No matter how hard we try to be dispassionate and logical, our thinking is affected by our own experiences, by the background knowledge we have and by the assumptions they generate. In discussing Ukraine – which arouses understandably high passions – I want to explain to you some of the experiences which affect my own thinking.
I will start with childhood, when my world view was pretty firmly set. I spent much of my young life at my grandparents’ on my mother’s side, in Norfolk. In the spare room in which I would sleep, under the bed there were cardboard boxes full of periodicals that I, as an avid ten year old reader, devoured completely. They included large sets of The War Illustrated and The Boy’s Own Paper.
The War Illustrated was a weekly magazine produced in both the first and second world war, detailing the week’s key events with stories, photos and drawings. This was the second world war collection. It was sometimes remarkably stark – I still recall the report of the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and a companion ship by Japanese aircraft, of which the magazine somehow had aerial photos.
But in the early part of the war, known as the “phony war“, when not a great deal was happening to fill the magazine, it concentrated very heavily on the heroic Finnish resistance against Stalin’s Russia in the Winter War. There were, every week, photos of heroic Finns in white hooded winter gear, against a white snowy background, and stories of how they had skied up and down Soviet armoured convoys, destroying them, and were holding back a massively superior opponent amidst lakes and woods. After reading though many weeks of the periodicals, I felt intimately acquainted with the Mannerheim line and those big brave Finns, whose individual tales of great daring I lapped (no pun intended) up.
Incidentally, after writing that paragraph I read this article in the Guardian about Ukrainian quad bike patrols in the snows and the forests, knocking out Russian tanks with drones. It really is identical in content and purpose to the Finnish ski patrol stories, only updated for modern technology.
Then suddenly, from one issue to the next, the Finns were no longer heroes but were evil Nazis, and the Mannerheim Line was now definitely as German as it sounds. What is more, if marginally more gradually, the evil Communist tyrant Stalin, who had sent army after army unsuccessfully against the Finns and been executing his own commanders, was suddenly genial, wise Stalin. As a ten year old, I found the transition very hard to fathom, and being now romantically fully committed to the Finnish cause, I rather went off the magazines.
I tried to ask my grandfather to explain it to me, but whenever we mentioned “the war”, his eyes filled with silent tears. You see, those magazines had belonged to his only son, my mother’s only brother, who was to die aged 19 in a Mosquito bomber over Italy. That is why those magazines were still under his bed and had never been thrown away. Jack’s absence hung over my childhood, and I often felt myself a very inadequate substitute. Jack had been a very talented footballer, who had signed apprentice forms for Sheffield Wednesday, then perhaps the best team in the country. He had been a very talented musician, like my grandfather. Whereas I failed to excel at, well, anything.
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I was fortunate to be loved unconditionally. But I grew up with a real sense of the terrible loss, the waste, the void of war, of young lives lost that can never be replaced. I grew up with a hatred of war and of militarism. And of distrust of the official narrative of who are the goodies and who the baddies in war, when that official narrative can turn on its head in a week, as the magazines did with the Finns.
Well, it is now over 50 years later, and those are still exactly my sentiments today. And that parable of the noble/evil Finns is still relevant today. Because much of what is happening in Ukraine still reflects the failure to resolve who was on which side during World War II, and some pretty unpleasant underlying narratives.
You can see the line of thinking by which nations which had been suppressed, or risked suppression, by the Soviet Union, or by Russia before it, might see an alliance with Nazi Germany as an opportunity. Remember that the second world war was taking place only 20 years after the dissolution of the Hapsburg and Hohenzollern Empires. Even a nation like Poland had only enjoyed 20 years of freedom in the past 150, and that with some fairly dodgy governance.
That the Finns effectively allied with the Nazis has never been fully worked through in Finnish national dialogue, even in that most introspective of nations. Sweden hid from itself the extent of its elite collusion and fundamental integration into the Nazi military industrial complex for, well, forever. Probably no country advanced its comparative economic position more out of World War II than Sweden, that epicentre of smug, condescending European liberalism.
So in this mess you can see how a figure like Bandera, fighting for Ukraine’s freedom, can become a national hero to many of his countrymen for fighting the Soviets, despite fighting alongside the Nazis. The key questions in re-evaluation today, across those nationalities which fought the Soviets at the same time as the Nazis did, ought to be these – how much coordination with the Nazis was there, and to what extent did they participate in, or mirror, Nazi atrocities, doctrines of racial purity and genocide?
This is where Bandera and the Ukrainian freedom fighters must attract unreserved condemnation. They were heavily involved in genocidal attacks on Jews, on Poles in Ukraine and on other ethnic and religious minorities. Ukraine was by no means alone. Lithuania was very similar, and to only slightly lesser extent, so were Estonia and Latvia. In none of these countries has there been a systematic attempt to address the darknesses of the nationalist past. Ukraine and Lithuania are the worst for actual glorification of genocidal anti-semite and racist figures, but the problem is widespread in Eastern Europe.
Even Poland is not immune. Poles are proud of their history, and are very touchy at the fact that the millions of Poles who died in Auschwitz and the other Nazi death camps are often overlooked in a narrative that focuses, in Polish nationalist eyes, too exclusively on the Jewish victims. But the Poles are themselves in denial about the very substantial local collaboration between Poles and Nazis specifically against Jews, often with an eye to obtaining their land in rural areas.
This is where the story gets still more difficult. The neo-Nazi nationalists of Ukraine are an extreme manifestation of a problem across the whole of Eastern Europe, where ancient atavistic social views have not been abolished. I say this as someone who loves Eastern Europe, and who has spoken both Polish and Russian fluently (or at least has managed to pass the Foreign Office exams designed to test whether I could). Viktor Orban in Hungary, the religious right government of Poland, and yes, the far right voting electorate of Austria, are all on the same continuum of dark belief as the Nazi worshipping nationalists in Ukraine and Lithuania.
Let me tell you another story from my past, from twenty five years ago. I was First Secretary in the British Embassy in Warsaw. A highly respected elderly Polish lady, from an old family in the city, was our most senior member of local staff. I had asked her to set up a lunch for me with an official from the Polish Foreign Ministry, to discuss eventual EU accession. I made a remark about the lunch being enjoyable as the lady was both very smart and very pretty. Drawing me aside, our most senior member of local staff gave me a warning: “You do realise she’s Jewish, don’t you?”.
You could have knocked me down with a feather. But in four years in Poland I was to become used to bumping into matter of fact anti-semitism, on a regular basis, from the most “respectable” people, and particularly from precisely the forces and institutions that now bolster the current Polish government; not least the Catholic church.
These are highly sensitive issues and I know from experience I will receive furious feedback from all kinds of nationalities. But what I state is my experience. I should add that from my experience of Russia, society there is at least as bad for racial prejudice, especially against Asians, for homophobia, and for neo-Nazi groups. It is a problem across Eastern Europe, which is insufficiently appreciated in Western Europe.
I know Russia too well to have a romanticised view of it. I have lived there, worked there and visited often. I have very frequently expressed my frustration that many of those in the West who understand the ruthless nature of Western leaders, lose their clear sight when looking at Russia and believe it is different in that regard. In fact Russia is even less democratic, has an even less diverse media, even worse restrictions on free expression, and an even poorer working class. The percentage of Russian GDP lost in capital flight to the benefit of oligarchs and Western financial institutions is hideous.
As the West has entered more and more extreme stages of neo-liberalism, the general trend is that the West has become more and more like modern Russia. The massive and ever burgeoning inequality of wealth has seen western oligarchs now overtake their Russian counterparts in terms of the proportion of national GDP represented by their personal fortunes. In the West, multiplying limitations on free speech and assembly, the reduction in diversity of the mainstream media landscape, internet suppression of views through corporate gateways like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, increased direct or indirect reproduction of security service initiated content in the media, these are all making the West more Russia-like. To me, it feels like Western leaders are learning from Putin’s book.
Security service fronts multiply – the Integrity Initiative, Quilliam Foundation, Bellingcat are all examples, as now is the entire Guardian newspaper. Increasingly “journalists” merely copy and paste security service press releases. This is absolutely an echo of Putin’s Russia. In this war in Ukraine, the propaganda from the BBC is as absolutely biased, selective of facts and lacking in nuance as the propaganda from Russian state TV. One is the mirror of the other. Russia pioneered kataskopocracy in this era – the West is catching up fast.
To recount another particular experience, I was very interested two years ago in the arrest for treason of a Russian space official and former journalist, Ivan Safronov. The accusations refer to his time as a journalist, before he joined the space agency, and are that he passed classified information to Czech, German and Swiss recipients. There are parallels between the Russian espionage charges against Safronov and the US espionage charges against Assange.
I am particularly interested because in 2007 I investigated in Moscow the death of Safronov’s father, also called Ivan Safronov, and also a journalist. I believe Safronov was one of a great many journalists killed by various levels of the Putin regime, of which deaths the vast majority have passed completely unnoticed in the West.
Safronov worked for Kommersant, broadly the Russian equivalent to the Financial Times or Wall street Journal. He was defence correspondent and had published a series of investigations into procurement corruption in the Ministry of Defence and the real state of the Russian armed forces (you might see where I am heading with regard to the war in Ukraine).
Kommersant’s general independence had become a great irritant to Putin, and he had arranged for his close adviser Alisher Usmanov to buy up the title on an “offer you can’t refuse” basis. The editorial team was swiftly replaced. The dogged and highly regarded Safronov was more of a problem.
This is from my 2007 report:
Two months ago, 51 year old Ivan Safronov, defence correspondent of the authoritative Kommersant newspaper in Moscow, came home from work. He had bought a few groceries on the way, apparently for the evening meal. On the street where he lived, as he passed the chemist’s shop in front of the cluster of grim Soviet era apartment blocks, he met his neighbour, Olga Petrovna. She tells me that he smiled from under his hat and nodded to her. After a mild winter, Moscow had turned cold in March and Safronov held his carrier bag of groceries in one hand while the other clutched the lapels of his coat closed against the snow. Fifty yards further on he arrived at the entrance to his block, and punched in the code – 6 and 7 together, then 2 which opened the mechanical lock of the rough, grey metal door at the entrance to the concrete hallway. He passed on into the gloomy dank corridor.
So far this is a perfectly normal Moscow scene. But then – and this is the official version of events – Ivan Safronov did something extraordinary. He walked up the communal concrete stairs with their stark iron rail, until he reached his apartment. It is, in British terms, on the second floor. Instead of going in, he carried on walking, past his own door. He continued up another flight and a half of steps, to the top landing, between the third and fourth floors. Then, placing his groceries on the floor, he opened the landing window, climbed on to the sill, and stepped out to his death, still wearing his hat and coat.
Ivan Safronov thus became about the one hundred and sixtieth – nobody can be certain of precise numbers – journalist to meet a violent end in post-communist Russia. In the West, the cases of Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinienko hit the headlines. But in Russia, there was nothing exceptional about those killings. It has long been understood that if you publish material which embarrasses or annoys those in power, you are likely to come to a very sticky end…
Safronov had a reputation as a highly professional journalist, meticulous about checking his facts. He was by no means a sensationalist, but had over the years published articles which embarrassed the Kremlin, about bullying, prostitution and suicide among Russia’s conscript armed forces, and about high level corruption which deprives the troops of adequate clothing, rations and equipment.
He had recently returned from a large trade fair in Dubai, attended by senior representatives of Russia’s armed forces and defence industries. He told colleagues at Kommersant that he had learnt something there about corruption in major arms contracts, involving exports to Syria, Iran and other destinations. He had told his editor he had come back with a ‘Big story’. But, as usual, he was carefully checking up on his facts first.
Now his story will never be published.
I walk through the dirty Moscow drizzle to a police station in the foot of the apartment block opposite Safronov’s. The officer in charge is brusque. There are no suspicious circumstances and the case is closed. Why am I wasting his time, and trying to cause trouble? He threatens to arrest me, so I beat a hasty retreat to find Safronov’s flat, past the chemist’s shop, in the footsteps of his last walk. In the muddy yard between the blocks, unkempt drunks squat for shelter at the foot of scrubby trees, drinking cheap vodka from the bottle.
I look up at the top landing window from which Safronov fell. It doesn’t look terribly high. Outside the block entrance, I stop and look down at the patch of ground on which he landed. The surface is an uneven patchwork of brick, concrete, asphalt and mud. Here a passing group of young men found Safronov, writhing on the ground, conscious but unable to speak. It took almost three hours for an ambulance to come. According to Kommersant Deputy Editor Ilya Bilyanov, although plainly alive when finally taken away, he was declared dead on arrival at hospital.
A stout old lady beating her rugs in the rain gives me the combination to go in to the apartment building. Once through the heavy metal door, I am overwhelmed by the smell of fresh paint. . Everything in the stairway – walls, ceilings, rails, doors, window frames – has been covered in lashings of thick oozing paint, as though to cover over any trace of recent events. The paint has been slapped on so thick that, even after several days, it remains tacky.
I pass the door of Safranov’s flat and continue up to the top landing. At the cost of some paint damage to my coat, I pose in the window from which he allegedly threw himself. It is certainly quite easy to open and clamber out, but it is a bad choice for a suicide. Soviet flats are low-ceilinged, and I calculate the window is a maximum height of 26 feet above the ground. I don’t know about you, but if I was to kill myself by jumping, I would choose somewhere high enough to make death instant… As I peer down from the window I realise that, jumping from here, you are almost certain to hit the porch roof jutting out below. That is only about twenty feet down. The Moscow police claim that marks in the snow on the porch roof were the firm evidence that Safranov jumped.
Two middle aged ladies pass with their shopping. I explain that I am investigating Safranov’s death; it seems an improbable suicide. ‘Very strange,’ they agree, ‘Very, very strange.’ They go on to volunteer that Safranov was a pleasant man, had a very good wife, did not drink excessively and was much looking forward to the imminent birth of a grandchild. Plainly, everything they say is questioning the official version, but they do not wish to do so openly. They conclude by shaking their heads and repeating their mantra ‘Very, very strange,’ as they scuttle on into their flats.
Ilya Bilyanov, Safronov’s boss, is more categorical. Safronov was a devoted family man, very protective of his wife and daughter and proud of his son, about to start University. Bilyanov says: ‘He could not have killed himself. He loved his family too much to abandon them.’
For full disclosure, the report was commissioned by the Mail on Sunday. I make no apologies for that, any more than I apologise for appearing on Russia Today. Telling the truth is what matters, irrespective of platform. On the same trip I investigated the killings of half a dozen other individual journalists who had crossed the authorities.
I am fairly sure that today I would not be permitted to go around doing this; walking in to a Moscow police station to ask about such a death, or interviewing passersby in the street and work colleagues, would get me arrested fairly quickly.
I wrote recently about NATO, the western military and the arms industry’s continued interest in exaggerating the strength of the Russian military, and how at the end of the Cold War the new access of British defence attachés led them to find the real capabilities of the Soviet army had been exaggerated on a massive scale. I have repeatedly stated that Russia, with the economy of Italy and Spain, is not a military superpower.
The Safronov case further reinforced my personal knowledge that the Russian military is undermined by massive corruption. I have therefore not been in the least surprised that Russia has had a much harder time subjugating Ukraine than many expected. Some commentators have particularly amused me by claiming that you cannot compare defence spending levels because Russian defence expenditure is more efficient than American. They cited all the corruption in US defence expenditure, such as the famous US$800 toilet seats; as though Russia were not itself spectacularly corrupt.
