The genocide in Gaza – or more precisely the major NATO powers’ active and practical support for the genocide in Gaza – has forced me to re-evaluate my views on Ukraine in a manner more sympathetic to the Russian narrative.
In particular, I was complacent in my dismissive attitude to the argument that the Western powers would back ethnic cleansing and massacre in the Donbass, by forces including some motivated by Nazi ideology. The same powers who are funding and arming Ukraine are funding and arming a genocide by racial supremacist Israeli forces in Gaza. It is beyond argument that my belief in some kind of inherent decency in the Western political Establishment was naive.
I apologise.
This does not mean that I was wrong to call the Russian invasion of the Ukrainian state illegal. I am afraid it was. You see, the law is the law. It has only a tenuous connection to either morality or justice. A thing can be justified and morally right, but still illegal.
The proof of this is that we have an entire legal structure governing transactions which is designed to achieve massive concentration of wealth. In consequence, the world is predicted to have its first trillionaires inside the next five years, while millions of children go hungry. That is plainly immoral. It is plainly unjust. But it is not only legal, it is the purpose of the system of law.
I am, however, content that the “Right to Protect” doctrine has not become accepted in international law, because it is in general application neo-imperialist. It was developed by the Blair government initially to justify NATO bombing of Serbia and the British re-occupation of Sierra Leone, and was used by Hillary Clinton to justify the destruction of Libya on the basis of lies about an imminent massacre in Benghazi. We should be wary of the doctrine.
(That is the major theme of my book The Catholic Orangemen of Togo).
The causes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine are plain. Alarm at NATO expansionism and forward positioning of aggressive military assets encircling Russia. The Ukrainian coup of 2014. Exasperation at Ukrainian bad faith and the ignoring of the Minsk accords. The continuing death toll from shelling of Russian speakers in the Donbass.
The suppression of the Russian language, of Russian Orthodox religion and of the main pro-Russian opposition political party in Ukraine are simple facts. These I have always acknowledged: until I saw the positive enthusiasm of leaders of the Western states for massacre in Gaza, I was not convinced they could not have been addressed by diplomacy and negotiation. I now have to reassess that view in the light of new information, and I now think Putin was justified in the invasion.
It is not that any of the arguments are new. It is simply that before I did not believe that the West would sponsor mass ethnic cleansing and genocidal attack on the Donbass by extreme Ukrainian nationalist-led, Western-armed forces. I thought the “West” was more civilised than that. I now have to face the fact that I was wrong about the character of the NATO powers.
The alternative to Putin’s action probably was indeed massacre and ethnic cleansing.
The urgent need now is for negotiation to put an end to the war. On that my position has not changed. The war is a disaster for the people of Europe. The American destruction of Nord Stream has devastated the German economy and resulted in huge energy price increases for consumers all across Europe, including the UK. There was a step jump in food inflation which has not been pulled back.
The continuation of the war will of course prime the pump of the military-industrial complex. Massive defence spending is the most efficient way to ensure kickbacks to the political class who control the flow of state funds, through both legal and illegal forms of corrupt reward to politicians.
As Julian Assange said, the object is not to win wars: the object is forever wars, to keep the funds flowing.
The truth is that the longer the war persists, the less generous Russia will be over returning occupied territory to Ukraine. The deal which was torpedoed by the West nearly two years ago (and in truth the US played more of a role than Boris Johnson – I was actually there in Turkey) ceded only the Crimea to Russia, with a Minsk plus deal for the Donbass which would have remained Ukrainian. That is unthinkable now. The major question is how large a coastal corridor Russia will insist on keeping westward from Crimea, and whether Putin can be persuaded to accept less than the historical dividing line of the Dnieper.
I do not share the Russian triumphalism at the dwindling manpower resources of the Ukraine. With the obscene billions the West is pumping into remote warfare in Ukraine, that is not the factor you might expect. But the political will of the West to continue to pump in these billions is plainly sapping, as it becomes obvious there will be no successful Ukrainian offensive. Put simply, Russia will outlast its opponents.
It has always been the case that the sooner Ukraine and the West settle, the better deal they will get, and that is more true every day. But prolonging the war is an end in itself to those who make money from it.
Putin’s historical disquisition to Tucker Carlson opened some Western eyes to another national perspective, and gave rise to widespread claims by Western media that Putin was factually wrong. In fact almost all of his facts were correct. The interpretation of them, and the position of other facts which were omitted or given less weight, is of course the art of history.
There is no question I find more fascinating in history than the formation and dissolution of national identities.
My own perspective on this – and there is no subject on which it is more important to understand the vantage point of the person writing – is governed by two factors in particular. Firstly, I am a Scot and come from one of Europe’s oldest nation states, which then lost its independence and struggles to regain it after being submerged in a new “British” national identity.
Secondly, as a former diplomat I lived and worked in the political field in a number of countries with differing histories of national identity.
These include Poland, a nation state which the historian Norman Davies brilliantly quipped “Has emerged from time to time through the mists of history – but never in the same place twice”.
It includes Ghana, a state with an extremely strong sense of national identity but which was an entirely artificial colonial creation.
It includes Nigeria, another entirely artificial colonial creation but which has struggled enormously to build national identity against deep and often violent ethnic and cultural differences.
It includes Uzbekistan, a country which also has entirely artificial colonial borders but which the western “left” fail to recognise as an ex-colony because they refuse to acknowledge the Soviet Union was a continuation of the Russian Empire.
So I have seen all this, as someone with a training and interest as a historian, who has read a great deal of Eastern European history. I have also lived in Russia and was for a time both a fluent Russian and Polish speaker. I do not write this to claim I am right, but so that you know what has formed my view.
Putin argued at great length that there never was such a country as “Ukraine”. The BBC has run a “fact check” and claimed this is “Nonsense”.
There are several points to make about this. The first is that the BBC did not, as it claimed, go to “independent historians”. It went to Polish, Ukrainian and Armenian historians with their own very distinct agenda.
The second is that these historians did not actually take issue with Putin’s facts. For a fact-check it does not really examine any of Putin’s historical facts at all. What the historians did was put forward other facts they felt deserve more weight, or different interpretations of the facts referenced by Putin. But none argued convincingly for the former existence of a Ukrainian national state or even the long term existence of Ukrainian national identity.
In fact their arguments were largely consistent with Putin. The BBC quote Prof Ronald Suny:
Mr Suny points out that the inhabitants of these lands when they were conquered by Russia were neither Russian nor Ukrainian, but Ottoman, Tatar or Cossacks – Slavic peasants who had fled to the frontiers.
Which is absolutely true: 18th century Russia did not conquer a territory called “Ukraine”. Much of the land of Ukraine was under Muslim rule when conquered by Catherine the Great, and nobody called themselves “Ukrainian”.
The BBC then gives this quote:
But Anita Prazmowska, a professor emerita at the LSE, says that although a national consciousness emerged later among Ukrainians than other central European nations, there were Ukrainians during that period.
“[Vladimir Putin] is using a 20th Century concept of the state based on the protection of a defined nation, as something that goes back. It doesn’t.”
Which is hardly accusing Putin of speaking “nonsense” either. Prazmowska admits the development of Ukrainian national consciousness came “later than other Central European states”, which is very definitely true. Prazmowska herself has a very Central European take – the idea of the nation state in England, Scotland and France, for example, developed well ahead of the period of which she was speaking.
I should address the weakness in Putin’s narrative, around the origins of World War 2. Russian nationalists have great difficulty in accommodating the Stalin/Hitler pact into the narrative of the Great Patriotic War, and while Putin did briefly reference it, his attempt to blame World War 2 essentially on Poland was a low point. But even here, there was a historical truth that the standard Western narrative ignores.
The Rydz-Smigly–led military dictatorship in Poland after the death of Pilsudski was not a pleasant regime. Putin was actually correct about Munich: both the UK and France had asked Poland to allow the Soviet army to march through to bolster Czechoslovakia against Germany, and Poland refused (Ridz-Smigly did not trust Stalin, and frankly I don’t blame him). But this is an example of part of Putin’s narrative that countered the received Western tradition, that most well-informed people in the West have no idea happened, and is perfectly true.
The fusing back then of Ukrainian nationalism with Nazism, and the atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists in WW2 against not just Jews but also Poles and other minorities, were also perfectly true.
It is a simple and stark truth there never was a Ukrainian state before 1991. There just was not. Lands currently comprising Ukraine were at various times under the rule of Muslim Khans, of the Ottomans, of Cossack Hetmans (possibly the closest thing to proto-Ukrainians), the Polish-Lithuanian confederation and Russian Tsars.
