraine.
Ukraine pulled out a piece of our common history and made it its personal tragedy. The “Holodomor in Ukraine” story is more likely to win European sympathy than the “Famine in the Bolshevik USSR” story.
My granny told about the famine too, scary stories, including cannibalism, and we are in Krasnodar region, the richest region in agricurtulal resource among others in the country.
Odd that the famine of 1932-33 is called Holodomor but not the ones in 1922 and 1892. Odd that the famine occurred in Caucasus and Siberia too, if it was caused by Stalinist hostility to Ukrainians. Odder that the methods of famine relief used by the Soviet authorities were comparable to those of the Tsarist regime. Tauger was criticised by Conquest and others but even they accepted his findings in the end.
One would have thought it were precisely the obligation of historians to ignore or at least interrogate official statistics! I am sure when it suits his prejudices Pears does not repose papal infallibility in official statistics. The ‘academics’ who write about Russia or China are for the most part merely presstitutes with P.hD.’s. Even those with some intellectual integrity allow their prejudices to result in the most odious absurdities. I recall attending a lecture by Alex Nove, late professor of the Institute of Soviet Studies at Glasgow University. Now Nove did not hesitate to ridicule the absurdly inflated number of Stalin’s victims as advanced by among others the leading Trotskyist in residence. Nove pointed out that the 1933 famine was the last in Russian history except for one in 1946; but this famine affirmed Nove was not manmade unlike the 1933 one but was caused by the War! There, even Pears should be able to see through such nonsense. Let us repeat a sentence from the opening of the Greek satirist, Lucian’s, ‘True History’: “The only true thing here is ‘I am a liar'”
whose policies were responsible for the bengal famine a decade later?
dang .. if it wasn’t the *greatest ever* briton, the very best englishman.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill-policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study
Zoot,
And British policy was much the same back in 1917 with Iran:-
https://www.globalresearch.ca/what-law-who-breached-us-iran-west/5689912
”the Governor-General of Ukraine.” or Gauleiter in German imperialist nomenclature!
It’s strange how the truth of the matter is beginning to trickle out. Russia has been warning NATO and the US for the last twenty years to stop creeping closer to its’ borders. It has also asked the Ukranians to stop bombing the Russian speaking population in the Donbas for at least the last eight years. Things had to come to a head. I draw your attention to Prof John Mearsheimer’s lecture on the subject:
https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4
Very clearly explained what is actually going on.
There’s so many who now have the little Ukraine flag emojis on Twitter who only discovered Ukraine in 2022.
They now feel entitled to criticise and lecture others on not being fulsome enough in praise of Zelensky and Ukraine. Those who actually follow world events, know the story is a lot more nuanced than our western media portray. People who’ve taken the time to research know the East of Ukraine has every right to be mighty angry having seen the man they overwhelmingly elected removed in a western orchestrated and supported coup in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election
In 2014, the western powers placed being pro-west above democracy in terms of importance; encouraging the coup, and then dismissing Eastern Ukraine’s anger as simply the Kremlin stoking up trouble. I wish those attacking others calling them Putin shills etc for explaining the recent history, would look at the electoral map from 2010 to understand how Ukraine’s east must have felt and just how polarising the Maidan events must have been.
They’ve been fighting ever since, with the German, French; Russia, Ukraine negotiated Minsk agreements offering by far the best hope for peace in Ukraine. Progress was derailed by a mixture of Kyiv intransigence and sequencing issues – Ukraine wanted the border back before any referendum on the envisaged greater autonomy and rebels in the East didn’t trust Kyiv enough to surrender border control. That issue could have been solved in my opinion had the UN ‘s António Guterres played a positive role, a UN peace keeping force to enable a referendum, but for some reason they didn’t play a positive role – pressure from the US to stay out? Is he truly independent?
The demographics from 2010’s Presidential election show the West / East divide is far deeper than simply a few Russia-backed separatists stirring up trouble in the East, as portrayed in the West and by some posters on here. It’s deeper than the Red States(Trump) vs liberal West Coast divide in the US.
That doesn’t make Russia’s invasion justified or right; it’s illegal and borders need to be respected if world order is to be maintained but it does highlight the govt in Kyiv’s western encouraged intransigence and the west has also played a dubious anti-democratic role throughout. That’s why many are ambivalent about Ukraine and Zelensky – a man elected let’s not forget on a peace ticket , who did nothing to make good on that promise of uniting Ukraine.
Sorry if this has already been pointed out but why don’t they just transport grain etc. to Romania and ship it out from there?
Joe Biden –
“My administration is going to continue to do everything it can to lower prices for the American people.”
Then Sends $40bn – 65 bn at least total to Ukraine ??
‘They Plan On Repeating “Putin’s Price Hike” Until People Believe It’ – Caitlin Johnstone
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/they-plan-on-repeating-putins-price?
Exactly! Caitlin Johnstone is always well worth a look at – to show how the ‘Evil Empire’ manages to manipulate the masses.