This post initially included a corridor photo which was fake. My fault, but that made no difference at all to the argument.
It will definitely be good if the war in Ukraine draws to a close. Too many have died or been maimed, too many civilian assets have been destroyed. However the cynicism with which the conclusion of the war is being driven is quite extraordinary.
I am not sure there has been a sight in modern history equivalent to the way Europe’s “leaders” were pictured in the White House.
This is not an accident. There really is a craft to diplomacy; many countries in the world have foreign services consisting largely of people who have a degree in it. I have personally organised two state visits for the former Queen as well as head of government visits.
These things follow a careful choreography and an absolutely key part of that is to present a picture of equal status between state parties. Who will enter first, whether there will be a handshake, the precise spot where the handshake will happen, the setting of the table they meet around, flags of equal size, all that is plotted in great detail. It is fundamental to the job.
If I had put Robin Cook, for example, in a position where he was seated on a chair in front of an interlocutor enthroned behind a desk, I would have received a very fierce bollocking indeed. Yet here we have European Heads of State and EU leaders seated before a desk in the Oval Office.
This is just unthinkable to anybody familiar with the craft of diplomacy. I realise you don’t have to be a diplomat to feel there is something wrong in this picture: but you are probably not quite as stunned as I am.
The unequal interpersonal relationships are just the immediate physical manifestation of Trump’s instinctive ability to maximise the brutality of realpolitik. The deal which is being put together to end the war in Ukraine is a remarkable testimony to Trump’s ability to seize economic advantage for the USA, or at least for the class of people in the USA he cares about.
Trump’s Presidency is marked by an undisguised willingness to leverage the massive economic advantages which come from possessing the world’s reserve currency, which means you can just invent money to purchase any good you want from another country, the economy of which becomes addicted to this “cash” flow.
Trump’s trade war has displayed an ability to force other states to make enormous concessions, including reinvesting hundreds of billions of dollars back into US industry, rather than face tariffs which would make it harder to give up their goods as tribute to the USA in return for token dollars.
The reserve currency is essentially a confidence trick. It always works, if and only if the world believes in it. The world was starting to lose its faith in the power of the dollar, and Trump was smart enough to know that the way to maintain a confidence trick is to double down and be still more assertive.
Trump has undoubtedly prolonged, at least a little, American economic supremacy.
The Ukraine deal is a related trick. Part of the “guarantee” of Ukraine’s security is that the Europeans will purchase US $100 billion worth of weapons from US arms manufacturers in order to give said weapons to Ukraine.
It is not planned that any European weapons will be in the deal or that the USA will finance any weapons. A senior FCDO source tells me that Keir Starmer is saying the UK will put “well over” £10 billion into the pot to buy US weapons for Ukraine.
The hope on the European side is that they will be able to pay for this merchant-of-death bonanza with stolen Russian money – assets seized under sanctions. There are two obstacles to this. The first is the international courts, which are most unlikely to agree. The second is Vladimir Putin.
I have never bought into the notion that Russia is militarily infallible and about to triumph quickly and simply. I have certainly never accepted the nonsensical propaganda that the initial disastrous Russian strike at Kiev was just a ruse or feint.
But Russia is indeed now winning and was always going ultimately to prevail on the battlefield. The delusional rhetoric of European leaders over the last few weeks, including from Keir Starmer, attempted to ignore this obvious reality.
Ukraine’s lines in Donetsk are now so untenable that Putin is able to attempt to insist on being given territory he has not conquered yet, because everybody knows that conquest is both unstoppable and imminent.
This is a realpolitik as hard as Trump’s.
The team Trump took to Alaska had substantially more officials connected with commercial policy than with military or foreign policy, and we should not underestimate the extent to which this attempt at agreement is cash driven.
Putin, who is winning the war, will insist on the lifting of economic sanctions and is simply not going to agree to US weapons being purchased for Ukraine by the Europeans with Russian money.
As support for the Ukrainian military is an essential part of the mooted “security guarantee” structure – as opposed to mutual defence commitment – funding will have to be found. This despite Rachel Reeves’s entire philosophy being to please the money markets by austerity.
My FCDO source tells me that plan B, for when the idea of paying with Russian money fails, is for the private financing of the UK’s purchase of US weapons for Ukraine. This has been an important point of preparation.
Just as with the aircraft flying out of Brize Norton, the idea is that a private equity consortium would finance the purchase of the weapons for Ukraine, with repayment by the UK over a twenty-year period.
This means that £10 billion of weaponry would eventually cost the UK about £38 billion. Yes, you read that right. BlackRock and Trump himself are among a variety of investors who would be brought into the scheme as financiers.
There is of course no industry like the weapons industry for corruption: backhanders, directorships, service contracts to front companies, post-retirement jobs. Politicians love the defence industry.
That US $100 billion for weapons will provide lots of lovely pork for absolutely everybody in the picture. Look at the wealth of Tony Blair. Come back to me in ten years’ time and discuss what personal wealth was eventually amassed by each of the people in this photo.
Zelensky is probably the biggest profiteer of all (though he also has bosses to pay off).
I explain in specific detail in both my memoirs – Murder in Samarkand and The Catholic Orangemen of Togo – that international affairs is always driven not only by control of natural resources, but by the corrupt interest of politicians in the companies that acquire them.
That I found first-hand to be true for oil and gas in Uzbekistan and for rutile and diamonds in Sierra Leone.
With Trump, these background motivations step out of the shadows and into the spotlight. So here we have a war which appears, thank goodness, to be drawing to a close, but on the basis of overtly commercial deals.
I expect those European leaders will cheer up. Cash can buy a lot of indignity.
As I have stated frequently, it was and is simply impossible for Ukraine to recover all of its territory of 1991, without a NATO-fuelled war being waged on a scale that would have been certain to escalate to nuclear conflagration.
There will now be border adjustments, be they de facto or also de jure, with the integration of some Russian-speaking areas of Eastern Ukraine into Russia, including Crimea and at least the large majority of the Donbass.
It is simply a statement of fact that there had never existed a Ukrainian state prior to 1991, and that there had never been any state with anything like the borders of 1991 Ukraine. I don’t know why people find incontrovertible historical truth so offensive.
We are going to have a modestly smaller, Western-aligned Ukraine. That seems to me something those Ukrainians who want to be Western-aligned ought to be celebrating. The percentage of the land area of Ukraine likely to be retained by Russia – something under 20% – is a fair approximation to the percentage of the Ukrainian population who would prefer to actually be Russian.
If the putative peace deal can be delivered, it will undoubtedly be better than continuing war. It will be slightly less advantageous to Ukrainian nationalists than the deal that was available in Turkey over two years ago, but which NATO vetoed.
Hopefully Ukrainians have noted that sacrificing an entire generation as cannon fodder for NATO is not a good policy.
European leaders are still attempting to strut their stuff by threatening Putin with further sanctions if a deal is not reached. This simply does not work; Moscow is fine. It in no way counters the military advantage now enjoyed by Putin.
I should like to believe that peace in Ukraine might lead to a reduction in Russophobic hysteria across Europe. But the truth is, that Cold War-style scaremongering is really all these failing European leaders have with which to terrify and control their disgruntled and impoverished populace at present.
They will, however, be ever less convincing.
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Putin said not long ago….
“I assure you, Trump, with his character and persistence, will restore order quite quickly. And all of them, you’ll see, soon all of them will stand at the master’s feet and gently wag their tails,” Putin argued.
European leaders will ‘wag tails’ for Trump – Putin – RT, Feb 2 2025
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
“This is beyond parody: not only is the EU doing virtually nothing to escape the protection racket it’s under with the US, it’s now supposed to pay for Ukraine’s…
All the more absurd when one considers that NATO expansion – the institutionalization of this protection racket – was the primary catalyst for this conflict”.
Absurd indeed, the US led NATO expansion into Ukraine created the provocation, then the Ukrainian bombardment of the Dombass the physical necessity of Russia to intervene, now it is all coming unstuck, and the US gambit has failed, the US are backing out to leave Europeans holding the expensive tar baby. Trump as a New York property developer probably does use the phrase with regard to the Euro vassals…”never give a sucker an even break”.
The writing was already on the wall when Biden blew up Germany’s industrial economy and standard of living and they rewarded him with their highest national honour. The abject subjection is a desperate effort to stop the Americans from pivoting to Asia and keep them tied to an ever more irrelevant continent. European and British elites cannot stomach the reality that world history is moving on without them.
Even as territory where externally based interests can develop their presence, western Europe is falling in importance – just as east-central Europe did after 1990.
A place representative of Britain for example would be a town such as Margate. (No insult intended to Margate!)
Albeit with an unusually large number of embassies (the pathetic term used by Foreign Office types and their hangers on is “punching above their weight” [*]) and some nukes with USA-supplied components that the poshies are too ashamed to admit that they were so weak they had to allow the burger munchers the right to switch them on and off.
Note
* “Punching above their weight” reminds me of an old feminist joke. Question: “Why are women bad at measuring things?” Answer: (Hold out two fingers about 4 inches apart.) “Because they’re always being told this is 9 inches.”
In a comment up thread I indicated that Halford Makinder in his ‘Heartland’ theory thought Ukraine within the US orbit was the key to control Eurasia, Breszinski, Carters Nat Sec Advisor agreed and authored this tome in 1997 ‘The Grand Chessboard’ The Biden administration full of Neocons whose raison d’être is US hegemony.
Breszinski in The Grand Chessboard (1997):
Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire. Russia without Ukraine can still strive for imperial status, but it would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state, more likely to be drawn into debilitating conflicts with aroused Central Asians, who would then be resentful of the loss of their recent independence and would be supported by their fellow Islamic states to the south.
However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as its access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.
There’s an even worse photo on the BBC News web-site today, under the “War in Ukraine” tab. The European leaders looking like they’re being lectured to by the headmaster, which I suppose they are. See here …
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjeynw8jppdo
The Euro leadership are trying to fool Trump into believing they are an ineffective collection of morons, i.e. they are mimicking that phrase ‘walk softly and carry a big shtick’, a comic routine, proving how ridiculous they are. On the other hand nobody should underestimate how tough and vicious a street fighter Keir Starmer can be. /S Here at 18.21 is how he assaults a punch bag. He is our next small white hope. What a pillock.
https://youtu.be/pXWnnFP7YYo?t=1102
Here are a few tips from Putin… You do not get to be leader of the Russian Federation without having brains and a backbone, in this clip he has just berated the bosses of a company for its failings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZrEYfuU6fg
Derispaska is actually one of the richest oligarchs in Russia and here Putin treats him like a naughty schoolboy.
I watched it so many times and still 😀.
” Give me the pen back”😂
The Australian Government thinks that Putin and Derispaska are close friends:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-12/oleg-deripaska-labelled-person-friend-of-vladimir-putin-in-court/103221166
Check out the piccy.
“We were in court today after being charged for hanging this banner opposite Labour HQ. Pleaded not guilty. Trial in January ”
https://nitter.poast.org/ByDonkeys/status/1958135136194572417#m
Sanctions:
I can see that Trump will end the US sanctions against RU, and that UK will probably fall in line and its.
However, what would be the incentive for the EU member states to end their sanctions, when it seems they’re mostly set on maintaining them?
The one niggle the EU may have for maintaining sanctions would be if it requires unanimity, given that Hungary (and possibly another) seem reluctant to maintain them.
Nah, rabid Russophobia is the only message Ser Keith Sturmer’s regime has left.
Well, aside from being hot-to-trot for Israel and total lying, petty and utterly sh*twitted Orwellian tyrants of course.
The EU had 18 bloody kicks at the sanctions can and thus Russia is about 10× more sanctioned than Iran. It’s produced few results and in some ways, might have been counter-productive. No one gives a f*ck what the EU doors, nor should they.
The sanctions have, as a whole, been thoroughly counter-productive. Almost every single sanctioned item has quickly been replaced by domestic production. That saves Russia importing, reduces foreign exchange outflows, makes Russia even more autarkic, bolsters Russian self-confidence, and every day rubs in the message that “the West” means to harm Russia.
It is now a common sentiment that Russians wouldn’t want the sanctions removed. Fortunately the stupid Western “leaders” cannot bear to admit they were wrong, so the sanctions will remain – steadily impoverishing the nations that impose them. The Russians eat sunflower seeds (equivalent of popcorn) and smile.
As for exports, the other 90% of humanity (outside the golden billion) is delighted to pay for them. The USA is currently finding out the hard way what happens when it tries to twist India’s arm (for instance).
The Russians have fully grasped that they cannot trust the USA and its allies; they will make the best of a bad job. Odd how the UK & EU states are willing to trash their own countries just to continue the attempt to destabilize the Russian Federation. What is driving this? The British Empire never really went away, it just morphed into a new form where it is no longer necessary to colonize with a resident army yet it still controls world resources by less obvious means.
“Odd how the UK & EU states are willing to trash their own countries just to continue the attempt to destabilize the Russian Federation”.
I keep having to point out the semantic confusion in such statements. “States” are high abstractions that really don’t exist except insofar as they represent rules in people’s minds – rules that most of us obey unhesitatingly through habit, fear, or misguided loyalty. Yet we go on talking as if they were real “things” or people.
The “countries” that are trashed are the citizens and their economy. The “states” that deliberately do the trashing are tiny cliques interested only in enriching themselves and serving their masters – the super-rich and their corporations.
Sir Keir Starmer and his accomplices have announced and are pursuing policies that are obviously and blatantly contrary to the interests of 99% or more of British people. How they get away with it is a complicated and deeply fascinating question. Three centuries ago David Hume remarked that,
“Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular”.
