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.
————————————————-
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
One of my old friends once remarked that Brits and Russians, it seems, always think and work at cross-purposes. In a sense, it is in the genes, even if the “genes” in this case happened to belong to a Scottish nationalist.
I wish to thank Mr. Murray for this reasonably honest – considering his background of a “professional enemy of everything Russian” and his unquestionable underlining loyalties – text. As it was long time ago, during Mr. Murray’s forays in Uzbekistan, while I can see and explain his definite and quite avoidable mistakes and, perhaps, understand his conscious self-imposed limits on what and how he may permit himself to say or even think, still I, somewhere deep inside, feel an everlasting admiration and respect for the man despite of his follies. Even when what he says about the extent of the Nazi control over all aspects of the Ukrainian society, army and its clown of a President is an understatement, to say the least, or when he clearly misrepresents the Russians and the motives of their President in this Ukrainian affair.
Permit me a few remarks in relation to the content, though. First – fascism/Nazism controls the society from inside and is never going to be replaced in a peaceful “democratic” manner because such fascism is the “western” current version of the “democracy” in its purified form. Second, I believe it was a conscious mistake of the author to ascribe an absolute control of everything – and that includes and especially concerns alleged “political” murders – in Russia to a single man ( Putin.) I believe Mr. Murray himself wrote something about “Putin hacked my speedometer” not long ago. Third, the real reasons of the current events in Ukraine are in the sphere of global economy and absolutely not only in the Putin’s head. And it is this war we are in now, not just a small fascist state of Ukraine.
And one more – it occurs to me that the parallel with the Finnish War may be extended somewhat deeper, if we look to the what followed. And that was the invasion of Russia by the entire Europe – yes, entire Europe, happily working on the Hitler’s side, with exception of perhaps, Serbia, and perhaps, rather by political accident – Britain.
Our excellent host is a “professional enemy of everything Russian”? Has he transitioned into Louise Mensch? “Putin hacked my speedometer”? Why don’t you put the crack-pipe down before it burns your hands Alex?
To be absolutely honest, I’m both sad and surprised that a person with Craig’s obvious intelligence, experience, education, sophistication and critical eye, should swallow western propaganda about the awful events in Ukraine and the complex and controversial context surrounding them. It’s almost as if he suddenly turned on a sixpence and accepted the state’s persecution of Julian Assange as legitimate and right! Why would the state be any more ‘honest’ about what’s happening in Ukraine, which is infinitely more important, than about the Assange Affair? Why would the journalists, who regularly lie about Assange, suddenly become ‘champions of truth’ about the war in Ukraine?
Craig has hedged very carefully since February 24 but even so has been relentlessly smeared by aggro centrists and Sturgeon ultras as a Putin puppet/ apologist. They are desperate to decisively discredit and cancel him as an establishment critic. Do not force him to put his head into their trap.
When you have to choose between a frontal attack and war of attrition on one hand and prostituting your integrity on the other its not much of a choice but the consequences. Robert Stuarrt chose the frontal attack against COMbbc lies and won but it took about four years. Craig can easily do the same; hiding behind fear of smear is a cop out.
Anybody who wants to disagree with me and explain their views is very welcome here. But anybody who wants to come here and accuse me of bad faith and arguing from hidden motives can fuck off and never come back.
How you can have read this blog over any period of time and not noticed I condemned Russian annexation of Crimea and South Ossetia I have no idea. A constant major theme of this blog is support for international law. The invasion of Ukraine is very, very plainly illegal.
Whilst I agree, in principle, with Craig’s views on the ‘illegal’ nature of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, or, invasion, if one prefers; the very concept and structure of ‘international law’ have been systematically trashed and undermined by powerful western nations for decades, so that, in reality, it now only exists as rhetoric. This is, to say the least, unfortunate, disturbing, and has awful consequences going forward.
International Law was a good idea, but like much else beloved of liberals, it’s over, part of history. It’s been replaced by Power instead. This is regrettable, but it’s happened and I don’t believe we’re ever going back there in my lifetime. So, today, might makes right. I wish it wasn’t so. It’s sad. The era of traditional… bourgeois democracy is over, replaced by the strong, national security state.
Talking about ‘legality’ is almost quaint, considering the kind of world we live in and the road towards ‘liberal totalitarianism’ we’re on. Things aren’t going to get better. Decades ago, was as good as it gets, as good as it’s ever going to be. For decades we’ve been moving in one direction in the West, away from the bauble of liberal democracy and towards another form of state, really, I suppose, a new kind of fascism, where the state and the giant corporations intertwine like two giant snakes towering over the rest of society.
WW3 has begun and it’s only going to get worse. Europe is castrating itself and Germany is destroying its economy, defeated once again, like a true vassal state, for the third time in a century, put firmly in its place and this time the British and Americans didn’t even need to fire a shot.
@Michael, maybe it’s less about swallowing Western propaganda and more about being swayed by an increasing mass of evidence of Russian atrocities.
Unfortunately the “increasing mass of evidence of Russian atrocities” is indistinguishable from “Western propaganda”. What was that saying about ducks again?
Bayard, did you see today’s report about Ukrainian soldiers caught on video shooting a Russian prisoner?
I’m going to take a wild guess and say you think that’s a genuine video, but the thousands of images showing Russian atrocities are fake, every single one.
Am I right?
No. I don’t know why you think you have the power to tell a fake video from a real one, simply on the basis of its content, but I don’t and any piece of video “evidence” you cite is equally likely to be fake as any other. That’s what I meant by “indistinguishable”. It’s not true just because you agree with it or want it to be true to prove a point you are trying to make. The comments to this post are cluttered up with.those of the, “Your sources are lying, but my sources are telling the truth” type when, unless you have actually been there and seen the things on which you pronounce for yourself, you have no idea about their genuineness.
Bayard, I didn’t say I have the power. It’s the pro-Putin posters who claim to have the power. I tend to give more credence to
So no, I don’t have a special power, but I have critical faculties that can be used to weigh evidence.
1. Images cost almost nothing to produce, the number of them is irrelevant. If you can fake one, you can fake a thousand with very little more effort. You are confusing quantity with quality.
2. Do you know these withnesses? If not, how do you know they are telling the truth? Again the quantity is not relevant. Repeat a lie often enough and it will believed, but it still isn’t the truth.
3. Indeed you are. Why don’t you. Then you will really know what is going on. I would be very interested to see a report from an independent observer who can be seen to be actually in eastern Ukraine on the front line and not just in Lviv, hundreds of miles from the fighting.
4. Of course there will be civilian casualties, or “collateral damage” as it is called when we cause them. That doesn’t mean that every video or report of the deliberate killing of civilains by Russian troops is a fake. It is likely that many if not the vast majority of the civilian casualties caused by the Russians are the result of the Ukranian government handing out weapons to untrained civilians. It has been well known for over a thousand years that untrained civilians make useless soldiers and are much more likely to get themselves killed than kill any of the enemy. What makes you think that any government, let alone the Ukrainian government, gives a shit about its people? Civilian casualties are useful ammunition in the propaganda war. In any case, unless you believe that the Russians are shooting civilians for the hell of it, becasue that’s what they do, because they are untermensch, why would they?
You seem to have a very naive view of the realities of conflict. Just who are these disgruntled civilians going to complain to? The MSM of the West? They’re not interested, The Russians? How do they get hold of them? Furthermore, just how long do you think these people would stay alive after they had made their complaint?
“Ukraine is a free country” – again, how do you know? Do you know any Ukranians? The UK is supposed to be a free country, but they have still locked up Julian Assange without trial for years and the suicide rate amongst those who would poke their noses into areas the state does not wish investigated is very high.
I’ll take your word that you have critical facilities, but unquestioning belief of anything you cannot personally verify suggests that they are being under-used. Both sides have the opportunity, but the Ukrainians have far more motive. Russia isn’t trying to win the propaganda war, like Millwall supporters, they know that nobody likes them and they don’t care. Therefore, logically, it is much more likely that the Ukranians are lying than the Russians, and that would be true whoever was fighting.
Bayard, it’s easy to win an argument by putting absurd arguments into your opponent’s mouth, as your replies to me repeatedly do. Of course I don’t dislike Russians. It’s Putin who seems to have such contempt for Russians, happy to send young Russian sons to be slaughtered to satisfy his Hitler-like obsessions/delusions about Russia’s nationalist destiny. I hope one day Putin’s grip on Russia’s media is broken, and Russians are free to read independent reporting of what is happening in Ukraine without fear of imprisonment simply for disagreeing with the old lunatic cowering in his bunker.
Neil? stop being an apologist to the right wing MSm, regurgitating this ‘Hitler like’ meme over and over again is so boring.
Do you hope that multiple amplification of such tripe will work here?
Why dont you take Putin on to a dojo and ask him?
an increasing mass of MSM lies. did you miss the story from NBC
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014
love the headline “in a break with the past”. presumably the past of lying about incubator babies and wmd’s and fake attacks in Douma. seems more like an homage than a break.
My problem is, I don’t see an increasing mass of evidence of Russian atrocities, outside of the western media, which as we all know, isn’t really free and is under state/corporate control. There is, in contrast to events in Ukraine, a mass of evidence that this is true, the almost total corruption of the western media.
f’
Well you’re not going to see anything about it in the unfree, state controlled Russian media are you?
Michael, out of interest, why do you place more trust in Russian media than Western media?
In the Western media, videos have surfaced of Ukrainians killing unarmed Russian prisoners. Videos of Russians shooting Ukrainian civilians are not shown on Russian media. Does that not suggest to you that Western media is more free and Russian media more censored? You even face prison for calling it a “war” in Russia. That proves how controlled the narrative is in Russia. How can you possibly expect to get the truth from Russian media?
There is no ‘increasing mass of evidence of Russian atrocities. Also, why would they do such things? No, seriously, why? Unless you just reflexively believe Russians are beastly subhumans who subsist on blood and not food, the type of stuff they’ve been accused of is pretty damn laughable. Yeah, right, I’m totally sure they just decided to gun down 400+ people (in a town Ukraine said all Russian troops had left four days before the supposed massacre, no less).
Soredemos,
“There is no ‘increasing mass of evidence of Russian atrocities”
Yes there is. You might as well say the sky is not blue. The war itself is a Russian atrocity. You can keep denying it, but the world can see the truth. Russia mocked the world for predicting an invasion, saying it was an absurd lie spread by the West, then promptly invaded. No one trusts Russia anymore. It’s a shame for ordinary Russians, to be poisoned by their Mafia government in this way, but it’s a bigger shame for Ukrainian men women and children having their lives destroyed by some fascist nutjob in the Kremlin.
They will have mostly just been kids, Soredemos – kids from not particularly loving homes, kids who’ve been brutalised by the Russian Army – possibly some of whom have been pimped out by their officers – but, for the first time in their lives, they’ll be kids who are facing the very real prospect of death or serious injury – and they have access to vodka and fully-automatic assault rifles.
In the UK, we don’t even let pillars of the community, justices of the peace etc own even semi-automatic assault rifles, let alone kids – nevertheless, some teenagers in the less touristy parts of our green and pleasant land can still get hold of them. It often doesn’t end particularly well.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/vdzmkm/mersey-infanticide-219-v15n9
Satellite pictures appear to show that the bodies were lying on the road in Bucha around March 20th. The Russians claim that they’re fake.
Ukraine can’t even get their propaganda claims straight. Were they fresh bodies, or had they been lying in the streets for ~2 weeks? And why did the mayor of Bucha make no note of any massacre when he announced the town free of Russians? And why were no corpses seen on the video the Ukrainian military put out of their troops patrolling the newly freed town?
Thanks for your reply Soredemos. I guess some people had been killed fairly recently, others weeks ago. I agree that the mayor’s broadcast seems a bit sus, but he might just not have known about the bodies at the time, or he might have been told not to mention them while the Ukrainians were formulating their collective response.
Got gifted this paywall pass article from the WP. If things have been staged, the Ukies have certainly gone to town. (Warning: contains very graphic images and details.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/06/bucha-barbarism-atrocities-russian-soldiers/
Looks like I might have been wrong about the drunk teens. German intelligence are saying it was Wagner Group. It would certainly be ‘on brand’ for them – bringing a bit of the Central African Republic to northwest Ukraine, though sadly not the weather.
It’s almost as if you hadn’t read his detailed, thoughtful and considered article.
Oh, I stand corrected. Craig has completely swallowed Western propaganda and the growing mass of evidence of Russian atrocities is all fake. Happy?
I can find no cynicism in Craig’s piece. It has been crafted with facts to inspire consideration. I do not nonetheless agree with sanctions which I tag as vindictive and frivolous by the advocator while warranting change by the receiver, in this case President Putin’s Russia which has advanced and lifted itself from the cesspit of US corrupt supremacy.
..and found an even deeper cesspit of its own.
nope. there is no way in which this war is a deeper cesspit than the war on Iraq.
@mark “I do not nonetheless agree with sanctions which I tag as vindictive”
Out of interest, do you find anything vindictive about this?
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-maternity-hospital-pregnant-woman-dead-c0f2f859296f9f02be24fc9edfca1085
Can’t reply directly to Neil below, but funny he brings that case up. Because one of those pictured women was interviewed, and she had a quite different story to tell about events at that hospital: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5g7WI814mk&
The hospital had 1. been turned into a military firing point, and 2. wasn’t bombed by Russia.
Soredemos,
1. somewhere with troops dug in behind impromptu defences, I expect. Why are you struggling with this simple concept?
2. Because it was a maternity hospital and she hadn’t been allowed to leave?
3. How do you know it was?
4. Once again you are confusing quantity with quality.
5. and this confirms your point about the “bombing” of the maternity hospital how?
You seem to argue from the point of “if I want it to be true, it’s more likely to be true”. Whilst this may be a very common ploy, it doesn’t make it an effective one. It even has a name, “confirmation bias”.
Bayard, thanks for calling me a victim of confirmation bias. Coming from you, that’s hilarious.
Russia isn’t trying to win the propaganda war? Really? You face 15 years in jail just for calling it a war. Now that’s what I call trying.