At just the time of Safronov’s death, Russia brought in as Minister of Defence Anatoly Serdiukov, who made genuine attempts at radical reform and eliminating corruption. This brought him so many enemies he had to be replaced by current defence minister Shoygu, now in power for ten years. Shoygu has adopted a policy of showcasing new weapons systems while not rocking the boat on corruption.
Do not confuse the apparently dazzling achievements at the shiny end of the vast sums of money Russia has pumped in to weapons development, with the day to day business of defence procurement and military supply. Russian hypersonic ballistic missiles may or may not perform as advertised, but more relevant to Ukraine are the creaking vehicles which have not been maintained, the inoperable tyres, the lack of rations, the old fashioned tank armour.
One of the truths about the Ukraine war which western media is suppressing is that, if Russia cannot take on Ukraine without serious embarrassment, then Russia could not possibly take on NATO. It is a ludicrous proposition, outwith full scale nuclear war. It is fascinating to watch the western militarist establishment in full cry, simultaneously crowing over Russian military inadequacies while claiming that the West needs massively to increase the money it pumps in to the military industrial complex because of the Russian threat. The self-evidently fatuous nature of this dual assertion is never pointed out by mainstream media journalists, who currently operate in full propaganda mode.
Another Russian asset has proved as unreliable as its military: Putin’s brain. On 16 December 2021 Ukraine and its US sponsor were not just diplomatically isolated, but diplomatically humiliated. At a vote at the UN General Assembly, the United States and Ukraine were the only two countries to vote against a resolution on “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo‑Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”. They lost by 130 votes to 2, on a motion sponsored by Russia.
The United States, crucially, was split from its European allies and, almost uniquely, from Israel on this vote. Everyone knew that the vote was about Nazis in Ukraine, not least because the United States and Ukraine both said so in their explanation of vote. The entire world was prepared to acknowledge that the neo-Nazis in positions of power and authority in Ukraine, including the anti-semites of the Svoboda party in ministerial office, were a real problem. There was also a general understanding that Ukraine had reneged on the Minsk agreements and that the banning of the Russian language in official, media and educational use was a serious problem.
(I pause to note the US explanation of vote stated that the US constitution prevented it from voting for a motion calling for the banning of pro-Nazi speech, because of US commitment to free speech and the first amendment. It is worth noting that free speech in Biden administration eyes protects Nazis but does not protect Julian Assange. It is also worth contrasting the protection of free speech for Nazis with the de facto banning of Russia Today in the United States.)
The EU abstained on the vote, but all of the above problems were rehearsed in ministerial discussions that reached that decision. You can add to the above that it was universally acknowledged in diplomatic circles that there was no chance of Ukraine (ditto Georgia) being admitted to NATO while Russia occupied parts of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. Given NATO’s mutual defence obligations, to admit Ukraine would be tantamount to entering armed conflict with Russia and it was simply not open to serious consideration.
How Russia might have progressed from this strong diplomatic position we shall never know. There can seldom have been a more catastrophic diplomatic move than Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It can be measured very simply. From winning the proxy vote on Ukraine at the UN General Assembly by 130 votes to 2 on 19 December, Russia plummeted to losing the vote in the same General Assembly demanding immediate Russian withdrawal from Ukraine by 141 votes to 5 on 2 March.
This diplomatic disaster has been matched by military humiliation. Russia is a far larger country than Ukraine and it is pointless to pretend that Russia did not expect the military campaign to proceed better than it has. To claim now post facto that the attack on Kiev was purely a massive diversion never intended to succeed, is a nonsense. Elsewhere achievements are shaky. Capturing cities is different to holding them, and the myth that Russian speaking populations in Eastern Ukraine were eager to join Russia has been plainly exploded by the lack of popular support in occupied areas.
Putin’s heavy handedness has alienated what potential support for Russia existed outside the Russian controlled areas of Donbass. It is hard now to recall that prior to the coup of 2014, political support in Ukraine was balanced for two decades fairly evenly between pro-Western and pro-Russian camps. Both Russia and the West interfered from 1992 to 2014 outrageously in Ukrainian internal politics, each using the full panoply of “soft power” – propaganda, sponsorship, corrupt payments, occasional proxy violence.
Matters were brought to a head in Ukraine when Yanukovich was flown to Moscow and persuaded by Putin to renounce the EU Association Agreement which Ukraine was entering, in favour of a new trade deal with Russia. This evidently was a key moment of political choice, and Putin overplayed his hand as he lost out in the crisis that ensued. That Russian defeat in 2014 may not have been terminal if Putin had not responded militarily by annexing parts of Ukraine. In doing so, he alienated the large majority of Ukrainians of all ethnicities forever – as I stated at the time.
So now Putin can stride the stage as the macho guy who outfoxed the west and used his military to win Crimea for Mother Russia. But it is an extremely hollow victory. He has gained Crimea, but lost the other 95% of the Ukraine, over which one month ago he exercised a massive political influence.
The current invasion of Ukraine has differed from previous incidents like South Ossetia, Abkhazia or even Crimea in that it has been much more extensive, and entailed an attack on the capital, rather than simply occupation of the targeted areas. If Putin had simply massively reinforced Russian forces in the areas controlled by his breakaway “republics”, there would not be anything like the international reaction which has resulted.
One particularly unsavoury aspect of all this – and here we come back to Finland/Russia and the goodies/baddies narrative – is that all the massive problems of Ukraine are now utterly whitewashed by the western political and media class. There was general acceptance previously, albeit reluctantly, that the “Nazi problem” exists. It is now almost universally reviled as a Russian fiction, even though it is undoubtedly true.
Just a year ago, even the Guardian was prepared to admit that President Zelensky is linked to $41 million in dodgy offshore cash holdings and effectively a front for corrupt oligarch Kolomoisky, who looted $5.5 billion from Privatbank. Now, thanks entirely to Putin, Zelensky is viewed universally as a combination of Churchill and St Francis of Assisi, and any criticism of him whatsoever in the West will get you online lynched.
That the United States is becoming a kataskopocracy is witnessed by the willingness of the Biden administration to rip up the First Amendment in order to prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act, because the CIA and FBI demand it. It is also witnessed by the role of the security agencies in suppressing the truth about Hunter Biden and his corrupt links to Ukraine. The Biden laptop was, as I stated at the time and is now admitted even by the New York Times, an entirely genuine inadvertent leak.
You will recall that from when his father was Vice President, Hunter Biden was paid $85,000 a month by Burisma, a Ukrainian power company which Hunter never once visited and for which he did no discernible work. When his laptop was given to the New York Post, revealing salacious sex and drugs evidence and more importantly, blatant peddling of his father’s influence, the entire “respectable” mainstream media rubbished it as a fraud and, remarkably, Twitter and Facebook both suppressed any mention of it as “fake news”. This suppression was advocated by the US security services, contacting the media and the internet gatekeepers at top level, and conducting a public campaign through activating retired agents.
This was the CNN headline:
The Biden laptop was leaked on 14 October 2020, three weeks before voting day in the Presidential election. Its suppression by the mainstream media, Twitter and Facebook, at the behest of the security services, is the biggest illegitimate interference in an election in modern western history.
That the Ukraine is the scene of so much of the corruption of Biden and son, but no criticism of the Ukraine is currently considered legitimate, has made now a very good time for the approved media to admit the banned stories were in fact true, while nobody is listening. We are also even seeing credulous articles on why Nazis are not really bad at all.
A Ukrainian oligarch was the biggest single donor to the Clinton Foundation, and the murky links between the American political establishment and Ukraine are still surfacing; it has plainly been a major honeypot for US politicians. The recent Credit Suisse leak, again sadly curated and censored by mainstream media, revealed Ukrainians as the largest European nationality involved, but the media gave us virtually no details – and those confined to two “coincidentally” pro-Russian Ukrainians out of 1,000 Ukrainian accounts. Whatever information on Ukrainian government linked oligarchs was contained in the Credit Suisse documents is suppressed by those who control them, which in the UK includes the Guardian newspaper and James O’Brien of LBC. In Ukraine the material was shared only with pro-government journalists.
I have been criticised severely on Twitter by those who believe that now, in wartime, it is wrong to say anything bad about Ukraine and we must solely concentrate on Russia’s defeat. To be clear, I hold Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to be not only stupid and vicious but also illegal, and to constitute the war crime of aggression. But we come back precisely to the angels and devils simplicity of looking for “goodies” and “baddies”. The Azov Battalion have not suddenly become less racist or brutal or Nazi-worshipping because they are fighting the Russians.
The real danger is that the heroic resistance to Putin’s invasion – and be in no doubt, it is heroic – will be a massive boost to the right in Ukraine, and the cult of “Glory to the heroes!” will be massively reinforced. The far right had more influence than Zelensky wished before this current invasion, and his ability to control them is limited. His personal standing is much enhanced. He may be a deeply fallible human being, but as a war leader he has been brilliant. He has exploited media to boost the morale of his armed forces and to rally his people, and been very effective in using international public pressure to rally practical support from foreign powers. Those are key skills for a war leader, and if “acting” is one of the skill sets needed, that makes it none the less true.
But I very much doubt the enhanced standing of Zelensky will enable him to counter the right wing nationalist wave that will sweep Ukraine, especially if resistance continues to be effective in containing Russian advances. Certainly measures that were previously decried by liberals, like the Russian language ban, now have wide support. I shall be very surprised if, once the dust has settled, we do not see much worse repression of ethnic Russians under the guise of action against “collaborators”. Far from denazifying Ukraine, Putin has boosted its Nazi problem.
Having damaged my own reputation for sagacity by my over-confidence that Putin would not be foolish enough to launch a full scale invasion, I am reluctant to venture any predictions as to outcome, but the most likely must be a frozen conflict, with Russia in control of rather more territory than before the conflict started. The Kremlin has appeared to backtrack its aims to securing the territory of its newly recognised republics, and still appears intent on seizing as much coastline as possible. Without a credible threat to Kiev, Zelensky has little motive formally to agree a ceasefire on this basis. Eventually we will reach some form of de facto stasis.
Now is a good moment to correct the myth that the population of Donbass is ethnic Russian and wishes to be united with Russia. I will make three points.
The first is that there is a difference between Russian speaking and ethnic Russian, and repeated census returns in Ukraine showed the majority in Donbass to identify as ethnic Ukrainian, though Russian speaking.
Secondly, the ethnic Russians were heavily concentrated in the urban centres and thus much more politically visible than the rural Ukrainian majority, and far quicker politically mobilised. This is precisely what happened in 2014 (and failed with tragic loss of life in Odessa).
The third is that many ethnic Russians have resisted the current invasion, and even Russian media has struggled to find evidence of mass enthusiasm in newly “liberated” areas.
In the western world, Russia has served as not only the evil empire that “justifies” massive arms expenditure, but as the evil genius behind all political developments that threaten the smooth course of neoliberalism.
This was brought to its highest pitch by Hillary Clinton’s ludicrous claims that it was Russian hacking that cost her the 2016 election. It was actually the fact that she was an appalling and arrogant candidate, whom the electorate disliked and black voters did not bother to turn out for in their usual numbers, and that she ignored the voters of rustbelt states and their concerns.
The security services were shocked by Trump’s aversion to starting new wars abroad, his maverick inclination to have his own take on relations with Russia and the Middle East, and his general lack of docility in the face of security service advice. (Much of Trump’s foreign policy was terrible, I am not attempting to say otherwise. But he was not the kind of docile, Obama-like tool the security services were used to).
The security services therefore worked against Trump his entire time in office, from boosting the Russiagate election hacking narrative, despite there being no evidence for it whatsoever, to quiet briefings giving credence to the appalling charlatan Steele’s discredited “peegate” dossier, right through to the suppression of the Biden laptop story. The Mueller inquiry failed to come up with any evidence of collusion between Russia and Wikileaks in hacking the DNC emails, because there was no such collusion.
Neither was there collusion between Wikileaks and Trump. The story the UK security services placed in their house journal the Guardian, on secret meetings between Manafort and Assange, was simply a lie. Throughout his Presidency Trump was subjected to a continual drip, drip, drip of briefings to the media from his own security services that he was, in some way, a secret Russian asset, Putin’s puppet.
The CIA commissioned from UC Global 24 hour secret taping of Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy, including in the bedroom, toilet and kitchen. This included meetings with his lawyers, but also many hours of private conversation with myself, with Kristin Hrafnsson and others. This too came up entirely empty on evidence of Russian collusion. Because there was never any such collusion.
Just as “Russiagate” was an utter nonsense, attempting to use Putin to explain the advent of Trump, so in the UK liberals comforted themselves by attempting to use Putin to explain Brexit. Like Trump, Nigel Farage and Arron Banks “must” be secret Russian agents too. The high priestess of this particular cult belief is Carole Cadwalladr. From having done good work in exposing Cambridge Analytica, which targeted political ads to Tory benefit using personal data which Facebook was greatly at fault in making available on its customers, Cadwalladr allowed the subsequent accolades to go to her head and became the security services’ tool in making ever wilder claims of Russian influence.
Cadwalladr’s task was easy because the UK’s liberal middle class simply could not come to terms with Brexit having happened. They could not understand that vast swathes of the working class were so alienated from society by the effects of unconstrained neo-liberalism, that they were led to grasp at Brexit as a possible remedy. That is not a comforting thought. Instead, Cadwalladr offered the much more digestible notion of Putin as an evil exterior cause.
With right thinking liberals on both sides of the Atlantic appalled by the advent of Trump and Brexit, there was no depth of Russophobe fantasy which figures like Cadwalladr and Steele could not plumb as an explanation and still find a willing audience, without being questioned too hard on actual evidence.
Again, I should be plain. Nations do interfere in each other’s democratic processes to try to get results favourable to themselves. It is a fundamental part of the job of spy services and of diplomats. It is what they are paid to do. I did it myself in Poland, and with quite spectacular success in Ghana in 2000 (read my book The Catholic Orangemen of Togo).
No nation interferes in other nation’s elections and political processes on the scale that the United States does, every single day. Today it is trying to get rid of Imran Khan in Pakistan as well as continuing its work against the government in Venezuela, Cuba, Syria and elsewhere. That there was marginal Russian activity I do not doubt, but not on any grand or unusual scale or with any particularly striking effect. And not involving Wikileaks.
One consequence of the invasion of Ukraine is that every mad Russophobe narrative of the past decade is now, in the public mind, vindicated. Including the remarkably unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Skripal and Navalny. It is now impossible to claim that there is any evil for which Russia is not responsible, without suffering a deluge of online hostility and ridicule. The western military industrial complex, NATO and the Western security services have all been enormously strengthened in their domestic position and control of popular opinion by Putin’s mad invasion.
There are aspects of Putin’s foreign policy which I have supported, and still do. Having inadvertently installed a pro-Iranian Shia regime in Iraq, the West sought to appease its Gulf and Israeli allies and “restore the balance” by replacing the Shia-friendly Assad regime by hardline ISIS and Al-Qaida linked jihadists. This may have been the most stupid foreign policy move in recent history, and thank goodness Putin sent troops into Syria to thwart it. On a more standard diplomatic level, Russia has played a pivotal and entirely commendable role in trying to end the isolation of Iran in nuclear agreement talks.
But I have always consistently opposed Putin’s invasions in the post-Soviet space, including the brutal destruction of Chechnya that brought Putin to power. I support Dagestani and Chechen independence, and have written consistent articles pointing out that Russia remains an Empire, with most of its territory not ethnic Russian and acquired contemporaneously with the conquests of the British Empire. I have consistently called for stronger and more effective sanctions, in response to the occupation of South Ossetia in 2008 and of Crimea in 2014. In 2008 I warned explicitly that the lack of a firm sanctions response to Putin’s aggression would lead eventually to war in Eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s actions are illegal but the US and UK, who launched an equally illegal and much more devastating invasion of Iraq, are ill-placed to be outraged. A de facto Russia annexation of South Ossetia must not be permitted, unless we eventually want a war of Eastern Ukraine.