As I have stated on this blog before, the boundary between Polish/Lithuanian and Russian influence became settled on the Dnieper. I have also published this map before, showing that history resonates through the current conflict.
There is also the case of third-party recognition of the Ukrainian nationality. I have read, for example, the letters and memoirs, both published and unpublished, of scores of British soldiers and civil servants involved in the Imperial rivalry with Russia in Asia. Many had contact with Russian officers or diplomats. They did clearly recognise different ethnic identities within the Russian Empire. The Russian diplomat Jan Witkiewicz was described repeatedly by British officers as “Polish”, for example. “Cossack” and “Tartar” were frequently used. I cannot recall any of these British sources ever using the description “Ukrainian”.
Nor did British officers who actually passed through Ukraine, like Fred Burnaby and Arthur Connolly, describe it as such in their memoirs. Now I am not claiming that if British imperialists did not notice something, it did not exist. But if there were a centuries-old recognition by the rival Empire of the existence of a Ukrainian national identity, that would definitely mean something. There does not appear to be such.
I should be interested to know where Ukrainian nationalists claim their cultural heritage lies as proof of early national identity. What is the Ukrainian equivalent of Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt speech, of Scotland’s Blind Harry, or even of Poland’s Pan Tadeusz? (This is a genuine question. There may be areas of Ukrainian historic identity of which I am unaware).
Putin was not wrong about history (apart from the dodgy bit about origins of the second world war). But the correct question is whether any of this matters.
It is not whether Putin’s historical analysis is broadly correct, it is whether this matters. I am inclined to the view that Putin is correct that there is little evidence that the people living in Ukraine, hundreds of years ago, ever considered themselves a distinct national entity.
But they are all dead, so they don’t get a vote. The only thing that matters is the opinion of those living there now.
It seems to me beyond dispute that there is now a Ukrainian national identity. I know several Ukrainians who consider themselves joyously and patriotically Ukrainian, just as I know patriotic Ghanaians and even patriotic Uzbeks. The question of how this identity was forged and how recently is not the point.
I should add there are undoubtedly a great many Ukrainians whose sense of national identity is not linked to Nazism. There is a historical and a current strain of Nazism in Ukrainian nationalism, and it is far too tolerated by the Ukrainian state; that is certainly true. But to claim all Ukrainian nationalists are Nazis is a nonsense.
The formation of national identity is a very curious thing. Ivory Coast has just won the African Cup of Nations at soccer, beating Nigeria in the final. The competition arouses huge patriotic fervour throughout the continent of Africa. But the boundaries of all the African nations, except arguably Ethiopia, are entirely artificial colonial constructs. They cut right across ethnic, cultural and linguistic boundaries.
Much of modern Ghana was the old Ashanti kingdom, but that extended much further into now Ivory Coast. The coastal areas were never Ashanti. In the east, the Ewe people’s lands are cut by a completely artificial boundary with Togo. To the north, largely Muslim populations live a much more rural lifestyle. Yet Ghanaians are fiercely proud of this imposed state of Ghana. They are proud it was the first African state to attain Independence, they are proud of its heritage of supporting African liberation movements including the ANC, they are proud of its education system. They have a real sense of national identity that goes far beyond the passionate support of its sporting teams.
Ghanaian identity is modern, ahistoric, within entirely colonial boundaries. But it is real and valid.
In Central Asia, the boundaries of the “stans” are again colonial boundaries that cut right across the pre-existing Khanates. The boundaries of these ex-Soviet republics were carefully designated by Stalin not to be ethnically or culturally coherent, to guard against the development of national opposition. So the greatest Tajik cities, Bokhara and Samarkand, are not in Tajikistan but Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan has important similarities to Ukraine. Both are states with boundaries of Soviet republics, which have no relationship to any pre-existing state or nation. In both – and this may be a legacy of Soviet authoritarianism – the state has attempted to force national identity by compulsory homogeneity. So Russian language medium in education was first banned in Uzbekistan, and then Tajik. Ukraine has similarly banned the Russian language. This of course is nothing new in state behaviour, as Highland Scots well know.
Yet even in Uzbekistan, a passionate national identity has been created, even among Kazakhs, Tajiks etc who reside there. The alchemy by which this happens is mystifying; partly it seems to depend on a natural loyalty to whatever authority exists, which is a rather troubling thought. For Central Asia, Olivier Roy’s The New Central Asia, the Creation of Nations has some thoughts on the sociology of the process.
I am aware I need to read more on the creation of national identity, because most of my thought is based on simple observation. It is however entirely plain that national identity can appear, and can be genuine, and can do so in a period of merely decades. There is now a Ukrainian national identity, and those who subscribe to it have the right to their state.
That they have a right to the former boundaries of Soviet Ukraine is a different proposition. Given the reality that it is plain a significant minority of the population do not subscribe to Ukrainian national identity, that civil war broke out, and that this relates to historic geographic fracture lines, it seems that division of territory is now not only inevitable but desirable.
All people of good will should therefore wish to see an end to fighting and a peace settlement, of which the territorial elements are somewhere close to the current lines between the forces, with Russia giving back some territory in return for recognition of its gains. The alternative is more death, human misery and economic malaise.
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I think Mr Murray may be underestimating the scale of the crisis in NATO’s supply of munitions to Ukraine. It simply cannot keep up with demand. Russia meantime has no problem meeting its needs. Sending more U$ to Ukraine will merely feed the rampant corruption. Ukraine’s military position is untenable. Its ability to negotiate has all but vanished. The only question now is what terms Russia will impose. As President Putin said in his interview, it is for the West now to decide how much dignity it wants to retain in defeat.
I fear the terms will make Blinken’s knees buckle.
Sticks and stones will break his bones,
But not your wishful statements I’m afraid
Melrose take a look at the footage of Blinken watching Biden call Xi a dictator. I felt Blinken’s pain.
It looked to me that Biden’s wishful statements broke Blinken’s face.
Right. Biden isn’t the ideal leader that Blinken could wish.
Meanwhile, the day that Russia “imposes” terms for ending the current conflict in Ukraine is when pigs fly.
Melrose Avdeevka shows that Russia is well on the way to being able to impose terms for ending the conflict.
Melrose
Ukraine is now sending pregnant women and Down’s Syndrome men into the Wild Field. And not because they are abiding by
some liberal tick-box compulsion.
NATO does seem to have a supply shortage of artillery shells.
Whereas the peace loving Russian Federation (thanks in part to help from the equally peace loving Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) seems to have an ample stock.
Happily the RF is not well supplied with high tech weapons and aircraft and provided Trump is not re-elected NATO will ensure a Russian defeat.
If Trump is re-elected Ukraine and Taiwan will both be left to their fate, which will please tankies everywhere.
What are “tankies”? Are they the same as gigapeds?
Here you go Will: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
“Tankies” straight out of Langley lol If they didn’t exist the CIA would have to make them up!
They seem harmless enough; the same can’t be said of gigapeds, who are a global menace
I’m afraid you’ll find Russia better supplied with high tech weapons than NATO (take a closer look at its missile strikes across Ukraine). Its aircraft are at least as good. Its air defences superior. Its manpower greater. Its industrial production greater.
Russia 1 – NATO 0
Ewan, if Russia’s military and materiel are so splendid, how do we explain their miserable performance on the battlefield?
Against a nation of 40 million? A third the population of Russia.
Riddled (we are told) with corruption and Nazi elements.
All very strange.
Unless of course, the Russian military, claimed to be the second best in the world, are merely the second best in Ukraine. 😎
Against a nation of 40m, Russia achieved its purpose (Ukrainian neutrality) by Spring ’22. The US via BoJo put a stop to any peace agreement then. Since then, Ukrainian troops have implemented NATO plans supported by NATO “C4ISR” & munitions. What miserable performance in the field! The only thing that looked panicky (to my ignorant eye) was the retreat from Kharkov region. Other than that the combination of attrition (“active defence”) and mobilisation has gone according to plan. Defence Minister Shoigu announced Russia’s plan would be fulfilled by 2025. Might be sooner. What is it you are referring to?
Ewan; you mention that “Defence Minister Shoigu announced Russia’s plan would be fulfilled by 2025.”.
Well that’s good enough for me.
After all, Shoigu is a military genius despite having no military experience….