– David Hume, “Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary. Essay 4 : Of The First Principles of Government”
Hence the vital importance of manipulating opinion – an art that has been steadily perfected over the past century and a bit. Corporations notoriously do it with sales, marketing, and advertising. Governments caught on soon after and practice the same dark magic, though clumsily and stumblingly. That is why they can permit elections; the voters must first be rendered insensible to their own interests and even their own wishes, and made to think that they ought to vote for some man (or woman) on a white horse. It’s like a game of blind man’s buff, if anyone remembers that. The blindfolded victim is continually thrust from one player to another, never having time to collect his wits and understand where he is.
“The British Empire never really went away, it just morphed into a new form where it is no longer necessary to colonize with a resident army yet it still controls world resources by less obvious means”.
Actually the British Empire did go away, pretty completely, by the 1960s. It was superseded, intentionally and very brutally, by the USA – or rather its financial overlords. Already in WW2 FDR was quite open about his plan to take over the British Empire and replace it with a new and better scheme. The new type of “virtual conquest” you describe is almost wholly American, and is analysed by Michael Hudson in his “Superimperialism” and other books and essays. While quite cynical and cruel enough to desire such a virtual empire, the British ruling class and particularly its bankers have never been intelligent, competent, or realistic enough to operate one successfully. Instead, they have been folded into the US “globalism”.
So effective and complete has been the takeover that now Britain itself is being Americanised. No longer permitted to have an indigenous population or culture, Britain is being forced into being the kind of disastrous “melting pot” that we have always been told has been so successful in the USA – and which today has brought it to the brink of civil war. Even our language has been stolen and “repurposed”.
fwiw John Mearsheimer after an appearance on DEMOCRACY NOW confirms my doubts:
“(…)
On 19 August 2025, I was on “Democracy Now!” with Amy Goodman talking about Ukraine. There was a second guest, Denys Pilash, a Ukrainian political scientist, who was speaking from Kyiv. We both agreed that the Alaska summit did not bring us any closer to either a ceasefire or a negotiated peace settlement. But otherwise, there was deep disagreement between the two of us on how to think about the Ukraine war, especially regarding how to move forward. My sense from listening to Mr. Pilash — who is in no mood to compromise with Russia on any issue — is that it is virtually impossible to see how Russia and Ukraine will agree to settle this war diplomatically, and therefore it will be settled on the battlefield. I hope I am wrong, but I cannot tell myself a plausible story that ends with a genuine peace agreement.
(…)”
video is 32 min.
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/ukraine-sticks-to-its-guns
Mods,
Sorry to be a pain but I posted a reply to Tatyana in her Crimea thread in the discussion forum about an hour ago and it hasn’t appeared yet. Is this normal?
—
[ Mod: Yes, that does happen occasionally. The Cloudflare firewall sometimes prevents the message from reaching our blog server. It’s not obvious how to balance the settings optimally to keep the spam bots out. The system administrator is investigating the problem.
In the meantime, it’s best to take clipboard copy of anything you’re about to submit, so that you can repost easily without having to write it all over again. ]
My 2 cents: If it doesn´t appear after the verification just do it again. Works for me.
Re European leaders and their role in the conflict
I translated a piece of interview, I’ll link the source on Picabu because I cannot find it on YouTube
https://pikabu.ru/story/arestovich_pro_evropeyskikh_soyuznikov_13091895
Alexey Arestovych, chief Ukrainian propagandist.
Previously I gave my opinion on him. Shortly, the guy is truly intellectual, well and diversely educated, has experience of manipulating people and good knowledge of human psychology.
That’s what he says about Europeans:
Arestovych:
– There are allies, and there are “allies”. There are North Koreans. They are allies, they came to defend the territory of an ally, the Russian Federation, they took part in the battles in the Kursk region. Well, if you are allies, then you have to fight together, right?
And the Western “allies”, as we often call them in Ukraine, are they allies?
Just on the eve of the decisive summit, they are issuing one statement after another: We will not send soldiers to Ukraine, we will not send soldiers to Ukraine, British German French soldiers will not fight for Ukraine, only after a ceasefire is established *they can be there*.
They, the Europeans, always find the same solution: Let Trump arrest Putin, launch a nuclear strike on Moscow and hand over the American army to Syrsky for control. It’s very simple! Why haven’t they done this yet? This is, as these Ukrainian bloggers write, an obvious decision that will have to be made sooner or later. They have adopted this formulation.
Host:
– You said that the US have lost the proxy war with Russia. It seems that Europe is entering this lost war and really wants to lose it with all its might, too.
Arestovych:
– Because war solves a lot of issues!
Firstly, they have suppressed their right-wingers, who flirted with Putin. Maintained the left-of-center trend in Europe. This is important. The right won. They won in nine countries, the European bastards. It was necessary, at least at the level of the Euro-bureaucracy.
Secondly, military orders. There in Europe, construction sites *have appeared* everywhere, budgets have been increased, everyone is making money. They are busy with some kind of army there. Basically, it’s about money. They demonstrate: we are world politics here, we are also important, we are that weight that if it gets to that very … They have a negotiating position created …
And now do you suddenly want to stop the war? What about military orders? What about the insidious Putin, who if not today, then tomorrow for sure will seize Paris and rape the Eiffel Tower? What about the … what’s it called … nice coins? What about the Right, who are going to insidiously collude with Putin?
Such songs not to be sung, we don’t need this. Let the war continue. We need to develop our military industry and become stronger by 2030. And let the Ukrainians die a little for this. Just a little bit, just a little bit more, just five more years.
—
As I said above, the man has brains. I would listen to his opinions if he didn’t have one huge moral flaw – instead of calling to stop the war crimes commited by Ukrainian soldiers, Arestovich publicly advised to not publish videos of that, so that the Ukrainian army would look like Warriors of Light in the eyes of Europeans.
Quite extraordinary that the site owner and most posters ridicule the European leaders for flattering Trump but overlook Trump’s even more abject deference to Putin.
I call that consequential and adult thinking by the posters in question.
And yes, ridicule our governments is the least we can do.
AG
August 20, 2025 at 16:44
But don’t ridicule Trump?
What´s your point?
AG
August 20, 2025 at 17:32
Apart from me and a few other posters (I won’t name them to avoid guilt by association) posters here never comment on Trump’s slavish devotion to Putin.
European leaders do flatter Trump for effect – to try to nudge him towards rational actions. Probably a futile attempt.
(Remember Churchill courting FDR before the USA entered ww2?)
Trump’s behaviour is quite different; he doesn’t just flatter Putin, he anticipates his wants and performs them.
Given the hugely greater military power available to Trump vis a vis the depleted Russkiy army, the latter not possibly a threat to the USA, a reasonable conclusion is that Putin has compromat on Trump.
Pretty extraordinary compromat to nudge a narcissist into subjection.
“Trump’s behaviour is quite different; he doesn’t just flatter Putin, he anticipates his wants and performs them.”
Says who?
And did you also take into consideration that this is actually incorrect? Unless of course avoiding WWIII by talking and taking the other side seriously and to be at least in part honest is “anticipating and performign the wants” of that other party.
German former high level diplomat Michael von der Schulenberg who was Assistant SG of the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and led the peace missions in Iraq and Sierra Leone called Anchorage a possible milestone and hailed Trump adding unsurprisingly that he is no fan of Trump – but credit where credit is due.
By contrast European leaders have accomplished only one – make matters worse by the month and endangering their own populations who they give a fuck about (like Trump but the US being a superpower he has more leverage to create an outcome that happens to be of some benefit to the US population too even if that may be accidental only.)
For sake of documenting v.d.Schulenburg´s point
Trump’s meeting with Putin: Europe’s warmongers sidelined
by Michael von der Schulenburg
18. August 2025
https://www.telepolis.de/features/Trump-s-meeting-with-Putin-Europe-s-warmongers-sidelined-10539088.html
and his interview with Glenn Diesen:
Michael von der Schulenburg: Alaska Meeting Was a “Game Changer”
Aug 16, 2025
51 min.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/michael-von-der-schulenburg-alaska
and additionally:
Ray McGovern (whether or not Seth Rich was the source for Wikileaks is a different issue but that´s not the topic now)
Ray McGovern: End of Kremlinology & the Rise of Ideological Media
Aug 17, 2025
64 min.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/ray-mcgovern-end-of-kremlinology
Jacques Baud
Jacques Baud: Europe’s Dishonesty Exposed as Project Ukraine Collapses
Aug 12
85 min.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/jacques-baud-europes-dishonesty-exposed
“Apart from me and a few other posters (I won’t name them to avoid guilt by association) posters here never comment on Trump’s slavish devotion to Putin.”
I think this part of the post is apposite here: ” I don’t know why people find incontrovertible (historical) truth so offensive.”
Accepting that the other party in a negotiation might have a point and having a personal liking for them, even if you disagree with them, is not servility. It is only servility if your world view is completely black and white – if you are not part of the solution , you are part of the problem, if you are not with us you are against us, our side are all angels and the other side are all devils etc. No one comments on the “slavish devotion” because the “slavish devotion” is purely in the eye of, mercifully few, beholders. I’m sorry if Trump disappointed you by not treating Putin as the demon you think he deserves to be treated as: ain’t reality a bitch?
We can still ridicule our governments without the fear of ‘falling’ out of a window.
How do you know?
Is this the level of the discussion: Russia is a dictatorship because the members of the “opposition” are being thrown out of the window?
Let’s be fair. Throwing people out of windows was more apartheid South Africa’s modus operandi. For Putin’s Russia, poisoning, or failing that, sending people to prison in the Arctic Circle, there to freeze to death are more likely methods. Ask Alexei Navalny’s widow.
Did David Kelly defenestrate himself?
“We can still ridicule our governments without the fear of ‘falling’ out of a window.”
only because other forms of “suicide” are preferred in the West, like shooting oneself twice in the head.
Although there was the case of James Forrestal, which rewards close study. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Forrestal. And Frank Olson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Olson. Among others. The CIA does seem to believe that “variety is the spice of murder”.
I am still inclined to suspect the CIA’s involvement in the death of the great Alan Turing. The official story is that he poisoned himself with cyanide, either deliberately or by mistake. Neither possibility is at all credible. TPTB had many reasons to fear that he would divulge critical secrets to the Soviets; also he was gay and thought to be indiscreet – although in fact he kept absolute silence about important matters, as did everyone from Bletchley Park.
Yes John, supplying weapons and intelligence to kill Russians and subjecting Russia to stringent economic sanctions is ‘even more abject deference’ than the EU-US trade deal, the Nord Stream humiliation and Euro gimps calling Trump Daddy. If only everyone was blessed with your insight.
zoot
August 20, 2025 at 17:02
Why is Trump’s abject deference to Putin not grounds for ridicule by posters here and the site owner?
An interesting YouTube video re Anchorage & Washington:
https://youtu.be/f2ainZL8Tzk?si=M-uZ268_TcWc4skq
by Anders Puck Nielson.
And Steve Rosenberg quoting Russian newspapers:
https://youtu.be/Norw6T-jFDk?si=ENtoY2fVDTsR3OYv
Both videos suggest a degree of uncertainty re Anchorage & Washington that is not widely shared here!
Because nobody else considers Trump killing Russians to be abject deference.
Trump has threatened Putin in public a number of times. That’s a strange kind of abject deference.
What deference? He’s running a terrorist war against Russia.
Well of course one man’s flattery is another man’s good manners, but I do appreciate that some posters are unable – or more likely pretend to be unable – to tell the difference.
I should say that Trump’s attitude vis-à-vis Putin in Alaska was good manners and perhaps also a realisation that calling people “ogres” (cf President Micron) and such like is not usually conducive to constructive contact.
On the other hand, I should say the EU cheerleaders for Zelenski displayed not politeness but nauseating flattery vis-à-vis Trump. But I got the impression from watching the whole thing that Trump was laughing at them all (repeat, all) behind his apparent pleasure at their honeyed words. He gave himself away when he pretended for a moment not to recognise Stubb of Finland, the guy who’s always being touted as the “Trump whisperer” on the strength of having played golf together a couple of times.
Yawn BerkOff
August 20, 2025 at 17:11
Trump’s inability to recognise Stubb is more likely evidence of his advancing dementia.
It sees you’ve missed the point.
Of course Trump recognised him – he just pretended not to for a moment. A classic move, used by loads of people in all sorts of situations.
Look at the video again carefully, you’ll see it.
‘Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide the lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best’.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Constructive communication and focus on the task, right.
I once commented on the striking difference between Ze, who creates an image for himself with casual clothes, sneakers and unshaven face, while communicating poorly in the Oval Office, after which he received the phrase “you must leave now.” An actor who came not to solve a problem, but to present himself, appeal to emotions, make statements and persuade to satisfy his requests for sponsorship of the war.
In comparison with the delegation of Russians, who put on their business suits and went to do their job with a team of people dressed in the same suits, representing the opposite sides, men having absolutely no reason to love each other. Men simply doing the work that their people entrusted them to do.
—
I also encounter this at my level 🙂
There are customers who make orders and are interested in how long it will take to get it ready, what are the terms of payment, and delivery time.
And there are customers who start with “I own a brand of unconventional materials jewelry …” which eventually turns into an order for a tiny piece of silver wire to wrap around a leather ring cut off from a worn out glove. I kid you not. And, one of the customers introduced herself as “a beads magnate”! She was unhappy with the price of the five cheap glass beads she was going to buy for her project.
