|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
[Want even more content from FPM? Sign up for FPM+ to unlock exclusive series, virtual town-halls with our authors, and more—now for just $3.99/month. Click here to sign up.]
I am hardly alone among conservatives in stating that I greatly admire Douglas Murray, a fierce opponent of wokeness, defender of Israel, and author of such must-reads as The Strange Death of Europe and The War on the West. And that is why his latest piece in The Spectator, titled “The MAGA Movement is Wrong on Ukraine” is such a disappointment that I felt compelled to respond (the article is behind a paywall, unfortunately, but I have excerpted the key selections below).
“How can the right be so wrong? Or at least portions of the right – especially the American right – when it comes to Ukraine?” Murray asks and then explains.
He places the roots of the MAGA movement’s reluctance to embrace the Ukrainian cause in the revelations about Hunter Biden’s corrupt business deals in the country back in 2014. Then Ukraine appeared on the Right’s radar again when Trump was impeached over a 2019 phone call with its President Zelensky. These two events, Murray argues, cemented in the mind of the Right the notion that Ukraine “was simply a corrupt country.”
Then came Russia’s invasion in February 2022, and for a while establishment Republicans leaped to defend the Republican principle that tanks, as Murray puts it, “should not be allowed to roll with impunity into an allied country… At the start of the invasion, the normal conservative view prevailed: Ukraine had been brutally attacked, had stood its ground, and was admirably fighting back.”
“But all the while,” he continues, “an upcoming generation of mainly online MAGA Republicans could be seen veering in a different direction.” Murray argues that there was an element of the Right who weren’t entirely convinced that Putin was Dr. Evil. For example, influential strategist Steve Bannon hailed Putin as a defender of Christianity and an opponent of wokeness.
Then the Right, Murray writes, became bored with “the near-universal admiration for Ukraine – specifically for Zelensky. These people understandably hate the idea of narratives being pushed on them, and they noticed that many of the lost souls who had been putting BLM flags in their Twitter bios were now posting Ukraine flags.”
Fact check: true so far. It is also true that the Right “became additionally irritated that unheroic and distinctly unmasculine figures such as Justin Trudeau of Canada were suddenly able to present themselves as wartime leaders.” But then Murray says the Right suspected that “if Biden, Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron and every other hated left-wing ‘globalist’ was shimmying up to Zelensky, there must be something wrong with him.”
The full-throated support of the globalist Left (and establishment neo-cons) is not the only reason the MAGA Right was and is skeptical of Zelensky (although it’s reason enough). Anyone with eyes to see can tell that Zelensky is an opportunist and former actor who very much revels in playing the role of a modern-day Churchill, and who has a vested interest in perpetuating the admiration of Western elites and the flow of money and arms from America and NATO.
Then Murray claims, rather exaggeratedly and dismissively, that
Wittingly or otherwise, the MAGA online right started to absorb Russia’s narrative on Ukraine… that Ukrainian soldiers are “literal” Nazis, that Zelensky is constantly buying villas and yachts in the south of France, that the whole war is one big money-laundering operation, that Ukraine’s war to push the Russians back is unwinnable because of the great might of the Russian army – and that the whole thing is a giant waste of US taxpayers’ money.
Murray calls this “Russia’s narrative,” and yet he does not dispute the core of it, which is that Zelensky and Ukraine are hardly the noble, spotless champions of democracy of the Democrats’ narrative. Indeed, Murray’s only argument against this narrative is that “almost all the allegations the MAGA right make against Ukraine are infinitely truer of Putin’s Russia”:
Interested in international corruption? Try looking at Putin and his friends. Interested in an anti-Christian government? How about looking to the cynical faith of Putin, who trumpets Christian values while firing rockets at great cathedrals like that in Odessa and recruiting jihadists to fight for him. Think Ukraine is cruel in forcing draft-dodgers into the army? Consider Putin’s army recruitment processes. Dislike Zelensky for not holding an election during a total war? Have you noticed Putin’s electoral habits?
Murray concludes by disparaging the MAGA Right as being naïve and ignorant about Ukraine – that we have been captured by “memes” about “a fantasy country that they imagine they know everything about – and all of it is bad.”
Another pundit/historian I admire (but do not always agree with), Niall Ferguson, retweeted the link to Murray’s article and described it as “excellent, hard-hitting analysis of how and why the Trump-supporting Right lost its way on the issue of Ukraine and ended up legitimizing Putin’s war.”
And right there is the fault line of both men’s argument: that those of us who do not want America to be financially and militarily committed to rescuing “democracy” in Ukraine are “legitimizing Putin’s war.” I’m disappointed to see both these thoughtful men resort to the go-to, knee-jerk accusation that anyone who hasn’t tattooed a Ukrainian flag on their forehead is, at best, “legitimizing” Putin’s invasion, or at worst, serving as Putin “stooges” and “puppets.” This is the same argument Hillary Clinton and the rest of the far Left in America have been blasting in the media ever since 2016 when she needed to smear her presidential opponent Trump.
Murray’s defense of Zelensky seems to be that MAGA isn’t entirely wrong about him but Putin is worse. This isn’t exactly a rousing endorsement, or an argument for why America should keep funneling billions of dollars into the Ukraine money pit without a clear plan for military victory against Russia. Neither the Zelensky fan girls on both sides of the political fence in Congress nor Murray, as far as I can see, has a plan for defeating Russia apart from intensifying and prolonging this ghastly conflict until American and Western European troops are engaged.
Trump and the MAGA Right simply want to bring an end to the war quickly, without further devastation in Ukraine, and without dragging everyone else into a hellish conflagration. That is the only way to save “democracy” in Ukraine and to stem whatever territorial ambitions Putin may or may not have – and the only way to do that is to make a deal. At heart, Trump is a dealmaker, and his administration is the only political entity offering to stop the killing before it expands even further into world war than it already has.
MAGA is not naïve about either Russia or Ukraine. We are not defending Putin or claiming he’s a good or trustworthy guy (VP Vance has repeatedly asserted this by promising to deal with Russia by invoking Reagan’s imperative, “Trust – but verify”). We don’t defend or justify his invasion, even when we note that it stems in part from what Russia perceived to be NATO expansion into Ukraine.
Making America great again both domestically and on the world stage means addressing America’s pressing problems first, including reducing gargantuan debt and facing down our real enemy – China. It means employing real-world problem-solving, not chest-beating virtue-signaling about defending democracy around the world. That is how we can best defend democracy in the short, medium, and long run.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior.
Well. I sort of agree. I think that’s an excellent analysis of the MAGA landscape. It’s also a good retort to Douglas Murray.
But it’s still wrong.
Me and my family knew the invasion was coming weeks before the invasion.
Did you miss that?
Can you guess how we knew? (The massive buildup around the Ukraine including staged troops in Belarus? No.)
The reason we knew the invasion was coming …
… was that the Ukrainian Nazis could NOT STOP SHOOTING CLUSTER BOMBS INTO THE DOMBASS!
In fact, the number of cluster munitions shot into the Dombass went up from a few a week
to several a day.
And – what’s worse – the cluster bombs were being shot into the cities in the Dombass. This led to the ‘breakaway’ states declaring independence.
Which led to Russia’s REFUSAL to provide troops and direct support.
That was the situation just DAYS BEFORE the ‘unprovoked’ invasion.
And then a number of civilians were killed – including a child.
Now – not sure if you can figure this out – but
IF A DEAD CHILD IS ON YOUR TVs – MAYBE YOU’RE GONNA ROLL TANKS!
That was just a days before the ‘invasion” of the provinces that HAD ALREADY DECLARED INDEPENDENCE due to the TERRORISM.
A number of “right-wingers” I used to follow – past tense –
LITERALLY CLAIMED THAT RUSSIA FIRED THE CLUSTER MUNITIONS INTO DOMBASS TO KILL RUSSIANS TO BLAME UKRAINE TO JUSTIFY THE INVASION.
What Bravo Sierra. And copium.
Yeah. And for the last sick joke in this Bravo Sierra story:
Those cluster munitions were manufactured in Alabama.
The casings were made in DFW.
I’ve literally driven by the factory where the casings were made
for cluster munitions OUTLAWED BY INTERNATIONAL LAW
for the Ukrainian NAZIs
to use on Russian civilians.
Israel has wiped out 10s of thousands of Hamas for killing over 1,000 Israelis, and taking hundreds hostage.
And they were quite right to do so.
BUT APPARENTLY THAT’S NOT THE TRUE (in the West) FOR RUSSIANS WHO HAPPEN TO MAKE THE MISTAKE OF BEING WHITE AND CHRISTIAN!
Do some research. Get some facts that do not come from Ukrainian NAZIs. Talk to some Russians who live there.
You will have a ‘Paul Harvey’ moment once you know what’s going on in the Ukraine. (And notice I skipped the money laundering issue, which is whole new rats nest.)
You rant on about “Ukrainian NAZIs” yet omit mention of the Donbas Russian Nazis “Rusich (DShRG) ” founded by by Alexey Milchakov, a neo-Nazi from Saint Petersburg? Why is that? Or are “Rusich (DShRG) ” your good Nazi’s?
Yes, I omitted them.
They were not killing civilians in the Dombass.
I am sure they’re involved in defending against Ukrops, but whose fault is that?
“They were not killing civilians in the Dombass.”
Tell me you’ve never watched the social media feeds of Rusich or the Russian Imperial Movement without telling me you’ve never done so. If they aren’t getting some sweet USAID money by way of Ukraine’s SBU, I’d almost say they should be because they’re useful for tracking the onset of state sponsored Kremlin terrorism in the Donbas going back to 2014.
You hate Russians.
I get it.
And you are willing to start WW3 to kill them.
We know the Russians are not killing civilians in the Dombass
because civilians in the Dombass are Russians.
You’d do better to point to social media of Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilians – which have occurred.
Why not just blame Russians for what Russians did?
Because you’re not informed.
So you DO have your good Russian Nazi’s then! Speaks volumes about your disingenuous position.
Disingenuous? You’re the one prattling about Russian Nazis.
They are not a significant force in this conflict.
Dear God, where do I start with this?
“… was that the Ukrainian Nazis could NOT STOP SHOOTING CLUSTER BOMBS INTO THE DOMBASS!”
God forbid the Ukrainians fire back after the Russian military routinely used divisional level artillery to attack them in the Donbas, including all the way back in 2014 like with the sieges of Luhansk Air Port. The Ukrainians responded to the Kremlin’s perfidy and violations of the ceasefires with their own. And even the Kremlin’s own puppet governments like the DNR and LNR admitted civilian casualties from that were low (see: Perun and others) before they quickly walked that back.
Also “Ukrainian Nazis”? Even many of Ukraine’s marginalized Neo-Fascists and “Banderaists” have never fully forgiven Hitler for betraying their spiritual liege for having the audacity to advocate for an independent Ukraine in 1941.
Also on the subject of Nazis, let’s talk about how Russia’s Vice President Medvedev is a Neo-Nazi. So are many of their dogs of war like the late, unlamented Prigozhin and Utkin, and the still active Russian Imperial Movement. Even to this day the Russian government lies and covers up Molotov-Ribbentrop and will persecute you for admitting it was an alliance.
“In fact, the number of cluster munitions shot into the Dombass went up from a few a week to several a day.
And – what’s worse – the cluster bombs were being shot into the cities in the Dombass. This led to the ‘breakaway’ states declaring independence.”
Utter nonsense. We can track the presence of Russian GRU on Ukrainian territory in both Crimea and the Donbas to within days. Moreover, in the early days of the war it was the Russian Forces and the Separatists who had the artillery advantage, as anyone even remotely familiar with the sieges of Luhansk and Donetsks’s inner cities would be aware of.
The Russian Federation also made a host of “oopsies” where they admitted to Russian Federation line units operating in Ukrainian territory during the “Donbas War” under false flag, including in things like court filings and death benefits collection.
“That was just a days before the ‘invasion” of the provinces that HAD ALREADY DECLARED INDEPENDENCE due to the TERRORISM.”
Oh it was due to terrorism all right. State sponsored terrorism from the Kremlin that saw Euromaidan activists tortured and murdered (Reshat Akhmetov anyone?) and the military in its barracks attacked.
Well, I sort of agree. But you’re titting for tatting and tatting for titting.
Expecting the Russians to stop titting or tatting
when the Ukrainians are being supplied by us to continue,
does not stop the war.
Why expect the Russians to stop when the Ukrainians won’t.
The Russian Federation is the side that started “titting for tatting”, beyond Putin’s encouragement of Yanukovych to use Berkut and other “questionably constitutional” methods when dealing with Euromaidan (which ironically took what might have been another splash in the pan over a divisive and not-as-good-as-sold trade deal and exploded it by among other things pushing the Rent-a-Protestors against him), but also were executing people in Crimea even before the main deployment of the Little Green Men. Far be it for me to claim every Svoboda Goon is a saint who never hurt anyone, but A: A lot of them are “Russian Ukrainian Nazis’/ Nationally Ukrainian ethnically Russkiye Ukrainian Neo-Fascists, but the military had stayed in its barracks and refused to get involved with either side when it was largely hit there, which is one reason why the Crimeaschluss was so effective and quick.
Moreover, the Budapest Memorandum outlined the US, UK, and Rus Fed’s obligations to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity against attack. And while I value Trump more than I do Ukraine and view the globalists at home as a greater threat than Putin, I don’t see much benefit in abandoning people who fought alongside us in Iraq and Afghanistan on reasons that don’t fit.
In any case it’s hard to negotiate an end to the war when you have Dima Medvedev mouthing off about the need to destroy the Ukrainian Identity in a country where you can get jailed and/or fined for daring to point out the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was an Alliance between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.
Responding here because the nested comment is too deep.
“You hate Russians.
I get it.”
No, I don’t. As I pointed out, there are “Russians” on both sides.
No matter what definition of the term you use.
“And you are willing to start WW3 to kill them.”
No, but obviously Putin is willing to risk WW3 in order to kill those he views as daring to reject his hegemony. That includes Russians, both Russky and Russisy. (Ever hear of Sergey Magnitsky?)
“We know the Russians are not killing civilians in the Dombass”
Yes, yes we do know Russian forces and paramilitaries are killing civilians in the Donbas. Wagner boasted about it before the purge following the Moscow Road Trip, and Rusich and others still do.
And that’s before I talk about the grotesque case of the Ministry of Defense soldier who filmed himself doing unmentionable things to an infant, and who then disappeared into his own government’s custody without trial.
That doesn’t mean there are no murderous “Ukrainian Nazis” or other Ukrainian Loyalist troops committing atrocities against civilians. But they didn’t start this war.
They are not seeking to cleanse Russky. Indeed in many cases they *ARE* Russky.
“because civilians in the Dombass are Russians.”
Nonsequitor.
By your standards so are much of Azov Battalion.
Yet sadly Dima Yarosh has not seen fit to remove himself from our misery. Meaning this is chaff.
“You’d do better to point to social media of Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilians – which have occurred.”