As for your other points, please re-read what you wrote. I’m sure you can demolish them without my help.
“Bayard, thanks for calling me a victim of confirmation bias. Coming from you, that’s hilarious.”
Perhaps I should add lack of self-awareness. You have made no secrecy of your dislike of the Russians and your support of the Ukranians. You can offer no reason for this standpoint except what you read and see in the MSM, which you refuse to concede even might be biased. You regularly trot out the argument “Your sources are lying, but mine are telling the truth” without offering a shred of evidence to support it and yet, when I take the viewpoint that neither side can be trusted, and that one should use probability and logic, you accuse me of being a Russophile.
Enjoy your hilarity, I doubt anyone else finds it funny.
“Russia isn’t trying to win the propaganda war? Really? You face 15 years in jail just for calling it a war. Now that’s what I call trying.”
Well, you are entitled to call it anything you like, but it doesn’t make it true. Are you seriously trying to pretend that one law is the equivalent of 24hrs news about Russian atrocities and defeats and Ukranian victories and victims? In any case, assigning the enemy goals that they have no intention of aiming for and them jeering at them for missing them is a tactic as old as the hills.
To Neil
There were two pregnant women shown in the original videos, one is dead apparently, the other has had her baby and is ok but quite unhappy about the way the events were reported. She has made a video as mentioned and doesn’t agree with the narrative presented. There aren’t any other witnesses directly involved contradicting her, so why do you choose to ignore the only one?
We all know why of course it’s because she doesn’t say what you would have liked her to say. In fact that she is still alive and not dead like the other women is what gets your goat. And you call the Russians inhuman.
flippant and patronising. Well done, what insight.
flippant and patronising. Well done, what insight. I refer you to Craig, above.
Ian, if your last comment was directed at me, I’m afraid i have no idea what your point is. I have read and broadly agree with Craig’s article. What is your point of contention?
How about: What should Russia do with Ukraine? [Translation of a propaganda article by a Russian publication] – by Mariia Kravchenko (Medium, 4 Apr 2022) ?
What about it?
Also, there was no Holodomor, in terms of any kind of deliberately targeted famine against Ukraine. There were famines across all the agricultural regions of the Soviet Union through the early 1930s, as a result of a combination of natural events and forced collectivization. Ukraine wasn’t even the worst affected; Kazakhstan was. The idea of a deliberate genocide through starvation was largely manufactured later among the many Nazi collaborators who fled to the West after WW2, including the name, which was very cynically chosen because it was evocative of Holocaust.
Any article that posits it as some deliberate crime uniquely directed against Ukrainians can be dismissed from jump. The author does not know what they are talking about.
Not having read through the vastness of comments, what about instead of calling Putin – or more correctly his government – stupid, consider that they had only two bad options:
http://johnhelmer.net/how-to-read-the-war-in-reverse-without-outsmarting-yourself/
“The reason US commanders were confident Russia would move into Ukraine when they did was that they made certain the Russian General Staff understood that if they failed to move west, they would be attacked themselves east across the Ukraine front, north against Belgorod and Voronezh, south against Crimea and Rostov; and at the same time the US would launch its blitzkrieg to destroy the Russian economy. The Ukrainian plan of land attack was the feint; the sanctions war was the main thrust at Moscow.”
Russia was the target of regime change policies ever since Putin reversed the trend to sell out Russia to the bidders from the West and pursue a politic of national interest, which after all led to a rise in the welfare of the RF population. This turn away seemed to coincide when Russia attempt to join the NATO was outright dismissed and set a signal to Russia what to expect.
Helmer continues:
“What none of the analysts has considered yet is that the Russian General Staff realized there were serious risks of a Ukrainian offensive – that’s to say, an attack across Russian borders, not merely counterattacks against initial Russian manoeuvres. There was every possibility of a Ukrainian battle group breaking northward toward Voronezh and then taking cover in civilian areas for an advance to include a swing southward towards Rostov, with the aim of encircling Donbas. Why does everyone assume that the Ukrainians were planning for defense only? A major Ukrainian offensive on Crimea was imminent. The Russians, therefore, had to have a big defensive force in position until all the Ukrainian military infrastructure had been taken out.
What none of the analysts has considered is that Ukraine was not being prepared by the US for a defensive war.”
Maybe, after the Russians claim to have found exactly the plans for a Ukrainian attack on Donbas and maybe their breaking through into Russian territory, Mr. Murray wants to reconsider his assessment of the Russian government regarding their first strike in this special military operation.
Peter Moritz
The first strike was , as we now know, by Nato with its hotchpotch of international generals who have illegally been in Ukraine since 2014, on 16/ 17/ 18 March when they attacked the Dombas with 1200 missiles per day.
Fortunately Russia was prepared for that attack which i think Kashmiri has explained as a move by Nato to obliterate control by the autonomous Russian speaking
areas of Ukraine’s sea border, in preparation for Ukraine qualifying for Nato membership.
Nato instantly misinformed the world that Russia was the aggressor. People say that the first casualty of war is the truth. But it is never that way round with Nato. War or no war, Nato never deviates from lying into truth. They are liars and warmongers pure and simple, and their USUK government should be locked up in the Hague permanently for continually destroying world peace.
Giyane, “They are liars and warmongers”.
Out of interest, would you describe Putin in the same way? Or do you see him as an honest guy who loves peace?
Giyane,
1) There is not a posse of NATO generals in Mariupol.
2) Donbass is in Ukraine. Had Ukraine been preparing an offensive to retake it (which it wasn’t) that would have been legal
3) I posted links to the OSCE reports. Ukraine was not attacked with 1200 missiles a day.
“Donbass is in Ukraine. Had Ukraine been preparing an offensive to retake it (which it wasn’t) that would have been legal”
Thank you for the geography lesson as to where Donbass is; it does confirm what I had already figured out for myself.
It would have been legal in as much as it did not breach your comfort blanket of international law. But it is implausible to suggest that the Zelensky government did not support the civil war (by turning a blind eye to it) that erupted in 2014 to bring it back under Ukrainian sovereignty.
Civil war has no international governance. This seems to have left you all at sea, because you don’t seem capable of how to react without your comfort blanket.
At one level you get extremely vexed by the far right nationalists incorporated in the Azov affiliates, but incapable of understanding the realpolitik of what is not covered by your precious international laws. Laws that are inapplicable here…_
Zelensky may well have led a grubby govt that discriminated overtly against ethnic Russians in Ukraine. He may have allegedly been mired in financial corruption himself. Ukraine’s govt may have turned a blind eye to the country’s far right extremist problem (Azov Battalion, Svoboda, Pravy Sektor).
The US may have long desired this very outcome and have used Ukraine as a proxy to to achieve its own (hidden from US citizenry) geopolitical objectives aimed at reinforcing its own global hegemony.
The Biden ‘crime’ family may have had dodgy business dealings, google “10% for the Big Guy” and the Ukrainian biolabs story raises all sorts of ethical questions about potential dual purpose – including potential biological weapons – research the US DoD is conducting and funding (hiding?) in other countries often surrounding Russia and China.
All that can be true. But it doesn’t change the fact that Russia’s full scale invasion of a sovereign country was and is illegal and wrong. If this is allowed to stand how can any small country with an ethnic Russian contingent ever feel secure?
OK thanks
Laws that are pretty well never applied, except against small weak countries like Serbia, for example.
@ Goose
Don’t you think that this situation is particular? I can’t think of any other Russian intervention on this scale elsewhere, and I can’t see any country that could fall into the same category. The other major military intervention was in Afghanistan where they were persuaded to intervene to help a communist regime which was in trouble, but this was the Soviet Union not the present day Russian Federation so not really quite the same.
Crimea was so important for them so a pro Western government there would have been a nightmare, imagine US and UK warships based in Sebastopol. People often say like you that no country could feel safe etc but objectively I can’t see any similar outstanding problems left over from the collapse of the Soviet Union, from the Russian side anyway.
Craig
1. I’m so glad that was fake news
2. 100% legal but against promises by Nato not to expand, against Minsk, which was already ignored by Ukraine, against UN condemnation of Nazi government genocide in the form of half the population having left, and 14,000 dead.
The autonomous regions declared themselves independent. When Scotland declares itself independent, for historical reasons rather than pressing reasons of genocide, will you be happy for a Nato force to be flown in to take it back by force? Or will you just say, it’s illegal to ask for help?
You have always argued that the illegality argument against independence was countered by international law which gives colonised regions freedom to separate from their oppressors. It was perfectly legal for Russia to protect the ones who were left alive from Nazi genocide. I hope they will come to your assistance in due course.
What is not legal by any manner or means is for Trump or Biden to use freedom of speech to legitimise genocidal hate. They should both be impeached.
Also, with regard to the boundaries you set in your reply to Squeeth. The immediate effect that lying has on any person who is unfamiliar with the technique, is to analyse and speculate what is the truth. Boris Johnson did not expect rage as an outcome of his lies about lockdown garden parties. Liars never understand this.
So in the circumstances of full spectrum Nato lies over the last few weeks, unquestioned by many contributors here, the blame for speculation is on the shoulders of the liars. If they told the truth, people would not speculate.
So the 100,000 Ukranian forces in Eastern Ukraine were just training, hiding, holidaying etc.
3. Were the OSCE links you posted for the dates that the missiles were sent?
Giyane
The basic principle at stake here is that you can’t have larger countries, however infuriated they become with their neighbours, launching unprovoked wars and simply gobbling them up.
On your point about the East. I too remember there were social media claims & sightings/reports and pictures of Ukraine moving vast convoys of military hardware East for what, it was suggested, was a planned Feb-Mar military offensive to reclaim rebel held areas. Although our media seems to have a near blackout on Ukraine’s military capability / losses and the state of their air defences (SAM systems) – all part of portraying Ukraine as a defenceless v. Ukraine has stated tonight that the battle for Donbass will be like WW2. How can they assert that if no Ukrainian forces are there?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/07/ukraine-calls-for-weapons-weapons-weapons-from-western-allies It
If Ukraine hasn’t sent huge convoys of forces East, how can these impending major WW2 type battles take place? Generally it takes at least two well matched opposing sides to conduct a major fight.
Goose
Good point. The US is itching to try out its tactical mini nukes, so it will probably be WW3
But I’m not able to go against the flow of anti Russia here. Maybe its a generational thing .I’m 67 and grand parents and great uncles fought in the war.
I have been directed to the discussion groups. It is Ramadhan and I wanted to express my opinion and get on with reading qur’an. I certainly don’t want to argue here.or now about anything.
The 14,000 dead figure is correct, BUT over 10,000 of them are military casualties, and it is 14,000 total on both sides of the civil conflict in Donbass. It is not, as is often misrepresented, 14,000 civilian casualties on the Russian side.
CM
“It is not, as is often misrepresented, 14,000 civilian casualties on the Russian side.”
Making such a distinction can be a bit tenuous when under attack and all men of military age are expected to join the fight.
It’s undoubtedly a complicated picture in Ukraine’s East and fault lies in Moscow and Kyiv. The Russians had clear interest in sowing divisions in the East and encouraging breakaway movements. But there is no getting away from the backdrop of the 2014 Maidan coup, which deprived ethnic Russians of their democratically elected President.
Look how split Ukraine was – down the middle – in terms of support. The concentrated Yanukovych support in the East. 80-90% support! Those people had every reason to be mighty furious that a coup in Kyiv basically spat in their face. How would the Midlands, Northern England and Scotland feel if we elected a left-wing govt only to see people the typically Tory South East overthrow it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election#/media/File:Другий_тур_2010_по_округах-en.png
And worse, the US and EU welcomed Viktor Yanukovych’s removal by the mob. Many even believe the US engineered it in response to Russia frustrating their Syrian regime change plans. Imagine a pro-West leader being removed by a pro-Russia mob? I think we can guess the US and EU’s response.
Zero consistency in defending democracy from the US and Europe.
Sorry, but it was preparing an offensive. Between a third and half of its entire military, including most of its best trained and equipped units, were on the Donbass front (and interestingly, not arrayed around all their borders, which you would expect them to be if they were primarily concerned about countering a Russian invasion on all fronts). And, yes actually, the OSCE reports are very clearly that there was a massive uptick in artillery fire on the Donbass front, the vast majority of it from the Ukrainian side, in the week or so up to the Russian invasion (though it wasn’t yet up to 12000 rounds per day).
Yes, there is a link to this article of interest earlier in the thread. Also if interest are the links from the article to other websites. In one there is a short video by a frustrated French journalist reporting from a scene of destruction in Bucha.
Her rage is directed at the media outlets employing journalists, who prefer “copy and paste hacks” to a journalist such as herself who works to a definition of a journalist as an “investigator”.
They want a scoop she rages, her gist being, “I give them a report about Ukrainians killing other Ukrainians and they don’t want to know. They ask me to count (presumably) Russian shells instead – that is their idea of a scoop”.
Doesn’t that sound familiar when thinking about who is a real journalist and who is not?
Plausible but not compelling. Why did the Russians not wait until the Ukranian army had crossed the border before striking in that case and kept the moral high ground?
This way they had the element of surprise, could keep a number of the replacement forces for the Donbas tied up in Kiev, secure the access to the sea, and disable the air force that in case of a Ukrainian invasion would have been able to inflict major damage. It also permitted to establish the cauldron the Ukrainian forces find themselves in in Donbas. All very compelling reasons, especially as it was obvious to anyone, not brain damaged by NATO propaganda, that the Ukrainians had an invasion planned, and showing this by increased shelling of Donbas and Lugansk after the acknowledgement of their changed status by Russia.
Do you really think that moral high ground, in the case of two opponents ready to strike, is a valid reason to sacrifice soldiers and civilian lives? I think Russia gives a flying fuck about western opinions anymore, especially after the coup in Kiev in 2014 and the outright refusal of Kiev to even engage in discussions about the autonomy of the breakaway republics and their continued attacks for seven years on the area.
Screw the moral ground, do what you have to do to secure the territory and disable the opponent as efficiently as possible, without sacrificing more civilian and military lives and assets as absolutely necessary to achieve your goals.