I don’t even mention that these moguls and brand owners usually just do something as a hobby while they are not working because they take care of their babies. Just a way to boost their self-esteem, I guess. From my point of view, they exploit the fact that it would be impolite and unprofessional for me to laugh at such statements.
btw, I’m going to show you something about beads in my Crimea thread
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/the-republic-of-crimea-summer-2025/
please comment about Crimea inside that thread, not here
One wonder why Trump is a friend with Stubb, a naive, cock-sure pro-war wishful-thinking liberal anti russian hawk. Just the type of european politicians/personality that foolishy generated the war between Ukraine/Russia and therefore certainly not someone that will bring any peace.
Stubb have his own youtube channel where he try to pose as some deep foreign policy thinker, here, back in 2022, he for example takes on John Mearshimer’s view on the conflict, 3 years in to the war one see that it is Mearsheimer and not Stubb that read the conflict more correctly.
Why Mearsheimer is wrong about Russia and the war in Ukraine. Five arguments from Alexander Stubb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlB-pRqdyBg
People like Mr Trump do not have friends. They have useful, or potentially useful, acquaintances who may suddenly fall out of favour at any time.
British secret intelligence´s love for fan fiction never ceases to entertain
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) with a new fun study fit for classes of creative writing or English poetry in the 21st century:
“The Scale of Russian Sabotage Operations Against Europe’s Critical Infrastructure
This IISS paper assesses Russia’s unconventional war on Europe, focusing on sabotage of critical infrastructure, from military sites and energy grids to communications and undersea cables, testing the resilience of European governments and societies and challenging NATO/EU deterrence.”
https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2025/08/the-scale-of-russian–sabotage-operations–against-europes-critical–infrastructure/
Naturally the NYT was first to inform us about this breathtaking insight already 24 hours ago (hm, but did they wait first for Alaska to feature this?)
“Sabotage Shows How Russia’s Hostility Toward Europe Goes Beyond Ukraine
The Kremlin’s goal is to destabilize Europe, and attacks on infrastructure are a preferred weapon, a new report said.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/world/europe/russia-hybrid-attacks-europe.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fU8.9iro.T6h4j8hBXS9_
I agree with you that leadership in Europe is failing. That said, do you really believe the butcher of Chechen will keep his word? He may, but there again he may not. Europe had better be prepared for both eventualities.
This from Afshin Rattansi
The hacker group KillNet claims they breached the General Staff database of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and have uncovered that allegedly 1.7 MILLION Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or are missing since February 2022.
If true this makes it 17 to 1 in Russias favour
So the Europeans want to spend cash they havnt got
on American arms ,that they have not got ,
To give to Ukrainian troops, that Ukraine do not have ,
But apart from all that its a flawless plan
Alan Bolger
August 20, 2025 at 19:00
Alan,
if that is true, why aren’t the Russkiy elves (orcs are so passé and elves are wise and kind) back in Lviv?
The evil Ukrainians (orcs? goblins??) should surely have been “eliminated” by now?
The Allies haven’t been at war with the US-Ukronazi regime since 2022; they’re at war with Nato who are getting a bloody good hiding.
Lord of the Rings is an amazing work of literature, which everyone should read, preferably first when they are children. It was a huge achievement by Tolkien.
As for the films, they are Hollywood crap. It’s hilarious that Return of the King won 11 Oscars (the equal most ever), but none of them were for acting! In fact it wasn’t even nominated for any Oscars for acting. (Titanic didn’t win any for acting either but at least it was nominated for some.)
So the oft-made statement that Return of the King made a “clean sweep” of the Oscars is misleading, because it only won the ones it was nominated for – and it wasn’t nominated for any of the ones that involve, y’know, dressing up and moving about and saying yer lines skilfully.
Perhaps it’s more difficult for fantasy films to get acting Oscars, because judging acting is more difficult the more imaginary the character?
“f that is true, why aren’t the Russkiy elves (orcs are so passé and elves are wise and kind) back in Lviv?”
Has it ever occurred to you that going to Lviv is not part of the plan? Really the “this is what they are trying to do, which they haven’t done yet, so they are failures” ploy is as old and transparent as a worn out bedsheet. You might as well say that Britain failed in the war against Argentina because they never took Buenos Aires.
” You might as well say that Britain failed in the war against Argentina because they never took Buenos Aires”.
Rather a good analogy, I must say! Thank you.
Although some hotheads would have liked to nuke BA, as Johnson wanted to nuke Cairo before it became public knowledge that the USS “Liberty” was attacked by Israelis and not Egyptians.
The good old, ever-reliable, false flag technique. Perpetrated, to their advantage, by cynics and lapped up by simpletons.
@Alan Bolger
Ukraine say it’s disinformation or ‘fake news’. Quote from MSN’s report : The Center for Countering Disinformation emphasized that Ukraine has never had a standing army of 1.7 million personnel.
But that’s not really relevant, is it, as that’s supposedly the total figure accrued since 2022,… obviously now it’s Q3 2025. And with Ukraine’s General Syrskyi demanding 30,000 new recruits per month, to replace battlefield casualties. Doing the math, is 1.7m so implausible if including deserters? Ukraine are quick to claim Russia has lost a very precise 1,072,700 personnel, killed or wounded. I’d imagine there are many deserters from both sides too.
“Maths”
Despite Afshin and KillNet both being openly pro-Russian I’m sure we can rely on this being accurate and unbiased.
The first casualty of war is the truth.
Russia sees continued growth ,despite fighting special military operation/War.
This is a fact.
Europe has seen very little economical growth,many large German companies were not built on the business model of paying 5 times the price for Gas,these companies have relocated to China.
The slow progress of the Ukraine war has unboubtably weakened the EU.
If this is by accident or design is debatable,I have no doubt the Russians will see it as a most welcome by product in view of any long term strategy,
India and China,both Brics members,have not blinked at any propect of new US tarriffs.
These countries plus Russia are 3 billion people.I would venture that the tide is turning,also that it will get messy as the US struggles to keep its throne.
after all ,the orange John McCain expires in 3 years.
“Despite Afshin and KillNet both being openly pro-Russian I’m sure we can rely on this being accurate and unbiased.”
Despite The Telegraph and the BBC both being openly anti-Russian I’m sure we can rely on them being accurate and unbiased. You can’t accuse sources that openly avow a cause of being biased without simultaneously imply that sources that open disavow the same cause are equally biased. No one knows what the true figures are but using proxies and probability suggests that these figures are closer to the truth than those put out by the Western MSM.
For a more nuanced view than “it’s favourable to the Russian side so it must be bollocks”, try this:
“Also came the news—referenced by Steve Bannon in the earlier video—that a Russian hacking collective allegedly hacked Ukrainian General Staff databases to reveal 1.7 million KIA and missing soldiers. They posted a handful of documents as proof, with claims that the lists contained all missing and liquidated soldiers:
Many reacted with outright skepticism at the number, and for good reason. It does seem hard to believe, however just as food for thought, recall that it was Zelensky himself who gave Ukraine’s mobilization figures as roughly 30,000 per month in each year of the war thus far:
Just taking 30k multiplied by the 41 months of the war, we get ~1.2 million. But you must add that to the 1m or so that Ukraine was said to have started the war with after the first initial mass call-up of reservists, which added to the already several-hundred-thousand-strong Ukrainian army at the time. With those you get 2.2m, from which we can subtract Ukraine’s current claimed strength of anywhere between 600k – 1m, and get somewhere between 1.2m to 1.6m that are “missing”, which seems to match up with the figures from the Russian hack.
However, recall that even if the AFU has lost 1.4m or so—taking the middle number—those would be irrecoverable losses which includes both KIA and seriously wounded or maimed. Given that the ratio between these is usually 1:1 or a bit higher for the maimed in most wars, we can then assume 700k or so would be killed and another 700k maimed, which is likely closer to the real Ukrainian losses.” H/T Simplicius
That photo reminded me of the Headmaster of Robin Hood Juniors, “Whitehead the shitehead” before he got the whack out. Pity Trump didn’t put a bit of stick round.
Fascinating what one can learn when looking at old maps… https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8490626v/f1.item.zoom#
(Have to say for an historian, you’ve done a pretty shocking job of simply accepting Putin’s “word”, Mr. Murray! )
Did you look at that map, then? “Sahara ou Desert” must have been a country too at that time, if “Ukraine” was.
If you want to read what V Putin has written about the history of the Ukraine, start here:
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
The map says Ukraine (borderlands) Petite Tartarie. These were a Turkic people from Central Asia, not today’s Slavs.
Recall that “Ukraine” was a term long used for a geographical region existing largely between various peoples and their rulers, although often falling regularly within various East and Central European “empires”.
The first state named “Ukraine” was formed after the first world war
The first independent Slovenian state was created in 1991, but since the end of the 10 day war Slovenian citizens have lived in peace with their neighbours.
Gotta admit – Ukraine is difficult to understand. Nobody will understand much about the Ukraine if they barrel in, thinking that 10 minutes of internet searching will wise them up so that they’re a lot wiser than most other people in their circles. It probably won’t.
Take the Cossacks. Are they a nation, or a cavalry regiment with powerful traditions, or what? This is not an easy question to answer. Beware of suggestions that it is. It depends on how they’re looked at. Personally I made a small step forward in my understanding when I got hold of the idea that some people in the Russian sphere didn’t half “go Mongol”.
If anyone even takes it into their head to whack me on the bonce and say that the Cossacks are actually very easy to understand, and I must be an ignoramus to believe otherwise, they’d better take a look at the Buryat Cossacks before hitting “Send”.
Cossack is very easy to understand, it is not an ethnicity, but a social role.
If you want to imagine yourself in the place of my ancestors, the Zaporozhian Cossacks:
The state is an empire, a monarchy. All the land belongs to the aristocracy. The industrial era is still far away. Common people work the land and they have a “master” – an aristocrat who owns the land and to whom you are obliged to give part of your labor.
The emperor (in our case, the empress) announces that she is ready to provide lands at the borders of the empire for free residence and ownership to those communities that will protect these lands from external threats (that is, military service).
You accept this agreement, move from Zaporozhie to Kuban.
You live as a community of free people, with self-government (the head of the community – the ataman – an elected position), from time to time repelling attacks by the Turks.
Voila, you are a Kuban Cossack.
The land is yours and will be inherited by your children.
There are also Cossacks of the Don, Terek, Siberia, etc.
I understand that the word “Cossack” comes from the Turkic word “to wander”
Cossack(n.)
“one of a military people who inhabit the steppes of southern Russia, 1590s, from Russian kozak, from Turkish kazak “adventurer, guerrilla, nomad,” from qaz “to wander.” The same Turkic root is the source of the people-name Kazakh and the nation of Kazakhstan.
This would make “Cossack” to be the Russian name of some of the many nomadic peoples who inhabited most of northern Asia.
Hmmm, I think that the Russians won’t settle for what you are willing to allow them. Crimea was gone forever in 2014 and the Donbas is being liberated daily. If I were Putin I’d keep going until the liberation of Odessa. If he does it will be interesting to see what the jackals in Rumania and Poland do….
Squeeth
August 20, 2025 at 20:27
“jackals in Romania (sic) and Poland”??
Mebbe a tiny bit orc-speak there Squeeth?
Gollum… gollum… gollum… squeeth…
Nice troll but no seegar. Don’t you remember what the Polish fascists did to Czechoslovakia in 1938? Rumanian irredentists will be licking their chops to get back Rumanian-speaking areas of south-west Ukraine.
Squeeth
August 20, 2025 at 20:49
Rumania?
Poles and Romanians (sic) are jackals?
What does that make Russians then? Wolves? Hyaenas?
We need to know.
Hard to respect posts like yours.
Repetition? Poor, very poor, very poor indeed. You should have noticed that I call the anti-nazis ‘the Allies’. Tell us what the Polish fascists did in 1938.
Kinsella
Why do you keep using terms from a children’s fiction book on here? Apart from making your posts appear extremely puerile, it also reveals the abject paucity of your arguments. In other words it’s not big and it’s not clever.
Frank Hovis
August 20, 2025 at 20:55
When posters refer to whole nations as jackals, words like orc (elf is a euphemism) naturally come to mind.
As do more contemporary words like miserable fucker and shitehawk.
If the cap fits…
Thanks for the totally (deliberately?) irrelevant reply. Now would you mind answering the question you were asked. After all, your posts are usually liberally garlanded with questions you expect other posters to answer so the least you can do is reciprocate once in a while, there’s a good chap.
The Polish and Rumanian boss classes, bimbo.
Frank Hovis
August 20, 2025 at 21:21
You get to ask me questions (if you want to) in language that you choose.
I’ll answer them (if I want to) in language that I choose.
(There is a Russian language parody of Tolkien’s books (now available in English) which might be more to your taste than the original.)
“stole away, stole away!”
JK,
I’m not interested in reading childrens’ fantasy fiction no matter what language it’s wriiten in, so va te faire foutre as they don’t say in Lord of the Rings.
And you still haven’t answered the question I asked you so I’ll give you another chance.
“(There is a Russian language parody of Tolkien’s books (now available in English) which might be more to your taste than the original.)”
The Russian book, “The Last Ringbearer” is a reimagining, not a parody. The parody is called “Bored of the Rings” and was written by an American. Apart from the names, some of which are amusing, it is very tedious.
Agreed that the use of the word “orcs” to describe a whole people is not on.
Maybe it needs pointing out though that whereas the Hobbit was written as a children’s book, the three books in the Lord of the Rings trilogy definitely weren’t. (LOTR is good to read in childhood, but that doesn’t make it a “children’s book”.)
LOTR should never have been made into films. No film can do it justice.
As it happens, the films that got made, albeit shot in New Zealand, were essentially Hollywood-style pro-US regime war films.
“As it happens, the films that got made, albeit shot in New Zealand, were essentially Hollywood-style pro-US regime war films.”