I point to Rusich and the Russian Imperial Movement and Alexey Bychkov the Baby Assaulter because they represent clear self-documentation of conscious, unambiguous, and targeted war crimes against the defenseless by those fighting under the Kremlin’s banner, and the almost complete lack of accountability for them by the Russian Dictatorship.
Even Alexey Bychkov, who was last seen being arrested (probably due to the nature of his crime and his idiocy in publicizing it plunging to new lows and risking support) by his own government has not resurfaced. There was no recorded court martial, and while I do not believe he deserves any real pity for whatever may happen to him given the nature of his crime, it does show the lack of accountability.
“Because you’re not informed.”
You admitted this is not true. It is too late to claim otherwise.
“Disingenuous? You’re the one prattling about Russian Nazis.”
Because they exist. They are very real. By any metric they are far more important than either “Ukrainian Nazis” or the more existent and less-oppressive-to-Ukrainian-patriotism Ukrainian Fascists or Banderaists.
One of them with a trackable Neo-Nazi track record is Dima Medvedev, Putin’s Vice President. If you know where to look you can see multiple cases of him with the Swastika and Reichsadler in rallies.
And then there are others like the late Mr. Utkin, and the not so dead Zhuchkovsky, and Stanislav Vorobyov. Among others.
“They are not a significant force in this conflict.:
They outnumber the registered Neo-Fascist parties in Ukraine by a significant amount, are military commanders, have one of them as Russia’s Vice President, and had one of their number (Priogzhin and his clique) nearly coup the government over an ammo dispute before coming to a peace agreement.
That’s what you don’t get.
You do not understand what I say or why I say it. You think I hate “Russians”, but have no clear idea of what the heck that is.
What I hate are totalitarian thugs, terrorists, and murderers. If there are so many Russians that are like that, it is not because Russians are inhuman monsters. If they were I’d be in a bad position because – again – many Russians are fighting the Kremlin.
It is because Russia is governed by an inhuman, tyrannical dictatorship that has cultivated the worst in humanity while suppressing that which redeems us. Under those circumstances we would see similar here. Considering what has happened in UK with the molestation gangs and police brutality, it has in other forms.
And I oppose the Russian dictatorship and its machinations not because I believe Russians alone are evil and deserve to be killed.
I oppose it because the Russian dictatorship crushes the accountability needed to punish those that do evil, and cannot be trusted to honor its pledges to do so.
Part 2:
As for “White and Christian”, who are you trying to fool? Putin has openly supported Kadyrov. Chechnya is now under Islamic Law and is basically a Diet Daesh where Russian Christians are marginalized at best and often persecuted, while Putin had to purge the FSB and others when they clashed with Kadyrov.
Moreover the Russian government has perverted the Russian Orthodox Church with a KGB goon who betrayed his oaths to God and who is now preaching the heresy that death in the War in Ukraine is all that is needed for remission of sins (something that not even corrupt medieval Catholic Popes claimed for their crusading dispensations, and that is UTTERLY ALIEN to Eastern Orthodox Thought).
You are a shameless, provable liar. And even a cursory look at the timeline shows that.
Well, I’m not going to call you a liar,
but I don’t think you’re following the timeline on Chechnya correctly.
Chechnya was a Muslim stronghold long before the Soviet Union.
It’s hard to understand how Pootler is responsible for Chechnya when his war there failed.
Putin didn’t create Islam or even Wahhabism in Chechnya, but he did betray non-Wahhabis and Kadyrov enemies by supporting Kadyrov’s oppresison.
Chechnya was a Muslim stronghold for ages before the Soviet Union, or even the Gathering of the Russian Lands, and it took centuries for Russia to defeat the mountain Jihadis and secure the region. However for almost the entire duration of first the Russian Empire and then the brief Republic and the Bolsheviks, Chechen Islam was constrained by the predominantly Christian and/or Atheist and Secular Russian Government authorities who could and would crush wannabe Shamil Sequels, culminating in Stalin’s wartime forced deportation of Chechens and their slow return.
That began to change with Brezhnev’s attempt to popularize Muslim Marxism to try and get MENA and Afghan support, it really went to the pits during Perestroika and the 90s. Dudayev took power on a platform of Islamist Supremacy tinged Nationalism and Separatism and basically ran the place as a Half-Sharia Half-Mafia Outlaw State that palled around with international terrorism. Unfortunately, Yeltsin’s attempt to help the Chechen opposition depose the rebels failed, and failed New Years’ Escalade on Grozny and the the horrible debacle of the first war came. The rebels (now under Wahhabi leadership) won, before you saw the follow up invasion of Dagestan by the Islamists and the second war.
Dudayev died in War 1, but “Austere Religious” Wahhabi Scholar Yandarbiev replaced him. Among his circle was Grand Mufti Akhmed Kadyrov, who had been one of the leading militia and spiritual commanders. Then Akhmed defected in the second war and helped the Russian Feds cripple the separatist resistance while forming a local government before the rebels killed him.
But his surviving heir Ramzan Kadyrov succeeded him and never let go of power. He turned Chechnya into a Lite Caucasian Wahhabi flavored regime. His deal: loyalty to Putin, rejection of separatism, kickbacks (no word if 10% to the Bald Guy like another corrupt fossil), and providing troops to fight the rebels and any other enemies of the Kremlin, in exchange for almost complete rule.
Which is why you don’t hear “Patriarch Kirill” complain about Nikita Zhuravel or other martyrs.
(PS: For someone who is so sure I hate Russians, you should know I actually support and defend Russia’s role in the Chechen Wars as being in the right. Even Putin’s).
Very informative. And I appreciate the detail.
No. You still hate Russians. It’s in your interpretation of these facts.
You’re taking a side based on an ideological position.
I’m taking a side on based on who has to die to get your way.
I guarantee not one of the Russian engineers I worked with know anything you just posted. They’re all young men struggling to get ahead.
We spent hours talking about Russia and Ukraine – and not once did any of this ‘in the weeds’ – or ‘insider baseball’ come up.
I’m sure it’s important to someone. But not to Russians under 40.
“Very informative. And I appreciate the detail.”
Not enough to not slur me.
“No. You still hate Russians. It’s in your interpretation of these facts.”
That’s funny, considering you are the one conflating Putin’s regime and those fighting for it with “Russians” as a whole. I was the one pointing out the folly of it.
“You’re taking a side based on an ideological position.”
You say that like it’s a bad thing. I am ideologically opposed to dictators, secret policemen, Islamists, Communists, Stalin fanboys, and ecological luddites.
Putin either is a patron of or personally is all of those things.
So, what is your ideological position? Beyond not having a consistent idea of what “Russian” is but claiming that empowering a dictatorship that threatens nuclear war casually is a way of stopping nuclear war?
“I’m taking a side on based on who has to die to get your way.”
So you’d rather have the likes of Sergey Magnitsky and other Free Russians die than Putin do. Message received, but I don’t think it paints you very well.
Especially since your engineer mentors will be at risk of death from Putin’s actions far more than mine. I didn’t make him into the monster he is. Neither did they.
“I guarantee not one of the Russian engineers I worked with know anything you just posted.”
I imagine many of the Ukrainian engineers – be they ethnic Ukrainian, ethnic Russian, ethnic Poles, or something more exotic – don’t know either. Yet many of them are having their lives ended or ruined by Putin’s war and the Great Lie that Dima Yarosh is “Russian” in any real sense compatible with the ambitions of an expansionist Russian Empire today.
(Especially ironic given how I can already imagine the reaction from Mr. Putin’s government if I proposed Mr. Yarosh submit an application for Russian citizenship and come to greet the President of Rossiya as a fellow Russky Russisye.
I’d bet a kettle of good Green Tea that Yarosh would not make it five steps into the defensive perimeter before he gets gunned down. And yet it is on the basis of a lie that embraces his supposed “Russianness” demanding Russia annex the region in order to save Russky like Yarosh from Ukrainian Fascists like Yarosh.).
Part 2
” They’re all young men struggling to get ahead.”
That’s a hard job to do, especially in this world with young men having to carry more burdens for their parents and grandparents’ generation. They deserve a better Russia and a better world.
But what I say is this: how will Putin’s reconquista and risk taking help THEM?
Fewer people to share the burden. Fewer people to make lives with. Conquered territory that was a depressed rust belt in need of help Kyiv and Moscow didn’t want to give it even before Putin’s Condottieri blew up much of it And that’s if all goes as planned, Vova Vladimirovich gets his way like the TDS cult thinks, and he gets it.
All for a regime that profits off of the social and demographic disintegration of Russia and its neighbors.
But know this. If I have a choice between my fellow Americans and your Russian friends, the choice is simple. As I imagine it would be for many of them. Which is why I want to stop this before.
“We spent hours talking about Russia and Ukraine – and not once did any of this ‘in the weeds’ – or ‘insider baseball’ come up.
I’m sure it’s important to someone. But not to Russians under 40.”
I can understand that, because I am a historical autist operating from the West and thus more inclined to get into the weeds than most people, especially since they know things I never will that are usually, in good times, far more important and useful than any of this ever will.
But these are not good times. Which is it IS important to Russians under 40.
Trotsky said that whether or not you care about the dialectic, the dialectic cares about you. But it’s more commonly misquoted as war, which to Trotsky was basically the same thing and is more fitting in this case. The Marxist dialectic is mostly a shared delusion that barely exists, but war and economic hardship do.
Russia is ruled by old men. Headed by one who talked and wrote about his bent on the insider baseball for longer than we have. He and his Kremlin can *make* your friends care about that insider baseball they do not even know in much the same way
It can get your friends killed far easier than all the US’s nukes can. They haven’t been fired above ground for decades; the Dedy of their own army and Ukrainian snipers kill people every day.
But what is it to him?
Also, despite all of your knowledge – which I will agree is accurate –
yet you do not know that the majority of people living in the Dombass
are Russians?
I mean – like they literally all are Russians.
Like – why do the Ukrainians want these Russians in the Dombass
when they hate their guts?
Part 1
“yet you do not know that the majority of people living in the Dombass are Russians?”
No, I don’t, and neither do you. Especially since there is literally no good source that claims this. And I’m interested what sources you are using to come to that conclusion, as well as the definition of “Russian.”
There’s a reason the Russian language itself has two words for “Russian.” Russky and Russisky.
Russky are Ethnic Russians. Russisky are citizens of the Russian Federation.
Which brings us to one of the most (in)famous and active Donbas/Dombass “Russian” paramilitary leaders, Andri Biletsky. Perhaps you have heard of him? Born to old Cossack nobility that while originating from the Proto-Ukrainian diaspora in the Wild Fields had been assimilated and intermarried with Russian gentry and lower nobility for about 200 years, and who spoke Russian in the home. He went on to fight under Milosevic against the KLA. Then he went back and helped found a few orgs you might have heard of.
“Social National Party of Ukraine.” “Patriots of Ukraine.” “Azov Battalion.”
He was a Russkiy Ukrainian Nationalist who – in addition to being so anti-Jewish he has the distinction of being kicked out by both Yanukovych and Yuschenko – helped form Donbas paramilitaries under the Azov banner to fight the Russian troops. But by your vernacular he is “Russian.” I just wouldn’t suggest calling him that if you value your life.
As for why he wants to be in Ukraine, ask him. If you wish.
So Biletsky is a Russky but non-Russisky Ukrainian Neo-Fascist.
In contrast Ramzan Kadyrov is a non-Russky Russisky and Kremlin loyalist.
M. A. Andronikov /”Teszar” is a Russky Russisky (unless he’s been stripped of his nationality, I’d need ot check) fighting alongside the Ukrainian Government.
And to round out the tour, Viktor V. Medvedchuk is a non-Russky (ethnic Ukrainian, though there’d be dispute about that among the more Greater Russian nationalists) formerly non-Russisky that got arrested for alleged treason and was swapped to Russia in a prisoner exchange before being stripped of Ukrainian Nationality and becoming a Russian National (Russisky).
See how complicated it is?
Yes, I do see how complicated it is. Part 1 to your Part 1.
My opinion on the demographics of the Dombass and Crimea comes from young engineers from Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. Dozens of them. All of them had complex genealogies. So what? More were also intermarried despite the bitter feuds of their elders.
I worked with many young Russian engineers for years. I also worked with many older Russian engineers in the late 80s and early 90s, but they came from all over the former USSR.
Given what you’ve told me of the demographics, I’m sure I misunderstood them. You seem to have a good handle on the minutia; so I will take your word for it.
No, I do not recall “Russian” paramilitary leader, Andri Biletsky. And yes, I have heard of the “Social National Party of Ukraine.” “Patriots of Ukraine.” “Azov Battalion.” And I also remember Yanukovych and Yuschenko tossing out leadership of the Donbas paramilitaries. But I don’t recall when. It came up on my radar because it infuriated the neocons.
But then you said: “But by your vernacular he is “Russian.” I just wouldn’t suggest calling him that if you value your life.”
Um. I’m not going to argue with your “expertise” – but how did he become “Russian” in “my” vernacular?
“My” vernacular is just the one used in RW social media. I do not know anyone who knows as much as you do about this intricate topic of the ethnicity of the Dombass. It’s short hand for posting – not a tome for wonk. The “Russians” are on Pootler’s side. The “Ukrainians” are on Kiev’s side. “Russians in the Dombass” are residents of the Dombass who are not on Kiev’s side.
I’m sure you are right about the ethnicity and demographics, and I am wrong. I will accept your corrections on that, but I don’t see why that matters in this case?
Part 2 to your part 1.
Not sure what you are trying to convince me of. I already know Ukrainian Nationalists do not like being called Russian. So what? I’m confused.
We support the Ukrainian Nationalists (to make you happy). They are on the West’s side. They are (or were) our proxies.
I do not agree – which is why everyone here is upset with my comments.
Trump wants to stop this war. I agree with Trump.
Why do you think this is persuasive? Do you want to start WW3?
We have two choices:
a) We ethnically cleanse the Dombas of anyone falling into – let’s call it – the ‘wrong’ category.
– At the risk of WW3
b) We don’t.
You are discussing the details, and from your posts I think you’re correct about the details.
But do you understand the big picture?
What are you asking me to accept?
You want me to support my domestic enemies – to support Nazis – to support a war – to destroy a select group of persons – on the doorstep of a nuclear power – that could trigger WW3.
I hand it to you – I believe you know what you are talking about.
Do you know what I’m talking about? WW3.
Let’s stop funding the Ukrainian Nationalists’ war with Russia.
Let’s stop our 30+ year ‘war’ on Russia.
Let’s not do WW3 to clean the “wrong” people out of the Dombass. (Does “wrong” work for you?)
Few Americans care about the weeds. We don’t care. Killing Russians does not turn my crank.
Most Americans want to stop this war. And the war should be stopped.
So what’s your point?
G-d love ya’
1-1-C
(Cont)
“The “Russians” are on Pootler’s side. The “Ukrainians” are on Kiev’s side. ”
Which is why I mentioned demographics / = / political allegiance. Donbas separatism has always been a minority, especially now when a lot of the lukewarm “eh maybe?” sentiment. Before the Russian Federation moved in openly in 2022 durable control of the Donbas was somewhere between 2/3rds and a fourth, and even that was only obtained by massive aid from the motherland’s government and outright reflagging serving Russian Federation military contractors as DNR/LNR, like we saw from some of the court leaks.