In order to secure the republics, of course, a fully equipped and ready-to-strike Ukrainian army was never a safe option. Sooner or later the Republics would have to fight again. What will happen in Donbas soon will put an end to a major part of the Ukrainian military (much of it is incapacitated already) and in the end will lead to an agreement with Kiev to them finally acknowledge, being forced, what they could have negotiated peacefully.
But all that is beside the point, which always was a proxy war between the US and Ukraine, Ukraine being the tar baby that takes the brunt of Washington’s plans to – as Biden had acknowledged and what was clear to everyone with more than two brain cells – regime change in Russia and having easy access and control over to the resources of another client nation.
Yes, Helmer makes very compelling points. Not only possible but confirmed by previous actions of the US-directed actor.
“I think Russia gives a flying fuck about western opinions anymore, especially after the coup in Kiev in 2014”
I think you mean that they don’t give a flying fuck, but, otherwise, agreed. However, what were all those military brains in NATO doing if they couldn’t see the “surprise” attack coming a mile off. If Helmer could see it, so should they have been able to, which leads to the conclusion that they did see it, the Ukranians were just patsies and how it’s played out is how it was supposed to have played out. That would certainly explain why the US was so sure of the invasion date.
You don’t think the US got wind of the invasion date because the CIA did their job right for once? As for the element of surprise no, the whole world knew what was going on and Ukraine had plenty of time to prepare. If Ukraine was planning an incursion into Russia, a farcical idea anyway, the Russians would’ve been far better off politically and militarily conducting a defensive action, ambushing the attacking force as the Ukraine army has done, than launching a pre-emptive strike.
“Screw the moral ground, do what you have to do to secure the territory and disable the opponent as efficiently as possible, without sacrificing more civilian and military lives and assets as absolutely necessary to achieve your goals.”
Exactly the reverse of what’s happening.
“You don’t think the US got wind of the invasion date because the CIA did their job right for once?”
No, as I explained last time someone suggested this, possibly you, to do so on the basis of intelligence received from a spy high up in the Russian high command would be to tell the Russians of the existence of that spy, in exactly the same way as the UK let the Germans bomb Coventry in WWII because we didn’t want them to know we had cracked their Enigma coding machine. OTOH, if there was no such spy, revealing the information would have the very desirable effect of making the Russians look for one that wasn’t there.
It doesn’t have to be a spy high up in the Kremlin. Radio intercepts, phone taps, overheard conversations between officers on the ground, captured plans or a combination thereof.
Coventry had nothing to do with Enigma, the British jammed the Luftwaffe’s radio navigation system and to get round this the Germans changed the frequency every night. On the night Coventry was bombed an error led to the jammers being set to the wrong frequency. Prof R V Jones’s book explains all.
I still can’t see a benefit in making the invasion plans public if they were genuine. It did nothing to stop the Ukranian army being caught napping.
Re Coventry, presumably the jamming didn’t work too well, as Coventry was not the only city bombed and, whilst a cockup on the frequency might mean that the raid was more successful than it would otherwise have been, it doesn’t mean that we weren’t aware of the German plans and didn’t counter them more effectively because we didn’t want them to know we were aware. It’s not either/or.
Ah, why didnt the Russians just lay down and wait to be invaded? Why didn’t they just use their words and empty promises? Even better why not write down some doctrines that would’ve been ignored?
The West seems to have told Zelensky, ‘do these bastards good, we (MSM) will only report their aggression, you and your Nazi friends can go crazy’
I suppose a lot of readers cant peel of their MSM Russophobia and only seem laser focused on the Russian bullets, how convenient for their warlords who keep avoiding peace talks and pouring more ‘Defense Budgets’ into it. The MSM must have the highest integrity of all, I have yet to hear them lie..
There have been many battles won by commanders who fell back at the start and drew the enemy into a trap. Sometimes waiting to be invaded gives you an advantage.
Why doesn’t the UK attack France now rather than wait to be invaded? Russia was not about to be invaded, this is simply desperate crap.
Craig, I was going along with the poster’s topic, maybe not invaded but attacked.
From your blog on Feb 20th:
“Three countries have now withdrawn their staff from the OSCE Monitoring Mission in preparation for a coming war – the UK, the USA and Canada. In my view, that speaks volumes about who is actually planning on starting a war here. Extraordinarily, having withdrawn their staff, the western powers are now briefing the media that the OSCE (which has for decades been a key tool of western security architecture) is a biased organisation.”
Also on June 24th, ’21 Warmongering in the Black Sea:
“So to sail a warship into Crimean territorial seas is exactly the same act as to land a regiment of paratroops in the Crimea and declare you are doing so at the invitation of the Government of Ukraine.”
(You can pretend I quote the whole article here because it was very eye-opening, many thanks)
These actions speak louder than words, the invasion is illegal, but also an act of defense from non-stop provocation. The fact that we kept playing wargames next door should remove this surprise from the invasion. NATO forces in Ukraine could be seen as the invasion from where I sit. I guess the Kremlin got tired of games.
Desperate times..
There is clearly a lot of destruction of buildings and infrastructure in Ukraine. A lot of people are fleeing Ukraine, and that is consistent with the destruction and deaths of many others. I think your articles on the situation reflect that like me you want this to stop. For the unfortunate people it does not matter who started it, but the Russian army is causing massive destruction – beyond what is proportional to supposed threat and grievance. I doubt any of us know the ‘real’ details as there is spin and obfuscation on all sides. However, the little people are being killed and their homes etc destroyed; abominable.
Personally I think they should have. They should have told the Donbass republics to continue their evacuations, and told militias to pull back and form cauldrons as best they could. Hold out for a couple days until it was painfully clear to the world who attacked first, then brought the hammer down.
Perhaps they figured the militias simply couldn’t holdout that long, which given how much firepower the Ukrainian Donbass front has turned out to have, is plausible.
You are still failing to understand. Neither the Donbass people nor the Russians think it is worth allowing one single civilian or soldier to be killed, just so that lazy, studiously ignorant Westerners can see “who attacked first”.
Westerners can think whatever they like. Neither their conventional warfare nor their clever financial strategies can defeat United Asia. The “best” they can achieve is to destroy our species by starting thermonuclear war.
@Peter, to get this straight, you think that Ukraine was planning to invade Russia? Seriously?
I suspect it was more all those “advisers” advising them to.
It is only through extreme tolerance I allow you to post such complete and utter garbage on here, for those who wish to consider it. Ukraine was not just about to attack Russia.
Helmer kept telling us Ukraine was hosting lots of NATO ballistic missiles aimed at Russia too. That also is completely untrue. I am waiting to hear why he thinks Ukraine hasn’t fired them.
Russian air strikes destroyed their stockpile of matches perhaps.
Delete the last three words of your comment and you could be right.
If it were true in the first place. Which it ins’t.
How do you know? We are not talking nuclear weapons here and Ukraine is being stuffed full of conventional ones, so why not ballistic ones, too.
So a threat of censorship? We could have complete uniformity. Someone called Buddies has posted a link to JAQUES BAUD, a Swiss intelligence officer trained by Britain and the US He worked for NATO in Ukraine post 2014 delivering projects.His account differs substantially from yours.
As for missiles, the UK has been delivering no end. Of course they are not ballistic,but certainly offensive. Also deliveries of biological weapon equipment.
“Ukraine was not just about to attack Russia. Helmer kept telling us Ukraine was hosting lots of NATO ballistic missiles aimed at Russia too. That also is completely untrue.”
Does it need to be true, so long as the Russians thought it was true? You have to admit, it could be a pretty plausible piece of disinformation, which, if Russia really is a kataskopracy, would explain a lot more than the idea that invasion is simply the result of Putin’s brainfart.
Just out of interest Craig.
Did Ukraine have any form of Air Force?
If they did does anyone know what happened to it?
I’ll bite with this information. The Russians destroyed nearly all of Ukraine’s military airfields on the first day of their demilitarisation / de-Nazification campaign and most of Ukraine’s air defence and radar systems. About 60% of Ukraine’s combat aircraft and choppers were destroyed on the ground and in the air, and some of what remained of Ukraine’s fighter jets escaped to Romania.
Hi Jen
Thanks for the info – very useful.
The thing is that at the start of the war the media didn’t even ask that question.
Zelensky wanted a No Fly Zone from NATO and no journalist even had the nous to ask him what had happened to the Ukranian Air Force?
Particularly The State Broadcaster (the BBC).
The Ukrainians were about to invade the Donbass, not the Russian Federation itself.
And you know that how?
“Ukraine was not just about to attack Russia”.
Would you please be so kind as to inform us what your source is for that flat, unsupported claim? How on earth can you know that?
While you are at it, would you be so kind as to tell us in exactly which articles John Helmer said that “Ukraine [is] hosting lots of NATO ballistic missiles aimed at Russia”?
Ukraine certainly had, until the beginning of Russia’s special operation, lots of quite powerful Soviet ballistic missiles such as Tochkas. The Tochka has a range, depending on version, of 75-185 miles – quite sufficient to reach important targets in Russia from within Ukraine.
What Zelezny has definitely threatened was that Ukraine would obtain missiles with nuclear warheads for use against Russia. No doubt from NATO. That would be a flagrant infringement of the NPT, but the USA has winked for 60 years at Israel’s nuclear missiles and itself maintains nuclear weapons in several other countries, so it plainly ignores the NPT like other treaties.
“‘On 24 February 2022, Ukrainian forces launched a missile attack on Russian Millerovo Airbase in Rostov Oblast, using two Tochka-U ballistic missiles in response for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to prevent further air strikes by the Russian air force against Ukraine.[28] The attack left one Su-30SM destroyed on the ground.[29]
“‘On 24 February 2022, a 9M79 Tochka missile was used by Russian forces striking near a hospital building in Vuhledar, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, killing 4 civilians and wounding 10. Amnesty International investigation confirmed that a hospital was targeted, not a military target.[30]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTR-21_Tochka#2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
The Tochka attack on the hospital in “Vuhledar” was obviously launched by Ukrainians. Russia no longer uses such primitive weapons, and has scrupulously refrained from attacking any civilian infrastructure – most especially such protected ones as hospitals. Destroying hospitals is NATO’s trade. L
‘“The Russians” commit yet another “atrocity”’ by The Saker
https://thesaker.is/the-russians-commit-yet-another-atrocity/
‘The big news today is that those evil Russkies have fired a Tochka-U missile with a cluster warhead at the city of Kramatorsk, killing scores of innocent civilians. The “entire civilized world” is disgusted and immediately announced even MORE sanctions, MORE condemnation and MORE anti-Russian virtue signalling.
Minor problem: Russia does not have Tochka-U missiles, which are 30 year old Soviet missiles which have been far surpassed by modern Russian missiles (of which Russia has plenty enough). How do we know that it was Tochka-U which was used?
‘Because of the tail section which separates from the warhеard during the flight. Here it is…’
Yeah, this propaganda stunt is even dumber than the Bucha one. Russia claims not to have any Tochka-Us in its current inventory, and there’s zero record of them using them in this conflict. Whereas the Ukrainian side both has and has used them plenty. And Russia had zero reason to attack that train station, since they had already cut that rail line elsewhere.
Tom, there is evidence that Russia possesses Tochka-U missiles. If Ukraine wanted to implicate Russia in the killing of civilians, Ukrainians must be morons to fire a missile that Russia does not possess. On the other hand, it would be smart of Russia to use some old Soviet stock and then claim that only Ukraine possesses these weapons. Wouldn’t that make sense?
I’m sure you can provide evidence Russia does not have these missiles. I can provide evidence Russia does, e.g.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/russian-war-report-russia-makes-false-claims-while-blaming-ukraine-for-kramatorsk-railway-station-attack/
So, in the fog of war, neither you nor I know the truth.
All we can do is try to use our critical faculties. So, what’s more likely, that a nation at war would bomb its enemies or is own citizens? For example, would the Russians bomb their own citizens? Would the American president order rockets to be fired at New York? Would Macron bomb the French? Maybe not, but maybe the Ukrainians are different from most countries because they are particularly evil …?
What’s the balance of probability in this case?
“Minor problem: Russia does not have Tochka-U missiles”
Minor problem, it clearly does, even proudly advertised the fact as recently as 2018.
For anyone tempted to be persuaded by Tom Welsh’s words above, you can see opposing evidence that Russia does possess Tochka-U weapons below, with many additional links to further evidence within that link::
https://www.polygraph.info/a/fact-check-russia-kramatorsk-missile/31793971.html
You ask me to prove a negative. Of course Ukraine was not about to attack Russia. There is absolutely zero credible evidence of that, and not even Russia has claimed it was about to be attacked by Ukraine.
It looks to me as though your reasoning is that nothing can be predicted or foreseen until it has happened. On 6th September 1941, you might just as well say, Japan was not about to attack the USA. There was absolutely zero credible evidence of that, and not even the USA claimed that it was about to be attacked by Japan.
In fact, as it happens, a very few people in the USA did know of the impending attack on Pearl Harbor. FDR and a few trusted subordinates knew, because FDR had gone to immense pains to put Japan in a position where it could either surrender or attack. No one with the slightest knowledge of Japan could expect it to surrender. Moreover, FDR had access to secret radio intercepts that told him, from hour to hour, exactly what Admiral Nagumo was telling his subordinates to do as they steamed across the Pacific.
A careful reading of John Helmer’s article http://johnhelmer.net/how-to-read-the-war-in-reverse-without-outsmarting-yourself/ which I and others have already cited makes it crystal clear that Ukraine – or rather the Kiev junta’s controllers in Washington – had already not only decided to attack Donbass and Russia, but made detailed plans of campaign.
If you refuse to trust any sources except for Western governments (which have openly proclaimed that they are at war against Russia) and their media subsidiaries, of course you will get only half of the picture. The question is whether one should be content to have only one side of the story, or whether one should gingerly consider exposing oneself to the ghastly, contaminating influence of Russian sources.
Yet you can state “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.”