So are the books, with the good West against the evil East. For a counterpoint you might enjoy “The Last Ringbearer”, which is LOTR rewritten from the point of view of the Mordorians, by a Russian author. Great fiction it is not, but enjoyable all the same. It’s out there on the ‘net somewhere.
The LOTR books are psychologically far richer than any war film or Hollywood anything. But you are right they can be read as Cold War-ist. There’s no denying it. A similar thing, or at least an attribution of Islamophobia or western attitudes, could be said of C S Lewis’s Narnia book with the “Calormenes” and “Tash”. But they don’t have to be read that way. I will find out about The Last Ringbearer.
Sorry to disagree with you Brian but they all read like childrens’ books to me. I was lent the LOTR trilogy by a friend and felt oblged to have a go at reading it. I found it extremely tedious and full of lamentable doggerel. Managed to get to the end but I was losing the will to live by then. Still, different strokes for different folks, as they say, but I’m on the side of Hugo Dyson – “Oh no, not another fucking elf”
The agreement would probably be that the Kiev regime pulls out of Donetsk and any remaining small parts of Luhansk where it still has forces, possibly gives up small pieces of territory to the west of those regions, and keeps some of Zaporozhe and Kherson. It’s always been clear they won’t get any part of Crimea.
Russia taking Odessa is unlikely.
A provocation is possible at the Zaporozhe nuclear plant, which the Kiev regime has been shelling. What assistance they may have had is an interesting question.
It’s very simple. Every time a Russian offer is rejected, the price goes up.
Thank you for this cogent and insightful analysis.
So, the war comes to an end, but the military industrial complex stays on the gravy train for another ten years? That’s having their cake and eating it too.
US and its satellites entering a period of peace for 10 years is extremely unlikely.
Surely better to say the late Queen, not the former Queen.
For some strange reason, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark ‘Goldman-Sachs’ Carney manages to always be left out when mainstream media discuss the European members of The Coalition of the Willing’s support for NATO-Nazi Ukraine. So, let that end here. Like the UK under Starmer, Coalition member Canada, under Carney, is all in. See for yourself:
Prime Minister Carney Participates in a Virtual Meeting in Support of Ukraine
https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/readouts/2025/08/17/prime-minister-carney-participates-virtual-meeting-support-ukraine
Today’s article on RIA says that Zaluzhny’s election headquarters has been organized in London.
He is a general popular among Ukrainians and whom Zelensky sent as an ambassador to UK. The headquarters is headed by the former commander of the Joint Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Sergey Nayev, and the deputy head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, Polina Lysenko.
The RIA article refers to the publication of American journalist Katie Livingston and adds information:
in July, Russian intelligence reported on a meeting between Zaluzhny, Yermak and Budanov with curators from the USA and UK. Also in July, Vogue released a promotional article about Zaluzhny. There was also information that the electoral commission of UK and the electoral commission of Ukraine signed a memorandum according to which “Great Britain will assist Ukraine in holding presidential elections” after the conclusion of peace.
The fuss around the conflict in Ukraine fits into this picture; peace or at least a ceasefire is needed for the elections.
Replacing Zelensky, by the way, is also good for Russia, since the legitimacy of Zelensky’s status is questionable, which would potentially make any documents signed by him legally null and void.
—
Don’t blame John for orcs and elves. People have fun as best they can. Here, they suggested using Van Helsing instead of Von Der Leyen, because Van Helsing is easier to remember.
” since the legitimacy of Zelensky’s status is questionable, ”
Well it isn’t but I know why you think it is. What would happen if he gets re-elected? His approval rating has dropped but still stands at 65% aside from which Russia has been happy to deal with leaders with less legitimacy, why so squeamish about Zelensky?
Because during his election campaign he promised to end the war in Donbass, he said he was ready to kneel for peace. And after becoming president and commander-in-chief he gave orders to bomb Donbass. That’s why.
Because the Minsk agreements. While Putin was reading the document to the press, Ze sat and made sarcastic faces at the camera. That’s why.
Because the Istanbul negotiations. He received orders to continue the war from his forelocked British patrons, and disrupted the peace process. That’s why.
Do you think that it is worth signing another “paper” about another “peace” with this evil clown?
” He received orders to continue the war from his forelocked British patrons, and disrupted the peace process. ”
Utterly untrue. As if Britain still has that kind of power. The deal on the table would’ve meant Russia keeping the Donbas which was unacceptable to Ukraine. News had just come through about the massacre in Bucha too (please don’t waste my time claiming Ukrainian forces did it. Bodies appeared on satellite images taken two weeks before Ukraine re-took the place).
Russian backed rebel forces never upheld the Minsk agreements either. Heavy weapons were supposed to have been withdrawn; they weren’t.
All politicians make promises they can’t or won’t keep. Putin promised to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and that he wasn’t going to invade. Now he’s claiming to be ready for peace talks but still killing civilians.
Omg, Pears, what a disappointment. i really thought you were a commentator of a different level than the other pro-ukrainian commentator here.
Even me am able to regularly edit my avatar here , mind you, I’ve got no money to buy a Photoshop software . And you talk about pictures that could testify to a war crime as if they were true!
Even the damn Hunter fucking Biden’s laptop turned out to be true in the end. and the truth of the Biden family’s statements was signed by – remind me the number please – they were 47 or 49 high-ranking officials?
Also please remind me, weren’t you the one who, in blogs about the Syrian gas attacks, defended the non-zero probability that a cylinder with gas could pass through a hole in the roof of a smaller diameter than the cylinder itself? And weren’t you the one who held the opinion that the swastika is an ancient Indian symbol, and that there are simply many admirers of ancient Indian cults lin Ukraine?
—
Beg your pardon if the comments I refer to were left here under another nickname.
Pears Morgaine
‘ As if Britain still has that kind of power.’
Absolutely, but the US does – now whether the US told Johnson to do XY or Z I don’t know
but Johnson being a greedy person must have had a reason to decide to be The Delivery Boy.
The best leader we should never have had.
Trump’s Paper Boys and Girls were in full view in the Trump photo – op but I couldn’t see Starmer.
Might have been brewing the coffee?
I do like Trump’s Big Crayon Box as well.
For Coloring In for when he’s bored.
I will say this though – being as his signature is bigger than usual it is no wonder his cheques bounced all
the time.
I’m afraid the Europeans ( like during the Trade Deals ) had surrendered before they started.
I have to repeat this again:
If any set of countries need US Security Guarantees it is The EU and the UK.
Not just Ukraine.
Lol,
I’m more likely to be crowned Miss World than that being true. In fact Zelensky himself has more chance of being thusly crowned, than having uncoerced 65% support within Ukraine.
The Russians are squeamish about Zelensky because it’s akin dealing with a foul creature like Shamil Basayev, without the actual combat experience to backup the stupid warrior cosplay Z-Man obnoxiously struts around in. Long after it went stale.
Plus knocking off that false idol and replacing him with a gormless, rather ugly looking, Bandera-fancying butcher like Zaluzhny (or as I like to call him after his “artful” black & white photoshoot GQ-Ball). Might cause some chaos in Kiev and certainly wouldn’t improve matters for Ukraine.
So there’s no downside in refusing to deal with the repulsive little prick.
Pears,
Tatyana is right about The Priapic Piano-Player’s presidential legitimacy.
As I’m sure you know, his mandate ran out in May 2024 and according to the constitution, if there is no presidential election, the powers of the president revert to the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada. So in the unlikely event of a peace treaty being signed in the coming months, if Zelensky signed it on behalf of Ukraine it could create a legal problem. Would it be just a worthless piece of paper?
Frank Hovis
August 21, 2025 at 17:09
Frank, here’s a link (below) to the Ukrainian Constitution (in English translation).
I don’t see a reference to the procedure that you mentioned but it is a long document and I may have missed it?
Can you point me to the relevant section?
Thanks.
https://ccu.gov.ua/sites/default/files/constitution_2019_eng.pdf
JK,
I don’t visit this blog in order to fag for the likes of you. If you want to point anything out, do it your fucking self.
Oh, and by the way, my post was addressed to the engineer, not his oilrag.
OK JK,
a bit of spare time on my hands so, much against my gut instincts, I’ve bitten:
An extract from an article by Konstantin Skorkin, of the Carnegie Endowment for international Peace (not exactly a nest of rabid Putinistas I’m sure you’ll agree):
” The doubts about Zelensky remaining in his post after May 20 arise from the vagueness of Ukrainian law. While the constitution does not explicitly ban holding presidential elections under martial law, it also states that the president should continue to serve until a successor is elected (Article 108), and that presidential terms last five years (Article 103).
Ukrainian lawyers point out that the absence of a mechanism for extending a president’s term is a deliberate omission—so as to reduce the risk of abuse of power. At the same time, Ukrainian electoral law forbids the holding of elections during martial law.
Officials maintain that after May 20, Zelensky will become acting president until the next election. However, his opponents interpret the law in such a way as to argue it’s the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament who should become acting president: that’s who the constitution deems to be the next in line if the president is no longer able to fulfill his duties.
Unsurprisingly, Zelensky is not a fan of this option. And Ruslan Stefanchuk, the current parliamentary speaker and a member of the pro-Zelensky Servant of the People party, is not seeking the presidency. He has already publicly confirmed that Zelensky will be acting president until elections take place.
However, parliament is no longer as unquestionably accepting of Zelensky as it once was. Davyd Arakhamia, the head of the Servant of the People faction in parliament, is on record stating that the political consensus that existed at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion has collapsed. And that means there could be a different speaker in parliament: one who might push to be made acting president.”
So It’s not set iin stone, cut and dried and beyond reasonable doubt but somewhat ambiguous by Mr. Skorkin’s reckoning.
“Well it isn’t but I know why you think it is. ”
Yes it is: under the Ukranian constitution his powers should have devolved onto the Rada at the end of his presidential term of office, so he’s no more legitimate than Trump would be if he hung onto the presidency in the US after four years was up.
“What would happen if he gets re-elected?”
He’d be legitimate again, duh!.
“Russia has been happy to deal with leaders with less legitimacy, why so squeamish about Zelensky?”
You can deal with a de facto leader without acknowledging that they are also de jure. Who else are you going to deal with?
Cite for the approval rating? There are reliable opinion polls in the Ukraine on the question “Do you approve of Zelensky? Yes/no” ??? Waging war against Russia and Russians has been a complete and utter disaster for Ukrainian people.
I have been known to say negative things about a country where people vote for Princess Leia from Star Wars, Mr Punchy from the boxing ring (Udar), and the Servant of the People (who always reminds me of thje Robbie Coltraine in “The Pope Must Die”), but…….OMFG surely they can realise that loads of people coming home in body bags to keep Russians in Ukraine who want to be in Russia is a bad result?
Tatyana
August 21, 2025 at 07:16
You said that “the legitimacy of Zelensky’s status is questionable,” but of course that can be said of many heads of state.
Lukashenko’s legitimacy is questionable as is Vova’s. Despite the latter’s kindly demeanour he is believed by trouble makers in the Zapad to have killed many journalists and political opponents, most recently Navalny.
He controls the election process and regularly has potential opponents disqualified for what the previously mentioned trouble makers see as questionable flaws in their registration. A recent example was Boris Nadezhdin.
Zelenskiy was elected in a free and fair election (unlike Lukashenko and Vova) and it is of course impossible to hold an election while your country is being invaded.
I don’t think any USSR parliamentary election was held between 1937 and 1946.
A similar hiatus occurred in England even though no part of the country was under Nazi occupation.
“He controls the election process and regularly has potential opponents disqualified for what the previously mentioned trouble makers see as questionable flaws in their registration. A recent example was Boris Nadezhdin.”
Not at all like countries in the EU, where such things like elections being cancelled or political leaders being prevented from standing would never happen.
Bayard
August 21, 2025 at 21:26
You said that “Not at all like countries in the EU, where such things like elections being cancelled or political leaders being prevented from standing would never happen.”
Sarcasm I suppose.
Any examples to support your implied claim?
JK,
A quick google of recent Romanian politics (not to mention recent French politics re Mme. LePen and EU candidate member Moldova) should be sufficient to answer Bayard’s implied claim for you.
“Any examples to support your implied claim?”
The essence of sarcasm in humour is to refer to things that are already well known, but in an oblique manner, as if they weren’t. Unfortunately, it does tend to fall rather flat when it comes up against people who are too ignorant to know or too lazy to find out.
Every thing the Russian Federation did in Ukraine was legal and in line with International law, as regards Crimea, the residents of Crimea voted for independence as was their right under the UN charter i.e. all peoples have the right to self determination, after the referendum was completed Russia accepted the will of the Crimean people to join the Russian Federation, this is how lawyer Reinhard Merkel sees the situation. In his article, he came to the conclusion that the secession of Crimea and the subsequent referendum were held quite in accordance with international law, and not at all in violation of it, as most countries claim. However, Merkel makes a reservation: both the secession and the referendum were violations of the Ukrainian Constitution. However, this is not a matter of international law, and since the Ukrainian constitution does not apply in Russia, Russia had the right to agree to the entry of Crimea into its composition.
The same principles were applied to the other breakaway provinces all perfectly legal under International law.
As an aside, many observers were of the opinion that after the coup in 2014 the Ukrainian constitution was null and void. Putin also used the Kosovo precedent when both Germany and the US recognized the independence of Kosovo, even without a referendum. In that case the International Court of Justice recognized International law was contradictory i.e. the right to secure borders, and the right to self determination. They ruled that self determination was more important than secure borders. In other words the people of Crimea and the four breakaway Oblasts have a right to ‘secede’. In my opinion, even more so after all the discriminatory measures the Ukrainian government inflicted on them, and 8 years of bombardment causing the deaths of 14,000 Russian speakers in the Dombas.
https://mickestenssononrussia.wordpress.com/2021/12/24/was-the-annexation-of-crimea-to-russia-an-illegal-annexation/
Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 constitute violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. More, it constitutes an invasion of a democracy by a dctatorship, and so is a threat to Democracy as a whole.