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Shoigu
let’s see kill ration of something like 7-1 to 10-1. winning against NATO. Zelensky just fired one of those nazi elements and his replacement promptly lost the most significant battle of the war, and is conscripting mentally challenged people. senior citizens and women to fight on the front lines.
Shoigu: You are being needlessly obtuse. Shoigu is the Minister of Defence. A political appointment. Part of his job is to report the conclusions of the Stavka’s deliberations to the President & Commander in Chief, and to the public. I think you should take what Gerasimov and the Stavka say seriously. (There are at least three things look like blunders to my ignorant eyes, but blunders are part of every war.) I think you should believe Ukrainian military bloggers and soldiers from the front when they tell you the Stavka’s operations may be completed ahead of time. NATO has lost. The decent thing is to let Ukraine make the rational choice it tried to make in Spring ’22 and make peace.
” Russia achieved its purpose (Ukrainian neutrality) by Spring ’22. ”
So how is that they’re still fighting? Active defence won’t win a war, they need to advance. Capturing Avdiivka has taken Russian forces two years and tens of thousands of casualties and in the end they only got there because Ukraine ran out of ammunition. Is that the only way mighty Russia can win against a country of 40 million? Doesn’t say much for their military prowess.
Pears Morgaine
Russia has been fighting a proxy war against the entire West. And as pretzelattack asks, how long did it take for the mighty US military to lose in Vietnam and Afghanistan?
But in any case in February 2024 there are much more pressing international questions a British subject should be asking themselves: what does the Gaza genocide say about the values of western leaders and their pretensions to global moral leadership?
Those have become the geopolitical questions of our age.
A footnote for Pears Morgaine: Are you unaware of what happened in Istanbul in Spring ’22? Are you taking your casualty figures from Kiev? Do you know how modern war is fought, especially how it has to be fought against US C4ISR and in the new world of drone warfare? Active defence across the whole front has brought Ukraine and NATO to exhaustion (running out of shells didn’t just happen, it is a consequence of industrial war against a superior force). I suspect those who write condescending remarks about the Russian military (and the Ukrainian) suffer from Gulf war delusion. The US rolled over a third-rate army, both times with complete air supremacy and with months to accumulate forces unmolested, and in 2003 by bribing Iraqi generals to ensure a triumphal march rather than genuine battle. This war is between peers, Russia and NATO, and NATO has lost. It is over, bar as much more killing as the US chooses.
Dear JK redux,
Defence Ministers do not need to be military geniuses because their role is not to be involved in creating and developing military strategy: that’s the job of the heads of their respective nations’ armed forces as a collective group, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff as folks in the US would say.
Depending on individual nations, the job of being Defence Minister only really requires the Minister to oversee supply and procurement for the armed forces, to ensure that contracts to supply the armed forces with what they need are made and carried out with the right amounts of money and in a way that is transparent to the government and the general public where possible.
The current EU President (Ursula von der Leyen) had previously been Minister for Defence in Germany. She distinguished herself in the role by awarding military procurement contracts to outside consultants, some of whom happened to be personal contacts of hers or of one another.
The scandal hanging over Ursula von der Leyen
Ukraine is running out of ammunition because certain cretins in Hungary and the US chose to play party politics over the issue. No other reason. Russia meanwhile has had to do deals with Iran and NK and much of the stuff NK supplied is, unsurprisingly, of low quality.
https://en.defence-ua.com/analysis/dissatisfied_with_quality_and_quantity_of_north_korean_artillery_shells_russians_complain-8818.html
NATO has had two years to ensure a ‘Russian defeat.’ It’s possibly the least successful military alliance in human history.
One reason for NATO’s failure in the Ukraine proxy war has now been conceded by some of its own military spokesmen. They assumed NATO had more ‘advanced’ weaponry that Russia and were subsequently disabused of that notion. Some experienced independent military commentators hold the view that much of NATO’s weaponry is expensive, high tech junk. Hence its poor record in warfare over the years.
Russia has had 2 years to “ensure a NATO defeat”. It marks an unprecedented failure from the glorious Red Army.
No worries. All of those who formerly used Russian email accounts have nothing to worry about. Intelligence agencies have spotted them for years, so it’s too late to clean up.
These are the same ‘intelligence agencies’ that have been harassing, and recently helped jail, Craig Murray.
If you identify with these forces then I would suggest you have stumbled on to the wrong site.
“ have stumbled on the wrong site”
Nothing can be more profoundly and meticulously deliberate than the measured footsteps of the person who no longer knows where they are going but they are on their way.
I suspect you haven’t followed too closely Russia’s diplomatic and military strategy. It may have been misguided, but your characterisation entirely misses what has been happening. Also, as with many who deride the Russian military, you appear to underestimate the courage and competence of the Ukrainian professional army when provided NATO C4ISR (military jargon I was previously unaware of, but a vital advantage for Ukraine).
they are clearly winning, and not just against Ukraine, against NATO and the US. how long did it take the US and the Allies to win World War 2? for that matter, how long did it take the US to lose against Vietnam and Afghanistan?
2 years? Why is that? Why not 2 months or 2 weeks?
Melrose
February 19, 2024 at 16:13
Russia has had 2 years to “ensure a NATO defeat”. It marks an unprecedented failure from the glorious Red Army.
You’ve understood nothing from everything that’s been said. Russia has no interest in being brutal with people scarcely different from Russians (and they haven’t been, apart from in NATO propaganda). Better to wait and let Ukraine fail of its own accord, which it is doing.
Melrose – Russia has had two years to ensure a Ukrainian defeat….
How’s that working for them?
You should not be wishing for a NATO win. The US clearly needs another Vietnam style defeat because without fail for the last 40 years, each president has been worse than the previous and more prone to killing people around the globe. It is past time that they hosted the war on home territory because 2 more psychopaths in the whitehouse and we’re heading for nuclear armagedon. I am referring to the US as NATO here because they are.
That’s because the “end of history” NATO armaments industry has been a very technophile one, which is geared towards neo-colonial expeditionary wars and making money for various classes of parasite.
Artillery is thus considered cheap, dirty and old fashioned. Compared to expensive wiz-bang toys which are cool and profitable.
You even see this in the NATO airforces, where the A-10 a plane which is fairly cheap, ugly and effective at its job. Gets pushed aside in favour of the F-35 “flying mushroom”.
Also the fact that the hegemon itself, the USA is primarily a sea-power. Has a role in addition to the growing dysfunction, corruption and incompetence within western government structures.
The RF and NK have different military doctrines to NATO, with NK being like a parody of East Asian militarism played deadly serious.
I also don’t see why Russia should turn aside a few compatible shells to bolster their stockpiles, when Ukraine is wholly sustained from abroad.
Your point about Russian weapon supply hi-tech or otherwise running out, is a tiresome & fatuous meme. They supposedly ran out in 2022 after all.
NATO at most will delay the inevitable defeat of Ukraine, Taiwan will probably be China for real in some fashion at some point and Trump won’t make a damn bit of difference systemically.
National Identity.
Always a source of great amusement to me when visiting family in Canada. Every Canadian I met was either English, Irish, French, German, Polish, etc; none of the buggers were ever Canadian.
Similar problems seem to exist in Cyprus, they either want to be Greek or Turkish. Just Cypriot is not good enough.
Maybe in the UK now we are running into similar problems, no-one wants to be English !
Craig, two things. I was surprised that you refer to citizens of Uzbekistan as “Uzbeks”. Surely, they are Uzbekistanis? As you acknowledge, they include Kazakhs and Tajiks.
And I know that this was already a wide-ranging essay, but I wonder why you didn’t refer also to the formation of the Palestinian national identity, which is arguably only a few decades old (but none the less valid and strong for that).
The question of Palestinian identity arises only in the context of the post-Ottoman-empire mandate. A place called Palestine has existed for a long time and the areas of the middle east that gave rise to the different national identities was a result of colonial artificial demarcations. The main areas were the levant and the Arabian peninsula, the lines of demarcation suited the colonial powers. In any case this is all a moot point because whatever you wish to call the population there they lived in continuity in that part of the world from ancient times.
Palestine is a translation of the Ancient Greek “Philistia”, from which we get “Philistines”, now known as Palestinians.
You’re missing my point. I am talking (as Craig was) about people’s national identity, not what we wish to call them or the territory they live in. A sense of belonging to a distinct Palestinian nation, rather than being “South Syrians” or just Arabs or whatever, may be quite a recent development in historical terms. Zionists seem to regard this as a killer argument..As I understand it, Craig would say that it’s not.
