Back in the days when I was one of the British state’s more efficient functionaries, I spoke with British officers who had been in Russia during the Yeltsin period, when they had been able to get up close and effectively inventory the Russian armed forces. (For those who don’t know, I was First Secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw, I was British Ambassador in Tashkent, and I was taught to be fluent in both Polish and Russian, which included living in St Petersburg as a language student while Ambassador designate).
What we (as I was then a cog in this machine) found was that the strength of the Soviet Union’s Red Army had been massively exaggerated in all our intelligence estimates, on which defence strategy had been based for decades. We had over-estimated the numbers, the mobility and above all the capability of Soviet weapons systems. Much of it was barely functional; the problems with both quality and maintenance were not just the product of the disintegration of the Soviet system, they evidently went back decades.
One interesting thing – and I recall discussing this with a British Brigadier General at the Polish exercise area in Drawsko – was that years of military planning had involved scenarios which revolved around successive defensive lines in Western Europe and eschewed any kind of counter-attacking strategy. That conversation had started because, when the British Army first started exercising on the former Warsaw pact training area at Drawsko, we had to strengthen bridges in Eastern Germany and Western Poland in order to get our tanks there.
We were musing that this had never been considered a problem in cold war strategy, because it was presumed our tanks would never go forward. We now knew they could have, which was interesting the analysts.
The truth, of course, was that it had always been in the interest of MI6, the Defence Intelligence Service, the British armed forces, of their American counterparts, and of all their NATO counterparts, massively to exaggerate the strength of the Red Army. Because the greater the perceived enemy, the more we needed to throw money at MI6, the Defence Intelligence Service, the British armed forces, their American counterparts, and at all their NATO counterparts.
Nothing has changed. Exaggerating the strength of the nominated enemy is still very much in their interest.
It is also, of course, massively in the interest of the arms industry. This is the classic operation of the military industrial complex, which does not just need an enemy, it needs a massive, terrifying, ultra-powerful enemy. Or why would you and I keep feeding the military industrial complex huge sums of money?
We see this operating today. The war profiteers have already made billions from the war in Ukraine. Look at this surge in defence stocks.
The German chancellor has already announced $200 billion of extra defence spending. The market expects to see similar boosts, totalling trillions of dollars across NATO, of money into the arms manufacturers and dealers, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Yet this is an irrational response. What the Russian invasion of Ukraine has actually revealed is the limitations of Russian power. Those limitations consist both of the capacity of its armed forces, and the desire of its people to be a part of European civilisation, not to destroy European civilisation.
You can pretty well stand inside Russia and throw stones into Kharkiv, where Russian is an everyday language (and locals call the place Kharkov), yet Russia has not yet managed to subdue it. Yet we are supposed to be terrified that the mighty Russian army could roll across Western Europe and its tanks could fight their way through Kiev, Warsaw, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and London? It is plainly an utter nonsense (I address nuclear war later, a quite different proposition).
It says something very interesting about mass psychology that our political and media classes are able to convince the population, both that Russia is an incredible threat to us in our homes, and that the gallant Ukrainians can hold the Russians off. The western political and media class, almost universally, are managing both to crow that Russia is militarily weak, and to claim that we need to throw yet more money at the military industrial complex. As nicely observed by Moon of Alabama.
There are however, even in “respectable” media, a few voices pointing out that what is happening in Ukraine shows NATO defence spending to be already disproportionate. I was very surprised to read this eminently sensible article in Newsweek:
In the longer term, the recognition of Russian military weakness represents a fundamental challenge to U.S. strategy, spending priorities and even its firm hold on the world. It questions Washington’s obsession with a supposed “peer” adversary and the U.S. emphasis on a larger military and ever-increasing defense spending to deal with Russia. Changing the narrative on the Russian military also fundamentally challenges NATO and its European members. Though there might be heightened awareness and even fear of Moscow’s willingness to resort to extreme and even reckless behavior, the reality is that there doesn’t need to be increased defense spending or a renewal of European ground forces….
For Washington, this display of Russian military weakness should be comforting in terms of Moscow’s true military threat to Europe. At the same time though, it exposes the need for a different national security strategy, one that doesn’t imagine Russia as a military equal, and one that doesn’t push Vladimir Putin’s back against a wall.
This war in Ukraine should represent such a moment of epiphany in western political thought.
According to the Russians themselves, Russian military spending is just 5% of NATO military spending. That is about right.
Total NATO spending is over 1 trillion dollars a year. Russian defence spending in 2019 was $65.1 billion a year, just higher than the UK. So nominally Russian spending is a little over 6% of NATO spending a year. Of course, purchasing power in the defence industry makes nominal calculations not entirely helpful. Here is a short link from an excellent discussion from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute of the factors that might make Russian real resources put into defence greater than the nominal total:
Nonetheless, there are strong indications that military goods and services cost less in Russia than in the USA or most of Europe and, therefore, that Russian military spending has a higher purchasing power. For example, unlike the USA and other large European states, Russia still relies on conscription. In addition, Russian career soldiers have lower salaries: for example, in 2019 a Russian lieutenant colonel received approximately $1330 per month, whereas a (lower-ranked) captain in the British Army received more than $4000 monthly. Adequate data to make a similar comparison of the cost of acquiring military equipment is not available.
Converting Russian military expenditure using GDP-based PPP rates (based on data from the International Monetary Fund) gives spending of $166 billion in 2019 (instead of $65.1 billion using market exchange rates). This is still less than one-quarter of US spending of $732 billion. A similar calculation gives Chinese military spending of over $500 billion (instead of $261 billion using market exchange rates).
I would argue that while paying and feeding troops may be indeed be much cheaper in Russia, military hardware costs are much dependent on metals, processors and other internationally traded commodities and an overall comparison to the simple relative cost of living PPP index for Russia is not appropriate. But even using the general IMF PPP calculator, Russian defence spending is, at the very most, 12% of NATO spending.
The idea that NATO has to spend more to match the threat to NATO of Russia is plainly a nonsense.
So those of us who have always opposed NATO’s militarism, NATO’s involvement in illegal wars and NATO’s massive propaganda operation aimed at boosting the funds fed in to the arms manufacturers, the security services and the military, should welcome the opportunity for growing understanding that a large portion of this defence expenditure is not necessary.
The Russian economy is about the size of the Spanish economy. Russian defence spending is, at the highest, 12% of NATO defence spending. Russia is not the great threat to Western Europe. The limit of Russian power has been shown up in its inability quickly to defeat Ukraine, a militarily third rate European power.
But a large section of the western left – including many regular readers of this blog – is not shouting this out. A section of the western left chooses to boost the propaganda of western arms manufacturers by talking up Russian power, claiming the Russian military is massively capable, putting a good gloss on the performance of the Russian military in Ukraine, and insisting that Putin is a strategic genius.
That “left” narrative is music to the ears of NATO and the military industrial complex. So how has the left been manoeuvred into the position of being the amplifiers of the argument of their natural enemies?
The answer, strangely enough, is not intellectual but emotional.
It is rather lonely being a dissident voice in the West, arguing against the consensus of the media and political elite. Even where that political elite completely screws up, as in the invasion of Iraq, where they launched an illegal war, caused the deaths of millions of people, destroyed the infrastructure of a country, yet still lost the war, there are no deleterious consequences for the political elite.
The International Criminal Court is investigating Russian war crimes in Ukraine. It has done nothing effective about western crimes in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of civilians died.
This level of injustice is hard to stomach. There is a natural yearning for an alternative, for a good power in the world to match the bad power in the world, and to give at least some hope of justice or balance. Thus many on the left have come to idolise Vladimir Putin as the balance to outweigh and thwart the corrupt, warmongering, neo-imperialist Western states.
Syria gave some comfort to this viewpoint. In the war for hegemony that the West has waged all over the Middle East, the contradictions of allying with a country as anathematical to supposed Western values as Saudi Arabia reached their apotheosis. The American-led West was providing arms, finance and logistical and air support to ISIS and closely allied jihadist groups in an effort to overthrow the Assad regime. The western sponsored civil war had already caused devastation and huge refugee flows. Had the western backed jihadists succeeded, the results would have been unthinkable.
Putin saved the world from that, by a small but timely Russian military intervention, and I for one am glad he did. I say that as absolutely no fan of the Assad regime.
So I can sympathise with those who see Putin as the answer to their desire for the West to be counterbalanced. The problem is it is unrealistic. Russia is just not that strong. It has an economy the size of Spain or another second tier Western European state. Any military intervention by Russia that seriously crosses the West is ultimately dependent on nuclear brinkmanship.