With 0 credible evidence. Assange would probably fold the same way if he only knew how far the West had sunk. Let’s stand behind Nazis and be dumbfounded why some neighbors want them gone. Enjoy your freedom Craig.
I hope Boris’ speech, especially valuable for Russians on accessing info via VPN, gets out.
A joke for the times about the North side of the Three Sisters monument:
A certain Moscow family who like comedy owns a parrot which disappears one day, and they cannot find it. They rush to the FSB, who tell them, ‘Why come here? We haven’t got it, and no-one’s brought your parrot here.’
‘Never mind, Commander. I’m sure it will be brought in soon, and I just wanted to tell you that I don’t believe in its opinions.’
слава україні!
Your “jokes” are about as funny as haemorrhoids.
Hail, hail Freedonia!!
The biggest joke is the sudden admiration these liberal NeoCons have for Boris Johnson. They spend all day telling you he is a congenital liar on domestic issues. But when it comes to Russia, the idea he is lying, hyping or goading is unsayable. There was the same shameless 180 when their other bete noir Trump started bombing Syria or threatening to coup Venezuela. Suddenly he became “presidential” and a worthy leader of western civilisation. For chauvinists like these the most sacred article of faith is benign Anglo-American power.
“I hope Boris’ speech, especially valuable for Russians on accessing info via VPN, gets out.”
So do I, then they can see what a dickhead we have in charge.
I think that, by helping Russians bypass state censorship by VPN, and providing Ukraine the tools to defend herself, Boris has done a great service for democracy. For this he and his assistants deserve to be pardoned in the public view for playing fast and loose with Covid regulations, even though it may be good for the fines being dished out by the police to be duly paid for the sake of example.
Those who would publicly make common cause with Russia, and defend the lies spoken by its officials, may have to give account in eternity! Therefore I urge them to repent quickly and start supporting the good guys. That means the democracies of the world.
Now a joke for the present time. Be grateful that you can read it freely and not be arrested.
One night there is a loud knock at the entrance door of an apartment building in Moscow. The tenants are afraid and pretend to be asleep. But it gets louder and louder till one of them thinks, ‘I’m an old man. I’ll die soon. What am I afraid of?’ He goes to the door.
Moments later he’s shouting for joy. ‘We’re fine! Get up! it’s only the fire brigade..’
слава україні!
Boris Johnson is a liar, a bully, and a narcissist. He didn’t give a toss about the truth when it came to C19 and doesn’t give a toss about the truth about the current conflict. Pumping weapons into a war zone will only cause further conflict. There has been a unbelievable amount of propaganda over Ukraine. The simple fact is we cannot believe any of the news coming out of the media.
Everyone involved in the current conflict, from the UK, to the USA, to NATO, to the EU, to the Ukraine, to Russia, has blood on their hands. People who are waving Ukrainian flags are fools. The truth is, is that Ukraine is a country far from the UK, and there is no reason for us to be involved in the current conflict. Oh, but then we are the UK, the country that committed genocide, and destroyed other cultures for for more than 300 years in the name of empire and profit.
Be grateful that you are not one of the victims, or a descendant of one of the victims of the British Empire.
Maybe for once we should shut up and not get involved because it is none of our business.
>I think that, by helping Russians bypass state censorship by VPN,
This is what I would have to do if I wanted to continue watching RT. It’s not as if I take their words as gospel, anymore than I do our own press but it’s always interesting to see what others think. It say a lot about the hypocrisy of the “democratic ” world though, freedom of speech etc. is only for the birds.
Most who blog here have thought about world affairs and some in quite some depth – so, please pardon me using you all as a sounding board for some ideas which popped into my head this morning.
Back to Ukraine.
I believe that if one is guided mainly by the media – be it Russian or Western – then a skewed picture emerges for this side or the other. I believe that if a realistic picture is to emerge then there is a need to take a long historical look at the unfolding events and then take a foreign policy focus on events. The alternative is to think in terms of Putin as villainous and evil – or – Joe Biden as freedom-loving and virtuous. Gets us nowhere – does it? So, let me head down the former path.
I want to go back to the end of World War II. US foreign policy soon became one of the US seeking to be the single dominant power in the world and ultimately in a unipolar world would be the global hegemon. At least, with regards to the ‘cold war’, that seems to me the trajectory the US did and still does follow.
In the 1980s Regan and Gorbochov had constructive dialogue and in consequence there was the re-unification of Germany. Gorbochov took at face value the assurance that NATO would not expand further east.
In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed.
Recall that the US used the opportunity to attack Yugoslavia and then reduce the country into smaller states. On reflection, this seems to be much the same (from an international law perspective) that Russia is doing in Ukraine today. Put the law aside for the moment and then place events in context.
Note – Ukraine had a pro-Russian leader up to 2014. There seems to me to be two sides amongst the Ukrainian people. Those who are pro-Russian and those who are pro-Western. Thus, the US did assist and sponsor a coup in 2014 and the referendum in Crimea and the separation in the east of Ukraine are the facts on the ground.
Note – and the West seems either to forget or ignore that recent history. For eight years there has been a ‘civil war’ fought in the eastern part of Ukraine. We, in the West, heard precious little of that war over the years and the press treated us to even precious less of images and reporting on that war. But, many lives were lost and there was massive destruction – some fourteen thousand dead as I have heard the number stated (subject to correction).
NATO’s expansion eastwards to Russia’s border has been massive. There have been on-going activities of NATO in Ukraine and the establishment of US financed bio-labs in Ukraine is a fact. As events have turned just recently Russia convened a meeting in the UN to present the evidence it has to lay claim that illegality had transpired which now needs official UN investigation. The US and UK declined to attend the meeting.
So, taking all the foregoing into account, the fact remains that Russia illegally started a war and at the end of the war – when it comes – will see a smaller Ukraine and on-going tensions between the US and Russia.
So far as Ukraine being an ‘innocent victim’ – hard hit with millions of displaced inside and outside Ukraine. But ‘innocent’?
Republic World – Does Ukraine Have Bioweapons? Ex-American Official Grilled by Arnab on US Funding in Ukraine (12 Mar 2022) – YouTube, 5m 15s
And so ends the story for today.
As a sounding board I’ll echo back on some of your points.
In 1986 Thatcher claimed with regards to the Soviet Union “I am cautiously optimistic. I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together” ….from what the records show Reagan agreed with her.
In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down, in 1990 the Soviet Empire collapsed.
It was hoped that NATO and Warsaw Pact alliances would end. They didn’t. NATO is intact.
It seems clear to me that the ‘west’, led by the US, determined to go for Soviet assets by carpetbagging Eastern European states first and one day carpetbagging Russia itself. It is after all a land of immense resources and an agricultural paradise that has been invaded before.
Russia had positioned itself well to avoid being swallowed whole. Then Putin was provoked in to a bear trap, he invaded Ukraine.
I feel sanctions could eventually weaken Russia economically and see it collapse in a similar fashion to the Soviet Empire’s collapse…_
“In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down, in 1990 the Soviet Empire collapsed.”
“I feel sanctions could eventually weaken Russia economically and see it collapse in a similar fashion to the Soviet Empire’s collapse…”
Soviet Russia survived 75 years without the West, do you really think that today’s largely ineffectual sanctions will accomplish the collapse of the RF in a shorter time?
Digger UK,
Thanks for your comment:-
“I feel sanctions could eventually weaken Russia economically and see it collapse in a similar fashion to the Soviet Empire’s collapse…”
Maybe since Russia possesses significant quantities of natural resources, oil and gas, with a European market for energy at highest 40% of the European supplies and a strong relationship with China and India – the collapse may not be actually imminent. Huh?
Russia is awash with natural resources, no question about that.
War, however, isn’t cheap, neither is it merciful. Russians pay those prices every bit as much as a Ukrainian.
Too many want one side or the other to win, wise heads want only peace. I still have faith in that happening…_
Extract from Craig Murray 04/04/2022 ‘Striving to make sense of the Ukraine War’
With regard to the six dualistic statements that may divide opinion –
Obviously it is a matter of ‘opinion’, but I do not ‘hold all the points made by Mr Murray to be true’. Dealing with each couplet in turn:
1a) The Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal: Putin is a war criminal
1b) The US led invasion of Iraq was illegal: Blair and Bush are war criminals
Both a) and b) are only true if international law can convict the victors of invasions, which they never have. So the charges are irrelevant in real terms and merely rhetorical.
2a) Russian troops are looting, raping and shelling civilian areas
2b) Ukraine has Nazis entrenched in the military and in government and commits atrocities against Russians
A) is an accusation, which is equally applicable to the AS/UK actions in both Europe and the Middle East in the previous four decades. Certainly in terms of ‘shelling civilian areas’, as to the accusations of ‘looting’ and ‘raping’, my mistrust of the M$M precludes a definite conclusion.
3a) Zelensky is an excellent war leader
3b) Zelensky is corrupt and an oligarch puppet
A) is only true if one’s common-sense succumbs to the ‘pantomime’ performed by the imperial lackeys ensconced in the various governing institutions within the ‘Dollar empire’. As for b), Zelensky is an oligarchic puppet in as much as he is ‘populist’ lackey of an international oligarchic rationale. Hence the intellectual rapprochement between him and the aforementioned lackeys in the current ‘pantomime’. If he is ‘corrupt’, in terms of ascriptions by others or personal actions, he is no more corrupt than ‘yer average politician guv’ – although if one believes the reports he seems to have made a lot of dough in a very short time.
4a) Russian subjugation of Chechnya was brutal and a disproportionate response to an Independence movement
4b) Russian intervention in Syria saved the Middle East from an ISIS controlled jihadist state
A) may well be true but the wording is, again, a matter of rhetorical emphasis that arises from personal conviction or moral stance. Certainly the Chechnya forces that accompany the Russian forces in Ukraine suggests full integration and normalised relations. b) may be more pertinently understood as Russia foiling the US/UK’s intention to instigate a ‘regime change’ in a sovereign nation using ISIL proxies. There are rumours that many of those proxies are in Ukraine now at the behest of the US/UK in their intention to prolong the Ukraine conflict for as long a possible.
5a) Russia is extremely corrupt with a very poor human rights record
5b) Western security service narratives such as “Russiagate” and “Skripals” are highly suspect, politically motivated and unevidenced.
A) seems to be a throwback to the times when the USSR was defending itself from the rest of the World and wasn’t directly allied to US/EUR/UK against Germany. It resonates in a similar fashion as some of Mr Murray’s ‘film noir’ prose regarding life in Russia when he had a government income. b) merely demonstrates the other side of the coin and conveniently brushes over the suggestion that we in ‘the West’ exist in a world of improved ‘Human Rights’ – until of course the Bozo government aided and abetted by Sturm fuhrer and his Blue Labour acolytes re-write our ‘Human Rights’!
6a) NATO expansion is unnecessary, threatening to Russia and benefits nobody but the military industrial complex
6b) The Russian military industrial complex is equally powerful in its own polity as is Russian nationalism
A) no argument there. b) again no argument, but what is the issue? Is it an indictment of ‘nationalism’?
A terrific read Craig, with a broad scope; thanks.
I’d never heard of the Organisation for Security & Co-operation in Europe, until Craig mentioned it not long back. It’s clear, via their Special Monitoring Mission, that there have been thousands of incidents recorded since 2014, resulting in many deaths, a large percentage military, a smaller percentage civilian. It’s pretty clear that there are many people living in that Donbass region who are at odds with the Ukrainian government policies, and many of them feel persecuted – whether Russian ethnic, or Russian speaking. Just what might be the percentage of Donbass residents who do crave autonomy or independence or even to be part of Russia? You’d imagine many of them who feel that way, live in Mariupol for example.
One thing, merely as a reader of stuff, and consumer of British news, that was clear to me, as the news bulletins reported upon the Russian troop build-up within their own borders, that never once (though I wasn’t sat in front of a TV 24/7) did I hear an explanation of what has been happening in eastern Ukraine. rarely was the Minsk agreement touched upon. Was it any wonder, when the troops crossed the border, that many people could see no ‘raison d’etre’ whatsoever?
Never once have I seen or heard a discussion wherein someone actually asked the simple question: why did NATO push towards the east? Why? Never asked.
If there are so many “Donbass residents who do crave autonomy or independence or even to be part of Russia” living “in Mariupol for example”, why is the RA blowing Mariupol to ****?
Well there’s the rub John. Via MSM we only hear that it’s the Russian army doing the ‘blowing’, yet it’s possible to find alternative footage of Russian speakers telling of atrocities by Ukrainian military, and their impeding of transit across the Russian border. It’s not as straightforward as BBC/ITV/Sky make out – my perception anyway; the fog of war.
Please point me to the Mariupol ‘Shock and Awe’ videos – everyone has smart phones nowadays so there must be hundreds, though I cannot find any …
Because it’s host to the largest Nazi contingents. I should note, by the way, that Russia has repeatedly gone out of its way to set up civilian evactuation corridors (a strategy learned from the Syrian intervention). Which it then of course got accused of bombarding with artillery, because that totally makes sense, right.
Of course it makes sense, don’t you know that the Russians are subhumans who just love to rape, kill and loot and like nothing better than luring civilians into a safe corridor and then bombing the shit out of them? Hell, if the US army can shoot up civilians from helicopter gunships, the Russians must be much worse.
Mr. Murray,
Thank you for an extensive and thorough writeup.
As with all such compositions covering such a sweeping area, there are many points in which I have both agreement and disagreement.
However, the nub of the disagreement comes to: do you think Russia’s geostrategic security concerns would have been addressed had the invasion not taken place?
This is really all that matters. Whatever the censures of the UN, EU or what not – it is not the least bit clear to me that the neo-Nazi social tumor that was growing in Ukraine would have been put into remission – particularly since this tumor was getting financial and political support from the West (Canada and the United States, for certain).
Nor is your argument that Ukraine would not accede into NATO in the short term, particularly convincing. The NATO march eastward is very clear, and repeated warnings and even threats from various Russian leaders going back even to Yeltsin clearly had no impact.