“Russians in the Dombass” are residents of the Dombass who are not on Kiev’s side.”
Which is a fair point, and a use I might adopt. But there is literally no way to measure those demographics exactly, and we can be pretty sure they’re not the majority even among Russophones or Russky in the region.
“I will accept your corrections on that, but I don’t see why that matters in this case?”
Izium has been majority Russian speaking for at least 400 years, and while I’d need to check the specifics is probably heavily Russky. Meaning that if this story is true (and given Ghost of Kyiv syndrome and fog of war it might not be) Ivan Ivanich of the 3rd Motorized Rifles likely was poisoned by someone who sounded and looked like him and who welcomed him into their house, who he thought was one of them, but who wanted them out of their county badly enough to commit lethal perfidy.
(This story was greeted with cheers by the usual crowds of NAFO people and those that actually just hate Russians. I was disgusted by it precisely because I know the law and can imagine how this will only make things worse for everyone.
Even if it *weren’t* true, because it’s believable and people will act accordingly.)
Now if this story is true, ask Ivan Ivanich, poisoned after being told by his master in the Kremlin (who apparently was told by incredibly dishonest and corrupt spies) if that matters. And more concretely, ask his cousin hearing about this story as they enter a village and their uncle fighting a conscript from Greater Izium if they can see how it matters.
For what it is worth, I condemn any such poisonings and hope the perps are punished. Whatever sympathy their situation deserves cannot sanction perfidious murder.
Part 2
As far as “Majority Russian”, in the last complete censuses for Ukraine acknowledged by all sides in 2001, the ONLY region of Ukraine that was majority Russky was Crimea (at more than 58%). Donetsk was roughly 38% Russky with ethnic Ukrainians at nearly 57%, and Luhansk was about 39% Russky while ethnic Ukrainians were 58%. And while we can argue about how this was based on self-identification and there is room for fudging, no government at the time objected to this accounting.
If you think that is “literally all are Russians” I invite you to apply for a career as a Hollywood accountant.
As for “Literally Hate Their Guts”, let me repeat this:
*SEVERAL OF THE MOST PROMINENT “UKRAINIAN NAZIS” ARE ETHNIC RUSSIANS, WHILE SOME OF THE MOST PROMINENT PRO-KREMLIN SEPARATISTS AREN ETHNIC UKRAINIANS.*
Do you see why assuming Census = Political Loyalty is a bad idea?
Reply to Part 2.
I will stand corrected. As I wrote above, my opinion comes from self-identifying engineers from the area. I am certain what they told me was what they believed, but I might have misunderstood.
Nonetheless, if the 2001 census is correct, that only means the “Ukrainian Nazis” in the Dombass want to ethnically cleanse a minority of “Russians” according to a census taken 13 years before one significant phase of the conflict.
As to “”UKRAINIAN NAZIS” ARE ETHNIC RUSSIANS” … yes, I know.
So what? You’re the one making a big deal about everyone’s DNA.
Okay, so do you want me to say you hate people who are not “Russian?” I’m good with that.
You just want us to help Biletskya and his “Ukrainian Nazis” ethnically cleanse 38% of the Russky’s
but it’s okay: Because the Russky’s who identify as Ukrainian hate the Russky’s who identify as Russky’s who identify as Russian.
Meanwhile – how many identifying as Ukrainian in 2001, now identify as “Russian.”
Do you see why going to war over semantics and DNA is a bad idea?
G-d love ya’
Part 1-1A
“My opinion on the demographics of the Dombass and Crimea comes from young engineers from Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. Dozens of them. All of them had complex genealogies. So what? More were also intermarried despite the bitter feuds of their elders.”
Agreed, and that’s why I mention. It also points out the folly of assuming what few actual Ukrainian Nazis there are and the more significant but still relatively few Ukrainian Neo-Fascist Bandera types could afford to kill “Russians” en masse just for being “Russians.” The most obvious issues of “that’s evil” and “that’s stupid” are true they haven’t stopped their kind before.
What does is that doing that would be Unworkable. Azov would never have been able to hold Kharkiv like it did back in 2014 had they done so because they’d have had to start with a racial purity spiral among their own “comrades” and while I think the world would be a better place if more Svoboda types killed themselves off, the testimony of this shows the world doesn’t work according to what I think would make it better.
And if even the spiritual heirs of the people behind the massacres in Volhyna and who worship a man who murdered his fellow Galician Ukrainians for supporting Melnyk or being village head under the Soviets couldn’t afford to massacre “Russians” en masse, you can imagine what the rest of the government and militias could be like.
I still wouldn’t want to run into a Svoboda goon in a dark alley, or at all, but your friends wouldn’t have to worry about speaking Russian in quite the same way as if they ran into a White Eagle of Georgia, where the ethnic and racial lines are somewhat clearer and nastier..
As for the minutae, I think the question is less what happened (since I’m sure the proportions changed since then and the census was never perfect) but that it was the last evidence we have.
“No, I do not recall “Russian” paramilitary leader, Andri Biletsky.”
But you probably know or heard of Andri Biletsky and his “work”. You probably just think of him as Ukrainian. As do I.
But I bring him up because he is “Russian” in the sense you or your acquaintances think of when claiming Ukrainian Nazis tried to cleanse Russians in the Donbas and that the Donbas is virtually all Russian. In spite of being a “Ukrainian Nazi” almost literally fighting for the Kyiv gov’t.
“And I also remember Yanukovych and Yuschenko tossing out leadership of the Donbas paramilitaries. ”
To be fair at the time they weren’t Donbas paramilitaries. Paramilitarism in Ukraine is relatively new; before then you generally had protest groups or political fight clubs armed mostly with improvised weapons or fistcuffs. In those somewhat simpler times Biletsky was running around with his gangs of thugs.
“But then you said: “But by your vernacular he is “Russian.” I just wouldn’t suggest calling him that if you value your life.”
Um. I’m not going to argue with your “expertise” – but how did he become “Russian” in “my” vernacular?
““My” vernacular is just the one used in RW social media.”
Which you adopted as yours, in part due to immersion. Understandable and admirable; a good way to learn a people and a culture, and connect with them like you have.
But while language doesn’t dominate thought, it can influence it. Which is why casually thinking of “Russians” in Ukraine can make one think Herr Biletsky there is no different than your friends because that’s what he’d have shown up as on the demographics.
And that would be a mistake. If you met him possibly a fatal one. And might help answer your question of why “Ukrainians” are fighting to hold the Donbas and Crimea if there are so many “Russians” they supposedly “hate” without realizing how the politics doesn’t match.
” I do not know anyone who knows as much as you do about this intricate topic of the ethnicity of the Dombass. It’s short hand for posting – not a tome for wonk.”
Fair, but policy is often decided by the mix of wonks and public demand. If my wonkery can help anyone, I should try to help so that at least people know what they are dealing with. If nothing else I can explain why the number of people greeting them as liberators even in majority Russian speaking, Russky areas might not be as much as the “Accidentally Misplaced” Rosguardya unit thinks there are, leading to things like the supposed – and if true perfidious- poisoning of troops from the Russian MoD’s 3rd Motorized Rifle Brigade by Ukrainian villagers they were housed with.
More on that later.
1-2-A
“Nonetheless, if the 2001 census is correct, that only means the “Ukrainian Nazis” in the Dombass want to ethnically cleanse a minority of “Russians” according to a census taken 13 years before one significant phase of the conflict.”
You don’t understand. I spend all this time talking about Andri Biletsky, “Ukrainian Nazi” fighting for Kyiv against the Russian military and Donbaschukuos, while also being ethnically Russian and Russophone (meaning either he or people like him probably show up as “Russian” on that census). But you don’t realize.
Your acquaintances – because of the narrative told to them by the Russian government – thought they were marching into Ukraine to stop people like them from being murdered by violent anti-Russian racist Nazis like Biletsky.
This isn’t a quantitative difference of 20% “Ukrainian Nazis” killing 50 % “Donbas Russians” with the acceptance of 30% Ukrainian non-Nazis. This is a qualitative difference about how you’ve been sold the war and how even the “Ukrainian Nazis” operate.
Racially and to a lesser degree culturally, *Biletsky is like them even if he doesn’t Want to belong to Russia*, and even much of the Russky or Russophone population in the Donbas don’t want to either, like most of the people in Izium and Kharkhiv. Moreover, the “Ukrainian Nazis’ they are fighting are far harder to identify at a glance precisely because they’re not committing ethnic cleansing or racial purges per se. They’ve got ethnic Russky Russophones among their leadership.
“Not sure what you are trying to convince me of. I already know Ukrainian Nationalists do not like being called Russian. So what? I’m confused.”
You and your acquaintances are calling him Russian with your prior statements, as well as a whole host of people who are not literally Ukrainian Neo-Fascists but are still ethnically/culturally/linguistically “Russian” but loyal to Ukraine.
That’s the issue.
“We support the Ukrainian Nationalists (to make you happy). They are on the West’s side. They are (or were) our proxies.”
Moreover, Ukraine was on our side in Afghanistan and Iraq, even under Yuschenko and Yanukovych, and while the divides between them are hard and probably not appreciated by all of them I think their sacrifices deserve support.
1-2-C
“I do not agree – which is why everyone here is upset with my comments.”
That and being quick to assume bad faith.
“Trump wants to stop this war. I agree with Trump.”
I agree with Trump there. I disagree with his methods and how I think they will work. In part because even Zelenskyy tried them.
“Why do you think this is persuasive? ”
I’ve tried to explain.
“Do you want to start WW3?”
No. I want to prevent WW3 by stopping the warlords in the Kremlin and their tendency to invade other countries on pretenses that range from misleading to false.
Or if I can’t prevent WW3, to limit the reach of a dictatorship run by Soviet castoffs that is ally to the bloodiest single government in human history, the PRC.
As Churchill said:
“You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.”
“We have two choices:
a) We ethnically cleanse the Dombas of anyone falling into – let’s call it – the ‘wrong’ category.
– At the risk of WW3
b) We don’t.”
I hope you got a good price for the stand for that strawman.
The irony is you have it the opposite way. It was the Russian dictatorship that started its attempt at cleansing in the Donbas and Crimea, at a time when even the nutjobs of Azov were busier getting in fistfights with their political rivals and trying to stake out territory in the Donbas. They had their own racist and linguistic supremacist programs such as curtaining Russian language use in schools but no plans for ethnic cleansing (at least against “Russian”).
That’s in sharp contrast to what happened to the Crimean Majlis and Ukrainophones.
(Morever even if Svoboda and co HAD had such plans they lost almost all power over the course of 2015-6 due to a decrease in political radicalism and a particularly daft attempt to pressure the government by resigning from cabinet positions that cost them their toeholds in the Cabinet and had them wiped out).
Also:
Zelenskyy came to peace offering to split the Donbas based on free vote, so that those that wanted to become part of the Russian Federation could, those that wanted to remain part of Ukraine could, and the majority areas would go while others could move. The Kremlin didn’t even bother rejecting him on that.
So don’t tell me there are no other options.
Starting with what happened in Alsace-Lorraine.
Reply 1-3-D
“You are discussing the details, and from your posts I think you’re correct about the details.
But do you understand the big picture?”
The details make up the big picture. They also help judge.
“What are you asking me to accept?”
That the Kremlin invaded Ukraine with the intent to partition it for a whole host of reasons (resources, control, nationalist and neo-communist delusions, power, demographics) on false grounds. It lied blatantly about its grounds for doing so, about the actions of even the scummiest and most Neo-Fascist members of the Maidan coalition like Svoboda (As well as how utterly their political power collapsed during the aftermath of Euromaidan, hence why they have only 1 Rada representative), and about the composition and intentions of the Donbas.
It then began engaging in cultural genocide accompanied by widespread repression and killing on a grand scale- especially in the Donbas – in an effect to create Manchukuo-like puppet states in imitation of Transnistria. But this attempt ultimately failed for a host of reasons, starting with not factoring in how dependent they were on Ukraine, how little legitimacy or public support they had outside of Crimea, and the reaction of others, which is why the Donbaschukuos were steadily pushed back on the limited war fought from 2015-2022.
Faced with the prospect of losing what they wanted to get and having a Ukraine about to join the EU and NATO (and provide a direct contrast to what system Putin and Lukashenko run), as well as resource competition, but also the opportunity of a weak, senile, corrupt “President” who was barely sentient and who had humiliated the US, Putin decided to roll the dice and make the invasion official with his “Special Military Operation”, assuming it would be an easy fight for reasons i still struggle to understand, even considering the corruption of Ukraine and the apparent success some of “the Organs” had getting spies rather high up in the Ukrainian Loyalist Command.
That didn’t work, especially in the high risk low frills way it was planned with a 1979 like capital decapitation strike. So now the killing drags on with greater fury than before, and both sides cannibalize their people and their allies for labor and soldiers.
Part 1-1-4 E
As for what I ask you to accept at the end?
That should end. It can end. And it should end with the Kremlin’s forces withdrawing from Ukraine, followed perhaps by limited plebiscites on the border and a period of “Jubilee” to allow people living on one side of the border that want to be under the other to move without reprisal. Even knowing the actual execution will never be quite so just or clean, but that it will be better than that.
Also that it is largely what Zelenskyy proposed (if not less generous than Zelenskyy’s deal) because I favor a more complete rejection.
“You want me to support my domestic enemies – to support Nazis – to support a war – to destroy a select group of persons – on the doorstep of a nuclear power – that could trigger WW3.”
Funny, considering that’s what you are doing now. You just think the wrong set have the Nazis on their side (again, it’s a bit technical but there are remarkably few “Nazis” in Ukraine, even among the Neo-Fascists, because they are still butthurt over Hitler’s betrayal of Bandera. Why this hasn’t seeped over into neighboring countries Hitler also wanted to erase the identity of like Russia or Belarus or Poland is beyond me, but there you go).
“I hand it to you – I believe you know what you are talking about.
Do you know what I’m talking about? WW3.”
As do I. And I fail to see how what you propose helps us avoid it, ironically beyond hoping Russia is so bloodied and weakened that Putin or whoever replaces him will lack the strength to go on if the CCP or Iran call for aid in their war.
“Let’s stop funding the Ukrainian Nationalists’ war with Russia.”
Why should Russia’s dictatorship be able to wage war on anybody that is a “Ukrainian Nationalist” from those that are literally Neo-Fascist terrorists like our friend A B or Yarosh, to those that believe Ukraine can be independent, while also killing a good number of anti-Kremlin Russians, Georgians, and so on to boot?
“Let’s stop our 30+ year ‘war’ on Russia.”
We’ve tried that. Many times. It keeps happening because Putin is Lucy with the Football and he and his cabal like demonizing us in a knee-jerk fashion even when HW Bush was giving his Chicken Kiev speech about Ukrainian Nationalism and Obama was pushing Reset.