The more fundamental point is that Putin is no more a “good guy” than Western leaders. Russia is a massively kleptocratic state where the gap between the extremely wealthy and the exploited general populace is every bit as big as the gap in the West, and until recently was inarguably much bigger. The human rights situation in Russia is poor. In fact in both those respects, the West is moving increasingly to looking like Russia, which is a very bad thing.
Putin’s Russia is no kind of socialist model.
Putin’s image as the strong man of Eurasia is boosted out of all proportion by those on the right who benefit from portraying a powerful enemy: and by those on the left who yearn for a powerful friend. This is the universal boosting of Putin. But in real life he is a much smaller figure, controlling a waning power of very limited resources. He has just made his largest miscalculation. In the last hour the UN General Assembly has condemned the Russian attack on Ukraine. The UN General Assembly is a forum where the US and its allies can normally muster between 2 and 12 votes. They had 141. Russia mustered 5, the kind of position the US, Israel and the Marshall Islands frequently find themselves in. That is the extent of Putin’s diplomatic blunder.
History teaches us it is a huge mistake to attack Russia. The Russian people have an enormous capacity for wartime resilience when attacked. But the plain truth is NATO has never attacked Russia, and though I intensely dislike NATO’s pushing of weapons systems closer to Russia, NATO doctrine has never included plans to initiate war with Russia.
Just as I have frequently stated Russia has never had any intent to attack the UK; to persuade the population otherwise is the everyday job of the military industrial complex.
But the Russian military industrial complex is just as powerful within Russia as the western military industrial complex is here, and the Russian people are just as exploited by their elites as we are in the West. On either side, the offices of heads of government are not the right place to search for the good guys. Everybody gets lied into war.
It is of course a truism that Russian security concerns were made neuralgic by the ever tightening encroachment of NATO and its missiles. It is a valid point. But it is an equally valid point that NATO has never attacked Russia and none of those missiles has ever been fired at Russia. The point of the missiles was never to fire them at Russia. The point of the missiles was to manufacture and sell them at enormous profit margins and provide large salaries and cash funds for politicians, with endless revolving door jobs for ex-military and civilian defence personnel, who all keep the contracts flowing.
We are now in a position where only a severe Russian military setback can reduce the political momentum for more arms spending, more militarism and more censorship of dissenting opinion in the west – and yet many on the left are hoping for a Russian victory. That despite the fact that not only is Putin’s attack on Ukraine illegal, it is an aggressive war with precisely the same spurious justification as the US-led destruction of Iraq; pre-emptive disarmament to prevent possible attack.
To make matters worse, Putin’s attack is popularly seen as justification of the appalling Russophobia that has formed a fundamental part of the Establishment political narrative in recent years. Putin has appeared to justify years of lies by Russophobes.
I first became fully aware of the untruth of the mainstream Russophobic narrative when it was claimed that Wikileaks had published the Clinton material on the rigging of the primaries against Bernie Sanders, in collaboration with Russia. I knew that was definitely untrue. We then saw an expansion of this narrative, including aspects of the official Skripal story that made no sense whatsoever.
As a result of the invasion of Ukraine, popular opinion holds as validated any lunatic suggestion of evil Russian influence ever to emerge from the disorganised brain of Carole Cadwalladr. “Putin has invaded Ukraine. I told you he fixed the 2016 election” is not a proposition that holds up to a millisecond of logical analysis, but logical analysis is the first casualty of war.
Finally, a couple of thoughts on nuclear weapons. Putin has put his nuclear forces at some kind of initial alert level. In a rational world, this would lead to an increased demand for genuine attempts at nuclear disarmament negotiations, but again I fear that is not in the interest of the elites who control governments. NATO’s insistence on pushing missile systems ever closer to a nuclear-armed Russia and continually ratcheting up Russia’s fear of aggressive encirclement, will make it extremely unlikely that Russia will have any interest in disarmament. Which is so obvious, it proves NATO has absolutely no interest in disarmament either.
I have said much which is highly critical of Russia, and rightly so because Russia had started an illegal war. But that in no way reduces the very large amount of blame that attaches to NATO for its absurd militarism and territorial triumphalism, and the complete lack of interest NATO has shown towards finding a less confrontational approach to Russia.
NATO does not defend the interests of the people of Europe. It embodies the interests of the global elite, who benefit from feeding the military industrial complex. NATO is an instrument of the military and the weapons manufacturers. To exist, it needs an enemy. NATO’s role will always be to secure its own existence and its controllers’ cashflow, by creating enemies.
The only good guys in this are the common people of Ukraine, and the unfortunate conscripts in the Russian army. Let us all pray, hope or think on them tonight.
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Biden’s CIA director wrote a memoir a couple of years back about his time in Russia. He is a fluent Russian speaker and dealt with a wide variety of people inside Russia. He is Biden’s highest-ranking Russia expert, serving twice in Russia, the second time as ambassador.
Biden’s CIA Director Doesn’t Believe Biden’s Story about Ukraine
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/bidens-cia-director-doesnt-believe?s=r
“Burns says over and over that Russians of all ideological stripes—not just Putin—loathed and feared NATO expansion. He quotes a memo he wrote while serving as counselor for political affairs at the US embassy in Moscow in 1995. ‘Hostility to early NATO expansion,” it declares, “is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here.” On the question of extending NATO membership to Ukraine, Burns’ warnings about the breadth of Russian opposition are even more emphatic. “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” he wrote in a 2008 memo to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
“Burns calls the Clinton administration’s decision to expand NATO to include Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic “premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst.”
“As the Bush administration moved toward opening NATO’s doors to Ukraine, Burns’ warnings about a Russian backlash grew even starker. He told Rice it was “hard to overstate the strategic consequences” of offering NATO membership to Ukraine”
“Were a reporter to read Burns’ quotes to White House press secretary Jen Psaki today, she’d likely accuse them of “parroting Russian talking points.” But Burns is hardly alone. From inside the US government, many officials warned that US policy toward Russia might bring disaster. William Perry, Bill Clinton’s Defense Secretary from 1994 to 1997, almost resigned because of his opposition to NATO expansion. He has since declared that because of its policies in the 1990s, “the United States deserves much of the blame” for the deterioration in relations with Moscow. Steven Pifer, who from 1998 to 2000 served as US ambassador to Ukraine, has called Bush’s 2008 decision to declare that Ukraine would eventually join NATO “a real mistake.” Fiona Hill, who gained fame during the Trump impeachment saga, says that as national intelligence officers for Russia and Eurasia she and her colleagues “warned” Bush that “Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action.”
No Russian leader can allow the European Powers to position themselves around Russia with their bases and missiles. Let alone Nazis being supported trained and armed in Ukraine of all corridors after what happened in the Great Patriotic War. Who ever Putin is he is not a traitor to that struggle, defeat, siege and eventual long bloody road to victory. We had a great series on TV called the World at War. The Russians equivalent is Soviet Storm. Watching the Victory Day parade of 1945 and how Russia survived the European Attack is humbling. What now…just let the same Europeans occupy Ukraine is and was unthinkable.
The Ukrainians are not Nazis – it is the Russians that are being Nazis. Whenever a side tries to justify its invasion by calling the “enemy” Nazis that is surely Nazi behavior (this is the tactic used by Hitler – demonize the Jews until extermination seemed the right choice) . The reality is Russians and Ukrainians are brothers – they are ethnically closer than the Scots and English. Every populace has right wing extremists and Russia is no exception to that. Invasion is going to create many more extremists and people scarred by violence who know how to use weapons.
I agree Ukrainians are not Nazis. The Nazis ideology is being promoted by a few based on Arian construct to dehumanise Russian speakers as the other. Ukrainians are just pawns used to regime change Russia by the West. Why is US UK France Poland Romania Germany and all the Europeans not helping Ukraine with its soldiers to fight the Russian invasion? Yes indeed the Ukrainians have been used and betrayed. Give a child a stick and tell it to fight your fight. COWARDS. Putin and Russia has taken a fateful decision, only after years of war and shelling and bases being built by US and UK under their noses. This invasion would never have happened if the Great “Democracies” had kept out of all former Soviet Republics as they promised. Anyway the deed is done and now you will still add fuel to fire by egging on but not helping yourselves, Cowrards.
Ukrainians had every opportunity to be sovereign and independent of both Russia and US UK Nato. To have the best of East and West and be Neutral.