NATO is part of the cause of the problem, not the solution. By encircling and humiliating Russia, NATO has created the climate in Russia so favourable to Putin.
That last sentence remains a key observation. It is the West’s unremitting hostility to Russia which has caused a Russian nationalist reaction and sustained Putin in power. The West’s military industrial complex needed an enemy, and had Russia developed in a more liberal direction it would have been a disaster for the militarists. So instead of working to plot a path for Russia into the European Union, it was forced to sit in the corner with a hat on saying “designated enemy”, while NATO continually expanded. That is the tragedy of the last three decades.
All of which ignores the fact that China is now the most dominant economic force in the world, and is probably the most dominant military force in the world, although Chinese wisdom in not recently deploying its military might on imperial adventures contrasts sharply with the United States. I am not sure when I last bought anything which was not made in China – including, to my amazement, our second hand Volvo. All this Russia/NATO antagonism will scarcely rate a footnote by mid-century.
I want to conclude with a plea for complex thought. I want to go back to the Finns and Russians at the start of this story, and the truth that “goodies” and “baddies” is not a helpful diagnostic tool for international relations. These things can be true at the same time:
a) The Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal: Putin is a war criminal
b) The US led invasion of Iraq was illegal: Blair and Bush are war criminals
a) Russian troops are looting, raping and shelling civilian areas
b) Ukraine has Nazis entrenched in the military and in government and commits atrocities against Russians
a) Zelensky is an excellent war leader
b) Zelensky is corrupt and an oligarch puppet
a) Russian subjugation of Chechnya was brutal and a disproportionate response to an Independence movement
b) Russian intervention in Syria saved the Middle East from an ISIS controlled jihadist state
a) Russia is extremely corrupt with a very poor human rights record
b) Western security service narratives such as “Russiagate” and “Skripals” are highly suspect, politically motivated and unevidenced.
a) NATO expansion is unnecessary, threatening to Russia and benefits nobody but the military industrial complex
b) The Russian military industrial complex is equally powerful in its own polity as is Russian nationalism
I could go on, but you get the point. I hold all those points to be true. The media and political class in the UK will trumpet a) and vehemently deny b). Many in the anti-war movement will trumpet b) and vehemently deny a). None of these people have any actual principles. They are simply choosing a side, choosing their “goodies” and “baddies”, their black hats and white hats. It is no more an ethical choice than supporting a football team.
One final thought on the tone of the coverage of the war both of the media and of supporters of the official western line on social media. Though affecting to be sickened by the atrocities of war, their tone is not of sorrow or devastation, it is triumphalist and jubilant. The amount of war porn and glorying in war is worrying. The mood of the British nation is atavistic. Russians living here are forced on a daily basis to declare antagonism to their own people and homeland.
I have had great difficulty in writing this piece – I have worked on it some three weeks, and the reason is a deep sadness which this unnecessary war has caused me. In the course of my typing any paragraph, somebody has probably been killed or seriously injured in Ukraine, of whatever background. They had a mother and others who loved them. There is no triumph in violent death.
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Thank you Craig. Intellectual confusion is not the sign of poor thinking, but of rational self-questioning. As Yanis Varoufakis is fond of saying “If you’re not confused at times, you’re not thinking”. I would postulate that’s why the left can never win, as the right never has any doubts about anything at all. There are a few opinions I’d take issue with. I’ll mention one more important one, Russia’s re-annexation of Crimea. To not have done this would be expecting Russia to allow this predominately Russian speaking and leaning population to be Ukrainised, to lose its naval base in the Black Sea and allow NATO to yet more completely encircle the eastern parts of Russia. Basically, with Ukraine falling, in a sense, to US imperialism and interference, Putin had no option, I believe. It was bloodless re-annexation, historically appropriate, and likely saved a civil war down the track with the loss of thousands of lives and much property. So this hardened Ukraine’s anti-Russianism, you claim, that was a side effect of a necessary treatment. In my mind Crimea doesn’t “belong” to Ukraine, any more than any well defined population belongs to anyone other than the citizens who live there. As far as anyone can tell it is true Crimeans preferred to be annexed to Russia than be dragged into the West by just as corrupt and even poorer Ukraine. I think as an enthusiastic advocate for Scottish independence you should understand this. I’d say the same applies to the citizens of Taiwan, not that China would agree, unfortunately.
What has been eye-opening though is the corrupt and infantile thinking of our politicians in the West and the corporate media, their mouthpiece. This is what i wrote to my family, five members of whom are presently in the UK, and me on my own in NZ for the moment.
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/ukraine-peace-now?source=direct_link& I have signed this petition. I understand (I am sure correctly) that Boris Johnson has been on the phone to President Zelenskyy urging him not to give in to Russia’s demands in reaching some sort of peace treaty. I can believe this, Boris has shown a dangerous self-righteous bellicosity – a cheap ersatz Churchillian rhetoric that is totally misplaced in this terrible time. How dare Boris, this horrible, grotesque excuse for humanity, interfere with the Ukraine’s citizens’ urgent need to stop this war now, and survive? How can a man who doesn’t even know when he attends his own party be credited by anyone with the moral and intellectual needs of leadership and statesmanship at this time? How dare he, what an unprincipled inhumane coward and bombast. Give the man a rifle, a helmet and a kit bag and ship him off to Ukraine to fight his bloody war himself, before he causes even more chaos in the world and at home. With luck the Russian’s will take him prisoner and secrete him somewhere in Siberia for a few years, perhaps for the same length of time as Julian Assange has been incarcerated would be appropriate. xxxx
Agreed.
The Europeans the US and plucky Little Britain are very mouthy about cajoling the Ukranians into the idea that this is a war they can win but will not involve them selves directly into facing off the ‘ Evil Putin ‘ and they want the Germans to make the ultimate sacrifice and cut of their gas.
If I were the Germans i would tell the US to sod off.
Suicide is not painless.
I would have told the US to sod off years ago. The so-called special relationship parallels that to a Mafia godfather to his hoodlum, or a pimp to his prostitute, or a poodle to its master. NATO should have been disbanded years ago and an overarching security umbrella for Europe, including Russia, erected instead.
Most folk know of the Monroe doctrine which arrogates to the US its right to interfere in the affairs of any country in the whole of the American continent, holding that that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile act against the U.S.. So the hypocrisy of the US and NATO’s attitude to Russia looking to the security of its own borders hardly needs spelling out.
What most folk do not know, and I’ve never seen it mentioned, that the quid pro quo of this doctrine was, that In turn, the U.S. would recognise and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal affairs of European countries. It’s long past time to revisit this part of the Monroe doctrine and politely ask the US to leave. The Europeans could adopt it and call it the New Monro Doctrine, perhaps.
John Monro
The Pilgrim Fathers left and now tell us what to do. This country has never consulted with its people. My MP doesn’t consult me. Consultation and compromise is always better than asking people to leave. Boris was a US citizen. Their solution to our disgust with right wing US politics is to put one of their own in charge of us.
And run this country as a suburb of Washington.
He’s welcome to stay as disgraced warmonger in a gypsy caravan near his w/m mate Cameron .
He can lobby who he likes from his Animal Farm.
> hey want the Germans to make the ultimate sacrifice and cut of their gas.
You missed out the “a” between “and” and “cut”.
I very much suspect that what happened in Bucha was the kind of attack on collaborators that this piece predicts.
Greatt Piece of Writing Craig..Looking forward to the finished work..It might be fitting to include this stunning interview with Zelensky’s close advisor and Strategist Olesksiy Arestovych… He admits that Full war with Russia was the Preffered plan – Great Eh.
J.Dore is with Aaron Maté.. the segment with Areatovych starts at 9;00 mins in –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m9PoKnCNR0
…and here that same close advisor hail… the Islamic state terrorism!
https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1509264478801735688
What really is behind NATO led by the US in its support for Ukraine has been in the makings for many years, please look at this Pentagon funded report from the Rand organisation from 2019, this is a must read report and details the many provocations being prepared against Russia.
Full Report here….
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html
Rick Sterling has an analysis of the Rand report here……
Rand report prescribed US provocations against Russia, predicted Russia might retaliate in Ukraine
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/blog/rand-report-prescribed-us-provocations-against-russia-predic
Harry Law,
And in fact – so too did Henry Kissinger presciently predict.
You can read fascinating memoirs of veteran Leonid Rabichev, from his real accounts during WWII. Interestingly, his books are not banned yet in Russia.
Veteran Rabichev, in detail, reported about the behaviour of Russian soldiers during the “liberation” of Germany and how the Russian Army raped mothers and their daughters.
Translation from one of his memoirs:
All of the soldiers laughed and very much enjoyed themselves. They moved aside borderline dead women and carried on to the next ones. Their children that tried to interrupt these crimes were shot dead. There were screams, laughs and a lot of noise. Commanders and Mayors stood not far, smiling and even waving their hands as if conducting an orchestra. I (Rabichev) was sitting inside the car, horrified by the witnessed scene. Demidov, my chauffeur, was standing in a queue to join the rape, and the Commander that waved his hands, couldn’t resist and took off his pants. Meanwhile, the Mayor was busy neutralising any witnesses – hysterically crying children and elders.
All over the horizon, in between rolled over carriages and cars – bodies of women, children and elders.
Another account from Rabichev:
Mayor A was standing on the steps to the house. Two Sergeants apprehended two girls and were raping them. Right next to them stood their chauffeurs, secretaries, postmen etc. Sergeants command them to hold these girls’ legs and arms, stand in line, and everyone will get a “shot” from left to right. I can see my Signallers coming out from the house and joining the line – my squad. Two girls are lying on the ground, their hands and legs locked, their mouths stuffed with cloth. They are not trying to resist anymore. These soldiers tore apart the rest of the clothes on these girls. Once people in line had enough, more people came out of the house to join. I (Rabichev) already can see blood on the ground, and these girls were unconscious, but the soldiers kept going. I hear laughs and swears in the air nonstop. Once they finished, Mayor A took out his Nagant and shot these girls; sergeants took the bodies away.
Hence, Bucha existed in any war, and unfortunately, quite often during WW2, the war criminals weren’t Nazi Germans.
Strange that you say nothing of the mass rapes by Allied Troops. The German Scholar Miriam Gebhardt in her ‘Als die Soldaten Kamen’ gives figures that she says were too low probably. Soviet rapes: 430,000; Allied 285,000. Given that the Soviet army Wass twice as big as the Allied and that the Nazi armies had gone on a mass rape spree in Russia, but not in the UK, US or even France, I think we should concentrate on the rapes committed by our own side, don’t you think? Gebhardt explains that post war the German Government wanted to learn only of Soviet rapes. No doubt you are indignant. She has also made a YouTube account I think.
Funny how the Germans are supposed to have had a complete character change from Nazism since 1945, but the Russians are still the same rapists as they were then.
Well we now have a motive for the false flag theatrics and well publicised gruesome murders of Russian pows to create vengeance.
More desperate attempts at getting some vips out of Azol. A US nato general at least.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPnQnz7VEAgP-Cb?format=jpg&name=medium
If confirmed they really don’t want us to pay any attention to the perp walk these western surrendering commanders will have to make.
Hence a ever increasing censorship of anybody spreading this information.
“Military officers from #France, #Germany, #UK, and #Sweden are currently on the territory of the #Azovstal industrial complex and are requesting #Russia|n forces to grant them a green corridor to evacuate. (per journalist German #Vladimirov).”
https://twitter.com/gbazov/status/1511410269360119811?s=20&t=aUs-AIsRzRfooICgF6_ZFg
————
Lol no wonder Nato and wannabe nato scandiies and MI6 are in meltdown and full spectrum trolling any media and there is a nato D notice all over it.
Can’t wait for the Nato commanders perp walk!
DunGroanin
Are there not parallels with Daesh atrocities in Syria?
The blood curdling violence was to deter potential recruits and combatants from intervening and participating a lucrative scam of stealing oil from Mosul, set up by Barzani, Israel and Erdoğan. The money from stolen oil was simply a cost on the balance sheets of USUK oil companies. It established full production and theft, without the cost of political opposition.
Wherever there are staggering levels of corruption Western companies are the prime beneficiaries, even though the process is completely opaque.
On the subject of corruption, it’s a big leap of inference to say that in a corrupt Russia, reeling from collapse of the Soviet Union, every piece of state violence, like murdering of journalists, was done by Putin. The army that was having its corruption exposed, in a communist country where state controls names and addresses, could have murdered journalists involved. Mafias as well. Israel as well. Western companies too.
I can’t accept that Putin was in control of anything in Russia at that time. More like a banana Republic with Putin in charge at the level of government. in Kurdistan, the prospect of elections has caused the corrupt authorities to issue rice and oil for one month in Ramadhan, where Saddam would do it every month, and pay the wages. Boris doesn’t need stooge change at a time of oil scarcity, like now.
G the latest film set of the filming of the Butcher of Bucha ( get it?) was done reportedly by our MI6 operatives and PR team – it is proved by the dumb storylines being developed there – the mayor didn’t once mention any atrocities there for days after the Russians withdrawal until suddenly handed a script about these bodies having been laying in the street for the WHOLE of March?
Remember that phone and Internet were not cut off by the Russians – and there was NOT a single report by the populace in the town of the civilian bodies and killings by the Russian invaders.
Even a cursory glance at the exceptional wide spread front pages of the U.K. would easily show even all these amateur expert watchers of endless police procedurals pumped into their brains for decades now.
We didn’t ever put dead bodies on front or inside pages until someone decided in panic to do so – the same panic that shows unmasked and easily identified Ukrainian head choppers supposedly slitting Russian pow throats and then shooting them as they bleed out ! On top of all the other atrocities against pows and civilians.
Photos of Zelansky and team in full mirth at the Butcher of Bucha film set are evidence not his mournful mask face for the photo shoot.
It is to owerwhelm the western audience and also Russian audiences into a under and over reaction respectively as the truth of this Special Operation is revealed- it was a proxy ‘war’ between Nato and the Russians. That is where CM is not fully with the facts. The Ukrainians are fighting well above their weight because they have not only been trained and supplied by Nato for years but also commanded and controlled by top nato and generals and soldiers on the FRONT line – ILLEGALLY. I hope CM takes that on board and updates this article ASAP.
It is a ‘war’ that was needed to show that there is no easy path to taking Russia this century either !
Hence we in the west are being programmed to reject ALL things Russian, as we will be of Chinese, to put us in a walled-off citadel in the world, to rise again for the next attempt at world domination.
Russia, as I have noted, is massive and has no need to take over Europe and its hateful Catholic/Protestant peoples. Absolute zero need for the land, resources or even markets of Europe. But Europe has always desired the takeover of Russia and its resources for the forever Masters of Humanity.
Putin is an old school thug and bully, but he does want to keep Russia for the Russians – our old school bullies Blair to Johnson have happily been handing over our family silver and public services to the forever Masters to do with as they please. What pleases them is to want us to be poor serfs again tugging our forelocks and living hand-to-mouth all our lives as they return the class system officially.
So US 3 star Generals and other nato commanders being possibly held hostage by their own Nazis troops in the Steel Fortress, apparently without secret tunnels, is a BIG deal.
As would be proof of GENETIC warfare undertaken by us against them!
They are going to need a bigger War Crimes court!
Thank you. Very informative.
What has been Nato’s purpose since 1991, except to threaten and butt up against the borders of a country that has experienced repeated devastating invasions throughout history? Our politicians and media keep telling us that Nato is the best of us. What does that say?