1-4-1-F
Even as far back as 2000 Putin’s Admiralty tried to blame US for their screwup with the tragedy of the Kursk, claiming it was hit by a NATO submarine even as we offered assistance to try and save the sailors. In 2006 in his prophetic, horrifying book “America Alone” Mark Steyn pointed out that the West would try to form an alliance with Russia but that Russia’s government would not accept.
BTW: Steyn is not a “Ukraine Hawk.” He is quite critical of Zelenskyy, Ukraine, USAID, and our involvement. But he was realistic to recognize that a tyrannical dictatorship that sees only a deluge after it, which has been hollowed out by decades of communism and war, would join with the PRC and consider starting WW3.
He knew what we would get.
We’re not the side that has consistently perpetuated this war with Russia.
“Let’s not do WW3 to clean the “wrong” people out of the Dombass. (Does “wrong” work for you?)”
It works for the Kremlin’s butchers actually doing it, and that’s what is important. And I’d say “If the Kremlin wishes to do WW3 because he will not stop trying to cleanse the territory of his neighbors, then WW3 is probably going to happen regardless of what we do. So let him have WW3 on the worst possible balance possible.”
“Few Americans care about the weeds. We don’t care. Killing Russians does not turn my crank.”
It doesn’t turn my crank either. But not caring about the weeks is how we got 9/11 and all its bitter spawn like the PATRIOT Act. It’s how we got voter fraud on a massive scale and all other kinds of fraud. It’s how we get Obama and Biden, from people too blown away by narrative to check the substance of what they are.
I’m prepared to sacrifice Ukraine to avoid WW3 or at least save the US from its internal enemies. But I’m not naive enough to think Putin and most of his likely successors would not be willing – even if not able – to break the peace agreement and start up another dirty war to conquer more of the “Near Abroad” with blood and fire.
“Most Americans want to stop this war. And the war should be stopped.”
I agree, but much matters on how it is stopped, and what incentives are sent. Otherwise this might just be the Taggu Truce ending one horrible and unjust war, but helping to spawn even worse ones.
2-1-1-A
“Nonetheless, if the 2001 census is correct, that only means the “Ukrainian Nazis” in the Dombass want to ethnically cleanse a minority of “Russians” according to a census taken 13 years before one significant phase of the conflict.”
No, it means that *NOT EVEN THE “UKRAINIAN NAZIS” WERE OR ARE SIGNIFICANTLY INTERESTED IN ETHNICALLY CLEANSING THE DONBAS, LET ALONE THE UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT THEY HAVE HAD 0 CABINET SEATS AND 1 RADA MEMBER OUT OF 450 IN FOR THE PAST HALF DECADE.*
The Ukrainian government is still corrupt and under martial law , and the actual Ukrainian Neo-Fascists are still scum that would probably create some dystopia if they actually got power. But doing what the Kremlin and its proxies did in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Northern Prigodniye (or that their radical enemies like the Georgian White Eagles tried to do unsuccessfully) was not in the cards.
“As to “”UKRAINIAN NAZIS” ARE ETHNIC RUSSIANS” … yes, I know.”
Then why did you act as if there was such a clear ethnic/racial difference between the sides?
“So what? You’re the one making a big deal about everyone’s DNA.”
Because your friend have been influenced by a regime trying to make a big deal off of its interpretations of propaganda figures on a census to justify invading a country and eating up parts of it. And that can get them killed.
More directly than you seem to think.
“You just want us to help Biletskya and his “Ukrainian Nazis” ethnically cleanse 38% of the Russky’s”
Biletsky isn’t fighting to ethnically cleanse Russky. Biletsky is Russky. BIletsky and his thugs are fighting his political enemies and the Russian military. And judging from his spiritual liege Bandera, even if he did graduate to ethnic cleansing AND somehow managed to get power in a country where people like him have MAAAYBE 3% national support, he would stop at an “independent” Fascist dystopia rather than trying to conquer much of Eurasia like Medvedev has advocated.
“but it’s okay: Because the Russky’s who identify as Ukrainian hate the Russky’s who identify as Russky’s who identify as Russian.”
Because that’s become a political and ideological division for an invading army that is actually advocating for the cultural erasure of Ukrainian as a language and independent culture.
2-2-1-B
“Meanwhile – how many identifying as Ukrainian in 2001, now identify as “Russian.””
Good question, probably quite a few given attempts to crush down on the populace as well as opportunism. But nowhere near the majority.
“Do you see why going to war over semantics and DNA is a bad idea?”
I do. That’s a major reason why I condemn the Kremlin so and support the Ukrainian Loyalist cause. Because the Kremlin decided to go to war over semantics, fudged statistics, and bad interpretations of culture and DNA. Worse from a MAGA POV, they did so multiple times in violation of the guarantees they made with Ukraine, Britain, and America, and with the alliance of several of the worst factions on Earth.
I advocate Putin and his allies not be rewarded for that, to help deter other scumbags like the PRC considering invading Taiwan, Iran’s Mullahs considering lebensraum on both sides of the Persian Gulf, and the Kim Cult of the DPRK going after the South.
Geez…………………..what a load of crap.
et tu Intrepid?
LOL.
Oooo, Shakespeare. Sorry, not impressed.
et tu Stupido?
Sorry, I thought you were against WW3.
My apologies.
The real reason everyone hates Putin is because he doesn’t grovel to the gay mafia.
If not groveling to the “Gay Mafia” demands putting a KGB mole in charge of your national church, selling out a lot of your nation to Kadyrov’s Islamists, becoming a subaltern to the PRC, and allying with Iran’s apocalyptic Ayatollah, someone needs to tell Tammy Bruce and DeSantis and Trump because they are doing it wrong.
Yes, that too. But I think the real reason the Globalists hate him
is because he is NOT anti-white or anti-Christian.
Sounds like you figured it out nicely.
Good, I think I’ve managed to break a record for down votes.
That says a lot.
Not about my opinion or analysis. Considering I agree with Tapson.
But about what ‘we’ know
or think we know
about the conflict in the Ukraine.
Seriously folks,
Do you know or care about anyone in the Ukraine or Russia?
My analysis is based on direct contact with both sides.
I assure you, I don’t know a single Russian who wants to kill Ukrainians because of Nazism or communism decades ago.
But I do know Ukrainians who will start WW3 to kill Russians.
And Dombass is Russian.
“Good, I think I’ve managed to break a record for down votes.”
Nah, there’s way worse. THX repeatedly does it, as does Ron Whatsisname.
“Do you know or care about anyone in the Ukraine or Russia?”
Yes I do. Which is why I try and research.
“I assure you, I don’t know a single Russian who wants to kill Ukrainians because of Nazism or communism decades ago.”
I wish I could say the same. Most of mine don’t, but some do. And I know of even more. I mentioned Rusich above for good reason.
“But I do know Ukrainians who will start WW3 to kill Russians.”
Which would put them on par but mirrored to the likes of the late and unlamented Utkin and Prigozhin and the sadly very much alive Medvedev (remember when the Globalists claimed he would be a moderate, reformist voice in Russia that they could deal with and the propaganda mills sang his praises?) and Lukashenko.
“And Dombass is Russian.”
No it is not. Most ethnic Russians have shown they do not want to be under the Kremlin’s thumb (and indeed they compose a minority but not insignificant number of “Ukrainian Nazis” as I mentioned), and legally the Russian government waived all claims to the Donbas in 1994 in exchange for things like the reparation of all Soviet WMD in the Budapest Memorandum.
And the irony is I don’t even particularly care on principle if Crimea and some or all of the Donbas joined Russia, at least in the abstract. I *Do* care on principle that they did so as a result of a covert invasion and state sponsored terrorism, complete with public executions and rigged plebiscites.
General response to all downvoters: part 1
Do you really believe we will have peace with Russia if we ethnically cleanse the Dombass? (Many of you know a lot about this conflict, but you don’t know – or don’t care – that the majority of people in the Dombass are Russian)
If we replace Pootler – and wreck economic havoc on Russia – do you think we will have peace?
On one hand you think Russians need to be slaughtered, but on the other hand you think they will be all lovey dovey if we destroy their economy and impose an Effe All Russians policy similar to the one imposed on Whites and Christians in the West?
Somehow I think Russians are: Crazy enough to resist, and smart enough to make us regret such an irresponsible decision.
Lots of you just hate Russians – and want to kill Russians.
I get it. They are Israel’s enemy and allies with their Muslims. They are not our friends, and we should not get into bed with them.
Finding anyone in the West who wants to just stop killing Russians – whose name is not Donald Trump – is really difficult.
Yes. America would be better off if Russia and China were decoupled. We would be better off if Russia was a ‘frenemy’ – if not a ‘friend’
But Russia has an enormous border with China – and a crisis in the east with incursions of large numbers of Chinese crossing the border to steal resources.
Russia also has 40MM Muslims as part of the Federation, and millions more on its borders.
Russia cannot fight a billion Chinese and a billion Muslims.
Americans cannot expect Russia to just become a vassal state of the West’s Globalist-homosexual-neocommunists.
Even if you destroyed Pootler – and brought the Whites and Christians you hate so much to their knees –
What do you think will happen? Gay love?
Part 1
“Do you really believe we will have peace with Russia if we ethnically cleanse the Dombass?”
This is a “have you stopped beating your wife?” question.
Firstly: Ask the Kazahs and PRC. They have done far more to ethnically cleanse Russky from their lands than the Ukrainians (even the “Ukrainian Nazis” that are often ethnically and culturally Russky themselves). I don’t like abusing Godwin’s Law but much like Hitler justified the oppression of ethnic Germans to invade Czechoslovakia while signing a pact with Fascist Italy justifying the utterly brutal forced Italianization of ethnic Germans in South Tyrol, ethnic cleansing is obviously not a deal breaker for Putin or most of the Kremlin. Even when it targets ethnic Russians.
Secondly: Not only is there no policy of “ethnically cleansing” Russky in the Donbas, the “Ukrainian Nazis” you accuse of doing it would have to start with their own often Russky and/or Russophone ranks. And while part of me would like to see Dima Yarosh and Andri Belitsky eat it in a purity spiral by their former comrades, that isn’t going to happen.
” (Many of you know a lot about this conflict, but you don’t know – or don’t care – that the majority of people in the Dombass are Russian)”
I know that is not true, especially when you start applying any reasonable standard to what is “Russian” (Ie: Pro-Kremlin Separatist that identifies as a wannabe Russian National). Because again, Unless you wanna argue Yarosh is “Russian.” Which is a stance I imagine even the Kremlin would disagree with if I tried to argue using that as a reason to invite him to see Putin in person.
The only majority ethnic Russky region in Ukraine is Crimea. Donetsk and Luhansk were majority ethnic Ukrainian, and even then not all Russky are pro-Kremlin and not all ethnic Ukrainians are anti-Kremlin.
“If we replace Pootler – and wreck economic havoc on Russia – do you think we will have peace?”
Economic havoc would be undesirable, though the Kremlin is helping to seed the foundations of it. But frankly? Yeah probably we would have more peace than we have seen in the “Near Abroad” for a while. Doesn’t mean that’s the outcome I want to see, but it’s more likely to give peace than giving Putin or other “organs” vets or the NatBols, Neo-Commies, and Eurasianists in the wings everything they want. Just ask Georgia and Moldova. Or the Ingush of Northern Prigodniye if you can find any.
Part 1
“On one hand you think Russians need to be slaughtered,”
Again, “Have You Stopped Beating Your Wife?”
I believe some Russians need to be slaughtered, but that goes for some Americans (hello Weathermen) and a host of others. What matters is not race or nationality, but belief.
“but on the other hand you think they will be all lovey dovey if we destroy their economy and impose an Effe All Russians policy similar to the one imposed on Whites and Christians in the West?”
Well, considering how Putin boasted about building the most mosques of any country in the world and has been lovey dovey with Kadyrov even as he persecutes Christianity out of existence in Chechnya and increasingly in his unofficial empire in places like Dagestan? While being overly dependent on oligarchs like Gazprom? He’s halfway there.
“Somehow I think Russians are: Crazy enough to resist, and smart enough to make us regret such an irresponsible decision.”
Indeed they are. The issue is not all of them are so obedient to the Kremlin or the script you’ve been read. Which is again why I usually talk about “the Kremlin” rather than “Russia” or “Russians.”
“Lots of you just hate Russians – and want to kill Russians.”
This is true, and something I disdain, which is why I loudly condemned NAFO and others for glorifying in the death of an innocent Russian swimmer at the teeth of a shark. I want to kill Some Russians, but that also goes for Some Americans. And frankly even most Kremlin hands would agree the world would probably be a better place if the Rusich Group disappears in the near future.
“I get it. They are Israel’s enemy and allies with their Muslims. They are not our friends, and we should not get into bed with them.”
Half true. If anything Israel has a better working relationship with the Kremlin than we do, though that isn’t saying as much since the Kremlin went deeper into its ties with the Mullahs in Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah attacked.
“Finding anyone in the West who wants to just stop killing Russians – whose name is not Donald Trump – is really difficult.”
Not nearly as much as you think, if you know where to look.
Part 3
“Yes. America would be better off if Russia and China were decoupled. We would be better off if Russia was a ‘frenemy’ – if not a ‘friend’”
Agreed, and this would be a golden result for both countries, at least if under honest and non-corrupt, non-totalitarian, non-globalist leadership. Indeed one of my core oppositions to Putin’s regime is my belief the Cold War fossils there will not do so, and they have rebuffed multiple attempts to do so.
“But Russia has an enormous border with China – and a crisis in the east with incursions of large numbers of Chinese crossing the border to steal resources.”
A: Also North Koreans, who are increasingly massed with PRC patronage.
B: All with the tacit agreement of the Kremlin and Putin, who have apparently decided to sacrifice the achievements of centuries bit by bit in the East in exchange for a bit more fuel.
“Russia also has 40MM Muslims as part of the Federation, and millions more on its borders.”
This is true and far from all are bad. But many are. The kind of Wahhabist regime that was established by Dudayev has come back sans open separatism with the current Kadyrov Family Head, and creeping Islamicization is present much like we see in places like the West in Rotherham and Paris. There’s no easy answer to this, but there are ways to make the answers easier. Starting with the Russian government not cutting off the bough the country and populace are sitting on.
“Russia cannot fight a billion Chinese and a billion Muslims.”
But it also won’t have to, especially given how the former are less numerous and the latter are divided.
Sure, but Russians cannot expect Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltics, and a host of others to become a vassal state of the Kremlin’s Wannabe Globalist Neo-Communist, Neo-Tsarist Eurasia LARP blessed by both the Grand Muftis of Chechnya and the KGB Spy calling himself Moscow Patriarch. And therein lies the problem.
Part 4
I may have my moments of self-hatred, but nowhere near that consistently. Though being on my knees certainly is a pain.
A: Better than Gay Hate Noncon like is endemic in the Russian Military, especially among the new intakes of conscripts and in the prisons. The Grandfathers of the regime’s Organs could probably have taught a few things to Harvey Milk or Carl Panzraam.