“Why is US UK France Poland Romania Germany and all the Europeans not helping Ukraine with its soldiers to fight the Russian invasion?”
That’s a pretty easy question. If it weren’t for Russia’s nukes – you bet there would be a no-fly zone and most of that line of tanks that we have been watching for a few days, would have long been blown to pieces. The nuclear deterrent does work.
People in the west are brought up to champion people protesting in the street, without necessarily understanding the bigger picture and possible consequences – it is a natural instinct to cheer for a color revolution (we want all people to be free like us) – it is not a calculated desire to destabilize Russia or Putin. People in the west don’t understand why Russia fears Nato (and I think that is a point made by Craig), we don’t fear Russia so we assume Russia doesn’t fear us. Ultimately perhaps the compromise is that Ukraine and Belarus don’t join Nato (there is no benefit to Nato, since our real enemy is China), but they need to be given security guarantees and they need to be allowed to join the EU and pivot their economy to the west.
Andrew H
“you bet there would be a no-fly zone “
You can bet there would not. No-fly zones are for countries that don’t have airforces. To attempt to impose one would be all-out war, and mushroom clouds.
You cannot deny that some Ukrainians are Nazis. Not unless you wish to dispute their own self-identification. They claim it with pride, wear the uniforms and the insignia, worship the worst Nazi leaders, and hold actual processions in their honour.
The Ukrainian Nazis behave worse than most of the original Nazis did. many of them, being soldiers, had pride and a kind of honour. They might kill civilians if ordered to, but did not take pleasure in it as the Ukrainian brutes do.
So Andrew, if I post links here to articles on Bandera and photographs of the Azov Nazis, and throw in a few things about roads and statues in honour of them in parts of the Ukraine and Canada, and give textual evidence concerning their historical Waffen SS suppport – will you still argue that this is just like “every populace” that “has right wing support”?
While you are 100% correct that the Ukrainians and the Russians are brothers and sisters, and share LONG history and in fact would often struggle to tell you to which of the two countries they would even feel closest, the specific Western Ukrainian NAZI element we are discussing is rather a synthetic construct based in divisive pseudo-historical fantasies that have served nothing but sectarian interests. There are fascinating threads woven into that ugly tapestry reaching back into the hatred of Catholicism for the Orthodox Church, but it is not the key issue here.
These psychopaths have been adopted into the usual playbook of the regime change fanatics of the Empire of LIes – right down to the use of civilians as human shields and the deployment of snipers to create riots. It simply will not do to ignore these gross human rights violations and somehow brush it all aside as effectively “business as usual in any populace”.
Putin aims to “DeNazify” the Ukraine for very good reason. Unfortunately the word has endless verbal baggage attached – which then might allow me to say I would equaly like to see the denazification of NATO, the WHO, and the cabal of Big Pharma and Big Finance – starting with Pfizer and the FDA, but hey, I could end up having to include some of the behaviours of my local council!
It is not helpful to throw around such terms without carefully attaching the proper context, or it starts to water down and obscure the meaning of the words themselves. Here we are literally talking about swastika waving thugs with Hitler salutes who have been trained by our own, and by US and Israeli special forces to make them more efficient in the fine art of tricking the enemy into killing lots of civilians. Download the document Arfur Mo and Tatyana were circulating above – remind yourself what the word REALLY entails. Still want to send them a few dollars for the war effort?
To answer your first question – Yes. Every country has swastika waiving thugs. (& the n-hating clan ain’t much better). You don’t invade another country to get rid of someone else’s Nazis. [I didn’t say right wing support – I said extremists meaning swastika waiving thugs / gun toting white supremacist’s – the real deal – they exist]
Andrew H
I have never once seen people waving swastikas in the UK. I do know for a fact that there is a Ukrainian cemetary in Canada with a memorial commemorating the Waffen SS. I do know for a fact, that Ukraine is the only country in the World to have a Nazi regiment within its military. I do know for a fact that Ukraine, US and canada voted against a UN General Assembly vote to outlaw the promotion of Nazi beliefs and glorifying Nazis.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/graffiti-on-memorial-to-nazi-ss-division-now-being-investigated-as-vandalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-ukraine-vote-against-anti-nazism-unga-resolution
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/12/protecting-the-nazis-the-extraordinary-vote-of-ukraine-and-the-usa/
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/meet-ukraines-master-mass-murderer-dmitriy-yarosh/
Andrew H
“The Ukrainians are not Nazis”
Read up on who carried out the Babi Yar holocaust in Kiev.
Here is the present-day Mayor of Kiev
https://twitter.com/yyyy67850526/status/1499092532164186118?s=20&t=oWhmMnEgnB6GgFIK383kTg
Perhaps, the only thing worth noting there is the comment underneath:
Replying to
@yyyy67850526
F***ing russian trolls defending war criminals with fake news. Go F*** yourselves. The only one photographed with neo Nazis is your best friend Donald Trump. The other leader with small hands and a small brain.
It’s not relevant to anything – your link does not support the case that ALL Ukrainians in Kiev are Nazis. What about the innocent people living in Kiev? I see Nazi’s as an internal problem that cannot be dealt with by an aggressive invasion. (how can this work out for Russia?). Besides. this is a pretext and you know it. Russia is threatened by the expansion of NATO (that makes sense) – and so it has decided to destroy Ukraine (that also makes sense) – that is all there it to it – the whole denazification agenda is bullshit – and even if it were true it still wouldn’t begin to justify this invasion.
I do not support the invasion but nor am I trying to deny another foul reality.
That is the Mayor of Kiev (of all places) embracing the state-sponsored psychopaths who celebrate Babi Yar. Unfortunately for you and the expert you admiringly quoted it is not “fake news”.
«I see Nazi’s as»
They are not really “nazis”: they are usually the descendants or heirs of people who fought with the nazis against the common russian enemy (the enemy of my enemy …), and mistakenly think that their predecessors fought with the nazis because they were nazis, so they should be too. Their predecessors were instead “merely” fanatical far-right xenophobes.
«as an internal problem»
I guess then that you regard the war of aggression by the Ukraine against the Donbas and the ethnic cleaning and massacres as an internal problem too…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas
“3,393 civilians killed (349 in 2016–2021)
13,100–13,300 killed; 29,500–33,500 wounded overall
414,798 Ukrainians internally displaced; 925,500 fled abroad”
«that cannot be dealt with by an aggressive invasion.»
Putin has said that he regards the war of aggression against the Donbas as not an internal problem for the Ukraine, and therefore his special military operation is humanitarian.
«(how can this work out for Russia?).»
One of their major objectives is to capture and put on trial for war crimes those fanatical far-right xenophobes, and the russian government seems to hope that will vindicate the “humanitarian” special operation before the public opinion of most countries outside the “Washington Consensus” ones.
As to the elite or public opinion of “Washington Consensus” countries, they seem to have wisely given up on that.
“The Ukrainians are not Nazis”
This is true but actual bona-fide SS-symbol-wearing nazis were brought in by America to win its ‘Revolution of Dignity’, and then became established in government. They burnt alive some people in a trade union building in Odessa and have been formed into units of the Uhrainian army where they have spent eight years shelling russian speaking civilians in the Donbass, killing about 10,000. They are presently cauldroned in the Donbass and will soon be dead.
Zelensky, a peace candidate, was not able to overcome their influence on govornment.
«have spent eight years shelling russian speaking civilians in the Donbass, killing about 10,000. They are presently cauldroned in the Donbass»
And their fanaticism is such that instead of attempting to escape they kept bombing the despised “kastaps”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60565971
2021-03-01 “Buildings were on fire and cars were destroyed after shelling in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk”
«and will soon be dead.»
I think that instead the russian troops are under strict orders to capture them alive so that they can be tried for war crimes, and the russian and donbasian governments have been collecting evidence for 8 years for that.
«Zelensky, a peace candidate»
My impression that while he campaigned as a peace candidate, he was really a “Washington Consensus” candidate like Poroshenko, as that is how he governed.
«was not able to overcome their influence on govornment»
Actually far from trying to overcome their influence, he “facilitated” their being funded, trained and armed by “Washington Consensus” interests. I guess that was done so that they could continue commit atrocities in the Donbas with the aim to goad the Russian Federation into protecting the Donbas population, drawing it into an ukranian quagmire. But I guess that the Russian Federation armed forces and government are very well aware of that aim and are trying to avoid that trap. We shall see.