“Truth is the first casualty of war”
————
In 1914 the popular press regaled an increasingly jingoistic British public with tales of Belgian babies on the end of German Bayonets.
I have no doubt that real atrocities have been committed by demoralised and defeated Russian conscripts withdrawing from northern Ukraine.
I am equally certain that similar – or worse – atrocities have been perpetrated by Ukrainian Armed Forces, not least the neo Nazi Azov Battalion in the Donbas region since 2014 – the centenary of the Belgian babies on German bayonets story.
The UK media do not report these. You have to be a murdering/rapist/Russian bastard, run by the Bond villain Mad Vlad, before your crimes get uncovered by the UK (and western) MSM.
Funny that.
Russia has not used conscripts, Russian forces are neither demoralised, nor have they been defeated, nor withdrawn, Russian forces are being redeployed. You should take whatever is written in western media with a barrel of salt, almost all lies and literally all propaganda.
“I have no doubt that real atrocities have been committed by demoralised and defeated Russian conscripts withdrawing from northern Ukraine.”
No doubt and on the basis of no real evidence. The timeline makes it impossible for the Russians to have been guilty of rounding up and killing all those who collaborated, in the looses sense of that word- with their brief occupation.
It would be a mistake to view the anti Russian hysteria which has been going on since the 1900s as a purely political issue. All that land and the natural riches of Russia have always been a tempting prize for others.
Today when the world is crying out for more ‘earth ingredients’ such as gas, oil, precious metals it is even more so.
Are you saying that the West wants to invade and conquer Russia?
Probably not invade. Too risky and expensive. ‘Regime change’ would be easier as then all the greedies can work together like they started to in the early 1990s. That’s why winning the information war is so important. The generations who lived through the 1990s in Russia will soon be gone and then ‘new memories’ can be built. History re-invented.
Regime change would just mean you’d be buying oil from someone else. Doesn’t benefit the West. And if it’s all a Western conspiracy to exploit Russia’s resources, why have the West imposed so many sanctions which also hit the west’s economy? How is for example McDonald’s pulling out of Russia evidence for the west’s avariciousness rather than an economic sacrifice brought about by moral horror at what Putin is doing in Ukraine and an effort to stop him doing it?
You’ve probably got some devious, complex response at the ready, but 99% of the time, the simplest explanations are the truth, eg Putin has launched an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country (for whatever esoteric historical reasons that keep him awake at night, it doesn’t matter) whereby he sits safe in a bunker while paying others to kill innocent people. Step back from the intricate details and that’s the essential picture.
“the west’s .. economic sacrifice brought about by moral horror”
How old are you, Neil?
@xavi, old enough to see the wood for the trees. Why do you think Western companies are pulling out of Russia? Because they enjoy throwing away money?
Neil
How come Libya now has an “”””” internationally recognised “””””” leader, straightforward thickest of spies in London?
Magnolia means stooges rather than invasion. In the case of Kurdistan it produces 1,000, 000 barrels of oil a day but none of that revenue goes to Kurdish people. The oil is licenced in London to Genel.
There people on this very blog who work in the oil business who flatly deny this outrageous colonial robbery exists.
You aren’t supposed to be hearing about it from me. You weren’t supposed to hear about the African slave trade in the Caribbean either.
When Natasha talks snout Peak oil, that is why we have a liar like Boris Johnson as leader. To tell us that he West is going to de-growth. No way. Tory plan is to colonise more countries that have oil. No de-growth for Tories. Libya and Kurdistan are current colonies. Somalia is in the bag, a pet interest of David Cameron, and Boris has his eyes on Russia.
Nothing to see here, move on please.
@giyane … And how does all that justify murdering Ukrainians?
Maybe read Craig’s article again. He made a specific point about how one thing being bad doesn’t require that another thing is good. The West doing bad things didn’t justify the slaughter of Ukrainians.
So collaborating with Nazis is not morally horrific? Your moral compass seems to be faulty.
Neil
Not all ny comments survive but I have pointed out that when Trump egged on the racist white supremacists and then criticised the anti- racist demonstrations against his blatant racism he Trump, accused the anti-racists of bad behaviour .
Russia has an internal.problem with Nazism , which could be exacerbated by a rise of Scandinavian Nazidm in Europe..
I complained that condemning Russia for opposing Nazism was the same as Trump accusing Anti-racist demonstrations of bad behaviour.
I condemned Trump then and I publicly disagree with Craig now. We have to bring the full weight of our moral condemnation against those superpowers that recklessly support ultra right wing groups and thinking. They know the bloodshed will not affect themselves.
The only true statement about ‘both sides doing bad things ‘ is that both Republicans and Democrsts, and both English party leaders are as bad as eachother in condoning USUK fomenting of right-wing extremism.
Russia has no interest in invading Ukraine, except to nip this flame-fanning of extremism by USUK on its borders in the bud. Western msm says it is an invasion. Russia has said that its role is to de-nazify Ukrsine on accountbof 8 years of Nazi attacks against Russian speaking Ukranians..
I am already much hated in the Muslim community for opposing extremism in political Islam. I nevervthought the day would come when I am much hated in my own country England for opposing extremism from USUK backed Nazis..
Switch off the war porn please. Its going to your brains.
@Neil, sophistry. If American Caesar can overturn the Putin regime and install a replacement the terms of trade will change to terms of plunder, like everywhere else the US empire gets control.
It was hardly unprovoked. Unjustified, wrong, unwise etc. But not unprovoked.
Giyane @ 09.31,
The Kurdistan Regional Government is currently charging tax of 40% per barrel on all oil exports from the region, which per barrel is far more tax than the UK government has been getting from North Sea producers recently. If none of that is going to the Kurdistani people, that’s not the fault of the oil companies. However, I suspect that a lot of it is as Kurdistan has a rate of people living below the poverty line far lower than in Iraq generally.
https://shafaq.com/en/economy/krg-imposes-taxes-on-oil-and-gas-companies
In addition, I have no idea what particular interest David Cameron has in Somalia. Feel free to enlighten me.
Lapsed Agnostic
Kurdisran charging a tax on exports is like slave owners wanting compensation for the loss of their slaves.
The Kurdish people have written off ever seeing any money from their very large oil reserves. To put it into context, they are the same as Libya’s. Think Gadafi.
The poverty is because everything is stolen
How it is stolen is privy to Genel a commercial company. Maybe Barzani has to pay USUK 90% of the tax back to his minders for security, maybe the exports to USUK are exempt. I’m just a state pensioner
Wikikettle used the word ‘ entitled’.about this country. We know the purpose of war. Apparently the British people keep voting for Parties that share our sense of entitlement on a worldwide scale.
Do we really believe we are owed the plunder of our superior fire power?
Or have we disposed of that guilt by msm and Tory mps telling us about Russian oligarchs and Putin?
Spade: We are as guilty today as a community as ever the people of Britain were in condoning colonial war and plunder. Even the people who come from the countries we plunder. We are all equally guilty..I’m sick of people pretending otherwise.
For this country now to refuse to see that USUK started this war and why, basically means we are stuck in the Stone Age, intellectually, morally and spiritually.
Thanks for your reply Giyane. It seems to me that the Kurdistan tax on exports is essentially just a Georgist tax on their natural resources.
Can I ask if you’re originally from the Kurdistan region?
“…why have the West imposed so many sanctions which also hit the west’s economy?”
It reminds me monologues of an American comedian, who would ask several “why” question, and finish with the booming “Because they are IDIOTS!”.
BTW, the war was provoked and avoidable.
It’s more subtle than that, as invasions never work.
They want to ‘westernise’ Russia. This would open the door to asset stripping of all Russia’s resources by the multinational commercial vultures and the takeover of all major industries by the same scum.
They want to replace Putin, the strong, nationalist, intelligent leader with a weak, western, puppet. This would ensure that the WEF/USA can call the shots and control Russia.
They want to fracture Russia so that it is easier to manage and unable to act as a unified, coordinated, massive whole. They will try to achieve this by funding different ethnic groups to fight for ‘independence’.
@Stevie, no, I think they just want to trade with Russia as with any other country, and not have Russia behave like some psychopathic nutjob. If Putin hadn’t started this war, McDonald’s, Shell, Microsoft, etc etc would still be happily making money in Russia.
Besides which, you are making some kind of equivalence between shady parties coveting Russia’s resources with actual human bodies being blown apart in Ukraine. The world and his wife can see which is worse. The only reason a bunch of people refuse to see it is because it massages their ego to think they understand things at a deeper level than the poor deluded sheeple who fall for the msm lies. Go ahead and feel clever. It’s a free country and you won’t face a 15-year prison sentence for disagreeing, unless you happen to live under Putin’s heel.
Neil
You are not comparing like with like.
Plenty of Western bombs blowing women and babies apart in 20 other countries in our short lifetimes.
Baghdad, 8 meter deep craters. Try working at 8 meters height. That’s about 3rd floor in a high rise.
@Neil, Come off it! The US doesn’t want to pay market prices for Russian commodities, it wants to pay off a few oligarchs to steal for them same as in Britain or Nigeria. The US empire’s record hardly inspires confidence that they are mere traders.
@giyane. The West deserves condemnation for the evil it does, but that shouldn’t blind us to the evil being done by Putin in Ukraine. In the last 20 years, has the West pummeled entire cities to rubble with absolutely no regard for civilian casualties?
Neil wrote:
In the last 20 years, has the West pummeled entire cities to rubble with absolutely no regard for civilian casualties?
I think the folks in Fallujah, Mosul, Raqqa – to name but three – would say so.
Glasshopper, if you took those folk to Mariupol, I think they’d know the difference. Again, what happened in Fallujah was terrible, but posters here denying anything bad is happening in Ukraine, and even rooting for Russia, wtf?
What’s happening in Mariupol is horrific. I agree.
Nevertheless, the US army took very few casualties in their operations because places were completely demolished before soldiers entered. It is the way modern wars are fought.
I highly recommend Scott Ritter’s excellent interview on the war so far, where he goes into some detail on Russia’s tactics. And shortcomings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTpBPLFjyqs
Glasshopper,
Re: Scott Ritter. This is harsh, but probably fair comment.
https://twitter.com/MENAConflicted/status/1511489460780904450
What about the 14 000 dead in fighting for the Donbass over the last 8 years? Have you no sympathy for them?
This war could have been avoided if the Ukraine had respected its signature of the Minsk agreements, instead it kept on bombarding the population, just enough to make life unbearable, you must have seen the reports, while building up forces there to around 60 000, that they thought would be enough to end the job once and for all. It was the start of this, as witnessed by the OSCE, which is said to have set the Russian army on the move. I don’t know if this is the case or if they had already decided to intervene in Ukraine whatever happened, it seems most likely that unless the Ukrainians changed their minds and went against their US backers that it would have happened anyway.
So who is responsible, the Ukrainians and their Western backers of the Russians? You say the Russians as if they would have done this lightly, as if they are some kind of monsters, your language makes this clear, but I don’t think such an emotional analysis is useful, I don’t think that they are monsters, but they are a people who have had their backs to the wall a century or more. The Cold War and the collapse of their country, the humiliation and even the physical loss of life convinced them that in a world in a permanent state of war for decades, where country after country have been reduced to ruins by our governments, they cannot afford to wait to be attacked before acting, that a short military action now is better than future destruction.
What shocks us all is that it’s in Europe, but we have been doing, and are doing now, far worse all the time.
How will fracturing Russia make it easier to manage, Stevie, when you’ll likely end up with lots of mini-statelets, likely ruled by lots of mini-despots, many with access to intercontinental ballistic missiles containing 100 kiloton plus thermonuclear warheads currently aimed at lots of targets within the West?
Are you implying that any Russin state, large or small, is likely to be ruled by a despot?
Thanks for your reply Lenny. Well, take a look at Russia’s near-neighbours the Stans – one of which our excellent host has had considerable experience (see ‘Murder in Samarkand’). Are they generally bastions of pluralist liberal democracy?
They want what they achieved in the 90’s: a Yeltsin so they can pillage everything again.
For that they will bring the EU and the well being of its citizens and residents down with them as a bonus. The iron curtain and economic chaos are around and in the EU, not in Russia, not the USA.
Our monetary and fiscal policies can never correct the chaos of food, energy and raw materials shortages we will experience due our irrational and kamikase sanctions.
Pillage everything, isa? Some people in the West have done very well out of Russians: bankers, former owners of large properties in nice areas of London, owners of yacht-building companies etc. – but are there any people born in the West that have become dollar billionaires out of appropriating Russian assets? None that I can think of – people like that were all born in the former Soviet Union.
No reduce it to a semi-colony like Albania
Tragically non-nato-member Finland which is bordering Russia, is now drifting towards Nato
https://www.brusselstimes.com/210752/finland-support-for-nato-membership-reaches-historic-high
Also neighbouring Sweden I believe will move closer to membership too.
If one look at the map, the whole of the baltic sea will then pretty much “belong” to Nato and new conflicts may arise there.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Baltic_Sea.png/640px-Baltic_Sea.png
“Tragically non-nato-member Finland which is bordering Russia, is now drifting towards Nato … and neighbouring Sweden I believe will move closer to membership too.”
It’s almost as if these countries are scared that some neighbouring lunatic might launch an unprovoked attack on them.
Sweden pretends to be scared of an unprovoked attack from the east, while stupidly leaving its back door unlocked and hanging off its hinges to let the lunatic Americans invade from the west with troops and ‘joint’ exercises.
@ John, Sorry, I might have missed it. Could you remind me which Swedish city has been pummeled to rubble by NATO artillery?
Sweden’s response is usually to open its borders and let the armies march through to occupy neighbours. There is a reason why it is not trusted – moreover its informal alliance with Nato has been obvious for years, as evidenced by its scandalous involvement in the Assange affair.
When did it do that?
1940.
I strongly suspect the CIA was behind the assassination of Olof Palme.
Considering no “lunatic” have invaded them since Nato started some 70 years ago prove that disinformation claim you are bringing wrong. Joining Nato put them in a real risk however.
No lunatic has invaded for the past 70 years, but now there is a lunatic doing just that. Maybe that’s why they’re now scared. Sorry for employing logic.
Who is this lunatic ? What is this logic ?
Your emotive, factless rant doesn’t stack up. Please explain your argument, I wish to be educated.
@Neville. I was referring to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Have a look online. You might see it mentioned somewhere.
Neil
Russia and Soviet have invaded a couple of nations past 70 years, that did not cause Finland and Sweden to join Nato.
No need to be a wiseguy when you fail to apply both “logic” and historical knowledge.
@Jack. Sorry if I came across as a wise guy. It just seemed obvious that if you’re neighbouring a country that regularly instigates military invasions of its neighbours, you might eventually decide enough is enough and want to join NATO for the security guarantees it offers. I think anyone pretending that’s not a reasonable explanation of Sweden and Finland looking at NATO membership is the wise guy.
“It just seemed obvious that if you’re neighbouring a country that regularly instigates military invasions of its neighbours, you might eventually decide enough is enough and want to join NATO for the security guarantees it offers.”
Mexico, Venezuela, Panama, …
Russia did try to join NATO to guarantee its security from the USA.
What with Trump, Biden and Johnson we are badly placed to speak of lunatics.
Come off it, as said above, you have just decided to take a crude contrarian position for reasons which are your own but it doesn’t add much to the debate. As soon as someone refers to Putin as a lunatic they blow their cover.. you may not like his politics but he is most certainly on a different intellectual level than the three gentlemen I mentioned… and the Russian people agrees, he’s their choice.