Ever since the genocide in Gaza broke out, I hardly follow what is going on in Ukraine anymore and even though I am sympathetic to many of Russia’s arguments, going to war should not have been the answer. There were so many actions Russia could have done prior.
In my view the war could end up either way now – there are constant attacks on Donbas and Luhansk, there are, still, even attacks on Russia proper to this day! Russia’s lack of strategy have only bolstered, unified the west to escalate.
Latest sign of such development is that Ukraine signed separate security agreements with France and Germany.
Ukraine signs French security pact after similar agreement with Germany
Deal with France promises $3.23bn in military aid to Ukraine, while pact with Germany secures $1.22bn support package.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/16/ukraine-signs-french-security-pact-after-similar-agreement-with-germany
I am still baffled that Russia still do not dare and/or are not capable of targeting these arms shipments coming in daily into Ukraine.
Of course the west is going to send in more aid, weapons as long as Russia stay passive about it and the idea to use so much manhood, humans in 2023 waging wars is senseless. Trench war was the way to conduct war in 1914, not in 2024.
“I am still baffled that Russia still do not dare and/or are not capable of targeting these arms shipments coming in daily into Ukraine”… Probably because they are buying so many of them on the black market once they hit Ukraine…As to the invasion, I think Russia were likely hoping the show of force would cause Ukraine to back down and honour Minsk 2 but underestimated how gullible the leader of Ukraine would be in regards to all the whispered promises of help they would receive from NATO.
Very good analysis, Craig. A couple of additions that I can make:
1. In modern Ukrainian “history”, there are several tricks to boost their historical claims, like that Kiev Russ was the Ukraine but then Russia spinned-off; that Russians are Ugro-Finns, that Cossacks were Ukrainians and so on.
2. One needs to realize that modern Ukrainian national identity is not based in Halicia. If you look at Azov battalion, the military wing of modern Ukrainian nationalists, they are mostly Russian-speaking guys and they have Russian surnames. Similarly, nobody in Zelensky’s ruling circle was born to the West of Zhitomir. There was just one “Zapadenets” there, the former Defence Minister Reznikov (who comes from Lvov) but he’s gone now. The initial junta of 2014 (Avakov, Turchinov and Yatsenjuk) are also gone. Zelensky is from Krivoy Rog, Andrey Yermak is from Kiev; his 1a Sergei Trofimov is from Zaporozhie; Kirill Timoshenko is from Dnepropetrovsk; former president Poroshenko is from Odessa; former C-in-C Zaluzhniy is from Zhitomir; Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba is from Sumy; current C-in-C Syrskiy was born in Russia; and so on. There are now descendants of the old Bandera-Meltikov-Dontsov OUN types neither at the bottom nor on top of Ukrainian nationalism now. So Putin was correct when he claimed this is a civil war, Russians against Russians.
Why did all the people you mention take over the Galician nationalist project?
Because the US promised them Heaven on Earth.
Is this a veiled Belinda Carlisle reference?
LOL, no. It’s more like Becky Sharp with an AK-47.
Quelle surprise, I’ve got access to the Assange kangaroo court….
Really, can you forward your access allowance notification?
Email: [email protected]
This is the request form, not the answer
Pretty sure the spiel mentions that rather that sharing is caring, sharing is 2 years at his magesties pleasure
And one more point. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had no role in starting WW2. Hitler needed the Pact to put more pressure on Poland so the Poles will yield to his demands without war. But Hitler was determined to attack Poland no matter what because he did not believe GB and France will fulfil their obligations. As for the Poles, they grossly overestimated their own military might and the degree of support GB and France could give them.
As for Stalin, he had to sign a Pact with either GB and France, or with Germany. Because GB leaders underestimated Soviet military capacity and were worried that a treaty with USSR will alienate Poland and Romania, they chose not to sign any serious agreements, so Stalin had to sign the Pact. See the discussions of British Cabinet on March 27th, 1939.
Course it did, it meant that Hitler wouldn’t be confronted by the Red Army and could look forward to economic support from the USSR. Stalin drove a hard bargain and got the stolen territories of western Belarus and western Ukraine back, followed by Bessarabia and the Baltic States.
And why would Hitler be confronted by the Red Army? Why would Stalin rush to Poland’s help? Moreover, Hitler too was of low opinion of Soviet military might.
Not surprisingly, serious historians do not buy the EU crap about equal guilt of Stalin and Hitler in starting WW2. If you check Richard Overy’s book 1939: Countdown to War, Hitler is mentioned about 80 times while Stalin got only 7 mentionings.
After the Munich Agreement, everyone could see that Hitler’s revisionism wasn’t limited to German speaking territories contiguous with the 1938 borders. Rushing to Poland’s assistance was fighting Germany outside the USSR, which is what the French wanted to do in Belgium. It would inevitably re-open the question of the western districts of Belarus and Ukraine, under Polish rule since the Polish Russian war 1918/19-1921.
In such case Hitler had to worry about USSR before he voiced his demands to Poland, or immediately after this. So why did he order his military to get ready for the invasion of Poland in May but the idea of signing the Pact did not materialize till the 2nd week of August? I’ll give you the timeline of events:
1. In the end of May, the two Russophiles in Ribbentrop’s ministry, Schulenburg and Weiszaeker, tried to approach the Russians with an idea of somehow reanimate the Rapallo politics. Apparently, they were acting on their own initiative; however, neither their boss nor Hitler gave any support to their efforts, so nothing happened. And nothing else was happening for a month.
2. Schulenburg tried again on June 29th, however, he got nothing from Molotov except some general words that USSR is interested in good relations with Germany and so on. After this, Ribbentrop forbade any such attempts, thus, nothing happened for another month.
3. Ribbentrop himself talked to Molotov (in the presence of Schulenburg) on August 2nd and 3d. Although Molotov was very much interested in economic ties with Germany, he was “extremely stubborn” when it came to politics, and even accused Hitler of encouraging Japan to attack USSR in the East. Schulenburg concluded that “Molotov must be seriously working on the agreement with GB and France…”
These facts kill both conspiracy theories, that Stalin replaced Litvinov (who was Jewish) with Molotov because he wanted an alliance with Hitler, and that Hitler needed the Pact to free his hands with Poland. Neither Hitler nor Stalin demonstrated any interest in cooperation until mid-August.
So what made them change their minds? Hitler came to realization that the Poles won’t bend to his demands. Stalin realized he won’t get a treaty with mutual military obligations from GB and France.
As for Litvinov, most likely, Stalin was disappointed in Litvinov’s attempts to create some kind of collective security system in Europe and decided he needed a tough negotiator instead. Enter comrade Molotov.
kudos craig!! i admire those who are capable of changing their minds.. it shows a flexibility and curiousity that is often missing in people, especially as they get older..
Ukraine, as it is playing out today, was planned in Congress in 2013, as stated by Victoria Nuland, when the overthrow of the elected president was being planned. It was intended to be an unwinnable war which would keep Putin’s attention, and steadily deplete his armies and armaments. Thank you Bernie for posting this at the outset.
Following the coup, when the fictional president Zelensky was being prepared for the real job, the Azovs were shelling Eastern Ukraine, the government was declaring that they would have no public funding because their language was Russian and not Ukrainian, and Putin’s representatives quietly turned up at town halls and set up systems to pay pensions and teachers.
When the regions had a vote to secede from Ukraine and be independent from Ukraine, Russia had believed it had an invitation to protect the borders of the independent regions. The Russian soldiers had thought they would be welcomed, as they were, when they turned up to fund public infrastructure. It was a planned entrapment.
In 2013, when some in Congress expressed concern that the intended ongoing conflict might spread to Europe, Ms Nuland succinctly stated ‘Fuck Europe’.
Putin has not used neighbourhood busting bombs like the 5000 supplied to Israel to flatten Gaza. Russia has remained focussed on holding towns and land territory. The conflict has had high combatant casualty rates, but few civilian targets.
Underpinning the holding operation is the agreement drawn up by Kissinger, and renegotiated from time to time by Netanyahu, which holds Israel and Iran to an agreement not to attack each other’s sovereign territory on the understanding that whichever is first attacked by the other will receive the support of Russia. Russia has patrolled the borders and monitored proxy disputes in the surrounding countries. This information has been freely published by the Times of Israel. I also watched an old YouTube television interview with Kissinger telling how he constructed the original agreement which was signed by Putin and Iran.
A diplomat once stated ‘If you want to know what Putin thinks, listen to what he says.’