B: I don’t know what would happen next. But I have a pretty good idea what would happen if the current Kremlin deep state is not dealt with. If you wish to see the future as scheduled, check Dagestan or Khabarovsk.
In the words of The Neville Brothers “I learned to hate the Russians all through my whole life, if another war comes, it’s them we must fight”
Part 2: If Russia collapses – Russia will be the most powerful nuclear armed Islamic state in the world. I’m certain the Mussies will not be able to keep it operational for long, but they don’t need very much time to end civilization on the planet.
And if we start a war on Russia – what will happen? Have you met a young Russian lately? I have. Have you spoken with young Russian engineers? Or Russian soldiers?
Trust me. They are not crazy enough to nuke us to conquer Ukraine, but if we nuke Moscow, … you had better learn how to farm with a mule and chop down trees with stone axes. Assuming you survive the results.
War with Russia is real-politik on steroids. We don’t want it.
Below is a great person with ‘Esther’ as a handle.
She accepts the fact that Russia is a BRUTAL enemy of Israel, and therefore a THREAT to America … Russia is aligned with the WORST Muslim factions in the world … and opposes Israel’s right to defend itself in very HYPOCRITICAL fashion.
But Esther understands that Russian civilians have a right to live in peace in their homes without Ukrainian Nazi terrorism.
(And to respond to trolls – yes, I know – 80% of Ukrainians do not support the Ukrainian Nazis – but do you also know they do not accept ethnically cleansing the Dombass? A lot of them are intermarried. I had one such couple working for my web developer.)
I know this is difficult: I have heard the stories – some from Holocaust survivors – some from Holomodor survivors – some from Gulag survivors …
But to stop this war – you cannot return evil for evil.
We cannot punish – and murder – young Russians – and expect the conflict to stop.
We have to stop terrorizing Russians living outside the borders of the Russian Federation, and find a respectable – arms-length – peace through strength strategy to deal with our issues with Russia.
And we need to let Russia deal with her problems without making the situation more difficult.
Because: No matter how many Russians you neo-cons kill – it will not be enough to create peace.
And you might “win” – and get a Muslim Caliphate with 6000 nuclear tipped hyper sonic missiles.
I will take 10000 down votes … to not nuke the planet.
G-d love ya all.
Part 5
“Part 2: If Russia collapses – Russia will be the most powerful nuclear armed Islamic state in the world.”
Most likely. To which I would respond: who would have helped that along?
As godawful and casually racist as Gunther Fehlinger-Jahn is (he of the random partition maps so bad that even the Leftist Racists in Reddit mocked it), he could only dream of doing as much damage to Russian sovereignty and territorial and cultural integrity as Putin has.
And how would they have gotten access to those resources, dare I ask? And why is the Kremlin cultivating ties with regimes dedicated towards that end like the apocalyptic Twelvers tyrannizing Iran? Putin may not want to end the world, but he is allies with people who do.
Yes. Also I oppose starting a war on Russia, which is why I have always opposed Western military fighting in Ukraine. But if the Kremlin seeks to start the war, I advocate the West and especially the US finish it.
Agreed, which is why I oppose nuking Moscow, or anywhere else in Russia. It is an unhinged and savage response with minimal support in the West and even less among “respectable” opinion. Compare/Contrast to Medvedev and co. Even if the Kremlin is not deranged enough to nuke Ukraine, they have certainly freely given the impression they are and are committed to the disappearance of Ukraine as a separate culture and nation.
I chalk that up among Putin, Medvedev, and the inner circle to pageantry. Diplomatic bravado. But I also do not doubt there are those that would be much more open to it.
“War with Russia is real-politik on steroids. We don’t want it.”
I agree. Which is why I condemn the Kremlin so, for pushing this confrontation towards this point, rejecting essentially all offers of cooperation for the past quarter century.
Part 6
“Below is a great person with ‘Esther’ as a handle.
She accepts the fact that Russia is a BRUTAL enemy of Israel, and therefore a THREAT to America … Russia is aligned with the WORST Muslim factions in the world … and opposes Israel’s right to defend itself in very HYPOCRITICAL fashion.
But Esther understands that Russian civilians have a right to live in peace in their homes without Ukrainian Nazi terrorism.”
I agree. But so do Ukrainian civilians have the right to live in peace in their homes without Little Green Men terrorism and Kremlin sponsored Nazis and NatBols like Rusich.
“(And to respond to trolls – yes, I know – 80% of Ukrainians do not support the Ukrainian Nazis – but do you also know they do not accept ethnically cleansing the Dombass? A lot of them are intermarried. I had one such couple working for my web developer.)”
Not even the freaking “Ukrainian Nazis” are in favor of “ethnically cleansing the Donbas.” Not really on moral or ethical terms, but because they have me the Russky and many of them are them. And sadly Yarosh loves himself vastly too much to put himself out of our misery. Ah, the problems of the common inheritance of Man’s Sin, spread across all the nations and peoples of the world.
“I know this is difficult: I have heard the stories – some from Holocaust survivors – some from Holomodor survivors – some from Gulag survivors …”
Fair enough.
“But to stop this war – you cannot return evil for evil.”
From your lips to God’s Ears, may we one day reach that time. But I wonder if the dead and dispossessed of Koeningsberg would agree. Or the Polacks of the Kresy. Unfortunately, war can end with the triumph of evil, and genocide can work.
” We cannot punish – and murder – young Russians – and expect the conflict to stop.”
I agree. And that also goes to there.
“We have to stop terrorizing Russians living outside the borders of the Russian Federation, and find a respectable – arms-length – peace through strength strategy to deal with our issues with Russia.”
I agree. But it’s hard to do that when the Kremlin loves playing the wounded gazelle gambit and quite literally helped sponsor propaganda for Yanukovych of a Jewish-Nazi alliance.
“And we need to let Russia deal with her problems without making the situation more difficult.”
Unfortunately, current management in the Kremlin is making both Russia’s problems and the world’s more difficult. You might say the likes of Schwab, Soros, and co are doing so in the West, but that doesn’t change the fact.
“Because: No matter how many Russians you neo-cons kill – it will not be enough to create peace.”
Now tell the Kremlin that but responding to it with Georgians, Moldovans, and Ukrainians.
“And you might “win” – and get a Muslim Caliphate with 6000 nuclear tipped hyper sonic missiles.”
And we might lose and have the heirs of Kadyrov or some other monster do it anyway. Or the PRC have access to them with Russia reduced to another tributary.
In any case the current situation cannot stand. So much of the current conflict was caused by the West turning a blind eye to the pathologies of the Russian dictatorships and letting the Kremlin’s mentalities infect more and more of society and global politics.
“I will take 10000 down votes … to not nuke the planet.”
On that much we agree.
“G-d love ya all.”
And G-d love you too. But may G-d judge mercifully but fairly. And I do not know about you but I do not want to be the people who organized the fraudulent “elections” in the occupied Crimea and Donbas with bodies still on display when the Almighty comes calling for final judgement.
Response Turtler – to all 6 parts….
Although I disagree on a couple of big points, I have to accept that your responses include many accurate details, and many accurate observations, and many points are reasonable.
Our basic points of disagreement are:
I am wrong about the demographic details, and have confused the terminology by using simplified “vernacular”
I have not considered Russia’s aggression, and
I should support WW3 in the Ukraine because nothing less will lead to horror in the Dombass, and continued aggression by Russia.
On the first point, I’m sure you’re correct.
On the second, I have, and I am concerned. I just believe you have not considered all of the details. I think Russia can be contained if we show strength where needed – and don’t make unforced errors.
On the third point – yes, I know I am over simplifying your argument –
Russia is aggressive; so let’s go to the mat. but I think it’s a fair summation without another set of long posts.
I don’t agree. I don’t think Trump agrees either.
We stood up to the Soviets, and they failed. We didn’t have to have WW3.
I think we can stand up to Russia now – and stop the war. Defeating them is another matter.
The war is not going to end on Ukraine’s terms unless we step in and defeat Russia. That won’t happen without Americans rolling tanks and a whole lotta slaughter. Assuming somehow – the Kremlin won’t fire nukes.
Thank you for the blessing, much appreciated.
“The Ukraine”. Dead giveaway to the source of your narrative.
“your narrative”
In other words, you believe what you’re told.
You should read Turtler’s comments on this thread.
At least you will be informed to defend war mongering.
Isn’t the real reason the invasion is going on is Putin won’t allow another NATO nation somewhat parallel to we wouldn’t allow Cuba to have nuclear weapons. We have broken our agreement with the Russians numerous times on no new NATO nations.
That and clinton slick willied the Ukrainians out of nuclear weapons and xhiden the golem green lighted Putin with his displays of weakness if not outright encouragement to invade.
It was a moot point once they invaded. You aren’t going to get the land back once you invaded and it risks ww3 if you do so by force.
“Isn’t the real reason the invasion is going on is Putin won’t allow another NATO nation somewhat parallel to we wouldn’t allow Cuba to have nuclear weapons.”
This is utter nonsense. And one reason that Sweden and Finland called Putin’s bluff by joining NATO soon after the 2022 open invasion and Putin caved.
Moreover, the US tolerated nuclear weapons on Cuba grudgingly without launching a war (though we were considering it). We even tolerated the continued presence of tactical nuclear weapons that could not reach the US Mainland on Cuba. I don’t have a great opinion of the JFK Messiah nonsense, but we put up with far more peacefully than Putin did.
It’s not the NATO, it’s the Russian Imperialism. Which is why the Kremlin conveniently avoids attacking any member of NATO.
The reason the invasion went on is because in 2014 Putin pushed his local client to do a bunch of very unwise and very illegal things that blew up in their faces and provided their enemies or rivals (including the likes of Nuland) an unexpected victory, meaning Putin overreacted and decided to invade under false pretenses, sending false flagged troops to take over Crimea and the Donbas much like the Soviets sent in a “Student Militia” to overthrow the Mongolian Government to prevent a Buddhist resurgence back in the 1920s.
They were successful in Crimea due to shock and lack of resistance, but things started to go wrong in the Donbas, which led to the occupation puppets taking maybe 2/3rds of the territory they claimed, max. And then getting pushed back.
Putin realized he might lose the war in Ukraine if it remained limited and clandestine, so he took advantage of Biden’s weakness and early term appeasement of Putin to go open and try to storm Kyiv and a host of other places. This mostly failed (they obtained good results pushing in the South and went as far as Kherson oblast, but the central decapitation strike failed), but by then the game was set.
“We have broken our agreement with the Russians numerous times on no new NATO nations.”
What agreement is that, kemosabe? Can you name the name of the agreement or the date?
I don’t think you can, because it doesn’t exist.
Part 2
And curiously even if it did, the Russian government would’ve broken it due to the text of the Helsinki Final Accord, the Russo-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, and the Astana Declaration specifying the independence of member states to chose any alliance or none. That includes NATO.
“That and clinton slick willied the Ukrainians out of nuclear weapons”
I don’t have much respect for Slick Willie but the Ukrainians never had control over the nuclear weapons due to their command infrastructure being in Moscow. Moreover, after Chernobyl most Ukrainians didn’t want nukes, and of course the new Russian government wanted the USSR’s weapons. So this was an actual win-win.
” and xhiden the golem green lighted Putin with his displays of weakness if not outright encouragement to invade.”
Indeed there.
“It was a moot point once they invaded. You aren’t going to get the land back once you invaded and it risks ww3 if you do so by force.”
Disagree; Croatia and Bosnia beg to differ. Fighting back an aggressor is maddeningly hard but it is doable. And on some level the Russian government knows it can be done, hence their attempts to keep some powder dry by holding back on conscription (that and fear of public riots and protests like what brought down the Soviet Union after Afghanistan).
Doesn’t mean it is likely or probable or that peace now isn’t the best option (I respectfully disagree with The Donald there but I can understand why). But it is doable.
And frankly allowing the Kremlin too much edification will only encourage them to “risk WW3” by invading any country they have some beef with and then demanding the territory or power while claiming that any attempt to repulse them risks WW3. At some point you have to assume bad behavior and try to push the aggressor back as early as possible.
And as for “go yourself”, I would if I A: Could and B: Had no others. But if I’m going to fight for anyone it’ll be the US, and I can’t serve there due to various health limitations I am trying to deal with. Ukraine’s standards are probably a lot lower but probably still beyond what I can do quite yet.
So those who do, do. Those who can’t, teach. I admit I may be a keyboard warrior, but at least I can do something with that.
Off-Topic But Irresistible…
— — — — — —
That picture of Nancy and Kamala behind Vlad The Zelensky lends a brand new twist to the old Newman Family classic….. displaying as it does
“The Effects of Maga Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds”
‘The Minsk accords were never meant to be taken seriously.’ A quote by Angela Merkel as reported by The Gateway Pundit, or Breitbart News, I don’t remember where I read that quote. This war was a globalist dream come true. A way to Bankrupt the USA. China is the only winner.
“Is MAGA Wrong on Ukraine?”
Hell no!
Next Question.
A non-political friend was furious at Trump’s comments about Ukraine and any opposition to the war until I asked him if he would want his son sent there to fight and if any Ukrainians would come and help us if France invaded England.
There are ALWAYS disputes between all borders everywhere and America is NOT the world’s policeman and neither is NATO.
“when we note that it stems in part from what Russia perceived to be NATO expansion into Ukraine.”
Nowhere in Russia’s “invasion” story is mention of the fact it was an imperative for Putin to invade in 2022 because European and US energy exploration companies were close to signing a negotiated deal with Ukraine to develop the huge untapped offshore oil/gas reserves in the waters off Eastern Ukraine. (Not withstanding the un-mined Lithium deposits in the Donbas region).
This deal if it had gone through would have meant European energy coming from Ukraine and bypassing the existing supply from Russia. This would have been catastrophic -if not an existential threat – to the Russian economy. Russia simply had to invade when it did to consolidate Russian control of these untapped energy supplies and keep Europe dependent on Russian supplied energy.
If the Russian-Ukrainian frontlines remain as they are now in any peace deal proposed by the US administration then Russia will have achieved it objective – to stop Europe from future access Ukrainian energy supplies.
A peace deal based on the existing frontlines remaining in place is also good news for the US, because under Trump’s “drill baby, drill” policy then the US will be able to export greater energy supplies into Europe assuming Europe does not get its energy supply from Russia again.
that’s just globalist nonsense.
first, Ukraine has plenty of resources outside the Dombass.
Ukrainians are not going to freeze or starve if they leave Russians in the Dombass alone.
second, if resources were the issue,
Ukrainians owned the Dombass. All they had to do was leave the Russians alone.
I might add – 80% or so of Ukrainians supported that idea. It was only the Ukrainian Nazis who opposed it. They all knew Russians lived there, and they did not want to ethnically cleanse them.
third, Russia also has plenty of resources and the EU is their primary trading partner – Pootler knew rolling tanks would cause a lot of disruption and he had no guarantees that he would prevail – as he has – in the sanctions side of the war.
fourth, Russia also had important pipelines running across Ukraine and through eastern Europe – and across the Baltic.
pretty sure Pootler did not want to cut those lines – in exchange for starting a war over some ‘resources’ that have a much lower value than his gas in the Yamal peninsula eg.