Let’s not underestimate the pressures applied on these, and other, states to tow the USA line. The alternative is sanctions, destabilisation of their dollar based economies and government change. Most of them, like the UK, are too far down the rabbit hole to turn back.
Is Putin mad or a practitioner of Realpolitik? I suggest the latter. As for the Scandies, they, like Ukraine, are in Nato de facto. Why do you keep judging Russia by different criteria than those for the US empire? Do Iraq and Syria want to join Nato?
In respect to your comment regarding the in last 20 years has the west pummelled entire cities to rubble with absolutely no regard to civilian casualties, if you ignore the countries of the middle east (perhaps because they’re brown) you make like to read about the unprovoked bombing by NATO (read USA) of Yugoslavia, which has now ceased to exist. Read about the consequences of the use of depleted uranium ammunition for children. Read about the attacks on passenger trains. Read about the use of cluster bombs. Read, analyse and absorb the the “West” (read USA) has been responsible for more than 200 million civilian casualties since 1945 and consider the utter folly of your comments
“It’s almost as if these countries are scared that some neighbouring lunatic might launch an unprovoked attack on them.”
If they are scared, it’s probably because someone has said to them “Nice little country you’ve got here, it would be a shame if some neighbouring lunatic launched an unprovoked attack on you. Tell you what, you pay for our protection and we make sure nothing happens, so long as you keep paying.”
An excellent and much needed analysis.
Thank you
Thanks for this excellent article unrivaled in its information, although now all signs point to a protracted campaign to weaken and engage Russia’s resolve and armour and, sadly, more questionable actions of the kind we have seen all over our screens.
It is unquestionable that when you show and pronounce that arms are offered to civilians, on all western NATO/intelligence agencies feeding news organisations, pictures of women being taught to fight off attackers with knifes and learning to shoot, that this means that they are armed combatants who, should they use their arms, would be at risk of injury or death.
The pictures we were shown were of an Artillery-ravaged town and the tragedy of it is, that a ‘war of aggression’ charge will never be brought, as it would mean that all other wars of aggression are equally liable to come before some court.
The UN does not run a court. The ICC, or any other court is not acceptable to those who are known to have pulled their soldiers out of situations whence accused of crimes against humanity, as Julian Assange would no doubt agree with.
Zelenski is being portrayed as a constant pro-western leader, when he is being controlled by the forces that have kept him in power.
Lastly, peace is far away, as long as we proffer arms and help and modern weapons to Ukraine’s questionable forces, we are feeding a war of attrition and hatred towards Russian speakers and ethnic Russians inside the country.
The business of selling nuclear arms and missiles around the world has leaped to some $159bn worth of orders, according to the i paper, more weapons to destroy the planet and its already fragile climate.
Rebuilding infrastructure, house and services is responsible for 40-60% of CO2 in the atmosphere and what is being destroyed has to be re-built.
We are now coming nearer to the point when we might have to act on climate change, 3.2 deg. and rising, so the best thing that could happen is to generate engagement into energy-saving measures, by cutting off all of Europe to oil and gas from Russia.
I’m sure that this will be more beneficial and focus minds to the tasks in hand, than any other paltry measure.
Many thanks to the many links offered by many. We also must make more space under the bridges, for this is one popular blog now, imho.
Thank you Craig, all that hard work has produced another factual well-written article here. Let’s hope a ceasefire will soon be acceptable to both sides, before other calamities in the world add to the negative mood that is being spread by our unsustainable actions.
Nevermind
This is not a war of aggression.by Russia . Ukraine attacked first and Russia was ready to respond, presumably because of intelligence it had received.
Can you switch off-the-war porn please.
I don’t have a TV and I switch off the radio when they start to play emotive music over their pathetic propaganda to make it more convincing.
In the last year I have finally caught 6 people who I considered as friends participating in an orchestrated hate campaign against me by government assisted spies.
I’m sure you realise that digital technology can be used not only to observe our private lives, but also to manipulate our private thoughts. It is such a powerful tool, that it mesmerises. There is no other solution to 24/7 spying and 24/7 news porn other than to consciously reject it.
You escaped from Nazism, but they have found a way to bring Nazism into your home, into your brain. I simply applaud all those brave soldiers who are fighting Nazism in Ukraine , even though the real Nazis are in London snd Washington.
In any real court of international law, the fact that Biden and Boris’ respective Political Parties have funded trained propagandised for ultra right wing policies including Nazism and Islamism. These are the de facto criminals, using their nations power to foment war.
I will never let them also brainwash me by their digital war porn that somebody else is to blame. Otherwise they have won. Hitler reigns again.
Less than a year ago
Ukraine – Zelensky’s authoritarian turn?
“President Volodymyr Zelensky has begun the third year of his presidency mired in mid-term unpopularity with a poll published last month showing that only 21.8 percent of Ukrainians would vote to re-elect him.”
https://euobserver.com/opinion/152478
With this war I suspect he gained more votes for the next election. Thus Zelensky benefitting from this war personally even though his population is suffering.
@Jack,
War with Argentina did not harm the unpopular conservative government in 1982, I doubt if Zelensky would be ousted if an election was held now. Such are events dear boy…_
Well, perhaps. He has banned the non-Fascist opposition, just in case, though: https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/news/zelensky-bans-main-ukrainian-opposition-party/ The main opposition leader was under house arrest and his TV stations closed last year. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-adviser-says-pro-kremlin-politician-escaped-house-arrest-lawyer-denies-2022-02-27/ Making sure that there’s no-one else to vote for is certainly one way of bolstering your political support…..
Thank you Craig, that is a landmark article on this war.
I wonder what you make of deportations/refugees/migration as an instrument of war. Being a bit of a boffin on Russian/Soviet history, you’ll have seen it before, but you don’t need to be a historian because of the proximity in time and geography of Belarus’s use in 2021 of Afghan refugees on the Polish border to retaliate against EU sanctions.
So far, Ukraine has been literally decimated with 4.3m international refugees, exactly 10% of the Jan 2022 pre-war population. Ireland is expecting 200,000 refugees, equal to 4% of its 2021 population. God knows how we’ll cope.
If 1/2 Ukraine can be expelled, leaving an unstable husk, isn’t that just as useful to Russia as the buffer they were originally seeking.
eoin
Might I point out that if it had come to the attention of Ukranians that a Nazi government that they had elected in 2019 was now about to genocide 140,000 Russian speaking Ukranians as undermenchen , not having any rights, an equally bloody civil war would have started when they realised that their comedian president had lied to them.
Who cares about the recent genocide by Islamists of Christians in Azerbaijan? Who in Europe would care about the genocide of the people of Ukraine by Nazis?
Answer , nobody.
And yet when Russia intervenes against Nazi genocide they Ukranians are told by their liar president that it is a Rusdian invasion. The British are told by liar Johnson that its an invasion. Russia is now demonised for opposing Nazism , a subject on which he won an overwhelming vote of support in the UN.
I myself will put up with extreme right wing policies here, until I see my country genociding it’s neighbours. Then it’s time to go. Ukranians have nothing to lose by leaving. They stay and are ruled by Nazis , or they leave and find peace.
Nato funded this Nazim so why would a Ukranian flee permanently to the arms of their tormentors? Yes, they gave to leave because of Tory support for Nazis bringing genocide to their country, but they know now that Johnson’s Britain and Biden’s North America are not safe havens from USUK Nazism.
Where will you go if this disease arrives here? Africa? Asia? China? Where will you find to go if this Ukranian Nazi state succeeds?
Answer, not going to happen , because this Nazism in Ukraine is just a strategy of fomenting war against Russia the same the last wars in Syria and Libya.
When you think it through and realise that this Nazism in Ukraine is just another neocon stratagem of war by the West, then you know who’s to blame.
eoin
Might I also point out that in and among these refugees , if anything like Syria , may be Nazi sympathisers and Nazis. Britain houses useful political asylum seekers in its nest of useful spies in London.
In Britain the government is using unsuspecting families to host refugees. So the question I ask myself is: since Britain has already succeeded in radicalising British Islam to a considerable extent , will it not use Ukranian nazi sympathisers to foment right wing extremism in Britsin?
You see forvthe British government there is no such thing ascwzste, just re-cycling. They are indifferent to the imams preaching jihad in British mosques, because they knowvthem and control them. They are happy for Nazis to come here because they will put them to use maybe for further false flag events.
Right wing extremism is increasing across the Western world, according to MI5. Yes, they are increasing it. But leave that to MOATS.
Ireland has had its own brush with facism in the past with the “blushirts.” The principal protagonist Eoin O’Duffy briefly becoming leader of Fine Gael before heading off to the spanish civil war with an Irish brigade in support of Franco in a show of “catholic solidarity.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eoin_O%27Duffy
Voldemort Zelenskiy addressed the oireachtas (Irish Parliament) today. That got me asking the question just how many other parliaments has he addressed so far? He has addressed UK, Poland, Canada, United States, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Italy, France, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Australia, Romanian and Spanish parliaments. He has also addressed the United Nations (UN) Safety Council, European Council, G7, NATO and Doha Discussion board, and video messaged to the ceremony held for the Grammy Awards. More parliamentary addresses are lined up.
He has a good agent.
Not only did Ireland have a brush with Fascism in the form of the now universally derided Blueshirts, didn’t England flirt with Fascism in the form of Mosley’s Blackshirts?
JK, Britain was very Fascist in the 30s, until it wasn’t a good idea to be Fascists, becuase we were fighting two Fascist countries and it was a good idea, propagandawise, to sell the war as a “Fight against Fascism”, as opposed to The Great War Part II, which is what it actually was. The British state’s sympathies can be seen by which side it supported in the Spanish Civil War – it wasn’t the democratically elected government.
What is the evidence for your claim that “a Nazi government that they (Ukrainians) had elected in 2019 was now about to genocide 140,000 Russian speaking Ukranians as untermenschen”?
It strikes me that many here hate (for understandable reasons) the UK/US governments so much that they will forgive Russia for any crime.
“The enemy of my enemy is just the enemy of my enemy & certainly not necessarily my friend.”
13,000 murdered in the Donbas since 2014.
Russian language made illegal in Ukraine.
Continuous shelling of the Donbas by Ukrainian forces.
The threat by the Ukrainian comic to obtain and use Nuclear weapons.
How much is enough ?
Of the 13,000 killed in the Donbas 10,000 were combatants, roughly equal numbers on both sides. The remainder were civilians. In recent years the situation had settled into a stalemate, from 1 January to 30 September 2021, OHCHR recorded in total 84 civilian casualties: 18 killed (13 men, one woman, three boys and one girl) and 66 injured (42 men, 18 women, five boys and one girl), a 33.9 per cent decrease compared with the same period of 2020, when 127 civilian casualties (21 killed and 106 injured) were recorded. So talk of 13,000 murders and continuous shelling is a distortion.
The Russian language is not illegal in Ukraine, it is no longer an official language.
Zalensky made a veiled reference to Ukraine developing nuclear weapons on 4th March, that is AFTER the invasion began, in frustration at what he saw was a lukewarm response from NATO.
Anyway, where’s proof of this impending genocide of 140,000?
Pears Migraine
Oh, so the armed victims of Ukraines Nazi government should be grateful to their Nazi government for the once in a lifetime opportunity to die, and maybe should pay them for this service..
Far right ideology – free to use at the point of service. Maybe I ought to be subscribing to you too.
«Russian language made illegal in Ukraine»
That looks like ukrainian propaganda! The fascist xenophobe ruthenians (who call themselves “ukrainian” even if ‘the ukraine” historically is not a ruthenian area) have voted to outlaw *all* minority languages and cultures, including those of the hungarian, greek, romanian, bulgarian, rusyn, not just russian culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#Ethnic_groups
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarians_in_Ukraine
«Since 2017, the Hungary–Ukraine relations rapidly deteriorated over the issue of Ukraine’s education law. Ukraine’s 2017 education law makes Ukrainian the required language of primary education in state schools from grade five. László Brenzovics, the only ethnic Hungarian in the Supreme Council of Ukraine, said that “There is a sort of purposeful policy, which besides narrowing the rights of all minorities, tries to portray the Hungarian minority as the enemy in Ukrainian public opinion.”»
It strikes me that many here (deliberately?) confuse hate (for understandable reasons) for the UK/US governments with being prepared to forgive Russia for any crime. To say that one side is bad doesn’t even imply that the other side is good, unless you are unthinkingly dualistic. Nor does falsehood turn to truth when it is something bad being said about something bad. Only in mathematics do two negatives make a positive. Calling out lies about Russia and her troops is not support for her policies or their actions, no matter how many times it is taken to be so.
Repeating propaganda narratives concocted by fascists and repeated by the media is not “calling out lies” but repeating them. It is astonishing how few people can connect the dots: Lied about Iraq.
Lied about Syria.
Lied about Libya.
Lied about the 2016 Presidential Election.
Lied about Assange.
Lied about Corbyn. Lied about the Skripals.
Lied about Craig. …..But are to be trusted to tell the truth about Ukraine and the Russian government.
“Repeating propaganda narratives concocted by fascists and repeated by the media is not “calling out lies” but repeating them”
Why the inverted commas? When I wrote “calling out lies” I meant calling out lies, not “Repeating propaganda narratives concocted by fascists”.
John Kinsella
The US began this war on 18 March 2022. 1200 missiles per day were fired by Kiev into the independent Russian speaking regions.
Jhelensky passed a law that Russian ethnic Ukranians had no rights, in other words making his violence legal.
For followers of the Al Qaida and Daesh proxies that is thecequivalent of Takfir of Syrian and Iraqi Muslims. Because they don’t agree with us, we can take their property, their wives children etc and kill them at will.
The islamist proxies and Nazi proxies are being fed the same drivel ideologies, and probably drugs, by their masters in Washington and London like John Cain.
Do I have to provide evidence for my belief that most Ukramians and Muslims do not agree with warmongering USUK drivel? Jhelensky posed in 2019 as a Liberal. He’s an actor, as is Shimon Elliot/ Baghdadi.
I think it started on the 24th February 2022 when, after two months of build up, Russian forces crossed the border.
Mods.
The previous comment went into moderation so I rephrased my main point.
In the discussions on previous threads it was reported that the population of Russian speakers was 140,000, half of whom had been evacuated to Russia.
On 18 March the OSCE reported 1200 missiles per day starting to be fired against the Russian speaking community. This was the false ‘false flag’ USUK jokingly referred to as Russia ‘s false flag to start the war.
As expected USUK provided the real start of hostilities on 18 March by starting to finish off their genocide. Craig is very wrong to accuse Russia of starting this war and he should have known that USUK have form.
Since this reply is on moderation I will tell you that I conclude sadly that Craig has been poisoned in some way in jail, to make him lose the plot. For the whole if my adult lifetime, since Yugoslavia it has always been Nato starting wars.
Hopefully the weight of evidence is now sufficient for us all to agree this is another USUK neocon war of aggression, as seems obvious to everyone here except a few.
Hopefully also no permanent damage done to Craig.
“Who cares about the recent genocide by Islamists of Christians in Azerbaijan?”
Do you mean the recent expulsion of the Armenians who invaded and occupied large areas of Azerbaijan in the 1990s? Not quite a genocide, but legitimate defence.
Ukraine has been losing population for a long time- even before Maidan it was dominated by oligarchs who sold everything that that could find and left the, once vibrant, economy ruined. Ukrainians were driven to seek work elsewhere in europe, and large numbers particularly of women, were trafficked.