We are far too used to being lied to by our politicians and our mainstream media.
Bad people are vying over profitable resources.
These events have a long time in planning, and now execution. We are all on cue in the prewritten script.
“In 2013, when some in Congress expressed concern that the intended ongoing conflict might spread to Europe, Ms Nuland succinctly stated ‘Fuck Europe’.
=======
Did she really? Some of us recall her bugged conversation with a US diplomat, not “some in Congress.”
That was in 2014, not 2013,
What Nuland said was, “fuck the EU” not “fuck Europe.” This conversation concerned formation of a new Ukrainian regime and not a conflict spreading to Europe.
Here is a transcript of Nuland leaked to YouTube
“OK. He’s now gotten both Serry and [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, Fuck the EU.”
It appears she is consistent in her view…
On the history, character + role of nationalisms in the modern world, Africanist Terence Ranger edited a landmark collection of essays with Eric Hobsbawm called ‘The Invention of Tradition’ (1983). They make the sociological case that cultural nationalisms invariably depend upon making-things-up and pretending that recent cultural practices are ancient when, in fact, most are modern and recent. Tartanry is one such example. Among other primary sources, Hobsbawm + Ranger, drew on Scot and Marxist, Tom’s Nairn’s cultural materialist methodology + critique of the British state in is his great book, The Break-up of Britain: Crisis + Neonationalism (1977). Also arising from among leading figures of the New Left, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins + Spread of Nationalism (1983) represents perhaps the most comprehensive anti-imperialist survey of nationalisms-in-general + the ideology of nationhood, stressing that all modern states are social constructs, derived in the main from geopolitical competition among empire economies + metropolitan nation-states. Lastly, but by no means exhaustively, Peter Alter’s Nationalism (1994) affords the critical insight + key conceptual + practical distinction as between civic and ethnic models of nationalism in the formation the bourgeois nation-state, among other historical types.
@db_1960
Thank you.
Even before this war, Putin was pretty clear that his intention was to reestablish Russian borders as they were during the Soviet era.
Right from the start of this war, Putin was clear that he intended to take all of Ukraine, not just the Donbass.
If he does so, then how does that improve this idea that the war is the fault of Western provocation and NATO expansion because then he actually will be hard up against NATO neighbouring member states?
On the basis that similar ethnic cleansing issues are at play in Uzbekistan, would it be justified for Putin to invade and annexe Uzbekistan?
On the basis that it’s pretty evident the ruling party of the UK Government – and its supporters – contain neo-Nazis; would Putin be justified in invading the UK?
Surely all people of goodwill should want an end to this nationalist nonsense that perpetuates imaginary lines on a map that human beings are the only entities to recognise? Surely the fact that they are so ephemeral – that a “national identity” can be conjured up within the space of a few years is proof that it’s completely meaningless – wherever it occurs? And the international law that backs national entities – now having been so comprehensively ignored by the major Western powers – is equally meaningless?
Why the fuck can’t we just equitably share the only planet our species has on which to live without killing each other over some meaningless notion of a plot of land we can’t take with us when we die?
Right from the start of this war, Putin was clear that he intended to take all of Ukraine, not just the Donbass.
If he does so, then how does that improve this idea that the war is the fault of Western provocation and NATO expansion because then he actually will be hard up against NATO neighbouring member states?
Take all of Ukraine? Why would he do that? Makes no sense. Could you quote him?
How else can he achieve his stated goals of ‘de-militarising’ and ‘de-Nazifying’ Ukraine?
Sorry but we know from captured Russian plans that that was, and probably still is, his intention.
https://rusi.org/news-and-comment/in-the-news/ukraine-war-captured-russian-documents-reveal-moscows-10-day-plan-take-over-country-and-kill-its
Pears Morgaine
How else
Again, where is the evidence? You gave me a link that lead to a site with a big headline but no text, no document, no evidence that the plan was to annex the whole of Ukraine..
According to our host, Ukraine as a nation is just a recent fiction. If he’s right, invading part or whole of it really seems like one and the same thing.
Click on the link:-
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/preliminary-lessons-conventional-warfighting-russias-invasion-ukraine-february-july-2022
Pears
Perhaps you should read the links before sharing.
First off, it is written by a guy from the ukrainian army with sources he will not reveal. Not really credible to begin with. And in the summary you find this.
As the underlying source material for much of this report cannot yet be made public, this should be understood as testimony rather than as an academic study. Given the requirements for operational security, it is necessarily incomplete.
Again, there was no plan to annex whole of Ukraine as I tried to tell you earlier.
Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) is hardly an objective source – they are servants of the MIC
I read the haters and fan girls and the Doomers and the Angry Patriots, the NATO wonks, wonking in their swanky wonktanks, Dugin, the Eurasianists, the Kremlin website and the rest as the SMO began. So when you make the claim “right from the start” I know you speak in error – nobody knew.
Right from the start refers to Putin’s own televised addresses giving his justification for invading Ukraine, in which he states the objectives are to “demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine”…so it’s pretty damn clear that he knew.
And since he had these broadcast to the World (and transliterated versions published on the Kremlin website), it’s pretty clear he wanted the World to know in real time. Right from the start.
Yet you said,
“Right from the start of this war, Putin was clear that he intended to take all of Ukraine, not just the Donbass.”
Have you any evidence for this assertion?
Tell me, how does one demilitarise an entire country that you’ve just invaded, other than through taking the whole country by force?
Very interesting what people are “permitted” to read into one leader’s words and actions but not those of another leader…
Well merely using the past as a guide, one would smash up the military infrastructure and the current military establishment and put in a new political authority, say like the Americans creating the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq then move to elections when the country has been pacified. That is the standard historical model. There are variations to this model based on the individual elements of the society and the occupying army and the relationship between the two, but they are uncommon.
Who knows what the Russian political leadership wanted? It is by no means necessary to hold the whole country to demilitarise it – just the power centres, choke points for crucial infrastructure and the fortifications
I’m not reading anything into anything, but you are. I am simply disagreeing that it was clear. I heard a thousand theories in a few days. It is still not clear now what is happening.
“ Even before this war, Putin was pretty clear that his intention was to reestablish Russian borders as they were during the Soviet era.” – Nota Tory Fanboy
Can you clarify? As I look back at my notes this statement seems untrue. Can you cite any sources to support this assertion?
Nota Tory Fanboy – Any evidence for your first 2 accusations?
Putin’s own remarks!
Radio Free Europe reports from 2018 that he was asked which Russian historical event he would like to change and that he immediately replied the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ok, the question was “change” not “reverse” and since then he has also said that it wouldn’t make sense to reconstitute the USSR but he later compared himself to Peter the Great with respect to Ukraine and the Russian sphere of influence over neighbouring countries around Russia, and one should not merely judge by a person’s words but also by their actions so his approach to Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Nahorno-Karabakh, Kazakhstan would indicate he is very much in favour of Russian imperialism.
Shortly after the start of this war he stated in a televised speech that the primary objective was to “demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine”. You can’t demilitarise all of Ukraine without taking all of Ukraine.
He also criticised Lenin for having allowed Ukraine to be a founding, autonomous member of the USSR and stated that it should be returned to the Russian Federation/motherland.
Of course you can demilitarise a country without taking it. That’s what negotiations are for. The demilitarise he was talking about were the long range nuclear capable missiles that NATO were looking to station there though and was in response to the US dropping out of the clear skies treaty and the ICBM treaty. You probably can’t denazify a country though, even if you do take it and I suspect that denazify is the same as remove weapons of mass destruction. It’s not the actual aim, it’s the excuse to pretend that your are not invading and hence not breaking international law…
That’s patent nonsense. “Demilitarise” means to remove any and all military presence or function from an area. He referred to doing so from Ukraine. So he did not mean just specific arms, nor did he mean just specific areas of Ukraine but all military presence and functions from all of Ukraine.
And he did so in a speech justifying his invasion. So that was not “through negotiation”…
Given what’s currently going on in Palestine/Israel, there’s quite an interesting piece by The Times of Israel from 2014, called “Back in the USSR?”.
In 2014, Putin called for another Yalta and, whilst not specific to USSR borders but definitely relevant to imperialist intent, he seems quite keen on having both Alaska and Antarctica.
Radio free Europe is not mockingbird it is CIA lol
They lie they cheat they steal
It was not clear what Putin intended viz-a-viz Ukraine upon commencement of the SMO. You said it was – that’s a contradiction to me unless you have a crystal ball or like another commentator here at Mr Murray’s jumping website, you have the gift of ESP – remarkable.