I am literally almost having to pinch myself to be sure this is even real. Just try this on for size, and I know you do already know this, but I am both very aware of it and STILL startled every time I consider it a few hours or days later: Germany now has a ruler who considers himself finally a man, because he is now sending offensive weapons to support the heirs of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, of the 14th SS-Volunteer Division “Galicia” no less, which lives on in this historic fight against the greater evil, the Putinazi Hoard.
Given that Europe is on side with this and every other vassal of the Empire has had to salute and enthusiastically shout “Heil Biden” this is supposed to be OK. These special noble Azov Nazis, who no doubt will be imortalised in Hollywood blockbusters and win the Oscar for their tear-jerking movies, were recently in Munich literally DEMANDING that they be given Nuclear Arms, and nobody batted an eyelid. Russian then dared to take the offered bait and crossed the border where their brothers and sisters had been being slaughtered for the last 8 years – by the selfsame Azov heros. What could possibly go wrong?
Do you get my drift? Is any of this real? Am I actually asleep and having some bizarre repeating nightmare??? Why are we arguing over the distractions rather than confronting the sick realities – is it the Cognitive Dissonance MAX Effect? Did they put stupid juice in the vaccines? Shoot the scriptwriter!
Jarek Carnelian
Not a time for humour, but it does make you wonder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU
FAKE NEWS stories coming out of Ukraine (my apologies if someone has already posted it):
https://off-guardian.org/2022/02/27/7-fake-news-stories-coming-out-of-ukraine/
And a bit earlier I came across a video clip (viewed around 800,000 times so far) of a young girl allegedly screaming at a Russian Soldier to go home, only it WASN’T! It was a young Palestinian girl screaming at an Israeli soldier! The first casualty of war…..
One of the peculiar ironies of this information war is that footage from ‘forgotten’ wars, which can never get the smallest exposure in the West, is now regularly appearing rebranded as Ukrainian resistance, and snapped up all round.
Correction: The video clip has been LIKED 800,000 times, and viewed over twelve million times (and that was as of a couple of days ago):
‘Ukrainian girl confronting a Russian soldier’ is actually Palestine’s Ahed Tamimi
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/russia-ukraine-war-girl-confronting-ahed-tamimi-palestine
But most Westerners will never know. As the great Dr Jonathan Swift penetratingly remarked, “It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it”.
As a corresponding data point, Dan Ellsberg in his book “The Doomsday Machine” talks about the ‘missile gap’ in the early 1960’s, and how after all of the hullabaloo, when they finally got spy satellites up for the first time, they found that the Soviets only had four functional ICBMs.
There were stories in America after the dismantlement of the Soviet Union about how the CIA and the US defense agencies had also massively inflated Soviet force values. Of course, these are forgotten now that the CIA has become both the owner of the Democratic Party and Gawd Almighty.
So as some bring up nazis and holocaust would they consider the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine an authority on the subject of the influence of neo-nazis in Ukraine today.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/02/ukraine-president-asks-jewish-people-around-world-to-speak-against-russia
“It’s absolute and total nonsense,” said Rabbi Moshe Azman, the chief rabbi of Ukraine. “The country has democracy, it has freedom of speech and the president is Jewish. It’s simply a lie. The far-right parties didn’t even get into parliament.”
Azman, who was born in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, recorded an angry appeal to Russians and Russian Jews on Tuesday, clutching a Torah and criticising the lack of public outcry in Russia against the war.
“Remember that the people who are indifferent become accomplices in crimes against humanity,” he said.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-699122
WARSAW – Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Rabbi Moshe Reuven Asman recorded a video Wednesday calling for influential Russian Jews and rabbis to help stop the terrible war between Ukraine and Russia.
“I turn to the rabbis of Russia, to the Jews of Russia and to ordinary Russians, with one message: People, stop the war! Do not be frustrated by what you are told on TV – you are being lied to. A war crime is taking place here,” he said on a video in Russian, speaking dramatically and hugging a Torah scroll.
He said, “The Russian army, which defeated the Nazis in 1941, today bombs Kyiv, in a civilian area.
…“I didn’t leave, I’m here. Because I’m not an indifferent person, nor will I leave my community. I am a rabbi of Ukraine, and I am proud that I have the opportunity to save people. I am proud to be on the side of light, and not on the side of the killers,” he said.
Credibility of this Rabbi is zero, you should know that other recognized religious bodies denounce him as ‘lackey’ serving Ukraine state interests.
If the credibility is zero why does the Jerusalem Post not say that. Why did Israel vote against at the UN?
Why do we only seem to see the exact same images posted over again and again. Of course I don’t deny that that are some neo-nazis in Ukraine and historically many have been associated with the Azov batallion and of course I wish they would change their effing logos. But plenty of people who are in Ukraine say the notion they are any way in charge or more than a tiny minority is false. For example
https://twitter.com/PaulNiland/status/1498984543608528905
Paul Niland
@PaulNiland
As this offensive shit is the lie that Russia uses right now to kill innocent civilians.
Here’s my article the F and N words, 27/3/18.
https://kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/paul-niland-f-n-words.html
Here’s my article on 5 false narratives being used to justify the war, 8/2/22.
https://cepa.org/russias-five-false-narratives-for-war/
But yes everyone feel free to believe the Russians are fighting mostly nazis if that helps you cheer lead the end of the world show.
“If the credibility is zero why does the Jerusalem Post not say that”
Why would it?
Squonk
Here is the current Mayor of Kiev embracing Azov Nazis who celebrate the holocaust at Babi Yar ravine in Kiev.
https://twitter.com/yyyy67850526/status/1499092532164186118?s=20&t=oWhmMnEgnB6GgFIK383kTg
The Azov Nazis are not some outlawed and despised freelance operation. They are sponsored by the Ukranian state and publicly embraced by some of its most prominent and internationally known politicians.
Azov is officially and legally fully incorporated into the Ukraine military.
Imagine the USSR – even during its bleakest decade – only getting 5 votes at the UN. The USSR at least presented itself as a defender of the victims of global capitalism. Today’s Russia is just another species of the same neoliberal disorder. This is why Putin’s apologists are rarely socialists despite the desperate centrist effort to brand them such.
Imagine that the US at the height of its power being shot down by China and India, recognizing the blatant power grab by NATO for what it is. Imagine people using the same tired rhetoric used to smear opponents of the Iraq War as “Saddam apologists”.
There is a whole world of difference between opposing the invasion of Iraq and celebrating the invasion of Ukraine. And there are in fact genuine Putin supporters, although they are generally on the far right (not the left, as the Establishment is eager to have voters believe.)
You of course are a supporter of Dubya and Cheney, Wolfowitz and Brzezinski, Obama and Sullivan, Nuland and Biden?
Until you face up to the fact that the West are the mass murderers, not Putin, you will just be viewed by any sane person as an unprincipled sociopath who gives truly genocidal psychopathy a free pass but is excoriating an unpleasant leader for clearing up nazi war crime messes on his doorstep.
You seem to think that Putin could just walk into the Kremlin and magically, with one wave of his wand, change what the USA had so carefully installed? A kleptocracy benefitting US elites, that’s what the USA created by promoting Yeltsin.
There is literally no-one who could have been leader of Russia and survived as a Gandhi-like figure. No-one. Putin has by far the most healthy Treasury of all the major nations on earth, including the USA and the UK, the former of which is fiscally insolvent by any other definition. If you strip out all the fictitious ‘GDP’ of the USA merely involving never-ending derivatives trading, which creates nothing but siphons off wealth steadily to Wall Street, then the USA’s economy is not all that.
I really do suggest that people measure a more accurate descriptor of ‘societal health’ than GDP. It wouldn’t look so rosy for the UK and the USA then.
For all the insults thrown at Russia, it has a healthy sovereign wealth fund, assuming the West doesn’t just steal it. I am sure Mr Murray agrees that the USA should have had to pay $30trn fines for its genocides the past 30 years? But no, it just keeps on stealing the assets of those it wants to overthrow.
Give me one single reason why the USA should not be in the dock of the ICC for the next five years, having all its genocides brought to book??
Sure mate, anyone who opposes Putin’s invasion is an insane NeoCon devil who *supports* mass murder. Fortunately there are still some good guys around like you to valourize it. Incidentally, just in regard to Craig’s allegation, do you consider yourself a socialist/leftwinger?
So true, I confess being influenced by such desire.
“There is a natural yearning for an alternative, for a good power in the world to match the bad power in the world, and to give at least some hope of justice or balance. Thus many on the left have come to idolise Vladimir Putin as the balance to outweigh and thwart the corrupt, warmongering, neo-imperialist Western states.”