The source of politically inspired emigration was, of course in the Donbas, from which large numbers fled, the attacks from Kiev, the devastation of a war zone and fear of the future. In economic terms they were worst off – Kiev refused to pay pensions and allowances and, while nobody over here has been much bothered by them, the persecutions, killings and disappearances perpetrated by the fascist militias drove many into exile. Remember Odessa? Russian speaking Trade Unionists and anti-fascists do.
Curiously enough there were no collections, humanitarian missions or even stories in the media about what was happening in Ukraine then. And, so far as the Donbas is concerned there aren’t now, except, of course, fabrications to suggest that it is not Kiev, which has ruled Mariupol with an iron fist for the past seven years, which is responsible for deaths there but the Russian liberators.
Yes liberators, because by any measure that is what they are in eastern Ukraine.
A ‘defensive organisation’ ??
‘Jens Stoltenberg NATO general secretary.“We are the strongest military alliance in the history of the world.” We can destroy every country in the world.”We ( NATO) will provide & assist Ukraine with all necessary arms to cause Russia most painful damage. We will weaken Russia”’
And generals too and special ops mercenaries – but we will get crazier and angrier when they face defeat and we are revealed to have been lying scumbags all the time! Look over there it’s a squirrel, dead cat, dead body in the street, Atrocities!! Don’t ask about the top General Coultier ?
Fuck nato, fuck Stoltenberg, fuck Borrell and fuck off Yankees, from Europe – they well overstayed this time round.
Get me plugged into EurAsia and it’s energy security grid. I want a ticket to ride the train from Kings Cross to Singapore and beyond.
NOW.
Oh dear…
Not got a script response for that John?
Oh Dear?
Did the nato Secretary General not say that?
Run you ? , run if you can. ??
My “oh dear” was a comment on the intemperate nature of your post.
I am no scripted poster – but I posted here long before the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine, supporting Scotland’s right to Independence.
I am Irish, posting from Ireland and no friend of the UK government and its pretensions to rule part of Ireland.
As I posted above, the phrase “My enemy’s enemy is my friend” is not a reliable guide.
A link to Stoltenberg’s comment would be useful. I’ve been unable to verify it.
You’re not Keppler44 who posts a lot on the Independent are you? He uses the same ingenuous tactics, if in doubt try to waste people’s time. If you really want the quotations look yourself. 🙂
I have looked and can’t find it.
Who is first on the trigger was a message by Ramzan Kadyrov on an amateur radio frequency. Chechens in Mariupol show no mercy to those foreign bastards paid by the CIA who are stopping buses leaving the town with evacuated civilians and officials. Ramzan also said such that hundreds of Ukrainian naval forces in the area have surrendered. The blessing lies with the liberated residents who now speak out providing cogent proof of Azov and other foreign mercenaries atrocities in for instance basements in Teatral’na Square, Mariupol and villages north to Donetsk.
Don’t expect the transcript to appear on the BBC.
Are you aware that old Ramzan is a brazenly corrupt war criminal?
Frankwiggles, indeed we supported the Chechens against Russia as we supported them against Assad in Syria. We will continue to set fire to every ex Soviet country and cause millions of deaths, because that’s the only thing we are good at.
We had a documentary series on TV many years ago called World at War. The music, narration by Lawrence Olivier, the black and white war footage really disturbed me as a young child. Years later the Russians brought out their own modern series called Soviet Storm. In the episode entitled The Battle for Ukraine there is a section where they show Ukrainians in the Galician SS Regiment fighting with Nazi Germany. Theses Nazi Ukrainians prisoners at the end of the war, with dispensation from the Pope as good Catholics, were allowed to go free and settle in England and Canada. One of them being my landlord in late 70s of a big house in West London. Today we are just being consistent and still supporting even the devil, if it against anything Russian, so much is our hatred for them. We are even experimenting on how to target Slavs with chemical and biological weapons ! The Japanese scientists who did unspeakable experiments on the Chinese were all given immunity by US at end of World War 2. No wonder the whole world views us in the so called civilised democratic West as hypocritical barbarians.
Kadyrov is still at home hiding in a bunker and metadata from his troops ‘phones show they haven’t been closer than 12 miles to the front line. He can’t afford to lose or alienate his army as he needs it to stay in power.
A link to the “metadata from his troops ‘phones” would be useful. I’ve been unable to verify it.
I have looked and can’t find it.
Are you by chance Ned Price ? You assume your word is gospel ?
Manlio Dinucci spells out why Europeans will all suffer and are all pawns in this US-NATO strategy as set out in the RAND report.
First of all – the plan established – Russia must be attacked on the most vulnerable side, that of its economy heavily dependent on gas and oil export: for this purpose, trade and financial sanctions must be used, and at the same time, it must ensure that Europe decreases Russian natural gas import by replacing it with US liquefied natural gas.
As part of this strategy – the RAND Corporation plan envisaged in 2019 – “providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest external vulnerability, but any increase in weapons and military advice provided by the US to Ukraine should be carefully calibrated to increase the costs for Russia without provoking a much wider conflict in which due to its proximity Russia would have significant advantages”.
It is precisely here – in what the Rand Corporation called “Russia’s greatest external vulnerability”, exploitable by arming Ukraine in a “calibrated way to increase costs for Russia – without provoking a much wider conflict”
“The plan envisaged options are in reality only variants of this war strategy, the price of which in terms of sacrifices and risks is paid by all of us”. We European people are paying for it now, and we will pay more and more dear if we continue to be expendable pawns in the US-NATO strategy.
On 8 March 2022, after having briefly published it online () the Manifesto made this article disappear overnight also from the print edition since I had refused to comply with the directive of the Ministry of Truth and asked to open a debate on the Ukrainian crisis. Thus, my long collaboration with this newspaper, in which I have published my column The Art of War for over ten years, ends. https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2022/no-7-29-march-2022/ukraine-it-was-all-written-in-the-rand-corp-plan.html
Manlio Dinucci, Pisa, 10 March 2022
Harry Law. There are no levers available to stop Hyper Inflation. Sanctions have destroyed confidence in the Dollar, no longer backed by Saudi Oil. US debt no longer financed by countries forced to buy US IOUs Tressury Bonds. Russia has escaped our casino fiat economy. Its Ruble is backed by commodities, our Dollar, Sterling and EU backed by a very slick efficient propoganda war full of hot air, about to burst as in the Wiemar.
That imminent blow-up may mean the financial ‘worm is turning’ although initially strengthening the Plutocrap’s Führerprinzip, hyperinflamation may also turn the British ‘atavistic’ problem into something closer to Corbynism… when the bite makes a mark.
Mark Golding. Syrians in Germany. A big Turkish population and now the basket case that is Ukraine about to be depopulated and seek EU free movement. Germany about to be deindustrialised by its neoliberal subservient elite. Germany rearming and supporting and Nazis in Ukraine, will give the Hitlerites cause to blame refugees while US offer only 100,000. Whats the UK offer ? Lot less I guess. No wonder Hungary and Serbia want no part in a war with Russia.
It has occurred to me to wonder how many of the millions of the Ukranian refugees are from the west of the country and are not the slightest bit worried about the Russian invasion, but have realised that, if they are going to leave Ukraine, now is a good time to go.
RAND has also published very recently an account of the heavy amount of destruction and civilian casualties caused by the Americans against ISIS held Raqqa in 2016 adding to a previous Amnesty International Report – nicely buried of course by the current goings on in Ukraine.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA700/RRA753-1/RAND_RRA753-1.pdf
I’d agree with much of this piece, but I’d take issue with the idea Zelensky’s recent actions are in any way wise or heroic.
Maybe in Zelensky’s case that was true initially, but he’s morphing into a Ukrainian version of climate campaigner Greta Thunberg ; a noisy peripheral figure whose celebrity masks their relative powerless to stop the planet, or in Ukraine’s case, its cities burning. Citizens are being killed and uprooted while his territory is being salami sliced. Elsewhere, someone sarcastically asked if Zelensky will pop up on Coronation Street or Eastenders next? You kinda get the point about his celebrity covering for their military impotence. Also, his habit of to raising the spectre of embroiling Europe in WW3 (only nuclear) and exaggerating – by making comparisons to the Nazi holocaust’s systematic extermination – does him few favours. I think he risks becoming overly vainglorious with his ego clouding his judgement to the stark realities facing Ukraine. Even US support isn’t guaranteed a November Dem wipeout followed by a lame duck Biden presidency and beyond that, another Trump presidency, are eminently possible.
For the grim reality facing Zelensky, is that Russia is going to get what it wants, and by ‘any’ means necessary. It has a huge land border with Ukraine, resources and the manpower to cycle its forces, and this conflict can simmer for years if necessary. Much as Mexico couldn’t sustain hostility and/or a war with the US, nor can Ukraine with Russia. At some point in the future they will have to live in peaceful accord and that will mean someone less hostile to Russia and less hostile to ethnic Russians within Ukraine’s eventual borders.
Here in the UK we also desperately need rid regime change in the form of removing Starmer and his revolting centrist acolytes. The cross-party Westminster consensus on the war and on arming Ukraine to the teeth, to fight till the last man standing? Is nauseating stuff to behold, given it won’t be MPs facing down the Russian forces as they take the gloves off and move to more indiscriminate bombing phase if frustrated. A taste of which Muriupol has already endured. And is tightening the sanctions noose around Russia’s neck wise? Where have sanctions worked? Iraq, Iran; Syria,Venezuela and North Korea and Cuba. all the evidence is they collectively punish while allowing leaderships to deflect responsibility to the evil empire with it’s selective outrage and faux moral indignation about war.
Goose. Sanctions on Russia has caused the Russian economy to decouple from the train crash and be independent. The noose is round our own necks, and we are jumping off the chair.
Good comment Goose, I don’t think this conflict will last long, the EU sanctions will have little effect on Russia since Russia has most of the world on its side, including China, India Iran etc. It has massive reserves of oil, gas’ wheat and other valuable commodities which the rest of the world are crying out for plus they are heartily sick of the US empire illegally sanctioning them into following their dictates. This is even before President Putin has imposed any sanctions of his own.
He has gracefully agreed to continue supplying oil and gas to Europe even in the face of Germany re-arming and cutting off the NS2 pipe line [which Germany wanted in the first place] also supplying arms to Ukraine to kill Russian soldiers [this alone could be a belligerent action on Germany’s part.
Russian action could be seen as reasonable by keeping the European economy fully running and also its commodity sales paid in rubles, but make no mistake Russia holds most of the cards and could wreck the EU’s economy simply by turning off the commodities tap and redirecting them to other eager buyers, to the East.
«Much as Mexico couldn’t sustain hostility and/or a war with the US, nor can Ukraine with Russia.»
In a recent interview:
https://www.economist.com/europe/volodymyr-zelensky-on-why-ukraine-must-defeat-putin/21808448
«Mr Zelensky divides NATO into five camps. First are those who “don‘t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives”.»
I guess that voicing this bit of realism about the aims of USA, UK, Poland has earned him “martyrdom” soon, perhaps with “novichok”.
Re: ‘The Mexicans couldn’t sustain hostility and/or a war with the US..’
Of course they could, Goose. There’s plenty of military-spec weaponry in Mexico, so after their government had fallen, they would just proceed to the guerrilla insurgency phase. Eventually, the US public would grow so weary of the constant stream of US casualties and vast amounts of money being spent that they would demand an end to the US presence there. It’s essentially what happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan etc.
The thing is the Ukrainians would be much better armed than any previous insurgency. Can you imagine what would have happened in Helmand province if the Taliban there had had access to Javelins, NLAWs, sniper rifles, anti-materiel rifles, MANPADS, drones, Switchblade 600 loitering munitions (they’re in the post apparently), night vision optics etc? The British Army wouldn’t have lasted eight months before both it and the British public would have had enough, let alone eight years. They might not have even lasted eight weeks.
Striving to make sense of the war? Context is everything:
The US has nuke-ready Aegis Ashore first strike missile systems in Poland and Romania. These missiles have a 12 minute flight time to Moscow. All they are lacking is the actual nuclear warheads.
Once Ukraine was brought into NATO, the equivalent missile systems there would have a 5 minute flight time to Moscow. That is in addition to the rabid neo-Nazi/ISIS forces on the ground right on Russia’s border.
All it would then take was for the US to ship in actual nuke warheads, and bingo, Russia is dead meat.
Now getting Ukraine into NATO is the key. The military (normal and neo-Nazi) was fully trained to NATO standards. One neo-Nazi (past carefully whitewashed) even graduated from Sandhurst. So that part was good to go The key remaining requirement for NATO membership is control of the country’s boundaries. And there is where the rebel eastern provinces present a major problem for the US/NATO plan. It also explaines the persistent 8 year onslaught by the Ukraine military against the east.
The boundary problemwas going to be solved by a massive hell-for-leather Ukraine military surge to the border, down the mid Lugansk/Donetsk border with subsequent sweeps along the border to control it. The Lugansk/Donestsk military could then be dealt with at leisure. Once done, the pending NATO treaty document would be signed , and Zelensky would get his nukes (metaphoically).
The massive buildup of ~60-100,000 Ukraine military in that key position was a clear marker that everything was ready to go – until Russia pre-empted the plan leading to massive squeals of outrage from EU/US/UK/NATO. Russia’s actions indicate it has long anticipated this and acted to defend itself from NATO’s plans (Putin did explicitly invoke the UN Charter Right to Self Defense). As far as Russia is concerned, this is do or die.
Arfur Mo – This was ‘do or die’ for Russia’s continuation as a viable confidant to China and her role in world authority. There lays the rub. Does the West succumb to a dominant China? An enigma to many humans compounded by our thinking and which is the backdrop of most views here on this thread.
The global distribution of power has certainly shifted. A new world order betwixt equal power between US and China. Hell or Heaven or Heaven and Hell. That is the conundrum. Thing is, if you look very closely inwards towards yourself, this puzzle is easily solved.
Well said Arfur.
If this was printed on one side of an 8×11 sheet of paper and put in every mailbox in the land it would do a lot of good.
yes, key context spelled out very starkly indeed. there was an extreme, imminent, unprovoked threat right on its border. i wonder what proportion of the western public will ever know this?
sonar21.com . good reading on Ukraine
For an in depth view of the Ukie event read Jacques Baud (his qualifications are listed at the end of his article
https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine/
As usual it pans out that UK, USA, Canada, France & NATO armed and trained the Azov crew (102K mercenaries according to Jacques).
Its not all gloom tho as Phiffer has sent some ambulances and bandages as a form of penance?
Butties
Thanks
Thanks for this. As a former intelligence officer working for NATO including in Ukraine Baud clearly knows what he is talking about, unlike I am sorry to say Craig, who alas still seems not to have completely thrown off the somewhat superior outlook engendered by diplomatic service on behalf of English imperialism. What if these Nazis decide to use chemical weapons, equipment and training for which they have already received?
Craig asked “Striving to Make Sense of the Ukraine War”, one could also ask “Striving to Make Sense of the sanctions put on Russia by the west”.
Check this statement today by a top german industrial leader agreeing with more sanctions:
“The full refusal to import Russian gas, which cannot be promptly replaced by other suppliers, would become a huge stress-test for the EU with unforeseen consequences for security of supplies, [economic] growth, jobs and our political ability to act,” he pointed out.
That said, German industrialists support the sanctions line of the federal government and the European Union against Russia, even on introducing an embargo against Russian coal supplies, Russwurm noted. ”
https://tass.com/economy/1433619
Absurd right? Why do west keep shooting itself in the foot?!
Sanctions do not solve anything, it only makes the conflict harder to solve.
Speaking on white and black thinking as Craig point out, west is still stuck in that thinking, I thought that after some weeks with this war west would sober up. Oh how wrong I was, west are bent on regime change, this is something Russia know so why would they back down now?