What am I thinking right now?
At the start of the war – and it is clearly war – Putin broadcast his justification for invading Ukraine.
In that broadcast he stated that the objectives were to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine.
So he knew what he wanted the World to hear/see. The World heard it and read it and, if you take him at those words of his justifying his actions then you must conclude that with the invasion his objective was to take all of Ukraine to demilitarise it.
It would appear that you are deliberately ignoring this. It shouldn’t be necessary to keep spelling it out to you; your continued misdirection is wilful.
No I don’t agree. What the phrase means is not what you say.
Denazify and demilitarise does not mean take the whole country – check a dictionary
As I explain above, demilitarisation doesn’t require taking the whole country.
Will Moon you may well disagree but I beg to differ that the reason for your disagreement is based on the definition of “demilitarise” as found in a dictionary; the definition I have given here *is from a well respected dictionary*.
If your objective is to remove all military presence and function from all of Ukraine it is going to necessitate taking the whole country. Your argument that you do it à la UKUSA in Iraq doesn’t work because we didn’t remove all Iraqi military presence and function from Iraq.
In 1940 Germany invaded France. They didn’t take all of France, leaving a large portion free, which became Vichy France. The bit they occupied contained the Maginot Line. This was deconstructed and the current military establishment was removed. The country was demilitarised – there were still some military features left intact in Vichy France but the Maginot Line was removed.
There are a large number of military campaigns in history which were similar; you would profit from reading some of these stories.
You don’t need to control an entire country to demilitarise it.
Will Moon, I would invite you to read the output of local history societies better placed to know what happened in their towns and villages in Vichy France, which was certainly not “free”: you will read how, for example, the Nazis hunted down resistance fighters in the Montagne Noire and, once they knew the Allied forces were on their way, blew up railway stations in the South of France.
Given the existence of the Resistance and the fact that the Nazis hunted down them and their resources across France, including so-called “free” France, it’s pretty difficult to claim that France was demilitarised at all – let alone by some imaginary notion that the Nazis only invaded a small part of France!
Thank you Craig, if only these issues had been scrutinized by our political media class, and with such honesty before so many Ukrainian and Russian deaths. There was some footage of a pre Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, trying his best somewhere on YouTube, but I can’t find it.
Also worth watching is the great Richard Werner’s Putin interview fact check on YouTube where he gets deeper into the formation of National Identity under the nefarious influence of foreign powers, notably Britain.
Anecdotally: I have a Croatian friend who says he watched in despair from the beginning the lies his fellow Croats were told, believed, propagated, and started to act on, that led to the horrors we know. His greatest shock was that it was so clearly bollocks – but grown adults, friends and colleagues believed it without question, to the ultimate detriment of their own lives and well-being. Some oligarchs did well out of it, as did the German industrial class.
It is pointless to expect honesty out of sociopaths, at least when the truth is not convenient at that particular moment.
I think the point of the history lesson, as of his article and press conference in 2021, was to explain that Ukrainians and Russians come from the same stock; that Ukrainian nationalists who claim Ukrainians are Aryan and Russians mere “Mongols” (apparently to be considered racially inferior!) are wrong; that the Ukrainian national identity need not be defined by hatred of all things Russian (in his article he used the examples of Canada and the US and Germany and Austria to illustrate same stock but separate sovereign states that cooperate with each other). Essentialist definitions of nationality are always dodgy, but never more so than in a region characterised in the best academic collection on the subject as the “Shatter-zone of Empires”.
I believe that for an accurate view of world affairs we have to step back both historically and in a contemporary political sense, take as wide a picture as we can, then focus clearly on that wide picture that is then before us.
Putin and the death of Navalny serves as a current case in point.
I shall share my thoughts by positing binary options. Let us say:-
i) Putin is a murderer and an intolerant leader who dictates and does not broach internal opposition; or
ii) Putin, after Gorbachev’s rule was a saviour and restorer of Russia (whom Gorbachev himself intermittently has so accepted him to be) who restored Russia’s economy and the balance of power to a greater degree between the West and Russia.
One could then either take a side and absolutely entrench one’s self therein – or alternatively, see pluses and minuses, truths and falsehoods either side.
Similarly, with regards to the invasion of Ukraine one could reason:-
i) Putin violated international law and simultaneously the sovereign integrity of Ukraine (ditto with the 2003 US invasion of Iraq); or
ii) Putin saw an inherent geo-strategic challenge forthcoming with NATO membership for Ukraine and a substantial advancing nuclear threat to arrive on Russian borders (ditto 1962 Cuban missile crisis).
To sum up – when we consider that the war started in 2014 – there was a civil war in progress since 2014 with some Nazis (Azov brigade – subsequently integrated into the Ukrainian army) killing ethnic Russians mainly in the east of Ukraine – an established promise under Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 being abandoned when Zelensky became President – we might very well accurately conclude that the world is not necessarily what one side alone tells us it is.
What is that African saying again? If the lion could tell his history, it would be a very different one written than that of the hunter.
“It is beyond argument that my belief in some kind of inherent decency in the Western political Establishment was naive.”
I am struggling to comprehend this admission.. and believed as recently as last year? it is something that not even their shrillest propagandists believe in private. what earthly grounds did you have for that belief?
I’m not suggesting that it’s what’s happened here but, joining some recent dots, I do feel that it might be pertinent to ask the question:
How do we know that the author is, in fact, Mr. Murray?
Having had two laptops nicked in quick succession, cloning of his electronic devices upon arrival at the airport in the UK, and now his phone, wallet etc. it is relevant to wonder how easily Mr. Murray’s blog account might have been pwned…
Oh and the twitter/X incident of course
His style of writing.
…which “AI” can be used to emulate.
Anyway, pleased to see that it appears this is not the case – though it is still something to bear in mind for future.
“The same powers who are funding and arming Ukraine are funding and arming a genocide by racial supremacist Israeli forces in Gaza. It is beyond argument that my belief in some kind of inherent decency in the Western political Establishment was naive.
I apologise.”
You are starting to get wise. Anyway, what you call “international law” is simply a game of Calvinball, overseen by a bully and thug.
“There is now a Ukrainian national identity, and those who subscribe to it have the right to their state.
That they have a right to the former boundaries of Soviet Ukraine is a different proposition.”
The reason, the underlying principle behind this identity is that it was made plain to Ukrainians that adopting this Ukrainian identity, hating and fighting their brothers and their own parents, was the price of admission to The West, to the Golden Billion, to the Magical Land Where Institutions Basically Work (they don’t work nearly as well as advertised, but it’s the perception that matters here).
Russia undertook to respect that boundary in the 1991 Ukraine-Russia pact.
before the US looted Russia and installed neo nazis in Ukraine.
Yes well, a lot of things were agreed that didn’t come to pass or were outright reneged on. Including the small ‘not one inch east of Germany’ one, missile defence etc etc.
Although if one wanted to be a legal pedant, the Russian Federation *is* the U.S.S.R and the Soviet territorial entities separated from it did do under agreements that were illegal even treasonous, unconstitutional and undemocratic.
Signed-off by snake-oil salesmen and corrupt Sovok bureaucrats like Yeltsin who had no legal right to take such a decision. Nor did Gorbachev for that matter.
A point to ponder.
The treaty runs for ten years and renews automatically unless one party decides against so if Putin didn’t like it he had an opportunity to cancel. As it was, Ukraine withdrew in 2019 for obvious reasons.
The point was that if Ukraine doesn’t have a right to the boundary with Russia, why did Russia recognise it?
Because they inherited a bad situation from Yeltsin and tried to make it work.
By attempting to build good relations, leading to a common market, military alliance etc a-la Belarus.
However Ukraine was a corrupt, compromised snake-pit with large numbers of deluded & hateful people, and thus decided to go on a path of national murder-suicide.
We in the West are ruled by persons whose behavior is indistinguishable from that of high-functioning sociopaths. “High-functioning” in the sense that most can fake empathy when they need to.
Once you recognize this simple fact, everything else will make perfect sense.
The goal in the Donbas was not to sponsor ethnic cleansing because they wanted ethnic cleansing, it was because the US deep state and all that it controls (which is just about everything) was to do everything in its power to provoke military action by Russia so that an endless proxy war with Russian was justifiable.
Dear Mr Murray,
I‘d like to suggest you avoid Germany in your travel from now on. German judiciary is aggressively pursuing any perceived ‚justification of Russia‘s war of aggression‘ under Para 140 of criminal law.