Still, the entire reasoning fits in a frame of personal experience and in a particular timeframe. My thoughts are equally influenced by a broader timeframe and huge events are not the result of a particular interest but the confluence of many facts, ideologies, desires, conflicts, that happen over different timeframes.
I’m not sure how many idolise him, I think many just think he is doing his own job properly, namely to uphold and defend the interests of Russia and the Russian people.
He has built a $500bn odd Sovereign Wealth Fund – not his money, the money of the people of Russia. If the west loot that, they are stealing from the people of Russia, not any oligarchs or Government Ministers. I hope the criminals are truly proud if they do that…
He has made Russia’s agricultural sector improve drastically and now, Russia is as near as dammit agriculturally independent. They did this after the last lot of sanctions. They didn’t bomb Brussels, they just grew crops better, husbanded animals better. Scandalous!
Moscow was recently voted ‘the best city in the world to live in’. I’m not sure how that is possible, given that Putin is an evil psychopath keeping all his people in absolute poverty. Do explain that one….it shouldn’t be in the top 50 if Russia is that bad…
You want to look at Russia in 1999 and now. It’s hard to say Putin has run Russia down.
Don’t forget the $200 billion personal wealth fund he’s built up for himself. Where did that money come from?
And since you *know* rather than *believe*, please provide the evidence.
Source? Of course we know that you have several unimpeachably credible ones.
Unless you just made that up.
By the way, where did the $500 million you have in an offshore account come from?
I wonder why Russia’s invasion/attack/peacekeeping of the Ukraine is considered an aggressive attack, an illegal war. I wonder what other options Russia actually had. It tried all the talking it could and wasn’t listened to, was brushed aside, treated with contempt. Its talking was diplomatic, reasonable and very concessionary – its requests were/are very reasonable. It had to bring thousands of its army individuals to its borders to get attention to its requests only to be met with hysteria, abuse, nato sqauwking, threats of reprisals. All the time the people of the Donbas were being the victims of Ukrainian aggression. What other options did Russia have? Their army is making slow progress in Ukraine because it has been told to keep civilian casualties to a minimum. One can’t really tell how true or effective this has been because one can’t really trust anything coming out of the media. The military casualties we have been told about are truly unspeakable but unfortunately they have guns. To me the most disgusting thing about all this is the response of the EU, I had thought they might have realized Russia’s problem and been much more helpful. So the whole resolution falls on peace talks between Russia and Ukraine – does anyone really know who is in charge in Ukraine – Zelensky seems to be their talking face, but they have a very nasty faction with guns who probably couldn’t be trusted to accept any resolution other than their own, which would not be in the best interests of the Ukrainian people and certainly not acceptable to Russia.
Arguably the war started 8 years ago, it was started by the Ukraine with US support, and Russia has been trying to find a diplomatic solution ever since until giving up that approach as a hopeless task last week. When you have been banging your head against a wall for years, the only alternative seems to be to bang somebody else’s instead. Why is that so hard to understand?
Wang Shui
Easy to understand, impossible to speak out, otherwise their government may jail them. Policy of fear.
> Arguably the war started 8 years ago, it was started by the Ukraine with US support
8 years ago, Russia-backed rebels in Donbas started an insurgency against Ukrainian rule. Is that the war that you claim Ukraine started?
There seems to be something missing in your recollection of events Jimmeh!
What, you mean like the UK started WWI by sending its armed forces into northern France?
No, it’s like Ukraine who started shelling Donbass for their political desicion to not accept new government.
No, Great Britain started WW1 by giving the French government cast-iron assurances that Britain would be on their side in a war no matter what they said to Germany. This made the French insufferably cocksure, wishing as they did to revenge the humiliation of 1870. Once the Germans saw that nothing could avert war, they believed they had to attack first or be crushed between France and Russia.
Like you, I did not believe that Putin would invade Ukraine, and thought it was a mistake when he did. I’m not so sure about that now, even though the outcome is far less certain than rumours of Russian might had inferred. The threat by Zelensky to acquire nuclear weapons was an immediate breach of the Bucharest Memorandum, as arguably would NATO membership have been.
The reason for that change of view: slowly becoming aware of the degree to which Ukraine had, even before 2014 and much more since, become a forward US military base with absolute offensive intent. An exposition of that US campaign can be found here:
http://johnhelmer.net/operation-barbarossa-in-slow-motion-this-is-the-offensive-capacity-the-us-was-preparing-in-the-ukraine-until-last-week/
It’s fraught with risks for Russia, but if the above is accurate – or more significantly, the Russians believed it to be accurate – I can see why they felt they had no choice but to act: arguably, their biggest failure is that they should have been firmer sooner.
> The Russian economy is about the size of the Spanish economy. Russian defence spending is, at the highest, 12% of NATO defence spending.
This is rather weird sentence, since the first half of it talks in absolute dollars while the second half talks in PPP dollars. Russian economy adjusted for PPP is the size of German, not Spanish.
As for the quality of the Russian army I’ll take the word of people like Scott Ritter who is extremely knowledgeable and experienced in the US military and Russian relations. He is also not biased either way, a realist who like Craig looks for the truth.
‘The International Criminal Court is investigating Russian war crimes in Ukraine.’
I expect you to comment on Ukrainian war crimes too, Mr Murray. Try looking at this:
https://archive.org/details/presentation-ukrainian-war-crimes
This ‘Ukrainians are peaceful little lambs’ diatribe has to stop. From you as much as anyone, Mr Murray.
Ukraine is NOT a peaceful nation run by a democratic government espousing Western gibberish about equality and rainbow sexual diversity. It is a country with plenty of murdering nazis, plenty of Russophobic racists and oodles of US dollars funding insurgency, weaponry they cannot afford and ethnic targeting, up to and including committing war crimes against the Russian minority.
Rhys Jagger
The US and Ukraine have conveniently opted out of condemning Nazis when it was discussed at the UN. Sadly the Biden administration is also full of them. I think this probably means Trump will have a second term. If the US still exists in two years time. Now we see the fluffy side of Boris the Clown. Peter Ford’s description , not mine. Time to let the evidence of USUKIS war crimes in Libya, Syria and Ukraine see the light of day in an International Court, before we decide whether the UN is qualified to decide what is legal and what is not legal.
I think I understand now. Just as it is impossible in the KSA not to agree with the King’s infallibility / right to exceptionalism / do wrong with impunity, on pain of being chopped up when you enter a Saudi visa office in a foreign country, so now, it is impossible to disagree with the exceptionalism of USUKIS if you want to exist.
Now we know what Brexit means to Boris Johnson and Kier Starmer. No anti-usukis exceptionalism allowed on pain of , well getting Assanged when you visit a USUKIS visa office in a foreign country.
I do so love honesty. There is no pretence any more of being a democracy, or a civilisation, or even a belief system. We are back in 1066 and our overlords will soon ask us to make an inventory. Who’d’ve thought we’d’ve voted ourselves into the noose or scaffold with an X in a box, you no.longer have the right to think independently.
Sorry. Sorry chi?
Thanks for this excellent piece, Craig, a timely reminder of the truth of General Smedley Butler’s “war is a racket”.
Hi Craig, it is great that you are obviously feeling better. I think that you are misinterpreting the situation in Ukraine, if Russia made war like America, they would’ve spent at least two weeks bombing Ukrainian cities “back to the stone age” and stated that 500,000 Ukrainian children are worth it (you do know who said that, don’t you?). Doubtless Russia has the capacity to have done this, also doubtless they did not want to as they probably think of themselves as a “civilised” nation. The hubris of the people living in Western Asia is mind blowing.
A kind thought Steve but I am not at all well just now and it has been a real struggle to get this written.
This is not good news. I imagine that the events of the past two years are, unsurprisingly, taking their toll. I am feeling awful due to the current crisis. I can imagine it is much worse for you. Please try to get some rest.
I very much sympathise, there’ll be millions of your fellow world citizens feeling the same now. I have been depressed off and on, mostly on, for some time, as the world I thought I knew becomes less and less recognisable. I am getting older, and I am alert and sentient enough to think it might just be my age, but then I have another look around me, and I know there is something genuinely and seriously wrong. Our neoliberal economics and the delusion of perpetual economic growth, rampant unsustainable globalisation, gross and socially disruptive inequities, overpopulation, environmental debasement, Covid, global warming, and now this. Humanity is on a rapidly accelerating collision course with reality but prefers to live in a world of make believe and wishful thinking. I can recall the pious hopes at the start of 2022 from my friends and acquaintances “at least it’ll be better than 2021” I remember saying, eternal pessimist I am, “I wouldn’t count on it”. Why did I say that, probably because Murphy’s Law can basically be restated, “It’s just one bloody thing after another”. If we all die in some nuclear holocaust, we’ll still be saying “It’s just one bloody thing after another” I’ve actually got the stage to be fatalistically thinking that if my family now living in the UK are incinerated in this way, it’s nothing more than just another chapter in humanity’s glorious history, replete with such self-made disasters.