For a start, see:
The whole point of the invasion timing was – and is – to keep Europe ultimately dependent on Russian energy supplies and away from accessing the undeveloped offshore energy under the waters off the eastern coastal regions. Access to these Ukrainian resources would totally obviate the need for Russian pipelines across Ukraine into western Europe and tank the Russian economy whose largest customer is the EU. Not a difficult Russian war strategy to grasp other than the farcical Putin “denazification” propaganda.
part 1
Thank you for the link to the Geology Professor’s assessment of Ukraine’s vast mineral resources.
Quote: “The whole point of the invasion timing was – and is – to keep Europe ultimately dependent on Russian energy supplies”
How? Yes, as of right now, Europe still depends on Russia for energy. But now Europe wants to be less dependent on Russia for energy. Eg Europe has imported more LNG from Texas.
Did Pootler start the war to Make Texas LNG Great Again?
Quote “and away from accessing the undeveloped offshore energy under the waters off the eastern coastal regions.”
Yes, if Russia controls the Dombass, Russia can sell their resources. But will Europe buy them ? How will Pootler keep Europe dependent on those resources?
Those resources are valuable. But if Europe is the primary buyer, and Ukraine is still in the way, why would Europe buy them from a foe? How would Pootler deliver them? War is a really evil and stupid way to convince Europe to buy the stolen resources.
Quote “Access to these Ukrainian resources would totally obviate the need for Russian pipelines across Ukraine into western Europe and tank the Russian economy whose largest customer is the EU.”
War has already disrupted energy supplies. War has wiped-out Russia’s pipelines across the Baltic Sea. I’m sure Pootler destroyed his own pipelines to encourage Europeans to remain dependent on Russia.
Russia’s economy has not tanked though because of Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. It’s Europe’s economy that’s on the ropes. But who knows – maybe Trump will bail them out with American LNG and crude.
Quote “Not a difficult Russian war strategy to grasp”
So: Pootler is an evil madman – so evil and mad – he just had to destroy his own pipelines, cut off his access to his pipelines across Ukraine, terrify his best customers, and upset his whole apple cart.
Face palm.
“Europe wants to be less dependent on Russia for energy. ”
Indeed. That is precisely why European energy exploration companies were closing in a deal with Ukraine to extract offshore gas etc from waters in Eastern Ukraine. Thus obviating the need to buy any Russian energy. That is why Putin had to consolidate control over those Ukrainian reserves and explains the timing of the Russian invasion of 2022.. The invasion makes perfect sense from the Putinist regimes strategic perspective – to protect its economy from it largest customer’s moving away from dependency.
“Eg Europe has imported more LNG from Texas.”
Indeed. And that is why the US ceasefire proposal; and freezing the current Russia/Ukraine frontline is great business for the US energy companies and US economy as a whole. It also makes perfect sense for the US to pursue a ceasefire along current Russian occupied territories in Donbas etc.
I somehow very much doubt the Putinst regime was expecting their de-nazification incursion into Ukraine would have still been ongoing for three years when they were expecting to have captured Kyiv in a matter of weeks. As Tyson is often quoted as saying; ” “Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the face”. And Putin’s invasion force got punched in the face by Ukraine when their Russian armored column (stretching some 64 kilometres) was destroyed in Feb, 2022.
Yes Putin is a madman.
“Horror as ‘400 bodies of Putin’s elite paratroopers’ pictured stashed in warehouse”
Part 2
Quote “other than the farcical Putin “denazification” propaganda.”
See Turtler’s responses.
All of the war mongers on this thread need to get together and get your ‘narrative’ straight.
According to Turtler – who also wants to go to war – we need to defend the “Ukrainian Nationalists” (that is, the anti-Russian Ukrainians in normal social media terms)
because if we do not protect the Ukrainian Nazis, Pootler will ethnically cleanse the Dombass of “Ukrainian Nationalists.”
That is, if we don’t fight Russia, Pootler will denazify the Dombass.
He makes a good point – you should read his posts.
But both of you cannot be correct. If Pootler is not going to denazify the Dombass, Turtler’s argument falls apart.
If Turtler is correct, we have to save the Nazis from ethnic cleansing.
Which is it?
Oh, and Pootler is so stupid – he has risked Russia’s national resources allegedly valued at $75trillion – to take a fraction of Ukraine’s resources valued at $11trillion.
I’m not saying you’re wrong here. Maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe Pootler is just incredibly stupid and evil and wanted to shoot his own foot off to make his best customers afraid of him and want to distance themselves from his product.
But don’t tell me Pootler attacked Ukraine to take their resources to sell ’em to Europe because that was his brilliant plan.
If Pootler wanted to sell those resources to Europe, he really screwed the pooch.
So which is it? Pootler is evil and stupid and came up with a plan to destroy his infrastructure and his relationship with his best customers?
Or that’s just globalist nonsense to cover for provoking the war.
G-d love you, btw.
Send your kid and family. Nothing is stopping you from volunteering money and blood.
How would Texans feel if there was a war in Michigan – as distant from one another as Ireland is from Ukraine.
What would happen if Ukraine were subjugated to Russia?
Ukraine manufactured one third of the war materiel of the Soviet Union. Everything from rocket motors for ICBMs to marine engines for the Navy were manufactured there. The best soldiers of the Soviet Army were Ukrainians.
Today, Ukraine’s armed forces are the largest and most combat-capable in Europe. Ukraine’s drone technology is superior in some respects to that of the United States. If they were combined under Kremlin command with the Russian armed forces, the largest in the world, no force in Europe would be able to withstand them.
With the whole of Europe subjugated to Russia, and Russia allied to China, theiy would be capable of ending the United States as a world power.
Well Mr. Tapson, I thank you for your honest opinion and response, and I hope you will take this in the spirit it is meant. But as a MAGA Supporter and odd “Loyalist Neo-Con” and supporter of Ukraine who would be willing to sacrifice Ukraine to defend American freedom but would prefer not to, and has been frustrated by what I view as Trump’s new stance on the matter even if I believe his domestic victories outweigh that, allow me to argue a different case.
Part 1
Firstly: You mention the need to prioritize the PRC as our real and main threat, which I agree with. However, I think this overlooks something that several analysts like Mark Steyn (hardly an uncritical Zelenskyy booster) have noted: that Putin and much of the other post-Soviet “Organs” in charge of the Russian Bureaucracy are committed to an alliance with the PRC and have been for decades. That there have been unoriginal and very swampy attempts by most Presidents and Foggy Bottom, and which has consistently seen Putin play Lucy with the Football with regular backstabbing. See how Obama went from “the 90s called” and “Reset” to condemning Putin with fire and fury. Trump seems to have recognized this at some point, as after the typical appeasement in the early first term he pushed back against Putin by sanctioning him and many allies of his, providing lethal aid to Ukraine, and cratering many Syrian Baathist airfields (which makes his current stance more frustrating).
So while the PRC is and should be the main threat, Putin is closely allied with the PRC and other enemies like Iran and Pakistan
Part 2
Secondly: Much of this approach to Putin’s Russia has been predicated on the idea that trying to “see into Putin’s soul” and come to terms with him by making “peace” will help make an alliance with him against the PRC and/or Islamists, or at least help convince him to be neutral. This policy I believe has consistently and thoroughly failed, as shown by his consistent alliance with the PRC and the prominence of many Islamists like Kadyrov.
Moreover, it is important to note the idea of alliance with the PRC is rather unpopular among the Russian public. Who may or may not like the West or US and its ideals, but who have deep seated ideological, territorial, cultural, and for many racial issues with the PRC, who openly desires global dominance and control over Siberia. As such I believe utterly defeating and humiliating Putin’s regime and trying to replace it (or at least destabilize it) with someone else by the results of a costly battle would be MORE likely to remove Russia from the enemy list and bring it to a friendly one by crippling his constituencies and possibly (though not necessarily) allowing in a more amenable leader.
Thirdly: Ukraine and Zelenskyy are far from ideal, but they are nowhere near as corrupt or Nazi like as the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang were in the 1930s to the 1960s, where Chiang openly recruited and trained with German officers and had a secret police lead er – Dai Li – who was ideologically Fascist and a mass murderer, torturer, and serial “Struggle Snuggler”, in addition to the entire regime being unlovely and corrupt in ways that Russia and Ukraine put together would struggle to be. However, this did not mean that the KMT and Chiang were not clearly the lesser evil compared to Japan’s nutjob anti-Western militarists or the Communists of both Stalin and Mao flavors, both morally and from the POV of American Interests.
Fourthly: Zelenskyy may be an opportunist actor LARPing as Churchill, but that does not mean he does not believe in his cause and those are not necessarily bad traits for a government leader. And if anything he would do with being more opportunistic given how he has needlessly alienated Trump and clung too closely to the globalist left.
Part 3
Fifth: I flatly don’t think there is a great way to guarantee a quick end to the war, as admirable as it is. Zelenskyy came to power defeating Poroshenko by claiming to be the Dovish candidate, stating he would not seek the return of Crimea by force of arms and even proposing a plebiscite to divide the Donbas. Which the Kremlin did not deign to respond to, even as Zelenskyy took a lot of flak for it (including from English language Soros fronts like Euromaidan Press).
And even now the Kremlin refuses to abandon its far reaching demands of long reaching dismemberment of Ukraine (including annexations of places like Kherson), and “Denazification” (read; persecution of political enemies by the regime that has a Neo-Nazi, Dimitry Medvedev, as its Vice President), “Demilitarization” (More or less what it says), and “Neutrality” (read: becoming a Kremlin puppet state and buffer zone). And it has refused to move from those points. I do not doubt Trump’s intentions, but I doubt his ability. A deal depends on both sides being willing to make a deal.
Sixth: As for defeating Russia in Ukraine, I would point to the examples of Croatia and Bosnia in the Yugoslav Wars as an example of how foreign aid and military modernization can help outnumbered and outgunned defenders defeat and counterattack initially superior enemies. Moreover, while most focus tends to be on the NATO air strikes the decisive war-winning battles like Operation Storm happened without direct NATO intervention of the kind that would probably spark a world war. And the Ukrainians had succeeded in making serious inroads into the Kremlin occupied areas in the Donbas between 2015 and 2022.
Seventh: The Kremlin has rarely cooperated with us. Ukrainians have fought and died alongside us in Afghanistan and Iraq. I think it unwise to sacrifice that functional relationship that exists for a dream of one that MIGHT be if we supposedly make the right deal with anti-Western Soviet bureaucrats who have consistently betrayed us.
I do not pretend I have absolute answers or that Ukraine is a perfect ally, especially given the corruption and ties to the globalist left. But I do think Russia has similar issues and worse, including ties with the Iranian Mullahs and the Chinese communists.
PS Sorry for the awkward formatting of my posts.
You are such a turtle.
Thank you kindly “Ron”, I’ll take that as a compliment.
Turtler: You have an excellent handle on the history and details of the conflict in the Ukraine.
Yet. You’re totally wrong on literally every point.
First, all politics are local and now – unless an ideological component exists.
In the Dombass, the population is Russian.
Do you really think Russians living in the Dombass are thinking – “Oh, I remember when grandpa was a Nazi or a communist, so I’m going to bomb my Russian neighbors and blame Z for it to justify an invasion by the Russian Federation.”
I know Russians are monsters, (and White and Christian), so you hate them,
but most Ukrainians – the 80% that are NOT Nazis – did not, and do not, want to ethnically cleanse the Dombass of its majority Russian population.
Second, the idea that endlessly warring against Russia is a good idea …
is not a good idea.
What do you think Russians, whom you hate (don’t forget that), what will they do if the West collapses their government?
Again – politics are local and now – Pootler has been paying Russians their retirements. He is popular because of his local economic policies that enable poverty stricken elderly Russians to eat and survive the post-Soviet collapse.
If Pootler is replaced by a pro-West oligarch (never mind the Gay thing), and they start to rape the nation’s resources for the fun and profit of Moscow elites, and foreign politicians
… how do you think the Russians will take that?
Maybe they’re too old, and they will just die. But then again,
if Russians are as monstrous as you believe –
they might just roll tanks into Europe and risk a nuclear holocaust.
PS: I know a lot of young Russians. And they’re not like anything you think they are.
And I bet you know more about this conflict than they do. They’re concerned about getting jobs and not being bombed by Ukrainian Nazis. They don’t give a flip about the past – other than they don’t want to be communists or Gay.
“ In the Dombass, the population is Russian.”
That’s like the kind of logic that makes George Washington British.
There are a lot of ethnic Russians and Russian language speakers from the Donbas. Zelenskyy is a Russophone by the way. But that doesn’t mean they were “Russian” like Putin, or even the Free Russia Legion.
By this logic a large number of those Azovite “Ukrainian Nazi” troops are also “Russian.”
Armed Separatism in the region in favor of Russia was always a minority, even during the counter Euromaidan. And that got even more.
The fact that you do not understand this in spite of Right Sector’s political base being news to no longtime watcher of this war, nor the linguistic similarities helping to allow infiltration tactics by the likes of Azov and co, and how the Ukrainians have been recruiting outright defected Russian-from-Russia units is jarring beyond belief.
The rest of this is basically word salad designed to try and pound the desk by acting as if everyone who speaks Russian at home or is ethnic Russians is as Russian as Dmitry Utkin. Which is funny considering how even the Kremlin doesn’t fall into this hole even if they come close to it, hence the different terms for an “Ethnic Russian” and “Citizen/Member of Russia the Country.”
If the “Ukrainian Nazis” wanted to “ethnically cleanse” the Donbas they’d have had to take a good look at their own membership, as well as other loyalists such as the Anti-Yanukovych Regionnaires, including losing a vast proportion of their own manpower.
And the extreme vagueness with which the accusations of ethnic cleansing arise (in sharp contrast to stuff like on Georgia or North Prigodniy where the hatreds are older and the lines are more clearcut and both sides did engage in ethnic cleansin).
“ Second, the idea that endlessly warring against Russia is a good idea … is not a good idea.”
Neither is the Kremlin endlessly getting into trade disputes with its neighbors including its closest Allie’s like Belarus, endlessly warring on “Fraternal nations” while allowing the PRC to infiltrate Siberia isn’t a good idea. But here we are. I do not have much good to say about the Foreign Policy Swamp at State Dep’t or a lot of recent Presidents, but the idea that they did not genuinely try to get Russia on side (to the point of engaging in early first term appeasement, often blaming their predecessors for “ruining” relations with Putin, and then come back there) did not help.
Also it’s ironic you think I hate Russians. I hate their government, but I am friends with many Russians (several still in country) and briefly worked there. I am well aware of the regime’s nanny state tendencies and breeding of dependency, and it being one of the third rails of Russian politics even Putin is careful about adjusting like raising the age limit.