Best wishes from Munich
S.
Wouldn’t want any of that freedom of speech, no sirree!
Germans love being slaves.
Papieren bitte
Thank you. This is the best analysis of the historical context that I’ve read yet. Also, I appreciate the constructive tone and appeal to people of goodwill.
Motor city, you’re welcome.
Goodwill is hard to find, try Michelin instead.
With respect to Mr. Murray, it seems that there’s rather better historical analysis on the first page of comments.
You are completely mistaken in believing that wars are started because of a desire of “defending our compatriots”. You actually presume that Putin, as well as the entire Russian administration, is dumb enough to sacrifice half a million soldiers and billions of dollars in order to “save” a bunch of Donetsk residents. You sort of fail to get it that civilians are the most expendable asset that states have; especially civilians abroad. Next you will perhaps argue that the Third Reich invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938 simply because the Nazis wanted to protect Sudeten Germans from the Czechs; invaded Poland in 1939 simply to protect Germans in Danzig; invaded France in 1940 to protect Germans in Alsace and Lorraine; invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 to protect Volga Germans; and tried to invade Great Britain to protect – whom exactly?
Russia, like all big empires, is driven by a mix of long-term geopolitical aims, own security considerations, and internal power games. Nowhere in it are Russians living abroad or small groups of idiots in other countries, e.g., the few Nazi sympathisers in Ukraine.
War is a big business, NEVER a noble cause.
By the way, there are more neo-Nazis in Germany than in Ukraine, yet Russia somehow isn’t talking about invading Germany, right? Please don’t believe this whole Russian “neo-Nazi” narrative re. Ukraine – it’s a typical propaganda, used by Russia the same way as the US uses the “terrorism” narrative, because of similar social reactions to the term at home.
Re. your musings about Ukrainian national identity, I wonder whether your next move will be to advocate for a potential Russian annexation of Finland. You know, Finnish national identity only developed in late 19th century (so-called Karelianism), and Finnish literary history only goes back to early 19th century, barring an older translation of the New Testament. So, if rights of invasion or independence are to be based – as you suggest – on there being a long-written history of statehood, then the world would surely become a more dangerous place.
Overall, I’m quite surprised that in your quest for “truth” you’re willing to accept any narrative as long as it’s being opposed by the Western mainstream. You seem not to understand that the Russian propaganda is even more elaborate, convincing, and effective than the Western one. It’s a pity, because I once trusted that you have an impartial view of the world; now it’s sad to see that you just switched to a competing propaganda machine.
Better check where our host’s former email address was, and you’ll understand many things.
People tend to preach for where they belong.
Well, I for one don’t believe that our host is actively collaborating with the Russians. He simply mistrusts the Western narrative (perhaps for a reason) so much that any narrative critical of the West appears truthful to him.
Characteristically of him, our host, for instance, could not accept that the Salisbury attempted murder was a fairly routine elimination typical within Russian services. He doesn’t see that Snowden or Texeira are alive while the Russians distrusted by the Kremlin have had brain haemorrhage, stroke, heart attack, or simply happened to stand too close to a hotel window. Of course, we never learn about their door handles, lol. Google up what happened to the former Russian military pilot Maxim Kuzminov in Spain yesterday.
So, when reading our host’s theory that Russia was so full of love for the “ethnic Russians in the Donbass” that it has been ramping up military production since 2011, developing long-range and strategic weapons, and a decade later decided to invade Kiev in that love, losing and killing thousands on the way – one wonders whether it’s still a blog of a human rights campaigner.
But what about the murdered, Robert?
The GRU returned to Salisbury to murder Dawn Sturgess, or the assassins left the poison behind, and many weeks later Dawn Sturgess was murdered by accidentally coming into contact with…
Deadly novichok hanging around on door handles, hotel rooms that don’t need de-contamination. In this case the list is endless. Give it a rest – a reasonable explanation is yet to be given.
I am glad you have got it clear in your mind because apart from interested parties you are the only one, or one of a few who has.
Dawn Sturgess died of an unrelated illness – English blood was needed to whip up resentment against Russia at that time, so her name was picked up. Who in Britain would give a damn about a dead ex-KGB spy?
The amateurish action of GRU was an opportunity that the British services could not let go waste, lol.
Of course, Craig automatically accused Israel, his thinking being that Russia sure wouldn’t simply kill its citizens abroad, ROTFL.
Watch Spain now.
Robert you are out on your own here.
Dawn Sturgess’s death is attributed to Novichok by all the main stream sources – BBC, NYT, Brit Gov., etc., etc. I don’t know what happened; so why don’t you give a brief synopsis of your views?
Maybe we’ll soon learn what she actually died of:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/03/novichok-poisoning-dawn-sturgess-death-wiltshire-inquiry-date
In any case, she wasn’t a target, unlike Skripal. Of course our host was unable to accept the brutal realities of Russian secret services, and instead peddled to us Russian misinformation that the two GRUU opertives were innocent tourists, and if there was a bad actor in all this, it must have been Israel.
Now the bad actor in everything happening between Russia and Ukraine is the US. Without US, there were no wars and people lived happily ever after.
Robert you are out on your own here when you say this woman didn’t die of novchok, every mainstream source says she did
Are you aware that Britain and America go round the world kidnapping people and then torturing them ? This torture can go on for decades.
Are you aware the CIA used anthrax to kill Americans even sending some to recalcitrant Senators who were dragging their feet on the Patriot Act.
Are you aware that Iraq had no WMD but the CIA with the help of MI6 pretended they did. So these western intelligence crime networks are responsible for everyone killed after the war started, which is millions of innocent people. Don’t give me lectures about the wickedness of the Russians.
My guess is Skripal was dying and wanted to die in Russia, but MI6 did not want this. So he and his daughter were sprayed with gaseous fentanyl by some operative, and kidnapped (these intelligence filth do a lot of kidnapping).
The thing is, CIA\MI6 work for the oligarchs, not the people who live in the country. I imagine it is the same in Russia. I think you should abandon your “Cold War” spectacles and look with fresh eyes at this democratic deficit. Remember as well the coterie of privilege sex criminals that the domestic intelligence services protected and probably still protect. Try looking without bias at the way of the world.
”..the Salisbury attempted murder was a fairly routine elimination typical within Russian services.”
It can’t have been ‘fairly routine’ if it failed, unlike the other examples offered.
An ‘attempted murder’ using novichok would be akin to an ‘attempted murder’ using a guillotine.
All states are autocratic but they are not immune to public opinion, that’s why they build so many apparatuses of repression. When Hitler drove through Berlin during the Munich crisis he was struck by the demeanour of the people he could see: no enthusiasm for war, just depression that it might happen again.
RE Russian propaganda, I know that at least some Westerners staying in Russia in the run up to and during the annexation of Crimea had their knicker drawers rifled through in case they were spies and were told that the annexation was all the fault of the Americanskiy…
Incorrect. In a nuclear plant, you USE enriched uranium, you don’t PRODUCE it.
As a primer, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_centrifuge
The irony over “spies” is having a KGB lieutenant colonel as President.
Imagine the (rightful) derision there would be if the UK’s PM was a well-known MI5 agent. Or if Macron was DGSE. Or Biden FBI.
Behind the times, America had the CIA leader become prez about 15 years earlier. The blue-blooded George Bush had one term between the Cowboy and the Cokehead 1988-92 I think.
And how derided were they as a result?
Do you know whether Biden has an FBI background? If he did I’m sure he’d be being derided for it…
There was no derision: show me one article about it from the time that says this was a problem! Back then the CIA were not yet widely recognised as the murderous organised-crime syndicate that many see today.
Looks like Clinton was a CIA asset and it looks the same for Obama. Maybe the problem with Trump is that he is not an asset? Since Bush, all the prez have been CIA assets. I think Trump is just a distraction for the credulous and his first term indicates nothing was different.
‘Imagine the (rightful) derision there would be if the UK’s PM was a well-known MI5 agent.’
If the political polling is accurate, that may soon be the case.
What MI5 background does Starmer have? Again, should he become PM, I’m sure he’ll be derided for it (rightly, amongst his other failings).
The point being, I’m sure Sunak would be being further derided if he had a MI5 background.
(Or GCHQ etc.)
Starmer has no official role within MI5 that has been proved. Then again, Lee Harvey Oswald had no official role within the CIA either.