Craig – please look after yourself!
Undoubtedly Putin has made a major mistake: militarily, diplomaticaly and probably politically (he could be finished in Russia). If he had sent the troops back to barracks after the ‘exercises’ he would have left the US/NATO with egg on their faces.
That said:
– normal life in Donetsk, a city of 1 million people has been impossible for the last 7 years. (See the OSCE reports you pointed out)
– there are neo-nazis, steered by Washington, which are in a position of strategic influence in the Ukraine (why else did Zelensky morph from being the almost universally supported “reason, peace and rapprochement” candidate to being an ultra-nationalist President, supporting constant attacks on the Donbass)?
– you are probably correct to say NATO never intended to use the missiles: they were about profit not attack. That said: if you were the president of Russia, born in Leningrad 7 years after WW2 would you bet Russia on that hope?
So he – at least thought that – he had to “do something”.
The Wag the Dog PR, the war porn, the gullibility and enthusiuasm for war of the populace makes me despair. I doubt humanity has much longer on this planet. Shame about the dolphins.
3 major corrections.
1st – Ukraine brought most of their army to Donbass intending to take it by force. That’s why Russian military exercises along the border and screams ‘Russia is going to invade’.
2nd – NATO refused to discuss any written guarantees for Russia
3rd – Ukraine refused to implement Minsk.
If anyone thinks Russia should wait till Ukraine kills Donbassians, and then NATO bombs Russia, then you are just sick racist.
Tatyana
I have read about Ukrainian troops massing to attack Donbass in Voltairenet, but only there. Nobody is being allowed to know about it in the West. So, if it is true, Russia’s invasion is 100 % legal, and in fact her legal responsibility to prevent genocide.
Voltairenet sometimes goes off on a mountain track leading to nowhere. He blames Paul Wolfovitz for all the problems of the last 20 years. But Wolfovitz is World Bank architect of Chinese banking so what does that mean for a Russia / China alliance.
We can only form opinions on the basis of the information we have, but there is blanket news censorship about Donbass here. One news item I heard said that Putin was banging on about Nazis in Ukraine when there were no Nazis there.
Tatyana,
I would add: 4th Ukraine – Zelenski said they wanted to develop their own nuclear missiles. I believe this was the final straw (that broke the camel’s back).
Thomas Roper, http://www.anti-spiegel.ru, believes something really did worry the Russian government to the extent that it initiated their response. He thought it might have been Zelensky’s speech to the Munich conference where he, Zelensky, was rabbiting on about having nuclear weapons. Personally, I think Zelensky is a bit of a loose speaker and probably won’t last very much longer but who knows! Around the same time people were being bussed out of the Donbas region into Russia for safety. Of course, that may have been precipitated because of the increased Ukrainian bombardment of Donbas.
Don’t neglect biological warfare:
“Russia Prevents Washington from Unleashing Biological Warfare”
https://journal-neo.org/2022/03/03/russia-prevents-washington-from-unleashing-biological-warfare/
“Potential pandemic bird flu modified to be more dangerous in new risky NIH research”
https://dilyana.bg/potential-pandemic-bird-flu-modified-to-be-more-dangerous-in-new-risky-nih-research/
Or, if you prefer American sources:
“Inside America’s secretive biolabs” (USA Today, 2015)
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/05/28/biolabs-pathogens-location-incidents/26587505/
Here’s a map purporting to show the locations of Ukrainian military forces ranged against the Donbass region as of March 3 (the light blue markers on the left) – something I haven’t seen in the western media.
It’s from a Russian source but I can’t read Russian and don’t know anything about the source’s credibility (maybe Tatyana can tell us more). For those interested, this “dragon_first_1” website provides more battlefield maps and commentary.
https://dragon-first-1.livejournal.com/47953.html
p.s. I also hope Craig is taking good care of himself. At a time like this, he’s needed more than ever.
It is possible Joe, Vladimir Putin has thrown the dice albeit they are loaded with grace and fellow feeling, an ethos that is ethereal in minds preoccupied by war, destruction, plenty and greed.
I will ask President to stand alone with outstretched arms in Kharkiv’s Freedom Square if he ‘prevails’ and I use that verb intentionally and wilfully.
Seems like some systems are catastrophically vulnerable to the viewing of alternative news which questions any sort of status quo narrative …. which more than just suggests the mainstream media tales are corrupted and fake and pimping and pumping a virtual reality for future belief to support with IT and Media and AI Productions/Presentations.
A single grain of truth which cannot be denied though destroys all built upon those rotten foundations.
Interesting times ahead …..
Dear Craig, thought provoking piece. How to stand up to the bully that is Russia while also supporting disarmament and the dismantling of the military-industrial complex. Not an easy balancing act. If the world survives this crisis, renewed attempts at disarmament are vital. You seem to be rather dismissive of Russian military power. It is true that the Russians sent in their fodder first, young conscripts who were hoodwinked into thinking it was an exercise. But I fear that once it is clear this troop incursion has stalled, destructive fire power targewting civilians will follow, as it did in Grozny. It is already happening.
I don’t know how we get out of this, but here are 2 ideas. The EU parliament should vote to allow Russian troops who surrender to be granted asylum and EU citizenship. Now THAT would be a good advertisement for the reconciliation the EU stands for! Also, several private outlets solicit reviews. Go to the ones in Moscow and St Petersburg and type “Net voine” (no war). They will be deleted later, but not before some of them have been read. Only the Russians can stop Putin.
Why should the Uk not take such Russian soldiers, James. Would it not make sense to reverse and diminish the current and endemic Russophobia here in the Uk?
Scholz has fallen into a trap and will have to honour his 200bn spendthrift.
I very much hope he and the rest of Europe do not give a visa free carte blanche to Svovoda and or the deluded nazis of the Asov bttl.
‘ It is already happening.’ source please James…
Craig,
Your comments on NATO as an arms bazaar are spot on, but to claim that it doesn’t threaten Russia seems at odds with the evidence. NATO declared Russia a threat and adversary in 2019.
As for Russian military performance; you mention Kharkiv (Ukrainian name) being known as Kharkov (Russian name) by the locals. Perhaps that is because East of a line from Kharkov to Odessa is predominantly an ethnic Russian area. The Russian military have been trying to move slowly to limit civilian casualties. In many of the predominantly Russian cities of Ukraine the administration is by ultra nationalists and there are detachments of ultra nationalist military units – who hate the locals and are using them for defense.
You are correct that Russia is not strong enough to challenge the West on its own but it has a major ally in China; who can ensure that the sanctions backfire. In addition, major players, like India, Brazil, Mexico are currently not willing to impose sanctions. It’s time for the nations exploited by the West to take control with a new global financial system.
Ian,
China is an entirely different thing and much, much more powerful than Russia in every way. It hasn’t quite abandoned Russia over this misstep, but it is not happy either.
China has supported Russia with regards to NATO concerns but will not openly support Russia violating the sovereignty of Ukraine, even with a significant portion of the country being Russian (transferred to Ukraine in 1922).
However, don’t you think that the two countries will have discussed strategy? Mitigation of sanctions, development of a non USD global system? China can benefit massively from the situation and see the US weakened. With higher US inflation there is already talk of eliminating tariffs against Chinese goods. China will also Russia an alternative source of goods.
China’s BRI has perhaps shown the exploited world that there is a developing alternative to Western exploitation of their resources.
The West claims International support against Russia, but in reality it seems like US, NATO, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. I’m sure that the US will apply pressure – rumours are that India is being threatened with sanctions. It will be interesting to see which countries stand against Western sanctions.
Of course if China were to openly support Russia’s operation to liberate the DPR and the LPR then they would be accused of hypocrisy…..
From the Chinese Embassy to Russia:
Chinese Embassy in Russia
Feb 25
Never forget who is the real threat to the world:
USA BOMBING LIST: The Democracy World Tour
https://dxczjjuegupb.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/photo_2022-02-26_16-48-48-745×1024.