As for raping the nation of its resources, ask them if they like what is going on in Siberia and Chechnya. Living off of the memories of the Bad 90s Can only last so long when the regime is replicating many of the failures of them.
(Most Russians I know hate the Red Chinese and are at best ambivalent about the Kazakhs. And that gets worse if you go out past the duopoly of “Peter” and Moscow into the provincials that deal with the issue more and know people who know people who had to deal with sweetheart deals with the PRC and family that had to leave Kazakhstan due to their form of “Affirmative Action” Racial Discrimination, and the Chechens are still distrusted, especially given their ruthlessness, hostility to Christians, egotism, and real or perceived corruption and incompetence.)
We quite literally have sat footage back from near the start of the 2014 war showing artillery fire concentration and intensity and how much of it was over the border. The “Ukrainian Nazis” were never very likely to be the ones bombing people. Though getting jobs definitely factored in. That was the context of Chocolate King Poroshenko’s much repeated and even more frequently misquoted speech about how Ukraine would win because of what teachers stuck on the Donbaschukuos in shelters told him.
Which usually got mangled to be “the Ukrainian Nazis that are ethnically cleansing people exactly like much of Right Sector are keeping the children from going to school by keeping them in shelters under bombardment” when in reality it was about reconciliation and proving to former separatists or those in the areas Ukraine could build a civil society. Which the Donbaschukuos failed to do and Russian Crimes has had more luck with but is still dependent on uneconomic subsidies from the Kremlin.
Part 2
Also it’s ironic you think I hate Russians. I hate their government, but I am friends with many Russians (several still in country) and briefly worked there. I am well aware of the regime’s nanny state tendencies and breeding of dependency, and it being one of the third rails of Russian politics even Putin is careful about adjusting like raising the age limit.
As for raping the nation of its resources, ask them if they like what is going on in Siberia and Chechnya. Living off of the memories of the Bad 90s Can only last so long when the regime is replicating many of the failures of them.
(Most Russians I know hate the Red Chinese and are at best ambivalent about the Kazakhs. And that gets worse if you go out past the duopoly of “Peter” and Moscow into the provincials that deal with the issue more and know people who know people who had to deal with sweetheart deals with the PRC and family that had to leave Kazakhstan due to their form of “Affirmative Action” Racial Discrimination, and the Chechens are still distrusted, especially given their ruthlessness, hostility to Christians, egotism, and real or perceived corruption and incompetence.)
We quite literally have sat footage back from near the start of the 2014 war showing artillery fire concentration and intensity and how much of it was over the border. The “Ukrainian Nazis” were never very likely to be the ones bombing people. Though getting jobs definitely factored in. That was the context of Chocolate King Poroshenko’s much repeated and even more frequently misquoted speech about how Ukraine would win because of what teachers stuck on the Donbaschukuos in shelters told him.
Which usually got mangled to be “the Ukrainian Nazis that are ethnically cleansing people exactly like much of Right Sector are keeping the children from going to school by keeping them in shelters under bombardment” when in reality it was about reconciliation and proving to former separatists or those in the areas Ukraine could build a civil society. Which the Donbaschukuos failed to do and Russian Crimes has had more luck with but is still dependent on uneconomic subsidies from the Kremlin.
Looks like phone issues helped cause a duplicates oops.
I was never on the Ukraine bandwagon ever since I realized that the country was simply a money laundering operation. Especially when Biden gave us the “son of a bitch” speech about how he got Ukraine to stop investigating Hunter.
And guess what, the country is simply a money laundering operation. Not that the Russians are any better.
Two corrupt kleptocracies.
If Venezuela invaded Cuba and took over Cuba, without a shot being fired, would it make much difference to the people living under those two corrupt kleptocracies, I think not.
The one danger I see is the Russians will be emboldened to keep on invading more of Ukraine and eventually a bigger war involving more of Europe will breakout.
But America has to stop being the world’s ATM, the USA is being devoured alive on the altar of self-sacrifice and altruism.
Uh oh, it is awake, groping around for his coffee wake up, and dispensing his useless anti-altruism trope. The THX drinking game in full effect.
Wow, just the other day you opined that Catholic Charities and the other religious NGOs would be the death of this country. Now we are being devoured alive on the “alter of self-sacrifice and altruism”, What mentally unstable world do you inhabit. Planet Retard, per chance? You are such a positive person, aren’t you.
I think most people, except for you, your Objectivist miscreants, and loser Democrats and totalitarians, are naturally self-sacrificial and altruistic. Have been for at least several millennia.
You and your pathetic comments are not likely to change anything, let alone human nature. Short of legislation requiring human behavioral changes, enacted by someone like Bernie Sanders, I just don’t think you will make any progress.
You are truly the essence of the wasted life.
This is not an “if Venezuela invaded Cuba” situation. Ukraine and Russia have different languages and cultures, even with their similarities. Ukraine sees itself in a long battle for self determination. Even though its independence from Russia was declared in 1991, it is being treated as a colony by Russia, eager to use its resources and have it pay tribute to “Holy Mother Russia.”
It would be helpful if MAGA people actually took an interest in a country, as Douglas Murray did before just repeating empty slogans. Apart from the American Left or Right, Ukraine is its own country, and deserves better than to be tainted by the Left’s former interest in defending it.
“Two corrupt kleptocracies.”
Fair, but not all are corrupt equally.
“If Venezuela invaded Cuba and took over Cuba, without a shot being fired, would it make much difference to the people living under those two corrupt kleptocracies, I think not.”
This is hilarious to me because the inverse is basically what happened. The PSUV of Chavez and Maduro is essentially a puppet or at least a client of Communist Cuba (which in turn is a client of Putin’s Russia and the PRC), with both looking up to and taking orders from the late, lamentable Castros and their successors. And you might have noticed that it VERY OBVIOUSLY has caused a vast difference to the people living under the regime.
Before this happened, Venezuela was an American ally that veered between dictatorship and genuine if kleptocratic democratic republic whose biggest problem economically was people stealing from the till and Dutch Disease. Afterwards it was taken over by socialists that implemented a totalitarian system backed up by the Cuban equivalent of the KGB and death squads who have driven people to flee for food while sponsoring terrorism throughout the hemisphere.
To quote a certain other collectivist leftist, Elections have Consequences. But I’m guessing most of those fools that voted for Chavez didn’t realize that they would be giving the Red Cuban DI a vote, including on cancelling the results of future elections with their guns.
“The one danger I see is the Russians will be emboldened to keep on invading more of Ukraine and eventually a bigger war involving more of Europe will breakout.
But America has to stop being the world’s ATM, the USA is being devoured alive on the altar of self-sacrifice and altruism.”
A fair point, but we also need to avoid being devoured dead or alive by the tendrils of the PRC’s allies, which for now includes Putin.
Trump: “Zelensky is a Dictator.”
The more I learn of Zelensky, the more he’s sounding like Communist Sandinista Daniel Ortega, who arrests and bans all political opponents and Party’s, who was installed and protected by The Democratic Party with the help from the Communist Party USA and the SOVIET KGB! (There are reports of his hidden riche$$$.) They teamed up to during Vietnam so Communists could take over SE Asia. They teamed up again to take over Central America using the KGB’S WORLD PEACE COUNCIL, the U.S. Peace Council run by the CPUSA, against using “Peace as a Weapon of War.” Then they want Communism to spread into El Salvador, so these PEACEMAKERS aided and funded the Communist FMLN. “EL SALVADOR IS SPANISH FOR VIETNAM!” Guatemala had a Communist rebel group too. THEY WANTED MEXICO so the Mexican Peace Council sent SUBCOMMANANTE MARCOS to Chiapas to rile up the Natives to start THE ZAPATISTAS!
ALL OF THESE GROUPS were supported by Americans, and The Democratic Party with many members of Congress, Departments, WH, being members of these front groups! A close analysis of these groups will expose THE SOVIET KGB CONNECTION.
NOW… THEY SUPPORT UKRAINE OVER THEIR KGB MASTER? Now Trump is a Putin stooge and puppet? Twilight Zone?
The amount of Russian propaganda about the Russia-Ukraine War on this website is sad. Putin has been scheming to sabotage and take over Ukraine from the moment he came to power. He funded insurgent attacks in easter Ukraine that have been going on there since at least 2016, before Zelensky even came to power.
I agree with almost every article I read on this website, but you guys are sorely missing the forest for the trees when it comes to Ukraine, Putin, and Zelensky.
First, I do not agree with your assessment of a conflict that has deep roots.
The majority of the people living in the Dombass, Crimea, Kherson, Kharkov, and basically everywhere east of the Dniper river – except Kiev and surrounds
is a Russian.
And the Ukrainian Nazis (20% of the population) – hate them – and blame them for historical abuses.
But second, accusing FPM of too much ‘Russian propaganda’ is simply inaccurate.
FPM is very much anti-Russian and pro-Ukraine (in this conflict), which is why my comment got severely ratio’d above.
FPM has simply been more fair – and more factually based – than other media outlets shilling for the endless war – neo-con – globalist crowd.
In fact, Russia is an enemy actor, and an enemy of Israel, but that does not mean Russians have no rights – as human beings – to live in peace in their homes in the Dombass – without terrorism by Ukrainian Nazis.
Correction: Turtler has offered evidence that the “Russians”
– see his posts for this complicated details.
My opinion is based on memory of discussions with friends,
and so I could be wrong about the demographics.
Putin does what is necessary to protect his nation, people and culture from unrelenting assault by the globalist left. He is against the globalist left, I am also against the globalist left. I would sooner make common cause with Vlad Putin than Ursula von der Layen or Keir Starmer.
You’re right . But the only common ground between Putin and Trump is the rejection of the New World Order . Putin cares about preserving his dictatorship and Trump cares about preserving our constitutional republic . The progressive globalists hate Putin and Trump because all they care about is their ” fundamental change ” into the New World Order . And , the progressives will keep propagandizing otherwise . Like Putin and Trump share the same ideology but nothing can be further from the truth . They simply both reject the New World Order .
Excellent point Robert,
but this issue is too emotional for most of us.
Exactly what I just said.
No, he does not “do what is necessary to protect his nation.” He has allowed the CCP to essentially colonize vast tracts of Siberia. He has consented to the growing Islamicization of Russia and allowed Kadyrov to turn Chechnya into the kind of autonomous Islamist Mafia State that Dudayev created, and to have a veto to boot. He is also more than willing to shake hands with the globalist left when he has a chance.
I also am pretty sure Daesh is against the globalist left when not using them to their advantage. That doesn’t mean I’m going to trust Daesh. If absolutely forced to I might be willing to cooperate against a more imminent or mortal danger, but that doesn’t translate to trusting them.
Again. Lots of accurate details. Mixed up and confused to justify a result.
The far east is a mess. If Pootler could roll tanks into Chinese ‘hoods encroaching in the Far East
“neo-cons” like you would be giving the CCP more cluster munitions to use on Russians.
Russia is not ‘Islamizing’ due to Pootler. He has 40MM Mussies in the Federation. Their birthrate is significantly higher than for non-Mussies. What’s he supposed to do?
Go full Ukraine Nazi and start shooting cluster munitions on them? Again, the CCP can run concentration camps for Mussies,
but if Pootler did it, you neo-cons would make sure every peasant on the planet knew about it.
Pootler is not our friend, and maybe he is evil,
but he is responding to our terrorism and sanctions for the last 34 years
designed to remove a pro-Russia politician from power.
PS: Why do I reject your Bravo Sierra?
I remember when the Globalist Leftists LOVED the USSR. Back in those days, I had to suffer Soviet engineers studying my projects and stealing my work product, and watching them take notes while offering nothing in return.
And I remember when the USSR fell.
And all of a sudden, the Leftists HATED Russia, and you neo-cons were like “Yah! Let’s kill Russians!”
But then I was training Russian engineers who were very open and honest – and explaining what was going on and what they needed to know – to fix the commie BS they had to deal with.
Overnight. The Left went from loving the Soviets to hating Russians – and the establishment “Right” was all about “Bombs away, let’s get Pootler and bomb Russians.”
And for all you know about these conflicts, you seem to have forgotten all of OUR Mussie terrorists, drug cartels, and terrorism throughout the former Soviet Union designed to sow enmity and fuel Muslim aggression against Russia.
Insisting that there is just one side to the story … says a lot more about you than it does about Pootler.
Part 1
“Again. Lots of accurate details. Mixed up and confused to justify a result.”
This is ironic since I’d say that is closer to you.
“The far east is a mess. If Pootler could roll tanks into Chinese ‘hoods encroaching in the Far East”
He can, and he can also fly them or entrain them. But for various reasons – some I understand, some I don’t – he doesn’t, probably because he figures that isn’t good business, and because since Gorbachev’s mending of fences with Mao (a little known fact that the great Bukhovsky – a proud Russian in every sense of the word but also an opponent of the Kremlin and its Soviet legacy and Putinist present, check out the Bukhovsky Archives) and decades of propaganda, the veterans of “The Organs” are generally geared towards opposing the West and apparently Putin seems to estimate that’s where more of the assimilable population is. So the little red devil made a deal with the Bigger Red Devil that has remained remarkably consistent since at least the Kursk Sub Crisis.
““neo-cons” like you would be giving the CCP more cluster munitions to use on Russians.”
This is a nonsequitor. I’d be giving the Ukrainians more cluster munitions to use on the Kremlin’s troops or the CCP, as the Kremlin has happily used cluster munitions in Ukraine since 2014.
“Russia is not ‘Islamizing’ due to Pootler. ”
Yeah no. Take a look at the government’s official demographics statistics. It’s even worse than in the UK. I’d also suggest watching the “Putin is a Progressive” Video Essay series.
“He has 40MM Mussies in the Federation. Their birthrate is significantly higher than for non-Mussies. What’s he supposed to do?”
For starters? Clamp down on Kadyrov torturing and murdering non-Muslims and Apostates in Chechnya. Then maybe “suddenly discover” the cardinal sins of “Patriarch Kirill” for simony and betrayal of the sacrament of confession to his KGB masters and get a Patriarch who cares more about the health of his flock than being a Chekist mirror of the Prog Archbishop of Canterbury or Francis the Argentine NatBol in the Papacy. Those and his existing policies would help provide more incentive to breed. There are no easy answers, but there are ways to lessen the pain.
“Francis the Argentine NatBol in the Papacy.”
This Pope and his Papal cabal have infected the Catholic Church with marxist Liberation Theology doctrine. The quicker the white smoke billows up the chimney the better!
I am certain you are correct in some ways – given your posts – and attention to detail.
So Pootler is encouraging Islamization by not doing something about Muslim fecundity?
What Pootler can do about fecundity? Muslims are out breeding non-Muslims, what is he supposed to do about it?
And clamping down on Kadyrov in Chechnya would help how?
If Pootler sticks his nose into Kadyrov’s business, doesn’t that mean we have to fight him there too?
And ‘fixing’ Kirill will also help?
I think this is a good idea. But what does it have to do with WW3?
And Pootler is a Progressive?
I’m sure he is. See below.
Assuming Pootler used cluster munitions on civilians – and we know he has btw – does that justify using them on civilians by our side?