Lastly, while your diplomatic credentials and experience are self-evident – the assessment of the military situation is much less so. Russia invaded Ukraine with a clear numerical disadvantage. Nor is Ukraine a 3rd rate military power such as Iraq under Saddam Hussein. The reality is that Russia has continued to move forward in achieving whatever its aims are, without either inflicting tremendous civilian casualties as with every US military endeavor or by indiscriminately destroying all possible forms of dual use military infrastructure – again as compared to US military doctrine.
What is clear, is that Western military performance, post World War 2, has always been against vastly inferior opponents in conflicts in which the West’s efforts have ultimately failed.
I do agree that the final settlement of this conflict is less clear at present, but I also do not dismiss Russian capabilities or planning as you have clearly done.
“The reality is that Russia has continued to move forward in achieving whatever its aims are…………..”
How can you say they are moving forwards with their aims when you don’t know what those aims are?
Moon of Alabama posted an article entitled “U.S. ‘Intelligence’ Says Its ‘Intelligence’ Is Bullshit” citing an article from NBC news.
“In a break with the past, U.S. is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn’t rock solid
“It doesn’t have to be solid intelligence,” one U.S. official said. “It’s more important to get out ahead of them [the Russians], Putin specifically, before they do something.”
Is this more evidence of the collective west’s own kataskopocracy or as MoA points out just a spin on what they have always done?
ET, that sounds like something along the lines of HMRC arguing in court that following its (HMRC’s) advice is not admissable evidence for the defence if you are found to have broken the law – “You should know better than to trust us.”
Watching a discussion on YouTube channel Marcus Papadopoulos presents his new book concerning contemporary Russia and its recent history. He introduces himself and outlines his book, followed by various historians contributions. Only adds to our understanding
Poland being Poland, this is just past week or so..
Poland want US nukes on their soil against Russia
https://nypost.com/2022/04/04/polish-leader-open-to-keeping-us-nukes-there-wants-more-american-soldiers/
Poland hail russophobia
https://www.oreanda.ru/en/it_media/poland-s-prime-minister-says-russophobia-has-become-mainstream-in-europe/article1419562/
Poland reject peaceful diplomacy with Russia
https://www.arabnews24.ca/en/World_news/196821.html
I think Poland should direct their….lunacy against Ukraine, it is them that hail Stepan Bandera, a nazi-collaborator that killed thousands of poles during WW2.
A draft report for the NATO parliamentary assembly’s defence and security committee seen by AFP gave details of six air bases in Europe and Turkey where it said the US stores 150 nuclear weapons, specifically B-61 gravity bombs.
My own information revealed some time ago now is that Poland has variable yield weapons that will launch simultaneously when the red NATO nuclear alliance red light prompts activation.
A naive reading of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/text suggests that all nuclear weapons placed in any foreign countries by the USA violate Articles I and II (see below).
No doubt Washington would argue, in its usual shyster lawyer fashion, that US nuclear weapons in Germany, Japan, Turkey, Poland and elsewhere have not technically been “transferred” to the host nation. It seems obvious they are not in the control of the host nations, as that would involve the USA relinquishing the sole right to destroy the world on its own whim.
Common sense, however, suggests that it makes absolutely no difference to Russia whether American nuclear weapons in Germany, Poland, Turkey, Japan, etc. are controlled by the host nations or by Washington. They are no less threatening to Russia. This is yet another demonstration, if any were still needed, that the US government is “not agreement-capable” – a polite way of saying fundamentally dishonest and untrustworthy. There is no point in signing treaties or agreements with people who have no honour, and who will immediately break their commitments whenever they see advantage in doing so.
Article I
Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices.
Article II
Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
As a reminder, Bandera was imprisoned in Poland and sentenced to death. For unknown reasons he was released and came to Germany, where he was murdered by a Russian KGB man.
He was a Nazi collaborator and involved in the mass murder of Jews, Gypsies and oh Poles. I guess the Poles forget that when they see the Bandera admirers of Ukraine.
The new article on Rwanda is timely. I was just thinking that nearly 600 mainly informative posts on I am nowhere nearer to making sense of the Ukraine War than at the beginning. I don’t know if the discussion has helped the author’s understanding, but mine is now far more diffuse.
Looking for a peace formula in situations such as Ukraine will not be determined by international law, they can’t even be used as guidelines. It will be determined by those who are willing to ignore the law and simply broker a deal.
Brokering a deal between a corrupt oligarch, such as Zelensky and a corrupt tyrant, such as Putin, will be no more difficult than sitting down with a corrupt tyrant who was leading child soldiers in butchery the previous evening and will probably be doing the same tonight. Talking down to them as naughty law breakers won’t persuade anybody to cut a deal. All you need to do is broker a peace deal, simple as.
Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister from Greece has some valuable thoughts on the matter of “how can we have an immediate cessation of fire and a withdrawal of Russian troops” That’s all to negotiate in my opinion…_
https://unherd.com/2022/04/ukraine-cannot-win-this-war/
Being at a loose end I though I’d stop off to have a quick gander at what Craig was up to. Jings, someone accused him of hiding behind fear of something. What a totally far out thing to say.
Just skimmed the article, firstly it would be hard to find two tribes that hadn’t fought together in Europe or any other continent for that matter, over the last few hundred years. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the totally misguided next vicitims say.
Secondly, yes, it does seem to turn out that NATO would obliterate Russia in a conventional war. Supposedly it’s down to lack of training, lack of logistics and lack of competent command and control. As well as motivation, where that is two-thirds of the chance of success as the Ukranians well know, being highly motivated to survive. For datum, Russian pilots get less than 100 hours per year training, whereas NATO get 200 with simulator hours as well. It costs something like £10 million a year for each Typhoon pilot trained in the UK to battle conditions. If you have an annual budget of £100 million a year for fast jets, better to have 10 well-trained pilots and maintained jets, than 20 poorly kept. A lesson by the way, for Independent Scotland. Training and logistsics ain’t cheap.
As for some of the comments, eek! It’s like sticking your head into a 6-dimensional wormhole and expecting to see a solution to Rubik’s cube before it was invented. Just for one, Aegis Ashore is a DEFENSE SYSTEM for intercepting ballistic missiles, and as for reaching Moscow in 12 minutes from Poland, Aurora could do it in 6 minutes if already at top speed.
Overall though, we should be glad such an article can be written, and comments made. You can’t do that everywhere in the world.
Nato isn’t obliterating Russia or any other place it had gone into over the last 20 years. They have high tailed it out of every theatre.
Nato command control armament and training and mercenaries had been set up in this boxing ring to go the full 13 rounds.
It’s not looking decisive for Nato is it?
Well Dun, Hans plays with Lotte, Lotte plays with Jane. Jane plays with Willy, Willy is happy again. Suki plays with Leo, Sacha plays with Britt. Adolf builds a bonfire, Enrico plays with it.
Ain’t that always the way?
I get it mate.
But I also know for a fact that we here in the west, especially in London, have had publishers being visited for years now by MoD officers who have been urging a very anti Russian opinion even in technical specialist magazines.
This was happening YEARS ago.
The whole integrity initiative and leaked documentation about its network of rapid response / attack drone presstitutes has never been addressed by the media that is controlled by it.
At the end of last year when it was announced that the ‘war’ was on and going to happen – I worried that the anti-Putin angle was clearly designed to turn into anti Russian and full on racism against them.
That we have banned Tchaikovsky and the 1812 overture! Cancelled anything else of Russian literature and culture and even CATS mus surely show that our reaction to Russian ‘invasion’ has been fully planned and prepped all it needed was to force a fight and then dress it up in the wolf clothing.
Civilians were evacuated at the beginning in Donbass by Russians – How many efforts were made to clear civilians from Mariupol? How did tens of thousands of Greeks get left stranded there where a major fortress was engineered to survive and fight from? Have the Ukrainians evacuated all civilians from where the cauldrons are closing? Why not?
It was obvious when the liked of Harding and Chulov the grunts of the presstitutocracy, if you will, turned up in these spots weeks before anyone had heard of the names of such towns, crowing about the entrenched and fluent in ngoish speaking ‘soldiers’ there waiting to ‘retake’ the breakaway regions -I considered Mariupol to be where the fight was to be from that and a threat removed from the Azov sea and hence NATO’s design of putting bases at that strategic point which is where the new Silk Road runs into Europe.
This whole war has been set up to break Europe away from its natural neighbours for future economic and energy security which is EurAsia and the great SCO and BRI that is collectively changing the course of world affairs away from the benefit of only the ancient Euro imperialists. These imperialists are burning their systems -the UN, the UNHCR, the International Courts and Laws because the rest of the world demands that the Law should be a Law and not just Rules that any exceptional nation (inevitably West 5+1 eyed can chose to ignore and lay mighty claim to dispense any number and type of sanctions to get its way.
They, we in the west, are not getting our way. And we have decided to incite Racism and Xenophobia to ‘other’ the rest of the world that has challenged our centuries old ways and means.
It is existential- for us and nato – which went from less than 20 members when it ‘won’ against the ‘mighty’ Soviets to nearly 30 as it aims to do to not so mighty Russia what it had been attempting to since Napoleon was sent to do that job but changed his mind. It’s crimes in Yugoslavia as in the genocide of Rawanda is where this all became bloodthirsty – never mind the abject evil of Allbright and co happy to see half a million children dead as they started their campaign in the MENA.
“Nato isn’t obliterating Russia or any other place it had gone into over the last 20 years. They have high tailed it out of every theatre”.
After, er, obliterating everything in sight. “If we can’t have it, nobody will”.
My favorite bit of nonsense here is the Russian ‘lack of logistics’. Really? Because from where I’m standing Russia is doing just fine at keeping its troops supplied after more than a month of hard fighting, and in fact they’re gearing up for a major escalation against the Ukrainian Donbass forces. A common media cliche is to claim that Russia is losing vast numbers of convoys. It isn’t, but even if that were true, a simple, awkward fact would implicitly remain: yet the convoys keep coming. That sure doesn’t sound like any kind of lack of logistics capacity to me.
Actually, logistics is probably one of Russia’s greatest strengths.
“Russia is doing just fine” – You people are funny.
Well, Neil, stick around for a year or two and then we’ll see who’s smiling.
Yes, but “Russia is doing just fine” … Seriously, you people need help.
Ah right, I get it.
So the Russian logistics is their best strength, their training and equipment maintenance is outstanding, their morale is enormous, and with 1300 jet fighters to the Ukranian 120 they achieved air superiority in just 24 hours, their troops took over all military objectives in the following 24 hours, while Ukranians cheered them on and welcomed them into their homes, and Ukraine surrendered by the end of February with hardly a shot fired.
Oh wait … that didn’t happen except in the Beanoski.
Yeah, their logistics is just fine, as is their training and equipment. I have no particular insight into the state of Russian morale, but see no reason to think it’s in any danger. As far as I know Russia only committed about a 100 planes to the Ukrainian operation. Even so, yes, they did achieve air superiority over Ukraine. If it flies, it dies. The last attempt by the Ukrainian air force to do anything with planes resulted in eight of them getting shot down on the same day. Their drones, including the ‘fearsome’ TB2, are now getting consistently shot down. The most Ukraine can manage, aside from Tochka-U barrages which mostly get intercepted, are low-flying helicopter raids. And even these keep taking heavy loses (and they have no way to replenish these losses in choppers and pilots).
The rest is strawmen.
Why are the MSM so sure stuff isn’t staged? I wouldn’t blame Ukrainians for using every means available. This fight is existential for them. The war is upsetting but the coverage and lack of genuine inquiry by our own media is depressing.
UK journalists rushing to judgement and decrying what they claim are ‘war crimes’ in Bucha.
From what I’ve seen the makeshift ‘cling film wrap’ restraints suggest possible citizen arrests of collaborators, or arrested looters perhaps? Certainly the lack of zip ties doesn’t suggest they were held and executed by the Russian military.
The idea Russians are uniquely cruel and evil is currently pervasive… and dangerous. We know the US didn’t like the leaked footage of Apache helicopters killing a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters journalists. Gunners who seemed to be enjoying (sic) ‘putting the hurt on these motherfuckers’.
More recently an innocent Afghan family (10 citizens) wiped out in retaliation for the evacuation airport suicide blast, in Kabul. The US said the drone killing was an “honest mistake.” Okey dokey? A US investigation would later find that the suicide bomber who targeted Kabul airport during an evacuation mission in Afghanistan acted alone. So was the drone strike a PR move i.e., a desire to seen as doing something in retaliation? REMEMBER the SAME MSM lackeys were quick to parrot the line the US had carefully selected its target for retaliation in Kabul. And they decried anyone suggesting otherwise eg. Glenn Greenwald copped some flak for questioning how they arrived at this intel so quickly.
More recently still Biden praised a Syrian raid that saw an alleged ISIS leader killed….. along with six children and four women(?). well done, I guess? Shame ’bout the women and kids.
Russia doesn’t have a monopoly on war crimes.
“Why are the MSM so sure stuff isn’t staged?”
Good question. This BBC page examines the Russian counterclaims of staged atrocities in Bucha:
BBC News: Bucha killings: Satellite image of bodies site contradicts Russian claims – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60981238
Is that an example of UK journalists “rushing to judgement”?
Why don’t they say anything about the Ukrainian atrocities? They’ve sneakily tucked this story away as the third article on the BBC News front page:
Video appears to show killing of captive Russian soldier – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/61025388
It also appears on the sidebar, second on their list of most popular articles. Which some people might miss if they don’t read it. It’s not good enough.
Goose, can you be more specific about which spiteful UK journalists of the MSM you’re referring to? (I’m sure there’s plenty of them, but they aren’t quite as easy to find as those BBC examples.)
For the ‘MSM’ context. I just watched Sky news followed by Channel 4 news at seven. Ch4’s Alex Thomson(in Ukraine) is normally worth watching, as he’s usually fairly inquisitive and independent minded, well, by UK standards. Sky News however is a lost cause much like the BBC.
Kinda wish I hadn’t watched either.