@Ian Brookes Is it forbidden to call nazis nazis? What is this pussyfooting about calling them ultra nationalists? Or are you so diabolically subtle that you are hinting that nazism is a form of nationalism rather than sui generis? ;O)
So Russia ie Putin decided it could no longer tolerate perceived atrocities by extreme right wingers against ethnic Russians in the Donbas. The obvious strategy would be to occupy and liberate the region, tactics already used successfully in Georgia and Crimea. BUT Putin was also increasingly angry at the Ukrainian government which looked to the west, not to Russia, for its future. Like many former USSR states, the ethnic Ukrainians, who make up the majority of the population, do not look back to their time as a Russian satellite with any pleasure and do not want to return there. They look economically west to the EU for trade and to its military arm, NATO, for defence.
Putin perceives NATO as a dark arm of the military power of the USA and is angered by it installing military bases and weapons in former Soviet countries. These countries allow this because they still feel threatened by Russia and Russia feels threatened by NATO. So Putin assembled his army to invade and occupy all of the Ukraine and crush dissent, to prevent closer ties with NATO, on security grounds.
This strategy worked in Chechnya in the past. GIven some local autonomy under Soviet control, the Chechens turned their country into a gangster regime of drug running and arms dealing. No one was sorry to see them contained. But where is Putin going in the Ukraine? It has not directly threatened Russia.(Nor has NATO. ) Ukraine is a much bigger country than Chechenya and ethnic Russians are very much in the minority. And not only has Putin invaded Ukraine, he has threatened nuclear retaliation to anyone who helps it. Craig tells us the Russia army is no match for NATO. How is Russia going to hold down such a large country as the Ukraine which is supported by the West Inc the USA. . Strikes me as a BIG miscalculation.
What sort of geopolitical analysis did you have in mind?
Also can anyone explain to me why Putin calls the Ukrainian leaders drug-addicts.? Is it a special Russian insult?
?
Mrs Paul
All is explained over at Voltairenet. But for all its analysis, there is a strong undercurrent of Anglophobia. I see nowhere for comments over there , so no.opportunity to gauge the truth from.wiser commenters than myself.
It looks like there is a massive information war taking place, which inevitably the PTB must lose because of the Internet. We are many, they are few. I ought to begin to collect Totalitaria, pieces of obvious bs from the MSM, which will acquire retro value when we emerge from this era of right wing deceit and Russophobic hysteria.
You make good comments. As soon as I heard that Russia was invading Ukraine, I wrote “Putin has blown it” for much the same reason as you. I never anticipated this invasion, I thought the US / NATO was shrill and even making war more likely, I was deceived – I was sure that the number of troops that Putin has at his command was never enough to invade and pacify a nation of Ukraine’s size and population. Enough to deal to Donbass though. What Putin intentions mean now though is a horribly destructive war, which Russia will never actually “win” which makes the whole situation even more perilous – I did wonder if this did happen if there could be a military coup in Russia and some sort of negotiated peace. I suspect a number of generals will not have been happy with this adventure, would understand better than anyone the limits of the Russian military machine. Who knows. Will any of us be around long enough to find out?
If you had a ready direct flowing supply of cheap foreign natural gas, would you refuse to accept it and rely on more expensive trans-atlantic imports and more polluting mined alternatives from home which creates significantly increased costs and major problems for all sectors and peoples in need of cheap energy? It wouldn’t make any great sense, would it. Do you not wonder why such would be contemplated and actioned?
Does the following short read explain such a madness, which is surely inexcusable and tantamount to an indictable crime against humanity? …….. The Crisis in Ukraine Is Not About Ukraine. It’s About Germany
Good post: the fact that NATO exists to provide a market for Western arms manufacturers is not on that sees the light of day often enough, however I would take issue with the analysis of the vote of the UN General Assembly. Russia got 5 votes for exactly the same reason that the US and its allies normally only muster between 2 and 12 votes: no-one wants to be seen backing aggression. It is usually the US that is the aggressor, this time it is Russia.
I am not sure why that is a different analysis!
You made it out to be a diplomatic blunder, when I would have thought that such an outcome would have been expected and allowed for. The Russians must have known they would be abandoning the moral high ground if they invaded.
It’s no use occupying the moral high ground if that results in your being shot in the back. Military principles demand keeping a low profile and occupying the reverse slope.
The thing is, for Russia to go into Ukraine at all transferred the matter to the military sphere. Trying to defeat the Ukrainians from within Donetsk and Lugansk would be impossible, because they could always summon up fresh reinforcements and the endless supplies and weapons the West would provide.
To win the military campaign it was necessary to go in wholeheartedly and destroy the enemy’s air power and heavy weapons, then to interdict his supplies and surround him.
You’re a good political commentator Craig but as a military strategist you’re hopeless. The Russians have been trying to avoid civilian casualties, hence not bashing their way into big cities, which is what the US wants them to do. Mariupol is an exception since it is garrisoned by the USukzio backed nazis of the Azov battalion. The proof of this will depend on the speed that the Russians leave, not how long it takes them to encircle the nazis at Mariupol and elsewhere. It is good that the apparent slow speed of the Russian advance has allowed the Right Sektor to be transferred eastwards. Not so good for the Ukrainian officers, apparently murdered by them, for trying to retreat before they are caught in a Kesselschlacht.
Or – shock horror Craig – neither Russia nor Putin-bad want to annihilate an already oppressed and poor peoples.
Chernobyl is being patrolled by both Ukrainian and Russian forces, electricity, heating, water is still running (though it is intermittent in Kharkov now).
Russia is not using artillery like it could if it wanted, it isn’t bombing the civilian infrastructure where Azov types use civilians as human shields.
The UN estimates around 200 civilian deaths after a week, and many of these are from the Kiev government handing out automatic rifles to anyone and everyone.
For the British middle to upper classes, after your 150 years of propaganda against everything Russian, it is almost impossible for you to even consider that there is no aim by Russia to destroy Ukraine, or kill Ukrainians.
You’re just too used to NATO adventures like Libya, to see that sometimes nations aren’t run by psychopaths.
Certainly it’s unlikely you’ll see it for Russia first.
This is so stupid, it is racism:
Russian Cats Barred From Competing in International Competitions Over Ukraine Crisis
https://sputniknews.com/20220303/russian-cats-barred-from-competing-in-international-competitions-over-ukraine-crisis-1093536068.html
What do Russian catowners have to do with anything regarding this conflict besides just being russian?
Sanctions like these just strengthen Russia itself; we will have a new generation of anti-western population in Russia.
I know Navalny has criticzed the invasion but I do wonder what he thinks about these sanctions, isolation tactic, after all, he is somewhat a nationalist himself.
Join the dots. You have forgotten your James Bond.
You cannot have images of Blofeld as head of SPECTRE stroking a white cat on his lap.
It is racism though – the cat was Persian.
It is becoming jaw droopingly stupid – the soprano Anna Netrebko has cancelled her performances for the near future. Why should culture be influenced by politics?
Read the book “Burning Beethoven” about how the US population was brainwashed to get it ready to join WW1. In 1914 the huge majority of Americans thought the world of Germans: decent, moral, kindly, cheerful people with a terrific record in science, medicine, industry and culture. For those exact reasons the US elite wished to destroy Germany – just as they wish to destroy Russia now.
Within 3 years, no one could admit to being German, owning anything German, enjoying German culture, or even having a distant German cousin. They were nun-raping, baby-crucifying Hun monsters whom everyone had to hate. Dachshunds could not go out in public safely, and German Shepherds suddenly became Alsatians.
Sound familiar? Edward Bernays’ methods work just the same as they did – which is why Dr Goebbels used them. He was just the pupil, though. The Americans have always been the masters.
The Great insanity is spreading amongst the crowds – collecting and sending clothes and toys to Poland for the Uke refugees!!
To talk of banning Vodka!
In the meantime small businesses are being told that they are not allowed the conduct trade which involves any Russian bank.
It is us, the Weste Slaves and Serfs who are being caged in. As we were a century ago.
https://southfront.org/military-situation-in-ukraine-on-march-2-2022-map-update/
Now that the freedom-loving west is censoring RT you might care to look at Southfront, a fairly unbiased source (though with somewhat lamentable prose) if its coverage of the US invasion of Syria since the Russian intervention is a guide. As you can see from this map, there is no apparent schwerpunkt in the Russian attacks, which makes it difficult for the nazis to concentrate against it. With luck the ones encircled in Mariupol will get their comeuppance in the next few days.