Starmer was DPP which is a role not handed out carelessly by the state. His actions in regard of Julian Assange make his allegiance to the security services of the UK clear. Whether he was recruited as an asset at university or merely later complied with MI5/6 in order to further his career is arguable.
Robert: Did these neo Nazis in Germany form a congress approved/funded, Pentagon-armed/-trained battalion to subdue an area that opposed a new government?
Russia has not lost anywhere near half a million soldiers. you obviously believe Ukrainian and US propaganda.
You and I don’t know how much they have lost… Both sides lie you know?
To be fair, Ukraine does not lie about its own casualty figures: it simply refuses to publish any.
@ Robert, what 500,000 soldiers? US-Ukronazi soldiers??
‘The national security state is the main driver of censorship and election interference in the United States. “What I’m describing is military rule,” says Mike Benz. “It’s the inversion of democracy.”‘
An explanation of how the MICIMATT, the media, the US government and its allies, and others have conspired to impose censorship. Benz, who used to work for the US government, claims that the First Amendment has been marked for deletion. The plan is to accuse all inconvenient voices of uttering disinformation to harm democracy. In this noble cause, the censors aim to suppress democracy in order to save democracy.
https://tuckercarlson.com/uncensored-the-national-security-state-the-inversion-of-democracy/
Five or so days before Putin launched the SMO, Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference called for Ukraine getting nuclear weapons. That was in the presence of Kamala Harris and no doubt other US officials. Two of the places that Russia immediately (within a day or two) occupied were Chernobyl and the nuclear power plant at Zaporozhe, both likely sources of the nuclear materials needed to make dirty bombs, the “nuclear” weapons that it would have been easiest for Ukraine to acquire.
Putin acted to neutralize a threat to his country that was equivalent to the threat posed by Russian missiles on Cuba in 1962.
I’m afraid you’ll have to repeat your class. Nothing of the kind ever happened.
It’s even ludicrous to assume that you could make nuclear weapons at a nuclear plant. Why not build airplanes at an airport, airhead !
Read what I wrote again. I was writing about dirty bombs.
Dirty or not, you don’t make bombs in a nuclear plant. This is infantile.
Occupying those facilities was obviously nothing else than blackmail from the Russian regime.
Whether or not the armaments are actually constructed there, you enrich radioactive materials in adapted nuclear power plants for the purpose of using them as weapons.
See the allegations against Iran and Israel.
Chernobyl was decommissioned years ago and unlikely to be the source of any useable radioactive material. Ukraine still has four other nuclear plants under its control and operational plus several uranium mines, a processing plant at Novokostiantyniv and the Dniper Chemical Plant, a Soviet era facility which is home to several large dumps of radioactive waste. Any of the latter would be a better source of material for a ‘dirty bomb’ if Ukraine ever felt the need to make one and let’s not forget that so far nobody has. They remain theoretical.
Try again.
Why theoretical? Russian threats of what they’ll do if the US-Ukronazis try to make something with radioactive material? There are rumours circulating of the US-Ukdonazis contemplating resorting to poison gas; what do you think the Russians will do if they try?
A great thought-provoking article. My understanding of what President Putin was getting at in his “history lesson” reflected his belief in a multi-polar – as distinct from a unipolar – USA-hegemonic world. He used the Russian Federation as an example of a multi-ethnic, -religious, -linguistic nation that he also recognised had been artificially created by first Czarism and then Lenin’s defining of the USSR.
Though bitter about the manner of the break up of the Soviet Union with the problems that it caused, he does not seem to have any problems with an independent Ukraine on the assumption that it recognised and respected its history and current realities as being multi-ethnic, -religious and -linguistic; – using as examples the Hungarian- and Romanian-speaking parts and Catherine the Great’s Odessa as being non-Ukrainian historically or contemporarily.
With an independent Ukraine the USA and collective West through NATO then aided and abetted the Ukraine neo-Nazi minority to achieve its long sought after and worked for dominance with the 2014 Maidan coup. It immediately started to impose a mono-nationalism in line with its fascist ideological roots, making the notion of “equality, diversity and inclusion” a much-cherished shibboleth in its supporters’ own countries a hypocritical nonsense. Well aware of the potential dangers to Russia’s security and status Putin upped his game accordingly and the rest has followed.
I agree with Craig that many countries’ boundaries are artificially drawn, and it is what governments do within them to promote the interests of the many and not the few that are important. This has not happened in Ukraine. Socialism is of course international, and those on the left that support Ukraine from a socialist point of view should really take a good long hard look at their ideas. The same applies to anyone on the left that supports Israeli genocide.
It’s good when people – particularly, those whose professional conditioning, peer-pressure and other factors would encourage not to – change their mind and actually say it publicly.
The Maidan regime has talked in loving terms about (then fascist) Croatia’s NATO supported Operation Storm. A lesser-scale example of the NATO supported massacre & ethnic-cleansing one sees in Gaza today.
They fed (not ignored, actually fed) all of Ukraine’s pre & post-Maidan Russophobia (called pro-Western sentiment or nationalism) genocide propaganda and public conditioning to carry out same.
However, all that said, helping to base modern Ukraine’s entire “official identity” on the legacy of a cat-strangling, self-flagellating, we-wuz-Sumerians, Slavic Himmler weirdo – along with NATO cargo-cultism – was only ever going to end in parts of Ukraine being depopulated & burned, or revert to being part of Russia, Poland, Hungary, etc.
Ivan Maisky, USSR ambassador to Britain 1931-1943, outlined in detail the reasons leading up to the outbreak of WW2. Chief amongst them was the refusal of the great powers, and Poland to form an anti-German pact to fight Hitler.
https://archive.org/details/maiskydiarieswar0000mais
“[T]o claim all Ukrainian nationalists are Nazis is a nonsense.” Is it? Genuine question: I haven’t come across any Ukrainian nationalists who aren’t Banderites, so what am I missing?
I suspect that for many, the parts of the man they support are more the independence from Russia and less the “killing the Jews”, though given Israel’s recent behaviour, maybe they need to look more closely at the latter🥺
I saw some grim footage from 2015, showing Bandera paramilitaries attacking several Roma encampments. The racist language used by the paramilitaries, could have easily have been directed against another ethnic/religious minority.
The history of Donetsk is another aspect of why a Ukrainian ‘ethnonationalism’ is difficult to pin down on the territory of the former Soviet state, particularly in Donbas. As an industrial city founded under Tsarist Russia, was its population not drawn from around the Empire as well as Ukraine (not forgetting Welsh industrialist John Hughes), on a culturally Russian basis? Migration, proletarianisation, the influence of communism/bolshevism have all surely muddied the ‘national’ sense of identity in the city over the years, not to mention Soviet era ‘Ukrainization’ and then repression of Ukrainian identity. Even ‘stable’ Britain has struggled to assert a standardised national identity in its proletarian hinterlands, with successive migrations bringing strong counter influences and mixing of cultures.
Oh, I think they managed it alright.
It’s just the very national identity that they dispise most of all.
Of course one has to wonder just how strong the “Ukrainian identity” outside the far west, would be under Russian sovereignty.
The two seem actually rather porous, as Russia had little trouble getting Kherson and parts of Zaporozhye to at least passively accept Moscow’s rule or even outright support it.
Also given that defeat in war can very much discredit an idealogical premise or a separatist identity (or both).
Ukrainian in Russia could mean as much Southerner in the USA if they lose the war completely. A regional distinction of one nationality, not a separate nationality.
Brilliant article Craig and educational to boot.
Meanwhile the deck against Assange is stacked even higher than we thought.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/julian-assange-judge-previously-acted-for-mi6/
“One of the two High Court judges who will rule on Julian Assange’s bid to stop his extradition to the US represented the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Ministry of Defence, Declassified has found.
Justice Jeremy Johnson has also been a specially vetted barrister, cleared by the UK authorities to access top secret information.
Johnson will sit with Dame Victoria Sharp, his senior judge, to decide the fate of the WikiLeaks co-founder. If extradited, Assange faces a maximum sentence of 175 years.
His persecution by the US authorities has been at the behest of Washington’s intelligence and security services, with whom the UK has deep relations.
Assange’s journalistic career has been marked by exposing the dirty secrets of the US and UK national security establishments. He now faces a judge who has acted for, and received security clearance from, some of those same state agencies.
As with previous judges who have ruled on Assange’s case, this raises concerns about institutional conflicts of interest.
Exactly how much Johnson has been paid for his work for government departments is not clear. Records show he was paid twice by the Government Legal Department for his services in 2018. The sum was over £55,000. “