The one thing this invasion has shown, is that Russia has terrible PR in the west, literally no English speaking representation. Even BS excuses are sometimes better than ‘guilty’ silence.
And this invasion has blown a hole in the idea Russia have armies of online social media bots / trolls. The lack of support for the invasion , well, basically anywhere…has shown this claim to be pure western spookery; the stuff of ‘Russiagate’ fantasy. Claims of Russian online influence in the west is likely exaggerated to justify our own burgeoning online psy-op propaganda operations. Operations designed to stymie debate. Developed by those in western military and intel circles who envy, and seek emulate the levels of message/narrative control seen in Russia and China domestically.
Goose – As I see it many will frame and transpose those crimes you describe to negate the allegations. Nonetheless for me the arrow in the heart was the Apache voice-overs you mention. In UK combat training a response and awareness or bodhi target to be destroyed can be a mother feeding a baby. Bodhi is key.
Are mothers feeding babies or extrajudicial murders by drones or fleeing journalists in the minds of many humans an anathema to bodhi? is it a unique human species at play here or maybe minds vulnerability to short-term brain-washing.
Oh dear I have created another enigma.
I know it can be the excitement, the thrill of the kill lurking in conditioned human neurons and sustained by human genetic pathways.
But humans have a unique capacity and understanding to recognize, expose and moderate the the buzz, the thrill, the hysteria or passion of the kill and other primal urges.. n’est-ce pas?
Michael Hudson explains the wider picture in simple terms. Washington’s ultimate aim is to take over and loot Asia, with its enormous natural resources. To do so, it must divide the Asian nations so that they can be defeated one at a time. Russia has been chosen to go first. hence Ukraine – as, previously, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. The EU is collateral damage.
Both sides knew perfectly well that Washington could and would, at a time of its choosing, force the Russians to intervene in Ukraine. When a sharp knife comes closer and closer to your throat, you either do something or say your prayers. The Russians do pray, but they also take action.
The special military operation in Ukraine has given Washington an excuse to impose yet more sanctions on Russia, and on any other nations that refuse to join in the sanctions on Russia. The Americans are gambling that the sanctions will defeat Russia. The Russians know that, and are gambling that the sanctions will destroy the US financial system and its hold on the world’s economies.
It seems likely that the Russians are correct.
“The Dollar Devours the Euro”
https://thesaker.is/the-dollar-devours-the-euro/
My only fear is that the presumed loser will throw nukes.
Thanks Craig for your article.
And yes, the Hudson piece is in line with what he has always indicated. Just becomes more explicit.
Indeed. That is what the Russians, and some others, call the problem of “the monkey with a grenade”.
Ahh, and Pepe Escobar is also on the Saker or Cradle.
“The special military operation in Ukraine…”
They’ve trained you well, I see.
I call it “the special military operation” for the same reason that I call you “Neil” and Mr Murray “Mr Murray”. The Russians planned it, launched it, and have been carrying it out. They are best placed to name it.
A war would look entirely different. The Russians would have been very much more heavy-handed, and would – as is normal in war – have destroyed all centres of resistance and control as quickly as possible. That would have taken less than a week. If they had wanted to flatten Kiev, Mariupol, Kharkov, Odessa, etc. – as NATO flattened Baghdad and Tripoli – they could have done it with the greatest of ease.
Instead they have used the minimum number of soldiers and the minimum of violence, focusing the violence as narrowly as possible against Ukrainian defences and terrorist groups. They have gone to lengths unparalleled in the entire history of warfare to minimise harm to civilians and the civilian infrastructure – the exact opposite of the Ukrainian policy towards Donbass.
Tom, for one thing, if I murder somebody, I can call it “injury” or “gbh” or “daffodil bonanza” or whatever the hell I want to call it. It doesn’t stop it being murder. And secondly, “They have gone to lengths unparalleled in the entire history of warfare to minimise harm to civilians and the civilian infrastructure” … just out of interest, where are you getting your information from? Serious question. You’re making these rather odd statements that place you in a very small minority … What are you basing these statements on?
Thank you CM for this article.
It is the most interesting and balanced analysis I have yet read on the war.
Putin inherited an oligarch dominated system crafted by Western advisors but he gets blamed for it as though its his system. Russia has been under relentless attack from the West in many areas and.yet Western leftists believe that he should play by their own idealised conceptions of Western “democracy” and “rules”, rules which they full well know are never observed by the West but apparently Russia should fight with both hands tied behind its back to “set a good example” to the West. Its like a toxic mother lecturing a child that they should befriend their bullies and never fight back because “violence is wrong”
If only Gramsci would have lived to see his prophecy
Gramsci historically judged from his prison cell and for us, the explanation for the vast narrative control presciently encapsulated:
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born”
The Western controlled UN, the drunken owned sheriff, is being burned down like Atlanta in retreat. Shame on us Europeans who think it’s a good thing to throw out any nation from the UNHCR.
It does mean China won’t be far behind. Because the new world order is setting up a real United Nations with a real international law system. Not random ‘Rules’. Without exceptions.
There’s a new sheriff in town and the old one is shitting its drunken pants.
Burn down the old world order as it is useless, the dumb Caesar’s fiddle now; we in Europe have to understand we are considered disposable by our forever Masters.
Craig condemns the so-called annexation of Crimea; at the same time he claims that Russia’s fears of Ukraine’s Nato membership are groundless thanks to this territorial dispute. That is contradictory.
Moreover, the assumption that Crimea or the Donbas would theoretically prevent Ukraine’s Nato membership is meaningless in view of the process of de facto Nato integration during the last 8 years. It’s for a reason that Nato experts boast about their efforts to equip and train Ukrainian armed forces to give the Russians a good fight now. Following the US-led coup in 2014, Russia could have taken Ukraine with few casualties. If Russia were to attempt the same now, it would cost hundreds of thousands of casualties. In other words, Feb. 2022 was the very last moment for Russia to prevent de fact Nato integration of Ukraine, something the Russians have always said they would not accept.
Furthermore, there was compelling need for Putin to act now. Instead of enshrining the autonomy of the Donbas in the constitution, as required by Minsk II, Zelensky in 2019 changed the constitution to make Nato membership mandatory. In early 2021, Zelensky got iron-clad security guarantees from Washington. In late 2021, Zelensky violated the Minsk II process and UN resolution 2202 by Decree 117 stipulating the re-conquest of the Donbas and Crimea by military force. During the 2nd half of 2021, Ukraine concentrated a large military force in the East to attack the separatists. As much as we may regret the war, Russia had no other option for preventing de fact Nato membership.
Ukraine cannot be compared to the Iraq war. The Iraq war was based on lies. It was illegal because Iraq in no way threatened US national security.
Together with the US’s regime change strategies by colour revolutions, etc., the US’s unilateral cancellation of a number of arms limitation agreements, Nato expansion is a threat to Russia’s national security and world peace.
While Western leaders have lied about Nato expansion for over 30 years, Russia for over 20 years has patiently requested talks about security guarantees for both sides and the removal of US missile systems in new Nato members near Russia’s borders, installed in violation of the Russia-Nato Founding Act of 1997.
Craig regrets the negative publicity engendered by the war in Ukraine; however, national security is more important than publicity. Anyways, the West has started to demonize Putin almost 20 years ago, when he started to get rid of some of the West’s pet oligarchs. The power of the Anglosphere’s cultural hegemony is such that no matter what Putin does he will be blamed.
Everybody said Russia would face another Afghanistan in Syria. That was false. In fact, Putin has shown that he is very good at ending a war, while the US is only good at starting wars. Hubris has led the West to shoot itself in the foot in Ukraine.
Ukraine was already a defacto NATO state. One thing that has become abundantly clear since the start of the invasion is the degree to which the Ukrainian military was already integrated with NATO. NATO support has been key to the few genuine successes Ukraine has had in this war. And don’t just listen to me; I’m just some asshole on the internet. But NATO themselves freaking publicly talked about it: https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2018_11/20181106_1811-factsheet-nato-ukraine-support-eng.pdf
There has always been a racist hatred of Russians in the British Establishment. Churchill viewed Russian people as less than Orangutans. At end of World War 2, he wanted to attack Russia and even use 100,000 Germans. When Germany failed to take Moscow in 1941 the British Intelligence chiefs were distort to the chagrin of British Diplomats.
International Law and Legality as such means nothing to the peoples of all the countries who were killed in their millions by US wars of aggression. A new world order, a multi polar world is emerging, that the Global South longs for. The Elites in the North and South are scrambling to somehow secure their ill gotten gains. The majority in the world actually see Russias decoupling from the Western dominated financial system as a good thing.
Ukraine is only one small manifestation of US global domination, determined to cling on, however much misery that it engineers.
“If you kill me, I’ll sue”.
Your first paragraph is a complete non-sequitur. Your last is nonsense. I am not aware of anybody saying Russia would face another Afghanistan in Syria, let alone everybody. I did not read any of the matter inbetween as being very likely a waste of my time.
Literally, the first Google hits all make the comparison with Afghanistan:
Ignorance is a choice. You seem to have the time to read up on Western war propaganda, which is often self-contradictory, while ignoring the facts that have led to the war, which I have taken pains to concisely enumerated. You can ignore the facts, but you can’t make them disappear.
If we want peace, we have to reject war propaganda and have a clear understanding of the causes of war.
Thank you for lecturing us all, and in particular our host who has written with great clarity and conscience, with your no doubt superior insight, gleaned from, er, Google.
Silly man. The articles cited by Humwawa are no less significant for having been found through Google. The point about Google, if any, is that those sources can be found instantly with the simplest of searches.
If Mr Murray is “not aware of anybody saying Russia would face another Afghanistan in Syria”, he has not been looking. Which isn’t surprising, as he has been a very busy man indeed with many more pressing concerns. I have just done a simple Web search for the string “russia syria quag bog” and within a minute I found the following:
Unfriended: How Russia’s Syria quagmire is costing it Middle Eastern allies – Pavel K. Baev Thursday, January 7, 2016
The Russian Quagmire in Syria and Other Washington Fairy Tales – Michael Kofman
Obama warns Russia’s Putin of ‘quagmire’ in Syria – Reuters
A Ukraine Insurgency? Beware Moscow’s “Syria Rules”! – James F. Jeffrey
(Paywalled: but please note the title)
Putin’s intervention in Syria may bog down Russia and vindicate Obama – Washington Post
How to Make Russia Pay in Ukraine: Study Syria by Anna Borshchevskaya
“The West can learn from the failure of inaction in Syria and put him in a military dilemma of getting engaged on a bigger scale than he wants to, and create exactly what Putin avoided in Syria—a quagmire”.
Obama: Russia heading for ‘quagmire’ in Syria – CNN
I am sure that hundreds of similar articles, mostly based on statements by US officials, could easily be found but I hope that the first seven I found immediately will suffice to show that Mr Murray’s opinion as expressed above is uninformed.
I hope that Mr Murray is at least aware of the well-known meme that Washington deliberately stirred up the “Soviet-Afghan war” of 1979-1989 to “give the USSR its own Vietnam”. In that context, officials frequently spoke of “quagmires” and being “bogged down”. It seems obvious that Washington tried to repeat the experiment in Syria, and is now hoping for a repetition in Ukraine.
The question of “wasting one’s time” is a delicate one, involving fine judgment. Certainly one’s time is a precious resource, not to be wasted if possible. But perhaps informing oneself on such important matters should not be considered wasteful – especially if one intends to make public statements about them.
If it makes anyone happier about the URLs I give above, please note that I found them with Presearch, not Google.
A weighty post well written and thought provoking. Also nice that Craig is still responding to comments even on Page 5.
One thing I cannot understand is why as Craig points out after playing a blinder in Syria and at the UN in 2021 and building a lot of geopolitical capital. Putin/Russia throw it all away.
Has Putin gone insane (unlikely) and if he has, is his grip on power so strong that he wouldn’t be taken away for a lie down and a quiet retirement (also unlikely)? We are required to believe an entire string of unlikely events have all come to pass. It’s not impossible but Craig has used that reasoning to dispute state narratives before and I think it applies equally here.
Something of which we are unaware triggered this.
Andic
Something of which we are unaware has triggered this.
We are very well aware of Israel’s disgust at USUK making a resurgence of Nazism in this region. We are also very well aware that Israel has the capacity to destroy the Nazis couped up in Eastern Ukraine. We are also very well aware that Russians form a large part of Israel’s population.
This creates a schism between USUK on the one hand and Russia, for its own geopolitical reasons, and Israel for its own historical reasons.
The power brokers in Syria are Russia, Israel and the US. But the Democrats have so convoluted themselves with scandals and war crimes that they have no say in this matter of Ukraine. All they can do is curse Putin for having more moral legitimacy than themselves, if not legality.
I absolutely do not see Putin obliterating the Ukranian army in the next few days. I believe he is a Christian , unlike the US Democrats, and Christians do not destroy people without justice. Ukraine is not Glencoe or Culloden.
I believe Israel and Russia will force the neocons to stop their totally reckless and totally illegal use of terrorist proxies of any kind. It might take time, because this is the main pillar of both US and UK foreign policy.
However it is a job that has to be done. Like it or not, the British and US will have to revert to obeying the International Law they constantly claim to champion.
Giyane. Russian action in Syria was to let jihadists live and go to Idlib. Their desire for Ukrainian army to remain intact and run the country after their operation has been thwarted by the Nazis infiltration. The Ukrainian army is politicised now. Russia held off recognition of Donbass for years, in a hope that Ukrain would prefer to stay intact, but choose Neutrality and peace. Tragically that was not allowed by US Nato UK and their Nazis thugs. Economic, cultural and propoganda war in Ukraine as planned out by the Rand people and as predicted by William Burns, is now in full swing. Russian population, which for years sought to be embraced and welcomed by the West has now given up trying to be accepted as equals. How do you think they feel, when we are conducting experiments which target Slavs with Chemical and Biological weapons. How do you think they feel, when we want to crush their economy and steal their wealth. I am afraid the mood in Russia has changed and those Russians who want to leave have left. There is no leadership in Ukraine that can agree to Russian terms. This is tragic for the Ukrainian soldiers. Something Russia never wanted.