Given that Trump cannot be relied on to provide Ukraine with the means of self-defense (because Putin may well have compromat on him), I hope that the EU and UK will do so, frustrating Putin’s imperialist ambitions.
Слава Україні!
No it does not, you have not read the link I have provided nor the ICJ opinion https://www.icj-cij.org/case/141
Russia regard this SMO as an existential threat to its existence, Biden and Co said so at the outset, “Putin can not stay in power”, Others {Sec State for Defence] said they wanted to see the dissolution of Russia.
Your bottom line beggars belief, EU and UK boots on the ground. Then the inevitable tactical nuclear weapons in the unlikely event of EU/UK military victory. Why do you insist on forcing all those Russian speakers back into Ukraine against their will, when they have already voted to join Russia
Russia has no imperialist ambitions here’s why, Putin’s quote is always misinterpreted i.e. “Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains”.
The quote can be summarized as follows: “Those who do not feel any sense of regret for the past Soviet Union may lack empathy, while those who advocate for its restoration may lack critical thinking.”
The first part of the quote is proof positive to the Neocon establishment that Putin wants to march on Europe and recreate the old Soviet Union. The second part of the quote is always left out by the MSM. I wonder why?
It is Russia who is an existential threat to the democracy of Ukraine, not vice versa. The means of defense that the EU and UK provide should minimise the need for any human personnel. The so-called “votes” of people in Crimea occurred under occupation, and therefore mean nothing. The Russian speakers of Ukraine were there before the invasion. Talk of forcing them “back” is therefore inappropriate, nor have they any right of secession (but if they negotiate any autonomy with a free Ukraine, that will be another matter).
Putin’s imperialist dream is linked to the delusion of a “common spiritual space” with himself as a tsar and the patriarch of Moscow ruling over the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. May both ambitions come to nothing.
Слава Україні!
“The so-called “votes” of people in Crimea occurred under occupation, and therefore mean nothing”. Wrong, The Russian army were in Sevastopol agreed to by a lease of 40 years. as explained in my link, this did not effect the core argument of secession, as a matter of fact the army only protected the Crimea population and their right to vote. Also to defend them against a very hostile Ukrainian army determined to stop them seceding.
“but if they negotiate any autonomy with a free Ukraine, that will be another matter”. Wrong again, Minsk 1 and 2 were supposed to give a degree of autonomy to the Dombas, Putin agreed that if that was agreed then the Dombas would indeed stay within Ukraine. The guarantors of Minsk 1 and 2 France and Germany sabotaged the agreements , leading Putin up the garden path. Merkel admitted later she deceived Putin. As for Putin’s imperialist dreams , see my last comment.
Why are you and other pro-Ukrainian commentators are too lazy to finish your signature slogan?
Слава Украине в составе России
*Glory to Ukraine, a part of Russia
which forms two trochaic tetrameters and is a complete poetic paragraph/rhypme.
“The means of defense that the EU and UK provide should minimise the need for any human personnel.” That of course is the essence of the Wonder Weapons myth. That the West has weapons in a different league from anyone else and can win a war at the push of a few (non-nuclear) buttons. Anyone trotting this out must have failed to notice that loads of these Wonder Weapons were sent to Ukraine over the past few years yet Russia has won the war.
“Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 constitute violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. More, it constitutes an invasion of a democracy by a dctatorship, and so is a threat to Democracy as a whole.”
1: the invasion was in no way full-scale: a mere fraction of the Russian army was involved and less than 20% of Ukraine was invaded.
2. all invasions constitute violations of other countries’s sovereignty, even when carried out by the West.
3. Ukraine is no more a democracy than Russia is. Russia, with it’s directly elected head of state, is more a democracy than the UK. Despite being in a war with Ukraine, Russia has held elections when they have become due. Ukraine has not only refused to have elections, it has imprisoned most of the opposition.Meanwhile elections in Romania were cancelled when it looked like the wrong candidate was going to win. If this is the sort of “democracy” that is under threat, then that’s probably all to the good.
“Слава Україні!”
No bias there then!
Real casualty figures on the civil war in Donbas:-
https://www.unian.info/war/10416549-donbas-war-death-toll-rises-up-to-nearly-13-000-un.html
Nobody in Crimea voted for independence because it wasn’t an option in the referendum. Instead we’re told that 97% voted for integration with Russia despite only 58% of the population being ethnic Russian…
Pears Morgaine, you are wrong again, please read this excellent piece from the late, great Robert Parry..
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/22/crimeans-keep-saying-no-to-ukraine/
None of which says that Crimeans wanted to be absorbed into Russia.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/society/were-crimeans-really-pro-russian-before-annexation
” Instead we’re told that 97% voted for integration with Russia despite only 58% of the population being ethnic Russian…”
Given that, at this point Ukraine was the most corrupt country in Europe, including Russia, is it surprising that many of the Crimeans who were not ethnic Russians would also vote to rejoin Russia? Also given that Crimea had been trying to become independent since 1991 and therefore relations with Kiev were not good vis a vis not being part of Ukraine, is it surprising that they chose to join Russia instead of independence or staying in Ukraine. There will be people alive in Crimea who will have been born in Russia before being forcibly transferred to Ukraine. Crimea was Russia in living memory.
Also, if you are going to rig an election, you don’t rig it so that you get a result of 97%, because that makes it look rigged, you rig it to produce a result like 65%. The figure of 97% just shows it wasn’t rigged.
” at this point Ukraine was the most corrupt country in Europe ” Russia wasn’t very much better and usually better to stick with the devil you know.
” if you are going to rig an election, you don’t rig it so that you get a result of 97%, because that makes it look rigged, ” Well that’s a bit of perverse logic. I don’t think the Russians cared too much.
” I don’t think the Russians cared too much.”
If they didn’t care why did they bother with a vote at all? The only reason to run a rigged election is to give an appearance of democratic legitimacy to something that doesn’t actually have it. What is the point of doing that if it fails by giving an implausible result? Why do I have to explain this, is it not self-evident?
” The only reason to run a rigged election is to give an appearance of democratic legitimacy to something that doesn’t actually have it. ”
Got it in one.
You are seriously saying you think only 58% of people in the Crimea are ethnic Russian??? The real figure is much higher than that.
From the horse’s mouth:-
http://www.crimeahistory.org/population-of-crimea/
58.2%
If you’ve any evidence to the contrary please share it with us.
This can be put more simply: if large majorities of people in the six territories want where they live to be in Russia then of course it should be in Russia.
Harry Law
August 21, 2025 at 15:44
Didn’t Chechnya try to leave the Russian Federation?
What happened next?
An excellent autobiography with historical background on this issue is Khassan Baiev’s The Oath (ISBN 0743430360). The author is a Russian-American surgeon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khassan_Baiev)
“Didn’t Chechnya try to leave the Russian Federation?
What happened next?”
Well, one thing that didn’t happen was a referendum amongst the Chechens as to whether they wanted to be independent. It seems the usual story of the government deciding such things on the people’s behalf without consulting them.
Beats me what’s stopped Ukraine and Russia being chums of sorts, better than most anyway, almost sharing the same language and toing and froing. Especially since 1997 when they signed a Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership in Kiev between them.
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52240.pdf (eng translate second half).
Going back even as far as 1654 there were agreements. Of course there can be differences, but breaking up this badly ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pereiaslav_Agreement
You make a very good point. The historical origins of Russia were in Kievan Rus, guess where that was. Similar languages and cultures, and common religion. There used to be a “three sisters” monument at the common junction of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia in Soviet times. Which makes the current situation a tragedy, like a family quarrel.
If it weren’t for people wanting to be dictators, we would have a democratic Ukraine, a democratic Belarus, and a democratic Russia. Thus I see dictatorship as the problem and democracy as the solution. I’m not against areas of Eastern Ukraine that want to be Russian joining them by free negotiation between Ukraine and Russia, but not negotiations down the barrel of a gun. An armistice may be the best we can hope for now.
“If it weren’t for people wanting to be dictators, we would have a democratic Ukraine”
Funny how Ukraine and Russia were getting on fine until the US engineered a coup in 2014 and all the trouble started. I am sure that’s just a coincidence and that the problem with “people wanting to be dictators” just took some time to show itself.
Bayard
Possibly the best solution ( I’m not Ukranian and it’s up to them) would be to see if a Peace Deal is do-able.
Then find out if it’s possible.
This is where a ceasefire would come in very handy – a bit of space and temporary calm.
If it is and guarantees are made ( this is a wicked world after all and there actually are no guarantees on a guarantee) then have Elections and alongside those a Referendum on the Peace Agreement.
Observers could be sent to oversee that all parties are on the ballot sheet and that they are ‘ Free and Fair ‘ as they say in The Democratic Trade.
If the Ukranian people don’t like the deal – that is up to them.
Then it’s all back to ‘ normal ‘
A ceasefire is an aggressive move against Russia, that is winning against Nato. Passive-aggression on stilts.
One of the main problems facing peace in Ukraine is the Western insistence that neutrality is impossible. If you are not with us you are against us. A Ukraine not aligned to the West is a Ukraine aligned with Russia as far as too many powerful people are concerned. You see it in the comments to this blog, too, with commenters being referred to as “Tankies” or other pejorative terms of rabid Russophilia simply for not believing every bit of Russophobic propaganda that the MSM care to churn out, no matter how unlikely, preposterous, demonstrably inaccurate or self-contradictory it is.
Those three countries would have sorted out their relationships quite amicably If it was not for the interference of USA, NATO and EU post 1991, in cahoots with the Banderites and their supporters from the Ukraine diaspora who had settled in those same countries post world war.
Right up to 2022 more Ukrainians found employment in Russia than in any other country. Ukraine was a source of employment for a large number of Russians. After all, apart from anything else as two ex – USSR countries, they shared a common economic and utilities infrastructure. A million Donbass Ukrainians found sanctuary in Russia post Maidan after escaping from the invading Banderite army. Russia has taken in more Ukrainian refugees post SMO that any other country. People from the “occupied territories” are contentedly settling in other parts of Russia. Mariupol is being completely rebuilt by Russia.
What effect would the earlier Orange Revolutions and 2014 Maidan itself had without the billions of American dollars and EU euros poured into Ukraine with the sole objects of achieving regime change favourable to them and driving a wedge between Ukraine and Russia? Some democratic process that.
Ukraine sovereignty? What a joke. Had it true sovereignty it would not be in the mess it is now thanks to USA / EU etc “democratic” interference. Who chose the post Maidan leaders? Ukraine or Biden? Why is Trump in charge of the so called peace negotiations? What has it actually got to do with him except for the fact that he recognises that it was his country that created the mess in the first place, albeit under different leadership? It is his country that has called all the shots since, resulting in it getting further and further into the mire, and he sees it is up to him to pull it out of it despite every effort to undermine hm by his so called Republican friends and foreign allies. Democracy in action? What a travesty of thought. .
Reasonable question, Tony. Reading about Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, commonly known as zombie-ant fungus might be enlightening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis
Gradually after 1991, then suddenly in 2014, the NATO fungus took over Ukraine’s diminutive nervous system and began operating the whole country like a remote-controlled suicide drone.
Trump’s Presidency is marked by an undisguised willingness to leverage the massive economic advantages which come from possessing the world’s reserve currency, which means you can just invent money to purchase any good you want from another country, the economy of which becomes addicted to this “cash” flow.
Trump’s trade war has displayed an ability to force other states to make enormous concessions, including reinvesting hundreds of billions of dollars back into US industry, rather than face tariffs which would make it harder to give up their goods as tribute to the USA in return for token dollars.
The reserve currency is essentially a confidence trick. It always works, if and only if the world believes in it. The world was starting to lose its faith in the power of the dollar, and Trump was smart enough to know that the way to maintain a confidence trick is to double down and be still more assertive.
Trump has undoubtedly prolonged, at least a little, American economic supremacy.”
This could not be wronger. Every sentence shows either garbled or incomplete understanding & is roughly the reverse of the truth. A Dark Age of macroeconomic understanding fell in the 60s-70s-80s. In academia – and much worse, in popular understanding. Because of this dark age, basically all of Europe has inflicted austerity economics on itself for 50 years; for no purpose but to impoverish its people, who should be utterly enraged – enraged enough to actually study how money works, has always worked.
A reserve currency – or any currency – is not a confidence trick. It is a safe, reliable store of value. That’s why the dollar, the pound etc are/were reserve currencies. I’m sorry, they were backed by the industrial and economic power of those countries, not by some confidence trick.
Because people desire to save, the natural state of a capitalist economy is deflation and depression. That’s why government spending, deficit spending is necessary. But since the dark age fell, countries like the UK, or worse, those in the Eurozone, are behaving like developing countries pointlessly “seeking markets for their goods” – practicing “monetary mercantilism”. In this system, the USA has been the buyer/spender of last resort. Countries spend so little of their own currency at home that Europe & much of the world would be in an eternal Great Depression had the US not played this role, running big budget deficits (expansionary at home) to accommodate the (deflationary at home, ) trade/current account deficits that accumulate as foreign reserves of dollars.
The US has been working hard at destroying its own enormous natural advantages for decades. Trump has accelerated the process and is destroying, not prolonging American economic supremacy. He is very smart at doing insane and destructive things – and getting those who will be hurt the most to vote for him. Trump is directly weakening the dollar and not by superficial manipulation like interest rate tweaking. Weakening the dollar in foreign exchange value, in its desirability as a reserve, its ability to aid a high standard of living in the USA and the rest of the world.