It’s all sanctions stick and no carrot. Where’s the incentive for Russia to stop or limit its actions?
To be fair, for European industrialists et al, it’s very difficult to express a contrary position while missiles are still flying and our corporate owned TV news media is saturated with graphic images. Images that were conspicuous by their absence in our recent invasions, or when it’s Israel (Gaza) or KSA (Yemen) dishing out the brutal destructive violence.
It’s scary how much influence over western news coverage spooks are exercising these days. The days of clear delimitation/ boundaries with the ‘free’- press being off-limits are clearly over. It was the same with the way they used Syrian ‘incidents’ allowing graphic news coverage often on a loop, repeated ad nauseam, purely to elicit the desired revulsion in audiences and especially in naive politicians.
UK ministers proudly proclaim they are leading the world on sanctions and freezing Russia’s state assets. This is dangerous, we aren’t at war with Russia, so why are we so involved? The MoD intel reports are far from objective too, they revel in Russia’s alleged daily losses ,replete with far too triumphalism for supposedly objective reports.
“This is dangerous, we aren’t at war with Russia, so why are we so involved?”
Because we’ve been Russophobic since the Crimean War or before, as was demonstrated most recently during the Skripal farce.
“We” weren’t Russophobic in 1945 and for years afterwards. In fact Russia was extremely popular particularly amongst former servicemen. One of the reasons for the Labour Party’s great victory in 1945 was that people trusted it to build good relations with Russia. That was one of the great Labour betrayals that have been forgotten.
Sorry, by “we” I meant the government, not the people. The government has always been very wary of the British people getting to know the enemies it chooses for them, as they tend to find out that they are human after all. Hence, most recently, the attempts to discourage football fans going to Russia for the World Cup. What happened in 1945 was exactly what the Establishment had been hoping to prevent.
Sanctions make perfect sense. Firstly, prior to the start of special operation, western leaders made it quite clear that if Russia entered into Ukraine we would impose sanctions like never before. Why complain afterwards?
Freezing of foreign reserves held in western banks/investments: (about 400 billion apparently). Clearly this reduces the amount available to fund war. Money will likely remain frozen even after Russia withdraws as there will be many civil lawsuits to settle – probably won’t be unfrozen until Russia agrees to settling some of these suits and making a significant contribution towards the rebuilding of Ukraine.
Sanctions against hi-tech: Vitally important to stop Russia acquiring night vision / electronics to get its otherwise unusable reserve tank-fleet restored. Not even China will risk breaking this sanction – because China’s chip manufacturers are dependent on western technology to make the machines that make the chips. Also China wants a quick end so won’t do anything that might prolong.
Sanctions against individuals: Should have been done a long time ago. Reforms to stop corruption must come internally from within Russia, so these sanctions won’t stop corruption, but we should at least stop so carelessly rewarding it. Chasing down dirty money is an expensive and difficult business but we need to do it. The USA has the most experience in this matter – for example they have been able to force Swiss banks to clean up their act (at least with regard to tax evasion by US citizens) and have other successes else where. These efforts will always be a drop in the ocean – it took Italy 30+ years to bring their Mafia to heel.
Sanctions against Lavrov’s daughter and other oligarch family members. I would say, before these individuals cry unfair they should just submit bank account statements and agree to be audited to show they have never received any substantial gifts from relatives. These persons should be removed from sanctions as soon as they can show they are clean or are willing to give up assets they have received directly or indirectly from sanctioned individuals / shell companies.
Sanctions against oil/gas. There is no doubt that oil money is a major factor in preventing democracy developing in Russia (also other places that have lots of oil). Mineral extraction creates a lot of wealth in a single entity and so it favors centralized control. Small businesses distribute wealth and create a better environment for democracy to develop. Unfortunately, the west needs oil, so we are forced to support one dictator or another. I would favor an import tax scored on objective measures (threat to global peace, corruption index, environmental impact etc). Few short term solutions here – and the EU won’t sanction oil/gas – the countries that have didn’t have a lot of dependency on Russia.
Numerous companies voluntarily leaving Russia: These businesses are just looking at reality and cutting their losses based on where they think Russia will be in the future. Businesses naturally look to maximize value for their share-holders. The risk/profit equation has changed and sometimes it is better to just call it quits.
Regime change: Not really – there is no logical alternative to Putin and his successor is very unlikely to be an improvement. This isn’t just Putin’s war. I don’t think the west has any hope of achieving a significant change in the way Russia is run – its an internal problem, that ultimately Russia must solve for itself. For many reasons, the future looks bleak for Russia – although Russia will likely blame the west, the reality is most of its problems are internal and self inflicted – the west has a poor track record on nation building. Putin is an a trap where strong leadership was required to reign in the oligarchs, but is still unable to fix endemic corruption / transfer power to a younger and softer generation. This is not the wests or NATO’s fault. Smaller and more manageable countries like Ukraine/Belarus will find their own way. Poland and Slovakia have come a long way since leaving the soviet union – this is their own accomplishment and not the result of the wests meddling. [Strangely Russian propaganda is talking about a united Eurasia from Vladivostok to Lisbon – wouldn’t it be easier to just join the EU instead of this special operation of conquest???]
Nobody’s complaining about the sanctions, as they don’t have much effect on a self-sufficient Russia.
The likely coming ones on equipment for oil & gas extraction will. Great post Andrew.
A country that can make rockets and a space station is going to have no trouble making the required equipment for oil and gas extraction. Just because it was quicker, easier and cheaper to buy things from abroad than make them in Russia doesn’t mean that the ability to make them is not there. In any case, who is going to be hit hardest if supplies of gas and oil from Russia dry up, Russia, who will be losing out on roubles from abroad, of which it can always print infinite amounts, or their customers in the West, who will be cold and stationary?
Thanks for your reply Bayard. We’ve been through this on a previous thread. As I stated there, modern oil & gas extraction is highly sophisticated. North Korea can build rockets. Has it been able to exploit its offshore oil resources (even with a bit of help from small Western companies)? Nope. Russia’s manufacturing sector is tiny compared to most comparable-sized economies.
I agree with you that if natural gas exports from Russia cease, much of Europe will be ****ed. This is why Germany will almost certainly not be able to meet its commitment to reduce dependence on Russian gas by two-thirds by the end of the year – it’s already beginning to backslide on that. But this is also why the US will ban exports of oil & gas extraction equipment to Russia, so that the supplies to Europe eventually dry up anyway, forcing Europe to buy mainly US LNG at a massive premium.
North Korea can build rockets. Has it been able to exploit its offshore oil resources (even with a bit of help from small Western companies)? Nope.
North Korea is tiny compared to the RF, so that’s not a valid comparison. Anyway there could be a 1001 reasons why N Korea hasn’t been able to exploit its offshore oil resources, beginning with geology and ending with government incompetence.
“Russia’s manufacturing sector is tiny compared to most comparable-sized economies.”
How much of a manufacturing sector do you need to make a few spare parts for the oil and gas industries? You don’t need anything special to make these, certainly not anything that you wouldn’t already have to build your rockets.
“But this is also why the US will ban exports of oil & gas extraction equipment to Russia, so that the supplies to Europe eventually dry up anyway, forcing Europe to buy mainly US LNG at a massive premium.”
Well that certainly seems a good reason for them to have pushed Germany into not commissioning Nordstream 2, but whether the sanctions on equipment will have that effect is very doubtful. I doubt if the US care much one way or the other about the gas. However, the main buyers of Russian oil are the US themselves and, if you look at the figures, you will see that they are going to find it very difficult if they have to try and source that oil from elsewhere.
Thanks again for your reply Bayard. North Korea has 26 million people, many of whom can provide expendable slave labour. Its leadership has managed to build the atom bomb, in spite of considerable sanctions specifically designed to stop them being able to do this. Their offshore oil resources are not shale – Western oil majors would easily be able to recover large amounts of the black stuff.
Russia may have sophisticated production lines for building rocket engines, but it doesn’t have them for building parts for directional drilling equipment etc. Sure, some simple spare parts could be made by Russia, but not many.
US natural gas frackers and, by extension, their lobbyists would certainly like US & EU companies to get into a bidding war over their main product. Anyway, let’s have a look at the figures on Russian oil exports then:
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51618
So it seems as if the US doesn’t buy most (or even very much relatively) of Russia’s crude oil & condensate – not surprisingly as it’s currently producing over 16 million barrels a day of the stuff itself.
“Russia may have sophisticated production lines for building rocket engines, but it doesn’t have them for building parts for directional drilling equipment etc. Sure, some simple spare parts could be made by Russia, but not many.”
You really don’t know much about engineering, do you? If you are not going to be making thousands of something, which you are not going to be doing with rocket engines, it is not worth building a production line. If you don’t have a production line, the machine tools you use are the same machine tools that any engineering operation would use, lathes, milling machines, drills, or a CNC machine that does all those things. If you have the tools and the skills to make one precision item, you can make another, whether it is going in a rocket engine or a directional drilling rig.
Thanks again for your reply Bayard. When I said production lines, I didn’t mean literal conveyor belts like in biscuit factories – but they’re still production lines. I may not have a degree in engineering, but I know enough to realise that rocket engines aren’t made in rustic workshops by the local artisan who can turn his hand to pretty much anything – or so the villagers say. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that they are and that he can. Are the same alloys used in parts for rocket engines and oil rigs?
Again, if you have the ability to make one alloy, you can make others. If you have the facilities to machine one alloy you can machine others. I’m not talking about the village blacksmith, I’m talking about specialist engineering works, factories that can make anything in small quantities that can be made from a machinable alloy of aluminium or steel, the sort of engineering works that currently makes parts for the oil industry in the West, a few of one component one week, then a different component the next. Something like this: https://edmgroupltd.com/specialist/specialist-engineering/
Thanks for your reply Bayard. In second century BC(E) Asia Minor, the Hittites could essentially make carbon steel. I doubt whether they could make 2095 aluminium. A less facetious point: Chinese companies can make smartphones that rival the latest iPhones, but they can’t make turbofans with anywhere near the spec of ones made by Rolls-Royce, GE etc yet, despite having much financial incentive to do so.
Thanks too for the link. I note that’s a British company, and not a Russian one. Western engineering companies – and SMEs in general – have had to become much more lean, more flexible, more technologically capable and more customer-orientated in order to survive these last few decades. I doubt that applies quite as much to Russian companies, many of which largely rely on government defence contracts.
Anyway, it’s clear that I haven’t convinced you, or maybe any readers of this exchange. Never mind – the only way we’ll likely find out for sure who’s right is if the war in Ukraine (and thus the sanctions) drags on for years. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
“A less facetious point: Chinese companies can make smartphones that rival the latest iPhones, but they can’t make turbofans with anywhere near the spec of ones made by Rolls-Royce, GE etc yet, despite having much financial incentive to do so.”
You don’t appear to know much about international trade either. When a country imports, it pays for something tangible, the imported goods, with something intangible, its fiat currency. This is true whether the importing country is China or the UK. We buy a hell of a lot of stuff from China. That means that China ends up with a hell of a lot of our fiat currency. What can it do with it except spend it in the UK? Therefore they spend it in the UK buying turbofans from Rolls Royce. There is no point in developing the technology to make good turbofans when you can buy them from the UK using the otherwise useless sterling that the UK has paid you with for all the stuff it buys off you. So in fact, the financial incentive works the other way. The Opium Wars are a good example of what happens when you have one-sided trade.
Thanks again for your reply Bayard. Chinese people with tourist visas are perfectly entitled to spend their Great British pounds in Bicester or anywhere else in the UK. However, they can also exchange them for gold in many places all over the world. Anyway, why don’t they just make high-end turbofans instead of, say, Tesco Christmas cards, then they won’t have to buy them from Rolls-Royce?
Except Russia isn’t bring left alone to perfect its society, is it? It is being relentlessly harassed by a hostile military alliance squatting on its borders. If you were genuine your screeds would make some acknowledgement of this. Same applies to Lapsed Agnostic.
Russia isn’t being relentlessly harassed by the West, UWatt. Until recently, there were hardly any NATO troops in the Baltics, for example, just the (tiny) armed forces of those respective countries.
US and UK special services have been training and supplying the NATO Nazis for years not only with missiles but also chemical weapons. Moreover it is NATO spy planes and drones that command Ukrainian artillery and missiles
Let us see how many ‘advisers’ may have been caught in Mariopul. Difficult to believe these Nazis would not use chemical weapons. Even more difficult to invisage the Russian response.
Thanks for your reply, Mr Lowrie. I’m fairly sure that UK & US special forces haven’t been supplying the Ukrainians with chemical weapons, and that NATO doesn’t currently have any spy planes in Ukrainian airspace. Now why would Western top brass leave special forces ensconced in Mariupol with Azov? Do they need them there to show them how to fight in vicious battles? Of course the answer is no because they’re ****ing Azov.* All UK SOF did was train them how to use the free NLAWs weeks ago and then they left – and in the unlikely event that you want to know what I thought of that, read my comments on previous threads. I doubt whether Azov & co have any chemical weapons. Anyway, in general, CW aren’t very effective, particularly against protected troops. If they were, they wouldn’t have been banned.
* Have you read about forty-something Olena “The time will come when we can properly venerate Hitler” Bilozerska, who no doubt most of Azov regard as a bleeding-heart liberal-leftie teacher innit? Still, I bet she can control most of her classes.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10477277/Ukraines-deadliest-female-sniper-10-confirmed-kills-vows-Putin-again.html
The first point re: freezing of foreign currency reserves – Russia pays for its army and their weaponry, supplies, etc in roubles, not dollars or euro. The foreign reserves freeze will not affect this military spending at all.
Russia can create as many roubles as it needs, and if there is a threat of inflation as a result, it would no doubt sell war bonds to its population to soak up the excess currency.
That’s exactly what the US did in WWll; it never needed the dollars, which it created at will, it just needed to hoover up the excess to prevent inflation – and in a war it’s no problem selling war bonds if you dress the sale up as the population’s patriotic duty to buy them.
No doubt some bright spark will reply, “Special Military Operation” bonds, so I’ll get in there first!
“Why complain afterwards?”
Because they are having a worse effect on those imposing them than those they are imposed on. No one, except you, is complaining that they were unexpected. Straw man.
“Freezing of foreign reserves held in western banks/investments”
See Mr Shigemitsu’s reply. Also this has had the effect of making Russia demand payment in roubles, strengthening the rouble.
“Sanctions against hi-tech: Not even China will risk breaking this sanction – because China’s chip manufacturers are dependent on western technology to make the machines that make the chips”
Since when do US sanctions apply to Russia? Do you really think that the US would jeopardise its own supply of high-tech from China simply to enforce a sanction on a third country. The Yanks can be stupid, but not that stupid.
“Sanctions against individuals: Sanctions against Lavrov’s daughter and other oligarch family members.”
The expression “fart in a thunderstorm” springs to mind.
“Numerous companies voluntarily leaving Russia”
Well, yes, foreign companies are leaving Russia because their home governments have told them they are not to trade with Russia. Doesn’t look very voluntary to me. I am sure their Russian competitors will be delighted. The Russians will be a lot better off without a host of foreign companies sending all their profits abroad.
“[Strangely Russian propaganda is talking about a united Eurasia from Vladivostok to Lisbon – wouldn’t it be easier to just join the EU instead of this special operation of conquest???]”
All attempts by Russia to join the EU have been rebuffed.
Remember, the ‘sanctions’ are aimed at Europe.
Not so much shooting yourself in the foot as chopping both feet off. Take that, evil Putin! Russia can buy and sell everything it needs to elsewhere.