I have read your posts for some time and frankly I found them quite often a little strange (no offence intended, I am strange too) but this one is quite mind blowing in that it brings together things I knew – the large number of Russian jews who went to Israel and their effect on Israeli policy etc but I had never taken it further than that, but now your post is like a flash of light in a dark passage. I have always (since I read about the history of Palestine) considered Israel to be on a par with the USA in terms of evil but I missed entirely the influence they could have outside of their direct geopolitical sphere. Now I will have to think again, when someone who is evil performs acts which either deliberately or by accident do good, what attitude must one have to them?
Thank you for this “éclairage”.
Excellent comment Humwawa,
“you can ignore the facts but you cannot make them disappear”
I think a better phrase might be ‘you can ignore facts but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring facts’.
Another aspect of the provocative nature of the warship Defender within the territorial waters off the coast of Crimea was made by the Ministry of Defence.
If the aim of the passage was to underline the UK view that the Crimea belongs to Ukraine and not Russia, given the reference in the Ministry of Defence statement to HMS Defender being in Ukrainian territorial waters, this is misconceived, as it cannot possibly advance Ukraine’s claim. It might even be counterproductive, by giving an opening to an argument that the passage, if undertaken predominantly for propaganda purposes, becomes non-innocent under Article 19.
In my opinion I think the correct aspect of International law should be in the context of the Law of occupation as detailed in the Hague Regulations [1907] and Geneva Conventions [1949]
Once a situation exists which factually amounts to an occupation the law of occupation applies – whether or not the occupation is considered lawful.
Therefore, for the applicability of the law of occupation, it makes no difference whether an occupation has received Security Council approval, what its aim is, or indeed whether it is called an “invasion”, “liberation”, “administration” or “occupation”. As the law of occupation is primarily motivated by humanitarian considerations, it is solely the facts on the ground that determine its application. Therefore from the UK point of view Crimea and its territorial seas are occupied and controlled by Russia, so Russia had the right to be informed of the destroyer’s passage without which it had the right/duty to warn the destroyer of its unlawful passage through “occupied territory”.
Boris Johnson,s ignorance of International Law put all the Defenders crew and accompanying civilians in extreme danger of death.
Tom Welsh just to add to your M Hudson comment up thread, the EU put sanctions on Fruit and vegetable product exports to Russia after the coup in Ukraine in 2014; billions of dollars of produce was involved. The Russians said ‘very well’, then proceeded to import those same products from South America and other friendly countries, then became self-sufficient themselves. Net result: EU farmers lost billions and will not get those sales back; Russia gained self sufficiency and gained profits. Also this…
“JP Morgan estimates the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy on 11% of GDP and reduced growth in the EU at 2.1% of GDP[v]. This estimate amounts to $165 billion in annual sanction losses for Russia and at least $357 billion for the EU alone, even more if you add non-EU Europe and North America [vi]. As long as JP Morgan’s estimates are not completely wrong, the West will suffer more under its own sanctions than Russia. We estimate that only for a contraction of 30% or more will the harm to Russia be worse than for the West. Should gas deliveries to Western Europe be disrupted, then no crash of the Russian economy would be big enough to match the economic devastation of Western Europe”.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/most-sanctions-fail
‘”Net result: EU farmers lost billions and will not get those sales back…”
Indeed. And no one in Washington, the EU, or European governments could care less. their salaries and perks, paid from taxes raised by the threat of force from productive citizens, will not be affected in the least.
These are citizens
foddersacrificial lambs of Mariupol that main media cowards have been afraid to engage with being, in their minds, souls that are incongruous and unsuitable/unwilling to risk interview for their reports.The Missing Of Mariupol Special Report (The Search Is On), 1 Apr 2022 – Patrick Lancaster (YouTube, 19m 59s)
Patrick Lancaster is acknowledged and celebrated for helping people, citizens, innocents and sheltering residents and for displaying the elements of truth to war weary viewers. In my book his bravery and dedication to helping people is commendable! The world needs more journalists like Patrick and Craig who I implore to keep safe.
What you need to know about Patrick Lancaster:-
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/tuakog/a_video_over_4_years_old_it_seems_about_a_patrick/
Embedded with and funded by Russian forces.
It must be true, it was on the internet.
Even better, it was on Reddit. The place that allows contrary opinions…
Engineered by BBC devotee Alexander King @glosnostgone and glasnostgone.org where he wrote: ..two of the worst specimens being Patrick Lancaster & Russell Bentley. From the US and both living illegally in occupied Ukraine, they’ve stoked hatred towards Ukrainians and spread some of the worst kind of propaganda for many a year…
Why is that a problem? Journalists are often “embedded”, if not they couldn’t get to frontline positions. Anyone watching the videos can see where his sentiments lie, but there’s no problem in that. BBC people are even worse as you often get such an impression of “His Master’s Voice” that it’s unwatchable.
If he’s embedded he’s no right to call himself independent. The troops he’s embedded with sure as hell aren’t going to let him see anything they don’t want him to see. Then there’s this:-
Report of a obviously staged IED, the skull of the ‘victim’ (47 seconds in) clearly show straight saw cuts which can only be the result of an autopsy. Whoever that person was they were long dead before they were put in the car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvxtJ6JnHF0
Lancaster is either in on the fakery or the worlds most gullible dupe.
Good read covering many, many bases. Blessed relief from the unendingly childlike mainstream coverage of the past weeks. Most grating has been their glaring double standards. I refer especially to the media assumptions that 1) Britain and America should never be sanctioned and boycotted as Russia is; and 2) that it is unthinkable these incorrigibly aggressive nations would have responded as Russia has to being surrounded and provoked by a military organisation dedicated to harassing and threatening them. Apparently this is a unique crime and one without explanation other than the madness and badness of a particular man and culture.
I’m somewhat missing Tatyana’s input into this subject and very much hope that she is safe among her family/friends somewhere.
It looks like our home office minister has gone campaigning door to door ensuring that her Conservative voters agree with her abysmal reluctance to actually help ALL refugees.
Shaggy dog lookalike Lizzie Truss today pledged long range missiles and armored vehicles to Ukraines NATO patsies, she is also mentioning ship to ship missiles, very likely these will be long range with the possibility to hit targets outside Ukraines territorial waters, thereby potentially widening the conflict to targets in the Black sea/international waters. a snip at 700.000-1.000.000.
Our Gas is still making good money on the spot market, the companies involved have benefited from the sanctions imposed on Russia now for six month, without the Government ensuring that the UK consumers all have affordable gas.
Their energy policies released yesterday are all fleecing us over the long term as nuclear power will take time to be established, with onshore wind power, which could galvanise local communities into energy coops, still being opposed. With not a word uttered of saving energy, insulating homes, a priority in times like this, we will be limping behind everyone for at least two decades unless we can get rid of these linear thinking power addicts called party politicians, before they sell our a.ses from under our backs. They want us to pay dearly for heating up more of the environment from CO2-leaking housing.
Again, I hope that the gas and oil from Russia would stop flowing yesterday, to focus minds on the job in hand.
By far the quickest, easiest and most effective way to save energy is to keep our homes at a lower temperature. Nor will anyone who does this necessarily feel cold, as our bodies adjust to the ambient temperature. However, unlike insulating houses, no-one makes any money out of people turning down the thermostat, so it is almost never suggested.
” it is almost never suggested.”
Your interpretation of “almost never” is very weird. I just did quick search for household energy saving tips, and that suggestion appears in (almost) all of the results.
But those are consumer advice companies. Let’s look at what the greedy, money-grubbing, rich corporate bastard energy companies advise (as they stand to make a profit from energy wasting):
… and so on. So instead of your “almost never”, it’s actually “almost always”. You’re just making shit up and trying to pass it off as fact … erm, because you say so. Just like you do with your reports about Ukraine (‘almost always’, anyway).
Here’s another energy saving tip, just for you: Stay warm by getting infuriated at outrageous stuff that isn’t happening. (It doesn’t need to be actually true: you just have to think it is.) If something bad happens, blame it on whoever you hate the most. That should keep you nice and toasty.
“You’re just making shit up and trying to pass it off as fact … erm, because you say so. Just like you do with your reports about Ukraine (‘almost always’, anyway).”
Why would I be making up stuff about Ukraine? I might be passing on stuff that someone else has made up, given that nothing can be trusted in the media, but I try to avoid doing that. In any case how can you tell? Just because you disagree with what I say doesn’t make it automatically untrue and just because you agree with stuff you see on the MSM doesn’t make it automatically true.
” Why would I be making up stuff about Ukraine?”
Gee, um, I don’t know. Maybe it could have something to do with finding a desperate way to reconcile facts you don’t want to accept together with your deep-rooted sentimental attachments and/or resentments. (To find out in more detail, maybe you should go see a shrink.)
But, yes, I guess you are reading it elsewhere and passing it on, rather than working it out yourself. Quite selectively, too. Bias can be as much about selection of “facts” as distortion, I’m sure you’d agree. We also agree about that “automatically true or untrue” crap, which nobody really goes for anyway. Yes, lots of factors come into play when deciding whether to believe the information we’re exposed to. To be objective about it, the sentimental allegiances are best identified, called out, and detached.
‘Maybe it could have something to do with finding a desperate way to reconcile facts you don’t want to accept”
What “facts” would these be? The “facts” reported by the likes of the BBC? Pointing out that these “facts” could simply be made up is not “finding a desperate way to reconcile” them. This whole war has been remarkably fact-free.
Lots of assertions, lots of claim and counter-claim, lots of “evidence” that doesn’t actually prove anything, as once you distrust one side, you have to distrust the other side, unless you are going to claim that one side always lies and the other side always tells the truth, which is absurd. Everything that is reported about the war in Ukraine can’t be true, as much of it is contradictory. Thus some or all of it must be lies. In this situation it is only really possible to use logic and probability. To say that the Ukranian narrative about the maternity hospital in Mariupol is improbable, isn’t to support the Russians, it would be improbable whichever side was telling it.
In any case you haven’t explained how you know I’m making stuff up or how you know I am passing on false information. How do you know it’s false? I’m not sure why you complain I’m being selective. You can see the length of our host’s post on this subject and that has really only scratched the surface. Of course I’m being selective, if I included everything I’d be typing all day. What have I left out that I should have included, some “facts” gleaned off the internet which you are convinced are true, but I’m not?
I don’t have any sentimental allegiances to Russia, however I can see when things are unlikely, based on unlikely prejudices or logically inconsistent and can come to the conclusion that they are probably not true. I can remember that the MSM don’t have a good track record for telling the truth in an unbiased way. Indeed, this war has now been going on long enough that some of the earlier lies have been exposed, such as the shooting of the Ukranian who told the Russian warship to “fuck off “. Before you accuse me of Russophilia, I have no idea if the Russian news services are telling the truth, either, although I’d be amazed if they were, exclusively.
Bayard: How about actually acknowledging the point being made here?
You stated “It is almost never suggested” that turning down the thermostat might be beneficial, and Dawg went to the trouble of quite comprehensively proving you wrong.
Are you willing to admit it, or just weasel around (as you usually do) and totally fail to man up and say so – say that you were flat out wrong, made up a “fact” and have been shown to be in error?
Everybody else notices this, if they’re still paying attention to you at all at this point. Blowing smoke isn’t going to help. Admitting you are completely incorrect – when the evidence is right there – improves your reputation, you know. Unless making silly, made-up points with great conviction is pretty much all you do, of course – then I’d totally understand why you’d want to ignore it.
“Here’s another energy saving tip, just for you: Stay warm by getting infuriated at outrageous stuff that isn’t happening. That should keep you nice and toasty.”
What an excellent idea! Why don’t you write to all those energy-saving websites and suggest it? You have my personal guarantee that it is very effective. So much cheaper and more fun than putting the heating on.
“as our bodies adjust to the ambient temperature”. BS ! Unless you are talking about evolving over tens of thousands of years.
Just how do you think people survive in Dubai or Lapland if it takes tens of thousands of years to adjust to the ambient temperature. How can anyone go from a cold country to a hot one and not die of heat exhaustion?
Chalk and cheese comparisons. It doesn’t work like that. The Inuit and Arab have evolved differently, hence the different body fat ratios and the skin colouring. You won’t find Eskimos in thick furs in Dubai or Arabs in thin robes in Lapland, they each have their own, different, comfort zones in their own environments. And, they are not transferable.
Bayard,
“no-one makes any money out of people turning down the thermostat, so it is almost never suggested.”
Have you ever considered weighing facts carefully, following evidence-based premises to logically valid conclusions, rather than just saying stuff is so because you want it to be and it satisfies your biases?
We all want to seem clever. It’s a temptation, but there is, after all, something called “the truth”. Why not challenge yourself instead of just continually trying to portray others as gullible, zombie-like idiots who fall for the msm media because they don’t have your razor-sharp intellect? If you just repeat your biases, you don’t grow, you fossilize.
@Nevermind “stop being an apologist to the right wing MSm, regurgitating this ‘Hitler like’ meme ”
How about stopping calling any opposing point of view “right wing msm”. The msm is not a government body, it’s made up of individual journalists of all hues and views, reporting others’ words and experiences via print, photos, videos, even art and song. Many of these are those of traumatised ordinary Ukrainian folk who don’t have the luxury of squirreling their families and themselves away into a safe, faraway bunker while bombs rain down on their head. So if I want to compare Putin to Hitler, I can assure you I’m expressing my own opinion of a man obsessed with some kind of national destiny of the Russian race and willing to pay soldiers to slaughter innocents to satisfy these nationalist obsessions. I’m pretty sure that if I was dropping bombs on Putin and his family, he wouldn’t give a crap either about some esoteric complex piece of history lesson I spout in order myself.
Hi Craig,
good piece, I just wonder whether you are glossing over some things or whether you do not believe them to be true? By this I mean the claim that Ukraine was on the verge of launching a major military offensive against Crimea and of course tzhe Bio-labs. Given that the USA was hellbent on having a war with Russia in the Ukraine and that the western media was hellbent on never reporting anything that the Ukrainians did in the Donbas, then I do not see what option Putin had.