“Because people desire to save, the natural state of a capitalist economy is deflation and depression. ”
That presupposes that deflation leads to depression, which it doesn’t, necessarily. Deflation is only bad for the banks, as it makes loans more expensive over time and encourages people to save, which means that the banks have to pay out interest instead of being paid it. Deflation only leads to depression when you have a financial system that depends on inflation and moneylending to function. Such a financial system, as we have now, is a disaster waiting to happen, but it is not a necessary result of capitalism.
This is just the Keynesian paradox of thrift. The idea that deflation is bad for banks is an extremely unusual idea. The neoclassicals, modern mainstream economics get everything backwards – but they agree with the sane people, Keynesians, MMTers and basically everyone else that banks and the rich always want (mild) deflation.
A financial system that does not have money lending is not a financial system. Your word usage and economic ideas are very odd.
Oh dear…. Read Walden Bello’s 1999 book, Dark Victory, to understand Reagan’s delight at the establishment of the World Bank and the IMF. To impoverish the third world, and put countries into debt which they can never repay. Then learn MMT, modern monetary theory, and understand that any nation with its own sovereign currency decides how much money to create to balance internal investment, external purchases and the trade balance. This is a movable feast. Borrowing in another currency is unwise. Politicians are often unwise. Pressure to join an in group is persuasive. Global hedge funds are damaging national sovereignty. It is time that we took national infrastructure back in-house, but losing national assets has been deliberate policy by bought and paid for politicians, and this lot are no different, and so we are in a pickle since Brexit. Hey ho….
Alyson. The UK was in a pickle long before brexit, don’t forget the decade of tory managed decline, and let’s not forget the Blair years, faux socialist managed decline. Maybe that will give you an idea as to why the people voted for brexit ?
It was all the fault of the EU, now it’s all the fault of brexit. Maybe it’s always only ever been the fault of the shysters who ‘run’ the country ?
The UK has been gradually declining ever since 1914, although the seeds of disaster had been sown earlier. Essentially, the trouble was that a rather small offshore island nation was led to believe that its people were the Master Race, and that they could either rule the world or at least control it through example and manipulation.
Throughout that long period, British ingenuity and enterprise were vitiated by smugness, entrenched mediocrity, and gross incompetence among the ruling classes. While tremendous scientific and engineering breakthroughs were accomplished by a tiny minority, governments and corporations always got the upper hand and smothered the potential successes. The story has been repeated a thousand times. Sir Christopher Cockerell and the hovercraft is an emblematic case. Alan Turing and the computer. (Soon after, repeated outbreaks of success were smashed by useless decision-makers who controlled the money: LEO, ICL, Marconi, Plessey, and on and on and on).
Read “Empire of the Clouds: When Britain’s Aircraft Ruled the World” – but only if you have a strong stomach and enjoy weeping. Time and again Britain led the world, only for governments to pull funding, kill projects, and often hand over all the information to the USA.
The tragedy of British enterprise has been that our best people were superb inventors and engineers, but we failed dismally at sales, marketing, and PR – in which the Americans excel. We invented marvellous things, only for them to reap the fruits.
????? The IMF and the World Bank were both established in 1944 when Reagan was a junior officer making training films for the US Army.
Lord Skidelsky has a very good account of the proceedings at Bretton Woods in 1944 where all those things were decided. Delegates were invited from all over the world and put up in a particular hotel chosen by the US government. During the conference John Maynard Keynes, the British representative, had continuous talks with the Americans during which all sorts of proposals were considered and discussed. Keynes wanted a system that was very different from the American proposals. Finally the Americans sprang a completely new and very long, complex document that Keynes and his team had never seen before, and almost simultaneously declared that everyone must vacate the hotel on that same day. As no alternative accommodation was offered, Keynes – by now very ill and exhausted – and his team flew back to Britain, and the US proposal was adopted by default. To all intents and purposes, the whole Bretton Woods conference was nothing more than a huge piece of deception by which the Americans pretended that they had consulted everyone – Keynes in particular, at the time the acknowledged world expert on economics and finance. But the end product was exactly what the Americans had wanted and planned all along.
“You should essentially think of the IMF as a small office in the basement of the Pentagon, deciding what countries to support, and what countries are following policies that the United States do not want and therefore wants to wreck”.
– Michael Hudson https://www.unz.com/mhudson/changes-in-superimperialism/
” It is time that we took national infrastructure back in-house, but losing national assets has been deliberate policy by bought and paid for politicians”
That is the problem with the policy of importing more than you export: lots of your currency ends up in other parts of the world and the only place the holders of that currency can spend it is in your country. If someone holds a currency but can’t buy anything with it, that currency is not worth anything. If your currency is worthless, you can’t import more than you export, as no-one will accept your currency in payment. Thus the UK policy of “selling off the family silver”.
Alyson: I do not disagree with anything you said, but do not understand your suggestions to me. You may have misunderstood what I was saying. Of course I agree that the IMF, World Bank have been useless and destructive since the 1970s and the rise of floating currencies.
Jonathan Kwitny’s Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World- Penguin (1986) was one of the earliest books on this topic. He had been reporting on it for the Wall Street Journal for years before. He quotes from such an international banker there – who replied to his statement that their program would do exactly as you said. The banker’s reply was basically: Yes, of course. That was the intent.
I am well known in MMT circles. Randall Wray did me the honor of writing a couple of posts at New Economic Perspectives about my clarifications of fine points. IIRC he used one of my arguments to show Marc Lavoie, designer of the Canadian zero reserve banking system, leading post-Keynesian economist, that while Lavoie still felt more traditional terminology was more natural, he finally was convinced that MMT’s banking theory was consistent and correct for their purposes, after all.
The point was on central bank – treasury consolidation. People arguing that there was a problem with this implicitly and unconsciously consolidated the two in one place and separated them in another. Thus seriously argued in a way resembling how Bertrand Russell proved he was the pope. 🙂
Ukraine, just like Britain, is diverse and to keep it together genuine Ukrainian leadership needs to act accordingly. Instead the NATO/Nationalist Ukrainian/Ukrainians are seeking to cleanse all the land of Russians knowing this will provoke/entrap Russia to intervene, contrary to the real interests of Ukraine or Russia.
Instead if the Ukrainian/Ukrainians don’t want Russian/Ukrainians or Ukrainian/Russians or just Russians as part of Ukraine, just let them peacefully cede, but this is against the NATO interest/plan (and extreme nationalists do tend to have unrealistic aims). It wasn’t in the Russian interest for the eastern areas to join Russia as it reduced the Russian presence in Ukraine (a brother nation), but after a bitter war it becomes politically unavoidable.
In Britain, Scotland voted to remain in UK, but if Westminster had been bombing Scotland and banning the Scottish language (I know) the vote would have been different, with many people/countries supporting Scotland. It’s quite obvious really, hence why the warmongers lie about an unprovoked invasion.
Good comment. Plausibly explains what happened in the Ukrainian east.
“In Britain, Scotland voted to remain in UK”
David.
Scots voted to leave in 2014, incomers from the rest of the UK (mainly England) swung it for no.
————————–
” banning the Scottish language”
Auld Scots and Gaelic were beaten out of most in the Highlands, and many were forced to speak English in schools over their own native languages.
In Europe, aside from the British and Starmer’s weird – for a leader supposedly of a party of the dovish left – obsession with Ukraine, the most hawkish on Russia are the Germans (Merz) and Finns (Stubb)- no small irony really considering their countries collaborative history fighting against what is now Russia.
The Baltic states are particularly hardline too – the most reckless escalatory calls are coming from Latvian and Estonian politicians. Estonia’s Kaja Kallas is atrocious in her role; having someone who shuns all contact and dialogue with Russia is an abdication of responsibility when she’s meant to bring objectivity as Europe’s chief diplomat. Baltic war history is murky to say the least :
SS Foreign Divisions & Volunteers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia 1942 – 1945 – the occupying Nazis recruited Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian conscripts into the Waffen-SS. Unlike her Latvian neighbour, Lithuania had no plans to provide Germany with a National Legion. Although volunteers came forward, the majority did not. This was not the case for Latvia and Estonia, which undertook huge recruitment programmes, and thousands of men were drafted into their own foreign legion of Waffen-SS Grenadier divisions. After intensive training, these divisions saw action on the Eastern front, around Leningrad, in the Ukraine, before vicious defensive operations as the Red Army smashed its way through the Baltic States in 1944. Even in the last dying weeks of the war, what was left of the Baltic soldiers of the 15th, 19th and 20th Waffen-SS Grenadier Divisions, continued to fight alongside their Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS counterparts until they were either destroyed or surrendered.
Kallas, speaking in 2024, casually called for Russia to be totally defeated and then broken up into small states.
https://naapuriseura.fi/en/viron-paaministeri-ehdottaa-venajan-hajottamista-pieniksi-valtioiksi/
Coming from a politician from a country that actively contributed SS-divisions, that seems like an incredibly ill-judged thing to say. And you can only imagine what Russians made of it.
And she’s the EU’s top diplomat.
Some who post here claim that NATO and EU enlargement represent no threat to Russia whatsoever, and Putin is lying when he talks about defending Russia’s strategic interests. But how do they reconcile that view with Kallas’s openly stated views and the fact someone (maybe the Biden Administration?), knowing her views, saw fit to have her installed as the EU’s top diplomat? For it’d suit the US(CIA) UK(MI6) just fine, to see Russia dissolve into more manageable smaller states with pro-western stooges in power. China probably sees this danger too, and how they’d be leveraged against them.
Russia has long been highly centralised. Even when Napoleon’s army occupied Moscow and the German army in 1941 could see the Moscow Kremlin through their fieldglasses, the Russian empire and in the latter case the USSR remained highly centralised. Russia will not break up. “What the Russians made of it” was probably “We hope some idiots in the west take this breakup idea seriously”.
She also said the global elite’s quiet part, about isolating China; that normally reserved I’d imagine for the likes of Bilderberg, aloud:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLvmzIZ0MQo
“If Europe cannot defeat Russia, how can we defeat China?” – Kaja Kallas, the EU’s Chief Diplomat.
The elite want a world of inequality and an endless, irremovable world oligarchy, this desire to destroy, isn’t about spreading human rights and democracy.
Again well said.
“If Europe cannot defeat Russia, how can we defeat China?”
Especially since they cannot fight either alone. Any serious attack on either will certainly bring in the other, if only because Benjamin Franklin’s warning is ingrained in their psyches.
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately”.
That goes for Iran too, and probably even outliers like Venezuela.
“And she’s the EU’s top diplomat”.
The “West” (basically NATO plus hangers-on) doesn’t do diplomacy. Its method is to threaten extreme violence, and if it doesn’t get what it wants quickly, to use extreme violence. Now that it has come up against nations (Russia, China, Iran, and soon others) that can easily resist such attacks, it simply has no idea what to do. So it goes on repeating the same futile gestures over and over.
Mr Murray was (and arguably still is in an informal way) a real diplomat. It cannot be coincidental that he was violently ejected from the system as soon as he tried to touch the controls. They tried to destroy him completely, but failed.
You have to look further back to what happened before the German invasion. In 1940 the Soviet government coerced Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into “mutual assistance treaties” which granted the USSR the right to establish military bases in these countries. In June the Red Army occupied all of the territory of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and installed new, pro-Soviet puppet governments. In all three countries rigged elections (in which only pro-Stalin candidates were allowed to run) were staged. The newly assembled “parliaments” in each of the three countries then unanimously applied to join the Soviet Union, and in August were incorporated into the USSR.
Repressions, executions and mass deportations quickly followed. Russian was imposed as the only official language. The Soviet government deported more than 200,000 people from the Baltics to remote locations in the Soviet Union. In addition, at least 75,000 were sent to Gulags. About 10% of the adult Baltic population was deported or sent to labour camps.
Much of the above may sound familiar but it’s little wonder the Baltic states would want to oppose occupation by the USSR and why today they’re worried about losing their hard won independence.
Perhaps the Baltics should look a little further afield. Britain’s record in its empire is little better than Russia’s yet even their closest neighbours, like Eire, have no fear of “losing their hard won independence”.
Britain isn’t Russia and Starmer isn’t Putin.
How Decades of Folly Led to War in Ukraine
[courtesy Guardian commenter AUserByAnyOtherName]
https://www.compactmag.com/article/how-decades-of-folly-led-to-war-in-ukraine/
On the notion of “russophobic hysteria”; I’d like to politely but very strongly disagree. Here in Finland the population has been invaded and ruthlessly pillaged many times ever since Moscow Rus gained the ability to do so, for hundreds of years. That is not a “phobia”, that is history and a fact. There was a small interlude during the Grand Duchy period, when an exceptionally wise czar, with some western learned values, deemed it wise to let Finland have its Swedish-built administration and laws as a separate Grand Duchy, and not be overrun by Russian machinery and culture. That we ended in 1917, as the last 20 years of the GD era was not that pleasant, it’s known in our history books as an era of attempted russification.
Now that we have every reason to believe Russia is committing atrocities again (at least to our standards) wherever it has its military boots, it is definitely not a “phobia” to try to do everything possible to make sure it will not happen here.
There is absolutely no doubt we would lose every meaningful guarantee of a western culture and law if we were to fall under Moscow dominance. No values, no justice, no laws by a real people’s representation, only power. The western world has been losing its moral high ground for decades, and Russia is now blatantly doing it in our neighbourhood, too. But here in our small republic we do have a justice system and quite a decent relative equality among its citizenry. We want to keep that. It’s no “Phobia” to learn Russia is an existential threat to its neighbor.