Is Southfront “a reasonably unbiased source”? Depends on what you mean by reasonable, I suppose. Here’s what Media Bias Fact Check says:
History
Founded in 2015, South Front is a Russian propaganda website that claims to be non-profit and non-partisan. According to their about page, South Front is a “public analytical umbrella organization created and maintained by a team of experts and volunteers from the four corners of the Earth. SouthFront focuses on issues of international relations, armed conflicts, and crises. The organization provides military operations analysis, military posture of major world powers, and other important data influencing the growth of tensions between countries and nations.”
The website lacks transparency as they do not name an owner or editors and articles lack author names and bios.
In 2016, South Front was accused of being a Russian propaganda tool. In another 2016 article, they were accused of “spreading Russian propaganda during the [U.S.] election.” Finally, in 2017, their Wikipedia page was deleted due to being a non-reliable source.
Funded by / Ownership
South Front does not disclose ownership; however, the domain is registered in Russia, there is an email address with the .ru extension and donations via Paypal are in Russian, “Пожертвовать на [email protected], Цель: Any amount donation.” In other words, this source does not disclose they are from Russia and try hard to hide that fact. Revenue is derived through donations.
You do know who runs Media Bias Fact Check, don’t you?
I’ve been looking at Southfront since 2015 so I don’t need anyone else to tell me what it’s like. What’s the provenance of Media Bias Fact Check?
“Media Bias Fact Check”
And who checks Media Bias Fact Check?
Fact hunt?
Your statement “many on the left have come to idolise Putin” is open to serious challenge. It is true some on the left have become apologists for Putin and take some vicarious pleasure in his efforts to counter the US and the West, even as he destroys Chechnya and supports Assad. Some on the left, and that includes me, feel now horribly betrayed by Putin as he invades Ukraine when he lied again and again that this wasn’t going to happen. That betrayal was not that I idolised him, that’s patently ridiculous, but that I thought, perhaps naively, that he was relatively sane and would not start a war like this, and that Russia had some genuine security grievances which were not being addressed. I couldn’t help comparing the US’s Monroe doctrine on one side, and the hypocrisy of the denial of any security concerns on the other. . What he has done is totally unconscionable, and frightening. I am frightened equally by the insanity in the west, and the the hysterical propagandising and bellicosity, that threatens to bring us to all out war. There have been many sane and expert voices over years, that NATO’s expansion is belligerent and dangerous. To claim NATO has never sent a missile to the USSR or Russia is itself naive and irrelevant – it’s not what you or I think about NATO’s intentions, it’s what Russia thinks. And to be frank, when you understand the neocons’ “Project for the New American Century” you’d accept the thesis that many powerful players in the US were determined to overthrow Russia, one way or the other. The inability of the US and NATO to compromise at all in some sort of security agreement with Russia over the last near 30 years is a massive failure of diplomacy for which we are now all suffering, Ukraine and Russia now, perhaps the world over the next few weeks. I am 75 and well remember the Cuban missile crisis as a teenager – I did not fully understand it then but what we are seeing now is much more dangerous because there is no sane leadership, anywhere. At least Kennedy and Kruschev were sane, and they’d both had experience of what war truly means.
John, if you don’t mind me saying so, you are being rather naive. Did you really expect Putin – during the weeks that Russian troops were amassed close to the Ukrainian border – to say (in response to Biden et al that an invasion is imminent) that ‘Yes. it’s true, but we’re just biding our time’? He was sending a message to Biden et al that enough is enough, and if you don’t address our concerns we will have no choice……. And he gave Biden and Co lots of time to seriously think about it. You condemn both sides, and yet there were no legitimate reasons why Biden/NATO couldn’t sign up to Putin’s proposals. Can YOU think of any legitimate reasons why they couldn’t have?
Biden and Co could easily have prevented it from happening, but they didn’t precisely because they wanted Putin to go ahead with the invasion so that ‘they’ could then do what they are now doing to Russia. THAT was the plan all along. And I have little doubt that ‘Salisbury’ – which was undoubtedly staged – was all part of the plan, along with a host of other accusations so as to demonise Putin and ‘Russia’ in preparation.
Sometimes Craig reminds me of a C19 dissenting lay preacher, A character ouy of Adam Bede perhaps.
Good piece as always, mr. Murray.
But is the slow progression of the Russian military due to inability, or due to restraint? There is no doubt they could have defeated the Ukraine Nato style, “flattened” Kiev and murdered the political leadership? It looks as if the Russians – naively – did not expect the civilian opposition to be so strong as it was. But when this changes, and they end up achieving their military goals, which they probably will, will this war still be rhetorically useful in opposing western military spending?
Going slowly is not a matter of incompetence, and not expecting civilian resistance. It is, as you suggest, restraint, but not simply that. The strategy all along has been to inflict the least damage possible. The first day, they could have bombed the Kiev airports into rubble, but they didn’t. They landed paratroops from helicopters, with not entirely full success, it seems. This light touch has self-evidently much to do with Ukraine being considered ‘family’, and not an enemy. But I suspect that it is more specific: the Russian conscripts in particular, but probably also to a lesser degree the professionals, could not fully be relied on to deliver a bloody blow to Ukraine. Russians are known to refuse. There was at least one occasion (but I think two) where nuclear war was avoided by a Soviet officer refusing to fire after an erroneous instruction.
I have long suspected that the US views anything other than the American Way in warfare to be employed only for reasons of weakness or incompetence.
Thank you for that, very interesting. Your point about it being lonely as a voice of dissent is well noted. I expect you are feeling it in spades, I feel it in my own circle certainly. I know you are a man of honour and principle so you won’t respond to this, but I expect your feelings of isolation are compounded by the apparent lack of support from those you defend, like Salmond. He is looking more and more like an opportunist every day.
Anyway, as for Russia. I am of the left and every part of me applauds the RF action. I don’t know what that says about me. I fully accept that a bipolar world will see more money transferred to the elite in the form of arms sales, but it will hopefully prevent the USA from turning anymore countries into failed states.
“But it is an equally valid point that NATO has never attacked Russia and none of those missiles has ever been fired at Russia. The point of the missiles was never to fire them at Russia. The point of the missiles was to manufacture and sell them at enormous profit margins and provide large salaries and cash funds for politicians, with endless revolving door jobs for ex-military and civilian defence personnel, who all keep the contracts flowing.”
Sorry, but this is a really strange argument that just does not stand up to the real world evidence.
The exact same passage above applies equally to the missiles produced and deployed in every military Western ‘intervention’ from Yugoslavia to Libya, Iraq to Somalia and beyond. Yet those missiles were used. Some of them, despite this inaccurate argument, were already being systematically used to shell and murder civilians in the Donbass (are still are right now) – albeit lower level munitions.
And thats the point. The gravy train process of the MIC in Washington depends on its continuation on the usage of what is produced so that it can be replaced and continue that gravy train. Because if you stop the process of replacement by using them to impose your hegemony the whole gravy train comes to a halt.
The point being that on the basis of the evidence which exists it is entirely realistic to proceed from the basis that those missiles, with short flight times, will at some stage be used by the Western MIC. They did not use them in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya et al until they did.
And in each case their usage was preceded by other acts of non-kinetic war in the form of deadly sanctions. Sanctions designed deliberately as a softening up process as a prelude to utilising those missiles and armaments at some point.
That’s how the process works and has been seen to work in example after example. To dismiss that reality is myopic. Sorry, but reality sucks. Any State or people which does not take the deployment of such threats seriously in the known context on the actual existing evidence is not going to last very long.
Copnsequently, in no way does this answer the question previously posed as to what exactly they are supposed to do? Frankly, this piece of sophistry just does not cut it.
Liz Truss has openly encouraged volunteers to go to Ukraine to support it, presumably by fighting with Russians, either within the Ukraine military or as civilian combatants. There is a British law against this sort of thing, but as with all laws, it can be interpreted selectively (concern for human rights of Abu Hamza versus Julian Assange for example). A British citizen went to support the separatists working as a military medic. Another went to support the Ukraine side, presumably in one of the unofficial (at the time) far right battalions. On their respective returns, one was jailed for ~4 years from memory and the other got a free pass.
Some Brits / Ukranians have responded and set off for Ukraine. The individuals appear to be prepared to wear (surplus) British Army military uniforms.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60560589
I would be interested to hear Mr Murray’s view on the implications of this should these people get into actual combat with Russian forces after open encouragement by the UK government. Would they be protected by the relevant prisoner of war legislation? Would they be ‘enemy combatants’?