The Americans were never going to call off the dogs of war, never.
Russia must be kicking themselves for not propping Viktor Yanukovych up. In Kazakhstan they certainly weren’t about to make the same mistake twice.
Craig, as a former diplomat, knows the power of the ultra well-resourced State Dept and CIA( + MI6); and how their efforts are going on 24/7 worldwide. To their credit, they are very good at what they do. Their reach and influence(including corporate media) is scary because it’s a direct assault on democratic values and the sovereignty of peoples and their right to freely choose their own leaders i.e. free of interference.
The US people are mostly in the dark as to the nature of their country’s foreign policy ambitions, and the highly selective nature of its support for democracy around the world. In the same way Henry Ford (1863-1947) said buyers could have “any color so long as it is black”, people are free to vote for anyone as long as they are neoliberal and pro-US. If not, you’ll have to “run the gauntlet” as Mike Pompeo warned of Corbyn.
Don’t you find the weird this near absolute consensus across European parties and EU officials about NATO enlargement with hardly a voice in dissent, even among parties that were once steadfastly opposed and despite the current risks? Slightly odd, no? Do you think this is by democratic chance, and everyone is hawkish and on board with US, or have the US shaped the Europe they wanted?
I don’t think the UK or Europe will be free until the US changes its democratic system to one that is more representative and accountable. Then the worldwide overreach at the Department of State and CIA will be confronted. Until then, the world is at great risk of escalation, all the way to nuclear war.
I think the powers that be, now know that the game is up. Our war on Russia has failed. We cannot overpower Russia on the battlefield or the economy. The US will let Europe sink economically. It will just take one stupid incident to escalate to stop loss of face.
Where are the political doves and peacemakers in Europe these days?
The US tend to want the hawkish, neoliberal right-wingers in power everywhere because typically they unquestioningly support US objectives. But this selfish power play by the US has put everyone at great risk. Look at Poland and the Baltics, leaderships are so uncompromising and hardline. Deescalation is almost a dirty word.
Goose
Yes! The baltics/poles are really the worst and the nation that is really driving this hawkishness among europeans, for the past 15-20 years. Yesterday there was news that Nato was not in agreement for the next step on Russia. Guess which nations that wanted to be even more hawkish? ….Yes thats right.
Glad to see more people having such thoughts that you aired in your comment, I have asked that myself, it is actually terrifying that there are no parties, politicians that voice any dissent in west. It is very totalitarian.
Where do these people think sanctioning and military expand towards Russia would end up with? How can they not realize that will increase an actual world war? How could they not understand that the sanctions hurt their nations, perhaps more than it hurt Russia!?
It is almost impossible to start an argument with these people, media is really in total control, again we live in a very totalitarian society.
I’ve no knowledge of the political situation in these countries, or how some of these strident NATO-ultras won power. But as you say, if the US is involved, then corporate media (TV & print) can do a lot of the heavy lifting to get the US’s desired pro-NATO people into power.
Look at the attacks on Corbyn, that stuff is probably being replicated everywhere the US has influence. Increasing tech influence too, with major social media platforms working hand in glove helping the US govt’s aims and objectives.
We’ll end up with a world full of pro-US hawks, for whom war is the only option. It’s not only unethical and anti-democratic, it’s myopic of the US to use its influence like this. Everything will be destroyed.
The views expressed here would probably read like heresy to some, because they are so rarely aired in our increasingly censorial MSM.
But outside Europe and the US. These views seeing the US as a ravenous, pernicious force are widely held. Polls show a majority in the world view the US as the biggest threat to democracy. South Americans certainly know all about that.
Eastern Europeans probably admire the US the most of all Europeans. Many in Western Europe have a more jaded, cynical view of what being a ‘friend’ of the US entails. The only hope is people in the US lose faith with the octogenarian house of horrors running their country, and somehow reform their democracy into one that’s more representative. I believe the US is a good country with good people, but the worst have risen to the top due to the viciously competitive, cut-throat nature of that country.
Jack
On the subject of US interference and overreach. What make of the Rishi Sunak revelations? Jokes that he represents Richmond, Virginia (CIA HQ) not Richmond, Yorkshire are already doing the rounds on Twitter.
From reports:
“US State Department rules say a Green Card holder could be considered to have ‘abandoned’ their lawful permanent resident status over their “Conduct outside of the United States” – which includes “running for political office in a foreign country.”
Mr Sunak did not surrender his Green Card until October last year – six years after he first ran for Parliament in 2014.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked why Mr Sunak’s US immigration status was not flagged earlier, Ms Psaki referred questions to the State Department and Department of Homeland Security.
Hmm?
Goose, “our increasingly censorial MSM” … How censorial, would you say, compared to Russia?
BBC, Sky News leaving out an important detail in their attribution of blame(Russia) for the horrendous train station attack. Appalling reporting.
It’s been widely documented how Ukrainian forces have been daubing their own missiles with ‘For the Children’, i.e. those killed by Russian bombing.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/08/russian-missile-struck-kramatorsk-train-station-daubed-children/#comment
[Picture] Ukrainian police inspect the remains of a large rocket with the words “for the children” in Russian.
Not that this excuses Russian forces. But with a media behaving like this…
This horrendous missile attack looks like being the big story as the death toll grows. The MSM have an obligation to stick to known facts.
@DmitryOpines
8 Apr, 8:53am
The way this is written in Russian “za ditei” means “we are firing this missile in support of/on behalf of the Children” and not “this missile is intended for children.”
‘Ich bin ein Berliner’, another American struggling with foreign speak.
Goose, “It’s been widely documented how Ukrainian forces have been daubing their own missiles with ‘For the Children’.”
Where has it been widely documented?
Excellent overall.. You didn’t mention the Ukrainian arms trade, though, which along with Russia was/is(?) supplying the Burmese junta with weapons to destroy their own civilian population where necessary.
At literally the same time Putin was invading Ukraine, Ukraine was supplying weapons to the military regime in Burma and had been doing for some time since the Rohingya massacres. The same atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine were being committed by the Tatmadaw in Myanmar, which makes Zelenskyy a hypocrite if nothing else..
For those still toiling under the misapprehension that this is an imperial war of aggression by Russia on Ukraine (I suppose if you still believe the BBC … ) and not an imperial war of regime change of America against Russia, then don’t take it from me, take it from Boris Johnson’s former right-hand man:
“Before the war the US and UK encouraged Zelensky to play hardball with Putin, not negotiate. Year after year western politicians declined to take seriously what Putin said about Ukraine and NATO. ( * … he has stated explicitly (e.g in his 2021 essay largely ignored in the west) that UKR/NATO is an ‘existential issue’ for Russia — and that existential issues justify nuclear weapons … ) Instead of listening and thinking our politicians hurled ignorant insults like ‘Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country’.
Now it’s clear that Biden and Johnson are trying to prolong the war.
They think, hope and argue that by fighting to the last Ukrainian and discouraging Zelensky from a deal, Russia will be weakened and [A] Putin replaced.”
( * Taken by me from a subsequent paragraph.)
https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/snippets-2-ask-me-anything
I would argue that in saying that “Year after year western politicians declined to take seriously what Putin said … ” Cummings is providing a fig leaf of cover for politicians who knew very well what Putin/Russia’s position was/is and that the current horror story is exactly their desired outcome (as I have commented previously) and the means by which they hope to see the removal of Putin – regardless of the costs in human lives, death and destruction.
Please forgive my modesty blushes:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/04/each-of-us-is-striving-to-process-the-truth-of-the-disaster-in-ukraine/comment-page-1/#comment-1015903
The US only believes in democracy in other countries insomuch as the people there vote the ‘right’ way. Try running as an anti-NATO enlargement / anti-war candidate or as a renationalising left-winger, and you’ll get the Empire’s full onslaught.
Amazing that some in the UK think this is a democracy. Ditto the EU.
As memorably stated by Tom Lehrer in his song “Send the Marines” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvxqQTh3m4
“They’ve got to be protected, all their rights respected,
Until somebody we like can get elected…”
It’s serious.
Think it’s more serious today than it was when Chris Mullin wrote ‘A Very British Coup’ back in 1982, due to the power of surveillance.
There are senior figures in London who think this US interference is fine, because of the quid pro quo nature of the ‘special relationship’ involving military cooperation + intel and US tech transfers. But it’s depriving UK citizens of real, open democratic choice. And they are deluding themselves if they think they haven’t sold us out for it. How can anyone challenge it democratically? Would any politician dare to challenge it?
The US and NATO + military intel elites are unaccountable and very powerful – they are also really, really bad news for democracy.
If Scotland gets independence it’ll need to avoid being forcibly enlisted in to NATO and accompanying organisations, otherwise sovereignty will be lost before it’s regained.
Just because Tom Lehrer was making a joke about it doesn’t mean it wasn’t serious then and isn’t still serious now. Humour will get a point across far more effectively than any amount of po-faced lecturing and in a lot shorter time. If you recall, our host was sent to jail for writing a “Yes Minister” humorous skit on what was going on in the Alex Salmon trial. I think that’s quite a ringing endorsement of the power of humour.
As to US influence, I think it goes back to WWII, where the government was faced with a choice of being coming under the “influence” of the US or being defeated by Germany. Certainly, that was when the first US military bases were established in the UK and they have been here to this day. The significance of that is starkly outlined at the end of “A Very British Coup”.
Apologies.
I didn’t intend for that to seem like I was contending anything in response. It was purely for emphasis.
Whatever Dom says*, I can assure you that US & UK elites don’t want regime change in Russia, ‘Putin gone and Russia balkanised so that it can be more easily controlled and exploited’ (as you wrote in the earlier comment that you linked to), Peter. How does Russia being balkanised – likely not entirely peacefully – make it more easy to control, if several of the resulting statelets – likely despot-governed – have access to thermonuclear warheads aimed at multiple densely-populated targets in the West? It would lead to far too much unpredictability for them.
Enjoy the weekend all.
* He also said that during lockdown he had to drive about 60 miles from Durham to Barnard Castle and back, mostly on single-carriageway roads (I used to live in the area) – with his young child in tow! – to check if his eyesight was up to driving, mostly on dual carriageways & motorways, back to London.
Former President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev made that very point.
Medvedev was always seen as a calm, rational politician in the West. Of late however, he’s been anything but; full of fiery rhetoric.
There’s a real risk in seeking to punish Russia, the west may push things too far and stumble into a nuclear war. The history of trying to break countries economically isn’t a good one. Both Germany and Japan chose escalation as a direct result of economic warfare.
Huge assumptions in the West that Russia can’t be pushed to the brink like that. Attempts to crucify the country with sanctions, seizing their wealth, all while pumping arms into Ukraine could prove a catastrophic misjudgement.
Thanks for your reply, Goose. As usual you make some good points. I wasn’t aware that Medvedev had mentioned the future balkanisation of Russia, but I was aware that he’s been making some vitriolic statements recently – which surprised me, as I thought he’d be keeping his cards close to his chest in preparation for any potential succession in the event of a Khrushchev-ing of Putin.
Completely agree about the immense risks of the West pushing Russia into a corner, especially when there may be not entirely rational actors involved – on both sides. On ‘ours’, Guy Verhofstadt in particular seems to be becoming increasingly deranged.
@ Lapsed Agnostic
Thanks for your reply. However …
I’m not assured, not remotely, in fact not one tiny little bit.
The playbook would go something like (in the minds of USUK you understand), the Russian regime/establishment realising the disaster that has befallen it because of Putin’s decisions remove him. A new government and President are installed that are more to US liking, not to mention choosing and quite possibly control. The military humiliation resulting from a conflict stalemate; the economic catastrophe resulting from the unprecedented economic warfare; and the global marginalisation resulting from the unprecedented propaganda campaign mean a profoundly chastened Russian regime will do whatever is necessary to keep Uncle Sam happy. If necessary this can be reinforced with a ‘carrot and stick’ policy and a little palm greasing.
Once such a compliant regime is in place the balkanisation would be straight forward. It need not be chaotic, we’re not talking Libya here, and the nuclear weapons would be managed in whatever way deemed best. Smaller ‘statelets’ would be less powerful and more easily controlled than the previous military superpower. Then the natural gas flows can return and Nord Stream 2 be switched on etc, etc.
That’s an approximation of the playbook, but, as you know, the best laid plans of mice and men …
‘Regime change’ is America’s speciality and stock in trade. Of course they want Putin gone. They’re already moving on to softening up China. They are, of course, quite insane. “All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” as someone once said.
Regarding Cummings, I think he speaks an astonishing amount of sense for a Tory.
Comparing the Barnard Castle affair with the current geopolitical conflict really isn’t taking us very far.
Thanks for your reply, Peter. I appreciate your points, but I’m sure that US elites are well aware that their regime change operations haven’t gone particularly well in recent years; the neo-cons are on the back foot in both the Republicans and the Democrats. US strategists surely realise that any attempts at nation-fragmenting would likely go similarly to their attempts at nation-building. The US would also far rather Europe buys expensive LNG from it, than cheap piped gas from Russia.
There are no commodities that the US needs from Russia that it can’t obtain much more easily elsewhere. What the US wants most from Russia is for it to become unilaterally disarmed of all nukes – which are *by far* the biggest threat to America. Does it realise that there’s almost zero chance of that happening under any realistic Russian administration? I should think so. Having seen what’s just happened to Ukraine, any new formerly-Russian statelet that happened to have nuclear missiles on its soil would be loath to give them up for pretty much anything.
As far as I’m aware, Dom Cummings has never been a member of the Conservative Party, but I agree he often talks quite a bit of sense. The point I was trying to make was that he’s quite prepared to tell lies / exaggerate etc if he thinks it expedient – presenting himself as having been at the heart of NATO to get more paid subscriptions for his Substack, for example.
Hope you’re feeling more assured now.
“I can assure you that US & UK elites don’t want regime change in Russia”
pity you weren’t there to intervene when biden gave his speech in poland. The world would have been greatly reassured.