You argue, Graig, Ukraine is no nation as it never was independent, to your eyes. Likewise someone could argue in Moscow, and later in yoru blog, that “Finland only had its independence for a century, it’s not a real nation, but belongs to Russia”. How would that feel to us? How would you feel about it, as a Scot with many shared values with us Finns?
What’s the difference between Finland’s independence from Sweden and Russia for 107 years compared to Ukraine’s independence for “only” 34 years?
Counting down how long it’s going to take for someone here to claim there’s no evidence that Russia has territorial ambitions…
There is no evidence that Russia has territorial ambitions. There you go.
Speaking of evidence, here’s a snippet from presidents Clinton and Yeltsin chat, as they met for the very last time in Istanbul in 1999. What was the one last thing that Yeltsin asked for from his friend in a confidential setting? Europe.
(You can look this up in the nsarchive, the transcript was declassified last year.)
President Yeltsin: I ask you one thing. Just give Europe to Russia. The U.S. is not in Europe. Europe should be the business of Europeans. Russia is half European and half Asian.
…
The President: I don’t think the Europeans would like this very much.
President Yeltsin: Not all. But I am a European. I live in Moscow. Moscow is in Europe and I like it. You can take all the other states and provide security to them. I will take Europe and provide them security. Well, not I. Russia will.
And is Yeltsin president of Russia now?
Russia is the world’s largest nation, with approximately twice the land area of China, Canada, or the USA. It also has an exceptionally rich endowment of mineral and agricultural resources, making it an almost complete autarky. Ironically, the narrow gap remaining has been further closed by Western sanctions.
Although Russia has well over 100 different ethnic communities, they are almost all well integrated – and getting steadily more so under the influence of Mr Putin’s beneficent rule and the obvious hatred and aggression from abroad. The very last thing it needs or wants is to accept into itself groups of strangers who hate it and want to harm it. That would be like a person gulping down a cocktail of pathogenic bacilli, virus, and fungi.
Hostile fringe states like the Baltics and Finland shrivel and die when they cut their umbilical connections with Russia. Independence they want, and independence they get – and they are welcome to the consequences. Once they get past the age of 2 or 3, normal people learn that “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” – if you want someone to do something for you, it is more likely to be forthcoming if you smile and help rather than shout and threaten.
I’d like to add; the difference between Finland and Ukraine is, of course, that we fought successfully for our existence in 1944 and our leaders had the skill, and geostrategic luck, to negotiate a superficially vassal status to the Soviet Union while keeping our de facto sovereignity. We also preserved our very strong internal feeling of being a western state and culture, and all “Finlandization” was a cover to keep our independence and secret ties to the West (everywhere but the US and UK that didn’t understand our stance in the first decades after WW2). Stalin also assessed that the million weapons distributed all over Finland in case of an occupation was a risk not worth taking.
That lead to a situation where the Soviet Union never attempted nor succeeded in colonizing our territory with Moscow Russian settlements and occupiers, nor military force. Ukraine did not have that luck, its territory was overrun by people of ethnic Russian people for 300 years. Now that they do have these historic occupiers settled there, they have more rights than the white people in Zimbabwe; they have the right to have Moscow running over the sovereignity of Ukraine to preserve their ethnic dominance. Is that fair?
We were a uniquely fortunate (and perhaps skillful) nation in that we averted this problem. That doesn’t change the fact that Ukraine has the right to its borders. Most European birders have been drawn artificially and they have had the right to evolve to be sovereign within their borders. Moscow’s goal is to have the last say in everything in Ukraine, perhaps excluding a small state in the westernmost parts of current Ukraine that never were a part of the Moscow empire. Donbas is an excuse and the first step. You know that.
Does Moscow have the right to “protect” its former colonists by committing an ethnic clensing that they most certainly started to do in Kherson, for example, by abducting the officials, teachers, etc.?
You have argued that the Chagos people have the right to return to their islands. I strongly agree. (That is one of the reasons why I support your site monthly, and of course value your wisedom otherwise, too) But the US/UK have been “living” there for decades and decades now. Have they not earned the right to call Diego Garcia as theirs now as they’ve been there for a long time? Do they not have the same rights, as occupiers, as the Russians living in Ukraine? Of course not. Occupiers do not earn the right to be a nation nor a sovereign power withint the nation they foremrly occupied. Where is the transition from an occupier/colonist to citizen with historic rights; when does it happen?
Russians in Ukraine can assimilate, leave, or live as an ethnic minority loyal to their home state of Ukraine.
“Where is the transition from an occupier/colonist to citizen with historic rights; when does it happen?”
When they are born there, I would say.
“Russians in Ukraine can assimilate, leave, or live as an ethnic minority loyal to their home state of Ukraine.”
Which they were willing to do before the Ukrainian government decided to persecute them, at which point they took up arms and fought for a number of years before Russia decided to directly intervene.
I think 300 years of residence is enough to establish a right to a say in the drawing of borders. The present occupiers of Diego Garcia are transient military personnel so they do not have that right. If a colony of settlers were established then they would have such a right and would negotiate with the original inhabitants and their descendants.
“Ukraine did not have that luck, its territory was overrun by people of ethnic Russian people for 300 years. ”
Before the land that is now Ukraine was Russian, it was Lithuanian and Polish. These people were also “overrunning” the territory. What point do you go back to and say “these are the inhabitants of this land, everyone else is a coloniser”? The Finns may have a separate ethnic identity, the Ukrainians do not, they are Slavs who ended up in the part of the world now known as Ukraine. They are no more ethnically separate from the Russians than the Anglo-Saxons are from the Germans. Anyway, after two or three generations of intermarriage, it is largely a matter of language and culture rather than genetics and there is less difference between the language of eastern Ukraine and Western Russia than there is between eastern and western Ukraine.
…and this means that Russia is entitled to dominate and/or invade any sovereign nation that contains a Slav? Of course not. No one made Moscow the capital of Slavs. Russian pretence of “protecting Russians (or Slavs?)” is an excuse to invade. The claim of Ukraine not being a legitimate nation is an excuse. If they have a motive to invade a sovereign nation, they’ll always come up with an excuse, just like Trump in the other nation seems to be cooking up excuses for every evil deed he’s planning. No excuses, no invasions. Anywhere. Every invasion deserves to be repelled and every nation is morally required to help defend from an unjust invasion.
Whataboutism isn’t an excuse. If the western nations have not had the courage to resist USA from committing unlawful invasions, that doesn’t mean Ukraine doesn’t deserve protection and help from Russia’s. Unless we think Russia’s claims and excuses are legitimate. USA has classically installed a ruthless exploitative colonial capitalism and chaos in the nations it has invaded, Russia installs a regime of fear, complicity, autocracy, selective law, and crimes. Who deserves any of that? The Slavs do?
Believing any of Russia’s excuses legitimate comes from either complicity, self-interest or from wanting to legitimize one’s own fear of the end of the world. Not from any wisdom or intellect, anyway.
If Finland has reason to fear Russia then Finland’s previous position of armed neutrality might have been the better bet. Now, Finland risks being pulled into a war that serves someone else’s interests and which they are bound to loose (a bit like Ukraine).
Russia has certainly adapted its posture towards Finland in view of the latter’s determined and clearcut move into the anti-Russia camp. Previously, with certain precautions, it was possible to treat Finland as a benevolent neutral posing little serious threat. As a member of NATO, it is now a launching platform for invasion, bombing, or missile attacks less than 100 miles (160 km) from St Petersburg and 500 miles (800 km) from Moscow. It is also only a little over 100 miles from Murmansk and less than 300 miles from the vital defence base of Severodvinsk.
That means that the Russian military commanders must now reckon with aircraft and missile attacks that arrive with 5 minutes or less warning. Not good. In fact, doubleplusungood.
Anyone who expects Russia to accept such a state of affairs placidly, without taking appropriate defensive measures, is ignorant, foolish, or mad. Or all three.
But then, of course, the Finns and NATO will scream that they are threatened by the Russian defensive measures.
All Russian defensive measures are OK if they stay *inside* of their own sovereign territory. I don’t care how many nukes they have aimed against us, as long as they never launch. Who gave Russia a right to do “preventive measures” against their perceived threats outside of their own territory? No one.
Finnish position is: leave Ukraine, then all is good. Stay inside your own borders and do what ever you like there.
Fear is the mindkiller. You do stupid things when you fear. Do not fear. Prepare for defense, not offense.
Your PM, Alexander Stubb, has played a key role by befriending Trump(through a shared golfing interest) and has attempted to keep sour already bad US -Russia relations at every turn. Like Starmer, he looks every inch the Deep State operative, groomed for this very role. Initially, upon taking office, Trump was very critical of Starmer and his govt, then he suddenly changed his tune, calling him a “great guy” as if someone had briefed him about him about Starmer, “Our man Keir”? – “Our Man Kerr” refers to Sir John Kerr, the CIA -linked Governor-General of Australia who dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975,
From his Wiki page:
On his appointment, Stubb was described as a competent politician and a supporter of Finland’s accession to NATO, stating that he does not understand Finland’s non-alignment policy.
In July 2010, Stubb invited the head of Al-Jazeera Wadah Khanfar and former President Martti Ahtisaari to discuss about the role of media in conflict resolution. In October 2010, Stubb visited the Middle East and discussed the Middle Eastern conflict with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In 2010, Stubb and Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt proposed the European Institute of Peace. They developed a joint non-paper that was addressed to EU High Representative Catherine Ashton. They referred to the limits of traditional diplomacy and emphasised the added value that capacities beyond those available to high-level decision-makers could have. At the same time, the idea of a European Institute of Peace gained increasing attention among members of the European Parliament (MEP) and was particularly supported by German MEP Franziska Brantner and French MEP Alain Lamassoure. The institute was founded in 2014.
So he always wanted Finland to join NATO and convenient circumstances arose to allow supporters to make the case for that. Do you believe in coincidences, and further, that EuroMaidan was spontaneous, organic?
Hillary Clinton, Carl Bildt (WikiLeaks outed him as a US spy, who leaked state secrets to US), Catherine Ashton. If you think this hints towards him not having an agenda, then there’s a bridge for sale. Russia may be a deeply flawed hybrid democracy, led by bad people, but that doesn’t mean the West doesn’t have equally bad people, driving us to unnecessary conflict while hiding behind official secrecy.
You need to live in Finland to understand our politics, Wikipedia is just someone’s newspaper article snippets, mostly from abroad. There have always been two major factions here; the ones advocating for NATO membership, if possible, and the ones advocating armed neutrality. The latter doctrine lost its justification in 2022 as our neighbor started a full-out invasion and showed how willing it is to suffer heavy losses.
Armed neutrality was always based on the logic of “it’s too expensive to try invade Finland as we have strong defense.” No assessment concluded we would actually be able to *fully* repel an invasion committed with full force of the Red Army. We just calculated Soviet Union / Russia would not commit its full force against us. Invasion of Ukraine changed all that. Had they succeeded in invading Ukraine, what would be their next goal? Baltics? Poland? Finland? I am adamant Russia has never lost its imperial attitude, as Yeltsin’s confidential words convey.
As there is no functional international community to prevent invasions from happening anymore, we need allies. We tried to integrate to the EU so deeply that an attack against us would have been an attack against the whole of Europe. But as other EU states wanted to keep defense strictly under NATO, we had no choice but to join NATO.
The decision to apply for membership was locked in December 2021 when Putin demanded that no new nations may join NATO and demanded NATO to move further back fron Russia. Putin tried to take away our freedom to choose ourselves.
We do not leave such things to chance. This was no “CIA puppet” nor external influence. We have been alone and independent thinkers forever. This is a very homogenic culture in this sense. Even the leftists parties were fully committed to NATO, except for some older representatives who were allowed by their parties to oppose.
I fully agree that the US-led West is much responsible for all this development. Meddling in Ukraine is blatant, greed is blatant, everything Craig has talked about for the last decade here is relevant proof the the situation we’re in now. But: it is not an excuse for Russia to start behaving imperially, it’s not a justification for them to start wars and commit crimes against humanity. But because the West lost its legitimacy in condemning and preventing war crimes and crimes against humanity, the system if International Law is now crumbling and we need to prepare for wars. Simple as that.
I live 142 kilometers away from the nearest Russian military outpost, their missile-armed warplanes fly daily 30 kilometers from my home. All my grandparents fought against Russia for their survival. They were all, as am I now, in positions that would have meant their “disappearance” under Soviet or Russian occupation. This is a wholly different world than some other place. People not in neighboring countries of Ru just don’t understand how realistic and real the threat is, in the long run. We look 300 years into the past (when the Moscow Rus started to emerge and gain power) and when we see evidence the Russian mentality has not changed, we’d better believe the threat and prepare to defend against it. We were successful with peaceful means for 80 years, Russia broke all that “trust” in 2022 with an open and blatand military invastion and bombardment.
But Finland, Sweden, Poland and the Baltic states seem to be almost talking themselves into a confrontation. These countries seem to be on an escalatory ramp that could lead to their(your) and our(UK) destruction. Politicians here in the UK, keep making lazy analogies and historic parallels vis-a-vis Donbas with the Czech Sudetenland, arguing, history teaches us not to appease dictators etc. It’s as if they believe history should dictate our every step now.
Putin has been in power for nigh on 25 years, were he a Hitler, intent on world domination I think we’d know by now. Hitler didn’t have a huge nuclear arsenal at his disposal and NATO didn’t exist, i.e. the parallels simply don’t stack up. Ultimately, I think Russia(and China) respond well to being treated with mutual respect, and Kallas, Stubb et al, seem to be pulling everything in the opposite direction. I find their bellicose, confrontational statements more concerning than the alleged threat Russia poses.