Here’s a video by Boris to the Russian people following the atrocities in Bucha:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HeFAG6Go6E
Here’s a fact check by a German website:
https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-atrocities-in-bucha-not-staged/a-61366129
A joke for the times. A Russian military interrogator in Bucha asks a suspect saboteur: ‘Which of my eyes is artificial? Guess correctly and I might let you go.’ The suspect replies ‘The left one.’ ‘How did you guess?’, marvels the interrogator. ‘It has a kindly look about it.’
Here’s a story of a brave Russian woman teacher facing jail for not toeing the offcial line, something that wouldn’t happen in the free country where this is published:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/russian-teacher-shocked-as-she-faces-jail-over-anti-war-speech-pupils-taped
Слава Україні!
“Here’s a video by Boris..”
That’s not the best introduction, a video by a man whose chief claim to fame is his complete disregard of the truth. If Boris is saying it, it is more likely to be a lie than not.
“Here’s a story of a brave Russian woman teacher facing jail for not toeing the offcial line, something that wouldn’t happen in the free country where this is published:”
and here’s a story of a brave Scottish journalist who was put in jail for not toeing the official line, something that some people assert wouldn’t happen in the free country where this is published:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/02/appeal-against-imprisonment-for-journalism-wednesday-23-february/
I still don’t think that Europe and Nato believe the Russians, when they say they won’t allow nuclear missiles to be based on their borders. Ukraine is not the end of the matter. Nato membership by Poland and Bulgaria won’t stop an instant Russian attack on any bases there about to go nuclear. As Russia said, no Nato nukes on any of its its borders, very clear and up front.
US would be quite happy to limit nuclear war to Europe. Russia I am afraid will beg to differ.
The problem with this is you are stating that it’s ok for countries with nukes to prevent others from acquiring them. Why should Russia or the USA, who already have nukes, have any right to determine that other countries cannot have them. In the same way people are stating that Russia has its right to have a sphere of influence just as the USA does with its Monroe doctrine. The truth is that neither Russia nor USA should have that right.
The reality is that as soon as a country acquires nukes they get a much more prominent place at the geopolitical negotiating table and it effectively removes war on that country as a realistic threat. I am not saying I would want Ukraine or Iran or other countries to have nukes but what right does a country with nukes have to deny another country having them?
It is not Wikikettle who has come up with that doctrine.
It is enshrined in several international treaties limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.
I believe that it is also publicly the position of both Rumania and Poland that they will not develop or acquire nuclear weapons.
Both the US and the UK have claimed that Iran, for example, should not be allowed nuclear weapons. And there are longstanding sanctions against the Korean socialist republic because it developed nuclear weapons.
Exactly. India, Pakistan & Israel acquired nuclear weapons without “permission” from the USSR or the USA.
John Kinsella, the evidence is pretty strong that Lyndon Johnson and his administration assisted Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Ukraine signed an agreement not to have nuclear weapons. It’s called the Budapest Memorandum. Which Zealously recently indicated a will to abrogate, in a speech delivered with Kamala Harris in attendance. Less than a week before Russia attacked.
Once again Boris Johnson accuses Russia of war crimes (the Russian government have vehemently denied them) without an enquiry, or any due process whatsoever, remember when the same liar accused Russia approx one day after the Skripal affair and was responsible (with T May) for issuing Russia with the demand that they ‘come clean’ and admit their guilt within 24 hours or action will be taken. The chemical weapons treaty gives the accused side 14 days to respond, and for the purposes of due process an indication of the evidence, (non this was forthcoming) now. Now it is assumed the Skripals are dead. Diplomats were expelled from the UK and other parts of Europe. No doubt this was one of the provocations directed at Russia by the US through the UK FCO and all the years of provocation by the political elite in the US. Russia will have the last laugh.
Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn was a lone voice calling for due process under law – and reviled for it. Because when it comes to the rule of law the only rule is that America’s will shall prevail. So we have the perpetrator of mass murder on virtually every continent pretending to be the (self appointed) global policeman and claiming the right to extinguish its rival for behaving no differently from itself. And liberals support its claim. This is not justice. This corrupts the rule of law. It endangers us all.
You forgot to mention the story of the brave Australian who published a true account of war crimes. But is now rotting in Belmarsh prison… soon to be deported to the US, the perpetrator of the verified war crimes..
An extract from a biography of Stepan Bandera c 1942. There are are umpteen more gruesome examples. The Ukrainians in question are nationalist policemen collaborating with the Germans, who had rounded up about 300 Jews into a bathhouse and proceeded to torture them. There were only 3 survivors. The more I read about Ukraine nationalism the more I doubt if the mindset has changed. That “Bucha” was not an Ukrainian act should not be discounted.
“The Ukrainians mistreated us until the morning hours. Their disgraceful deeds culminated in their taking an old Jew from the row, who kept a big book in his hand, a Gemarah, which he read. They ordered him to put the book on the floor, to step on it, and to dance a Chasidic dance on it. At first he refused, but finally they forced him, while heavily beating him. He began dancing when the Ukrainians around him beat him; they accompanied his dance with cheers. Then they sat him on the floor and lit his beard, but the beard did not burn. While some Ukrainians experimented with his beard, others took six Jews with beards from our rows, put them next to the old one and also lit their beards. At first the beards burned, but then the fire sprang on the clothes, and the Jews burned to death in front of us. … The Ukrainians continued their mistreatment. They took from our row a deaf Jew who was bald. His head was their target. They threw against him bath devices made from metal and wood. The competition finished soon, as the head of the deaf man was shot into two parts and his brain flew on his clothes and the floor. There was a Jew with a crooked foot. The Ukrainians tried to straighten it by force. The Jew screamed loudly, but they did not succeed. They were busy with the straightening of this foot until they broke it. The Jew did not stand up again, probably because his heart was broken as well”.
— Rossolinski-Liebe, Grzegorz. Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Fascist: Facism, Genocide, and Cult (p. 256).
Worse things were going on in Germany in 1942, does that mean they deserve to be invaded too?
The Germans don’t glorify their past, like the Ukrainians do. Germans have learned from the past, Ukrainians haven’t. So, no there is no need to invade Germany at this time.
Ahem…..I think you’ll find that Germany was indeed invaded!
And it deserved no less.
Yes Bandera, what a heinous man, what is horrible is that liberals in the west now cover up for this man and his political views and crimes. But no western liberal would accept such a roma-pole-russian-jew-killing-nazi person like him, to be supported in their own nations!
By the way, one can download that book for free (and legally) below:
https://archive.org/details/GrzegorzRossolinskiLiebeStepanBanderaTheLifeAndAfterlifeOfAUkrainianNationalist2014
But that is exactly what they are doing. By supporting the US pawn Navalny, a proven racist, for example.
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Thank you Craig.
Not everyone likes Orban here but again, if we are going to stop looking at things black/white, one must appreciate this move by Hungary:
Hungary proposes summit on Ukraine
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday that he has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet the leaders of France, Germany and Ukraine in Budapest, urging the Russian leader to declare an immediate ceasefire in the ongoing military conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Open hostilities broke out when Russia attacked its neighbor, in late February.
https://www.rt.com/news/553402-orban-invites-putin-peace/
This is how it should be done, the involved parties to sit down and talk to solve their issues diplomatically.
Unfortunately Jack the main actors here are the Biden administration and President Putin, the others you mentioned are US vassals Schultz and Macron made many visits and calls to President Putin to no avail, he realized that meeting them was a waste of time since the US are the decision makers, Zelensky is also just a puppet. The US are not interested in talks or deals at this time they are in the process of provocation and using the Ukies as cannon fodder. Just before the Russian intervention Zelensky was informed by the US that NATO membership is out of the question but to keep up the pretence that membership was still open. Stoltenberg also confirmed just before the Russian intervention that yes NATO membership was still open. These quite cynical moves condemned Ukraine to be destroyed.
You really think that Putin will leave his bunker & travel to a NATO country where the tables are often less than 10 metres long?
Thank you for this article.. It’s one of the most balanced I’ve read so far, dealing with this vastly complex issue, tied in with so many others which you mention and which call for us to move beyond binary thinking in an attempt to embrace the complexity and come to terms with the horrors playing out.
Fantastically well written piece sent to me by my wife who swears by your wisdom in these matters. Thanks Craig for sharing your knowledge and insights with us ✊?
Thank you for another fantastic article, Craig. It’s great to have you back! I hope you rewarded yourself with a large Lagavulin.
I’d be interested to know what you think of Scott Ritter’s analysis of the military situation – it’s considerably different from your own – and I wonder whether you believe it may have any merit?
Also, are you familiar with Patrick Lancaster’s reporting from the Donbass region at all?
Scott Ritter’s analysis changes every week to match the situation on the ground. On 4th March it was all over for Ukraine, the vastly superior Russian army was moving at lightning speed, the Ukrainian defence forces were already beaten, their command centres and warehouses destroyed, communications jammed and it was all going to be over in less than a week. According to his latest Tweets this beaten, wreck of an army has somehow in less than a month been transformed into a cohesive, well disciplined, well equipped force 600,000 strong which is going to require some cunning manoeuvring to defeat.
Patrick Lancaster. Embedded with Russian forces and his carefully scripted reports always sem to find what ever he’s looking for. Odd that.
There are a lot of false assumptions baked into your assessment of the Russian military effort in Ukraine. In reality they’re doing just fine. The entire ‘failed’ offensives in the northern parts of the country were never real attempts at capturing territory. They were feints to tie up significant portions of the Ukrainian military, while destroying their infrastructure and their heavy weapons. Now Russia can finish up the Ukrainian Donbass front largely unmolested by relief forces. In the south they secured a generous amount of territory north of Crimea, which Russia actually does need to secure a safe water supply, fairly easily, and have secured the coast up to Donbass. The hardest fight has been in Mariupol, which they went into fully expecting to have to level.
(And by the way, no, that Russian convoy was not stopped by heroic Ukrainians on quad bikes. It sat for a week, largely unmolested, as a potential threat that forced Ukraine to commit more forces to guard Kiev, before it was dispersed on to other tasks. Some of it went on to be part of the forces that kept Ukrainian troops occupied for weeks while pretending to encircle the city, and the rest simply drove right back to Belarus)
Russia has done all of this while intentionally restraining themselves, largely in the hope of avoiding significant civilian casualties (and I don’t care if anyone believes me when I say that or not. If Russia wanted to practice total war, they could have just obliterated every Ukrainian position with indiscriminate MLRS barrages). Western media can pretend Russia has lost a thousand tanks and 30,000 troops, that the mythical Ghost of Kiev has shot down half the Russian air force, or whatever nonsense fictions they want to spin today. American media cannot comprehend that not just carpet bombing every city and town can be a legitimate strategy. But you can be sure the intelligence agencies of the world have a much clearer picture of actual events.
Russian units and hardware are performing more than adequately. One of the interesting things about this war is that the Russian forces inside Ukraine (who at no point haven’t been significantly outnumbered by the Ukrainian forces, by the way. The majority of the Russian forces positioned on the borders of Ukraine have still not been committed) are largely second-tier units with outdated hardware. It doesn’t particularly matter if Russia loses some Cold War vintage T-80Us, since they’re outdated and slated for retirement anyway. It would be a bit like the US invading Mexico with troops equipped with old M60 tanks.
Unironically, I fully believe the narrative that Russia has been giving since day one, that this isn’t a war of conquest and instead is a ‘special military operation’ aimed at demilitarization and denazification. They couldn’t just reinforce Donbass because that isn’t a permanent solution. Only a neutral, demilitarized Ukraine will have any hope of bringing a lasting peace. Russia will likely keep territory north of Crimea, and the coast up to Donbass, and Donbass itself will probably join the Russian Federation. Kiev can keep the rest.
One wonders how the media, full of highly rewarded professional reporters misses what you tell us. It wasn’t that they were covering Alex Salmond’s defence. Or re-evaluating the sex non-charges laid against Julian Assange.
It must have been because there isn’t a news outlet in the country that will publish such plain, unvarhished and perfectly obvious truths.
Thank you Soredemos.
«It must have been because there isn’t a news outlet in the country that will publish such plain, unvarhished and perfectly obvious truths.»
My usual quote from over 70 years ago:
G. Orwell, 1945:
“There is no one who is able to say – at least, no one who has the chance to say in a newspaper of big circulation – that this whole dirty game of spheres of influence, quislings, purges, deportation, one-party elections and hundred per cent plebiscites is morally the same whether it is done by ourselves, the Russians or the Nazis.”
Another relevant quote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME
“I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”
Just how can Russia properly de-militarize and de-Nazify Ukraine unless it controls the whole country? They’ll just re-group in areas not under Russian control. Sorry but the ‘everything going to plan’ fantasy isn’t convincing.
Since most of the Ukrainian army was in the east, and specifically on the Donbass front, preparing to assault Donbass, very easily. The biggest grouping of Nazis is being mopped up in Mariupol right now, and a huge amount of the heavy Ukrainian equipment has already been destroyed or captured. And they can’t regroup if they can’t move, which at this point, with so many fuel depots destroyed and the country under Russian air control, they can’t to any significant degree.
“this isn’t a war of conquest” …. “Russia will likely keep territory north of Crimea”.
– those two statements are contradictory.
Crimea has been Russian since 1783. Before that it was under Turkish suzerainty, and before that part of the Byzantine empire.
I should have said ‘of total conquest’.The mainstream narrative is that Russia has been trying to conquer the whole country, and was defeated outside the gates of Kiev by plucky civilians with molotovs.
Russia will keep enough north of Crimea to ensure a safe water supply (one of the first things the Russian forces did in this war was to secure and then blow up the dam Ukraine petulantly built to stop water flow to Crimea in 2014), and keep the coast to secure a land route between Donbass and Crimea. If Kiev is lucky it’ll be allowed to keep Odessa as a sea port.
There are more arms in Ukraine now than ever before, so I’m not understanding the demilitarization part. Even Shoigu seems to be getting frustrated by the endless flow of weopons into Ukraine. One might also have noticed that a lot of the released videos demonstrate Ukraine’s own Stugna-P antitank system, including this demonstration of how it can double as a surface to air missile. (https://twitter.com/Guardian_Mario/status/1511307187544633345?cxt=HHwWgsC9waf4nvkpAAAA). Why so many videos for Stugna-P compared with Turkish Bayraktar? Could it perhaps be a hidden advertising campaign? What’s the plan to get rid of Ukraine’s budding defense industry?
“There are more arms in Ukraine now than ever before, “
How do you know that? Are you in Ukraine, or are you just relying on what you are told by the likes of the BBC?
Even if that is true, it makes a big difference where in Ukraine all these arms are. Are they, like every reporter in the MSM, thousands of miles away from the action, in west Ukraine?
Not of heavy weapons there aren’t.
Probably because after some initial successes the Bayraktars keep getting shot down in droves.
reading a rag like the Guardian can send you spinning Andrew, contradictions guaranteed, a copy and paste service for the MI’s that guards nothing, especially not free speech.
Pears Morgaine,
Patrick Lancaster’s reports are clearly not scripted. You are either a shill or have no idea what you are speaking about. I speak Russian and can testify to the fact that the Russian speaking Ukrainians featured in his interviews are completely genuine and speaking off the cuff.
What you think of Scott Ritter’s analysis is up to you. You can agree or disagree (I have no idea whether what he is saying is accurate or not, though I’m sure time will tell), but what you have just done is completely misrepresent his position and the things that he is saying.
Bearing all this in mind, I don’t believe you are being at all sincere- it appears you are simply trying to denigrate sources that do not confirm your position.