…and as I say “we” I really mean we. This is a very homogenous country in defense matters, we all share the same general identity, history and tales from our elders, we share the same analyses from our academic community and politics. This is a lateral society enough for me to know the PM personally (PM, not *president* Stubb, we are a republic after all), and I personally know or have mutual close friends with ministers, parlament members, high-up officials, military, and so on. Everyone whose intelligence and upbringing is high enough to have any interest in defense and foreign politics, has a way to communicate with the “elite”. This is a real democracy in this sense.
For us this all is existential and essential. We do not have the luxury to assess and ponder things far away, and think this is all some intriguing chess play between superpowers, and choose either to take or not take sides.
The strongest opposition against NATO membership was always the dislike against US policies and methods. But Russia took away our privilege to stay proudly neutral. The shock of Russia invading was strong. We all thought Russia would do all these “covert” things, like trying to portray Strelkov’s operation as a “popular uprising” and so on, but a full-out military invasion turned Europe upside down. All the work of 80 years just crashed.
Everyone is free to like Russia as an imperial power and think Russians have the right over their neighbors. It’s easy to do in the relative safety of elsewhere. But fearing the nukes and wanting to give up Other Nations’ freedoms in exchange for perceived safety against the nukes is pathetic and a way to lose both legitimacy and, eventually, freedoms and sovereignity.
Russians’ attitude towards Finland and the Finns is two-fold. As imperialists, they think we are or should be subservient, a lower class. As neighbors, they know we are the toughest enemy they’ve ever attempted to invade (now Ukraine has risen to the same class). Of course they don’t teach that in schools, and people with that memory have mostly died. Kremlin remembers but they want to portray us as an enemy as a retaliation for joining NATO. That’s just propaganda for the weak and fearful.
Democratically, constitutionally Finland’s a model democracy, I agree entirely. People are politically educated and well informed; unlike the UK you have a genuinely pluralistic media, presenting a truly diverse range of opinions. Political debate is conducted respectfully and with civility. i.e. the opposite of the debate-free, yah-boo charade in our House of commons, and the hysteria and name calling that passes for news in our tabloid press.
But even given all that, being a sophisticated modern democracy doesn’t necessarily protect you from determined external manipulation. Look the example of the revelations about Sweden’s former PM, Carl Bildt. The US have no boundaries when it comes to manipulating allies in pursuit of their own geopolitical objectives. In this they share more in common with Moscow than they’d care to admit.
Goose, Thank you for your very kind words about Finland. Regarding external manipulation; yes, we have a history of enduring that. The American entertainment industry has always been doing its thing, our local news outlets mainly read and plagiarize The Guardian regarding many geopolitical and/or controversial topics. Our population is prone to decide to trust others after they deem them trustworthy. In The US the entities close to the DNC seem trustworthy to many, as they are the closest to our values there, albeit ultra-capitalist. Our democracy can prevail for only as long as people understand what they are deciding. Populists were gaining ground, but the old trick “put them into government” has worked this time and their polls have plummeted.
The more direct manipulation is no stranger to the elites that I know; we just need to understand it is happening and we need to deduce what they are trying to achieve. We became very skillful in this during the Finlandization era, as the real important things had to be discussed off publicity and off official documents. I just hope the younger generations get that skill, too. I’m doing my part in that whenever possible.
We have the usual problems; commenting on Israel is difficult as the military tricked the politicians to procure a missile system from there, and no one wants to piss off the US. Our president Stubb did, however, dare to comment publicly in a speech that he would sign a law recognizing Palestine if the government (dared) to pass such a law to him. So we try to do the little things a small nation can.
But the historical lesson about Russia we will never forget. Europe tried to integrate Russia into the capitalist West for 10 years, and (because Germany asked us to,) we went along hoping for the best until very recently. Now the masks have been lowered, as the previous president Niinistö said. The old imperial Russia is visible again. And, as one can see from Yeltsin’s secret wishes, Russia never stopped wanting to dominate the whole of Europe. They just didn’t have the strength to do it. Now they thought they could pick Ukraine like an apple and scare the rest of Europe.
That’s why one must not fear the nukes. Fear is the mindkiller, really. No fiction, fact. I’d rather die of radiation than serve occupiers.
MK
In the 2012 US presidential campaign debate, the then President, Barack Obama, scoffed at the idea Russia was even a threat, telling Mitt Romney, his Republican opponent, “the ’80s called and they want their foreign policy back” . Putin’s intervention in Syria in 2013 soured US – Russia relations, it’s as recent as that. The US/UK wanted Syrian regime change because Assad wouldn’t break links with Iran and Hezbiollah, and Putin, with what they claimed was irrefutable evidence of Assad’s non-involvement in the horrific August 21, 2013 Ghouta attack, was having none of it. We may never know the truth, because if Russia’s right, we are led by monsters.
So who are the good guys if that’s the case? The ‘false flag’ carrying out, regime changing moral west, or Putin? I believe the Ukraine EuroMaidan revolution, which started late 2013, was planned and executed in revenge for Putin stepping in to protect Assad. I don’t think there was anything organic or spontaneous about what happened in Ukraine. The US and UK intel agencies have ramped up anti-Russian feeling ever since. And I doubt every single story that emerges about Russia; whether it be the alleged election interference; hybrid activities, or the Skripal case.
They wouldn’t, they couldn’t,…it’d be morally indefensible.
Look what’s going on in Gaza.
No faith in the people in power, or the checks and balances, that are supposed to restrain them. The constitutional ‘checks and balances’ don’t even exist in the UK.
” The latter doctrine lost its justification in 2022 as our neighbor started a full-out invasion and showed how willing it is to suffer heavy losses.”
Why did this not happen when Russia “invaded” Afghanistan?
Also the logic of “Russia has currently no reason to invade Finland, so let’s join an overtly Russophobic organisation and give it one” is hard to fathom.
Using the word “Russophobic” is a telltale sign of either intellectual weakness or propaganda. It’s a Russian propaganda term meaning anything Russia doesn’t like. If you have read what I wrote, or care about it, you’d see that the wariness against Russia’s historical and current ambitions to meddle in things outside of its borders is something to worry about.
Russia does not have the right to be a superpower forcing itself on others. It is not legally nor morally legitimate to do so. Is it in your opinion? Do we not have the right to defend against something we legitimately don’t want here?
Russia has no right to meddle in other nations’ things any more than USA or anyone has. “International law” has some provisions for interventions that The West have rendered moot after exploiting them for their own interest unilaterally.
As there is nothing else left than raw power, we must prepare to use it. Why the hell would anyone stay weak and alone in this kind of a setup? Form alliances against thing you don’t want to happen, like invasions, and help others sharing the same interest to prevail. That’s why there are alliances. Alone everyone is weak. Even Russia. They’d collapse if were not China and others helping them to sustain their economy. That’s necessary in the project of overwhelming and weakening “The West”.
So in this sense the remnants of Western civilization are still worth defending, unless you want a society and state built in the model of Russian state mafia or Chinese state capitalism and autocracy. Ours have fatal flaws but it is still better than the alternative above.
“Here in Finland the population has been invaded and ruthlessly pillaged many times ever since Moscow Rus gained the ability to do so, for hundreds of years.”
In Ireland the population has been invaded and ruthlessly pillaged many times ever since England gained the ability to do so, for hundreds of years, yet, around the same time that Finland gained its independence, Ireland got its, too. No-one in Ireland thinks that the UK is about to march back in to Eire, despite the problems in that part of Ireland retained as part of the UK. Putin is not Stalin, any more than Starmer is Churchill, or Trump, Roosevelt.
“On the notion of “russophobic hysteria”; I’d like to politely but very strongly disagree. Here in Finland the population has been invaded and ruthlessly pillaged many times ever since Moscow Rus gained the ability to do so, for hundreds of years. That is not a “phobia”, that is history and a fact.”
I think you need to look up what “phobia” means. Even if the Finns have good reason to hate the Russians, which you suggest they do, it’s still a phobia. It doesn’t have to be irrational or hysteric.
Is Trump a cynical sociopath or a master practitioner of realpolitik? And if the latter, aren’t you glad he’s (sort of) on our side?
No I am not glad he is on our side. No good has ever come to anyone from having America on their side.
Trump is not on “our side”. “We” are on his side. There is an important difference.
Trump is objectively appalling, but he’s not necessarily an aberration.
The US is in a kind of ‘democratic purgatory,’ and I don’t think things will improve until they reform their democratic system to one that’s more representative. Trump’s elections(both) were a result of the lack of political choice on offer. Absurd or extreme options, like Trump, become viable when the political system conspires against choice. The bipartisan consensus that develops in two-party systems, like the US and UK, is the antithesis of democracy.
“The US is in a kind of ‘democratic purgatory’ and I don’t think things will improve until they reform their democratic system”.
The USA has never had any kind of democratic system. That was a deliberate decision by the Founding Fathers, although recently there have been mild efforts to masquerade as a democracy. Alexander Hamilton and many others argued that the USA should be ruled by its owners; and so it has always been.
The widespread ‘uniparty’ perception, that leaves many in the US feeling disenfranchised seems perfectly reasonable, rational to me.
The thing is tho’, like in the UK, our fake choice, two-party systems won’t go down without a fight, because so many profit from the unrepresentative status quo.
Pouring cold water on all of this are Glenn Diesen, John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris – I am not entirely through with this conversation but I totally agree with their reluctance to see any of this current discussion as viable in the sense it´s mostly talked about in our part of the world.
“End of the Line for Diplomacy with Ukraine
John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen”
Aug 22, 2025
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/end-of-the-line-for-diplomacy-with
p.s. Frankly the demands for “security guarantees” for Ukraine always sound to me like an unarticulated guarantee to enable Ukraine start a war against Russia when they feel ready. Why should the interest of these powers centuries old change over a concept of international law which in its current form is about as old as one human´s life span.
p.s. Frankly the demands for “security guarantees” for Ukraine always sound to me like an unarticulated guarantee to enable Ukraine start a war against Russia when they feel ready.
Hmm…right after the US Democrats regain the Presidency? A CIA/MI6 false flag and off we go again, they’ll be quietly seething at the moment, over what they see as Trump’s territorial concessions.
Trump may yet be manipulated into taking a much harder line against Moscow? For Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent and his husband, Putin’s anti-LGBTQ stand makes this personal. But if he is manipulated, he’ll pay for it in the midterms, because his MAGA base were promised peace; they’re broadly sympathetic to what they see as Putin’s anti-woke stance, and his nationalism/patriotism, and they hate the Republican neocons who are pushing for war with Russia.
…actually as I am reading this it occurs to me that Zelensky did he meet Putin (which he definitely will not since Ukrainian government hs zero interest in peace) could well be killed by a false flag operation by his own pro forma people to stick it on “Putin”.
Mearsheimer very well put it in what a difficult position Trump is in regards of Ukraine at home. (One needs to carefully distinguish the various fronts of irresponsible oligarchical authoritarianism under his administration and the odd cases where the dismantling of “state” happens to benefit some policy that avoids WWIII with CIA commanding its own dark affluent resources – all of that a rather insane quagmire.)
Considering how Gina Haspel once spoke about the rogue nature of “Russia House” in Britiain´s intel community – an entity that she could not get under control as CIA London station chief. So there are some insane forces in the Anglo-American sphere vis-a-vis Russia that Trump has to take into account and play off.)
US establishment is unlikely to just give up it´s century long fight against Russia just at the whims of one POTUS. As to his allegiance to MAGA – yes, we will see. Also in regards of his potential successors.
Putin won’t meet with Zelensky because Zelensky isn’t the singular point of authority in Ukraine.
Everything Ukraine does goes through Paris, London and Brussels(von der Leyen, Kallas). Putin may as well negotiate with them, over what they’ll accept, since it’s EU money keeping Ukraine in this fight – they are bankrolling Ukraine’s resistance. If they pulled the plug it’d be over.
I wouldn’t worry, it’s all noise. Russia will provide any security guarantees, possibly via a proxy. The west will have no say other than to enable the deaths of more Ukrainians if they interfere. Reality on the ground: Russia has won, the west has lost.
Some speculate that the whole ‘Coalition of the Willing’ plan isn’t a serious proposal, it’s just ruse aimed at eliciting a hostile Russian rejection – to make them look like the roadblock to peace. If so, Starmer is playing a wholly unhelpful, mendacious game, typical of what you’d expect from him.
Initially, Starmer talked of a force of 30,000, now it’s down to a few thousand, based a long way from the front. Questions like: under whose authority(mandate) would it operate, UN? NATO? What ‘rules of engagement’ ROE would it follow? And who would arbitrate over ceasefire breach disputes? None of these vital questions have easy answers.
Starmer and Macron know committing thousands of troops(which we haven’t got, btw) and potentially sustaining thousands of casualties, fighting over part of the Donbas where the population’s allegiance(Russia, Independence or Ukraine) is unknown, really would go down like a cold cup of sick with their electorates.
Ursula von der Leyen talks about spending hundreds of billions of Euros in order to turn Ukraine into a ‘steel porcupine’ i.e. something that Russia can’t swallow/digest in the future. How is Ukraine becoming a heavily militarised fortress at EU(German) expense, a good idea? If Ukraine is a heavily militarised society, there’ll always be intense political pressure to have a go at taking back what Kyiv perceives as its territory. It’s not a recipe for peace.
Eventually yes that is the bottom-line. And all basically only due to Russian military supremacy. It is stunning how our “elite” discourse circles completely escapes the real reason for US and NATO backing off. Why do they think this is happening now but not 2021? For that none of them media clowns and university stooges – as well overpaid as they are – offers any explanation. Duh! What an education!!