I thought we were the good guys.
What does any of this have to do with Pootler’s invasion of the Dombass?
Assume you’re right: Pootler invaded the Dombass to kill Ukrainians, destroy his business deals and pipelines, and get his rocks off because he is an evil madman.
I will repeat it: What does any of this have to do with Russian tanks in the Dombass?
Okay, I can see that maybe all of this goes to prove Pootler is an evil madman, is that your point?
Is Pootler really a Progressive with no brain, and he needs a war to cure some psychological dysfunction?
Maybe. I don’t think so. But even if I’m wrong, how would any of this change the outcome now?
If Pootler is a Progressive madman, and we roll our tanks and our troops to push “Russians” out of the Dombass
would not the Progressive madman nuke us?
Btw: If Pootler were to let us push his troops out of the Dombass,
and he does NOT nuke us
what would that mean?
G-d bless you and yours.
Part 3
“And ‘fixing’ Kirill will also help?”
Probably. There’s a host of reasons why there’s plummeting attendance in Eastern Orthodox Churches of the Moscow Patriarchate in sharp contrast to its co-religionists elsewhere, even in former Soviet space. Not all of that can be attributed to Putin or Kirill (after all, this was the aftermath of “Scientific Atheism”). But a lot can be.
I’ll be blunt and admit that the church and state have often been incestuous and improperly linked, Whether that was particularly bad with the Moscow Patriarchate through history is one question, but it’s definitely not limited to it or Eastern Orthodox, nor can it be said to have always colored inside the lines of dogma, such as the excommunication of Mazepa (who was an opportunistic traitor and a hypocrite but not guilty of religious sins). But the Moscow Patriarchate and its assorted churches, clergy, and believers have been willing to stand up for the Gospel and preach the word, even when either at the side of the Tsar or against Them, such as the refusal to break tradition for Ivan IV’s surplus marriages. And this did have an effect (as shown by even Ivan IV’s late life repentance and regret).
But if the head of the Church is not merely corrupt, improperly in bed with worldly powers, or so on but is an avowed heretic who has betrayed the word of God for not merely the word of Man but the word of Marx, breaking the sacraments and betraying thousands of years of history.. well…
…. it may be proper to demand lay people to believe more than a corrupt KGB Officer and informant wearing a cloak and fancy hat, but it is also hypocritical. And while hypocrisy can be the alimony virtue pays to vice, people Don’t like paying alimony. And even if a corrupt priest can still deliver valid sacraments and gospel, there’s no faith that they *actually will.* Which has helped drive people across the world away from the Moscow Patriarchate. This is most obvious in Ukraine (which has begun confiscating the Patriarchate’s assets and is seeking autocephaly for its own Patriarchates), but also present elsewhere like in the US, India, and China.
And I seem to recall a Nazarine traveling preacher-worker saying very nasty things about what would happen to those that lead the little ones astray.
Part 2
“Pootler is not our friend, and maybe he is evil, but he is responding to our terrorism and sanctions for the last 34 years”
No, he isn’t. Especially outside Chechnya. Indeed he is the cause of much of the terrorism involved.
“PS: Why do I reject your Bravo Sierra?”
Because you don’t know the history or ethnography or cultures of this place like I do. In particular you seem to be working off of statistics believed by literally nobody (including judging from the Kremlin’s garrisons, the Kremlin leadership) claiming that “virtually all” the Donbas are “Russian” (whatever that is supposed to mean) when in reality that only fits for Crimea, and “Russian” does not necessarily mean “Loyal to the Russian Government” or even “Identifies as a Russian.” Hence my point about “Russian Ukrainian Nazis” like much of Right Sector.
“I remember when the Globalist Leftists LOVED the USSR. Back in those days, I had to suffer Soviet engineers studying my projects and stealing my work product, and watching them take notes while offering nothing in return.”
My sympathies there. Unfortunately I also remember how globalist leftists not just loved the USSR, but loved Putin. Remember how Obama’s Reset? A decade after the “Dacha War” in Abkhazia and the Russian Admiralty lying about the Kursk Sub Disaster being caused by a NATO sub? After the invasion of Georgia?
“But then I was training Russian engineers who were very open and honest – and explaining what was going on and what they needed to know – to fix the commie BS they had to deal with.”
Glad for them. You assume I hate “Russians” (without really having a good idea of what that means in the many different ways). I do not. Indeed, some of the greatest humans in history and even the world today are Russian. I worked with Memorial and I suggest you read the great Bukhovsky’s Archive.
But I have always said Russians deserve a better government. Russia deserves to be great, and I could care less if Crimea or the Donbas joined Russia willingly and legally. But they didn’t I also find it amusing you are trying to lecture a history nerd and wargamer on Mussie Terrorists, Drug Cartels, and Terrorism. Both sides sponsored those. Carlos the Jackal?
Also, Maduro does not seem to have gotten the memo of the Globalist Left hating Russia.
Memorial helped me identify Gulag victims in my own family.
Part 1 “So Pootler is encouraging Islamization by not doing something about Muslim fecundity?”
Maybe in the same way someone encourages a fire risk by planting a garden or sleeping in bed all day while plant life burns up, but that’s not the real problem. The real problem is he has essentially betrayed the sacrifices of thousands of Russian Federalists – including anti-Islamist Chechens and Dagestanis – by allowing Kadyrov to deepen the theocratic, Wahhabi nature of his rule in Chechnya. In essence Putin has abandoned almost every attempt to rein in the Kadyrov clan or their allies, including things such as defending freedom of religion (like what is supposedly in the law) or even his own FSB officers. Hence why Kadyrov can openly boast of torturing people for non-crimes like burning the Koran and extending unofficial control into places like Dagestan while Russian officialdom does nothing.
So it’s not just a matter of Muslims reproducing more than non-Muslims biologically, but how he has allowed Kadyrov to basically slam the door on any trying to leave the faith or oppose the Wahhabis. The person who grows a garden that may contribute to a fire risk is not doing anything inherently evil, and even the person who allows the plant life to get drained of moisture by sleeping all day is guilty of gross neglect at worse, but one who hires a known arsonist as their chief gardener and who says they are free to burn a portion of the garden down at will so long as they do not seek employment elsewhere and stay within their portion of the garden is courting disaster and cannot claim ignorance if (when) the arsonist’s flames start burning outside the dotted line.
“What Pootler can do about fecundity? Muslims are out breeding non-Muslims, what is he supposed to do about it?”
Not much beyond encourage non-Muslim fecundity, though he is doing that. Beyond enforcing the laws that are suppoedly already on the books about freedom of religion and protecting dissidents or even apostates from Islam.
But ultimately that’s not the main problem. The problem isn’t so much that Putin isn’t taking steps to stomp Muslim populations down, it’s letting Kadyrov and co stomp non-Wahhabi populations down within their state-within-a-state.
Part 2
“And clamping down on Kadyrov in Chechnya would help how?”
For starters, it would reassert the Russian center’s power over the states in a way that would actually help Russia in the long run. It would erode the crime, religious oppression, and tyranny in Chechnya for both non-Muslims and non-Wahhabi Muslims alike, and mean he can stop sacrificing otherwise loyal (or at least passably loyal) personnel to appease the Kadyrovsty.
“f Pootler sticks his nose into Kadyrov’s business, doesn’t that mean we have to fight him there too?”
Maybe, but largely because he has let the problem grow so much worse than when it started. It’s also not like Putin didn’t have to fight the Kadyrovsty before, they were Russia’s enemies before defecting in the middle of Chechen War II.
It’s an ugly dilemma and I can understand why Putin has decided to not push the issue even if he wasn’t interested in invading his neighbors, since as a man who largely won his credibility winning Chechen War II, he’s not interested in highlighting how he has allowed Kadyrov to basically because Dudayev Mk. 2: Federalist Boogaloo. But the problem has started to fester so much it’s becoming impossible to ignore even in the Russian center, such as when Kadyrov essentially pushed Putin to purge the FSB of his detractors in 2015.
Putin and the Kremlin are also quite lucky that nobody else has really been able to capitalize on Kadyrov’s model to seek greater autonomy from and power within Russia (Crimea was perhaps the closest but the genuine pro-Kremlin sentiment, the dominance of lots of Russian Ministry of Defense troops in Sevastopol and elsewhere, and the desperation against the Ukrainian loyalists and the risk of blockade helped tamp down on that. The other runner up would probably be Wagner and even that was mostly dependent on Russian state munitions and supplies to function, which proved to be somewhat wise since that meant that when problems started or feuding intensified the Kremlin could risk cutting Wagner off. Though even that nearly backfired with Wagner being able to get to Moscow under attack, and having been able to at least make an attempt to storm the capitol but choosing not to due to cold feet and last minute peace overtures).
So the Wahhabi regime in Grozny’s a necessary evil at best, and likely an intolerable one.
Part 4
Anyway, if Putin is so incapable of finding a sufficiently nationalist and politically reliable but pious believer in the Faith that they will *not* blatantly betray their flock by committing cardinal heresies and ignoring their persecution in places like Chechnya (again, ironically much like the woke, globalist leftists in power in places like Canterbury and Rome), the Moscow Patriarchate is in even worse shape than I think. If there are but the Kremlin chooses not to because of the worldly political benefits in the short term, they are cutting out one of the cores of Russian culture to “own the Ukrops.” Which ironically will make them less able to own the “Ukrops”, Wahhabis, or anyone else in the long run.
“I think this is a good idea. But what does it have to do with WW3?”
Nothing? Everything? Somewhere in between?
The Orthodox Church and the Moscow Patriarchate have been great centers of Russian history and culture, with direct influence on all aspects of Russian society. When they function well they are balms for the troubled, guardians of the population, and a necessary aide and guardrail for the state, which helps keep things balanced with things such as population growth and moral fortitude. That has benefits for war, but also for going far beyond that.
“And Pootler is a Progressive?
I’m sure he is. See below.”
Sure. Also see below here. This is an old video series and somewhat outdated and general, but I think it is a good reference to start.
For what it is worth, I don’t really think Putin is a dedicated ‘progressive” per se, I don’t think he is genuinely that committed to many higher ideals or beliefs. But it does show how in spite of the narrative both he and his globalist currently-enemies in the West now spin aimed for us (but notably very different from what the FSB and its ilk spin for the likes of AOC and Tlaib and Chomsky), they are far more similar than they pretend.
The globalists don’t care about freedom in Ukraine ..lol Putin is a roadblock to the New World Order and that’s all the globalists care about , NATO and the UN are are nothing more than vicious totalitarians that see ousting Putin as the next step to controlling all of Europe .
It’s full steam ahead with the globalists mission of the New World Order when there’s a progressive in the White House , Trump slammed the brakes on this NATO / UN progressive agenda . With ” evil nationalism ” ..lol
The ” fundamental change ” is once again put on hold and the globalists are losing their open border minds . Peace in Ukraine is the last thing progressives want .
They want the Ukraine war to carry on until Putin is overthrown or ousted, to be replaced by another progressive stooge that shares their same New World Order ideology . (Like Zelenskyy . ) and they couldn’t care less how many Ukrainians are thrown into the Russian meat grinder .
The amount of Russian talking points on the Russia-Ukraine War on this usually outstanding website, in articles and in reader comments, is sad. Putin has been scheming to sabotage and take over Ukraine from the moment he came to power. He has been funding insurgent attacks in eastern Ukraine that have been going on there since at least 2016, before Zelensky even came to power, not to mention his seizure of the Crimea in 2014.
Zelensky was a genuine anti-corruption reformer and democracy advocate before Russia invaded in 2022. Maybe, just maybe, he has gone a bit overboard with some of the wartime restrictions he’s imposed, but they are just that: wartime restrictions. He did nothing of the sort before Putin’s invasion, and I’d bet good money that those restrictions will be lifted when a genuine, long-term peace deal is reached.
I agree with almost every article I read on this website, but you guys are sorely missing the forest for the trees when it comes to Ukraine, Putin, and Zelensky.
Utter BS. For one, Zelenskyy openly and on record threatened Russia with a nuclear attack prior to the invasion. You do know this, don’t you? It would behoove you to research how he was able to make such a brazen threat since the ability to do that is impossible w/o the assist from the U.S.
Regardless, the entire issue centers around encircling Russia w/ Nato-controlled countries for one purpose only and has been well-known (not by you, apparently) and written about for over a hundred years:
“Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland:
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island:
Who rules the World-Island commands the World.” – Sir Halford Mackinder, 1919
Eurasian energy control, which is what it’s all about and solely what it’s all about, is the last remaining locked door in the globalist’s soon-to-be ‘unipolar world’. Ukraine is the key. Russia is the 2nd largest oil exporter and largest (by far) natural gas producer and it all goes through Ukraine. A secondary goal includes the agricultural control of the Black Sea. What you see in Ukraine today was put in motion by the then-VP Biden and Nuland after the Orange Revolution failure and Zelenskyy is purely a globalist puppet put in place to begin the ousting of the Russian control of Eastern Europe energy.
MAGA is simply a bump in the road – there have been several along the way – and will not prosper against the globalist agenda. The rise of the globalist ‘beast’ is well under way and it’s only a matter of time before it’s fully formed and MAGA is simply delaying the inevitable for relatively small amount of time. The last few paragraphs of the final chapter are now being written and there are no forests and there are no trees, there is only a beast, and he will do as he will please.
“Zelenskyy openly and on record threatened Russia with a nuclear attack prior to the invasion.”
That’d be impossible, considering the first Russian invasions happened in 2014 and Zelenskyy only came to power in 2019. And yes, the invasion started in 2014; Putin admitted the “Little Green Men” in Crimea were his own in “Crimea: The Road Home”, and we have Russian court filings in civil suits acknowledging the presence of Russian units serving in the Donbas even after Minsk II.
But even besides that, now let’s compare that to the number of Russian government mouthpieces that have threatened to nuke or destroy Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, Gotland, and/or Moldova and graph those onto a timeline with Zelenskyy’s real or mythical threat to nuke Russia. I’m guessing that would show a pattern you don’t want to acknowledge.
“Regardless, the entire issue centers around encircling Russia w/ Nato-controlled countries for one purpose only and has been well-known (not by you, apparently) and written about for over a hundred years:”
Incoherent balderdash.
Firstly: By “encircling Russia / NATO controlled countries” you mean “independent countries deciding to join NATO and having to go through a lengthy list of hoops to join and sometimes being rejected.”
It’s also worth noting they have good reason, considering how Russia has yet to openly attack any NATO member.
Secondly: No, the entire issue is NOT due to NATO. The spark for this conflict was a dispute over an EU Association Agreement and Russia’s endless tariff wars with its neighbors back in 2014, NOT NATO EXPANSION.
““Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland:
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island:
Who rules the World-Island commands the World.” – Sir Halford Mackinder, 1919”
The irony is that Mackinder was wrong and should have known he was wrong. Just a year before 1919, Eastern Europe had been totally dominated by the War Socialists of Germany and Austria-Hungary after defeating multiple Russian governments and Romania, which they used to draw on resources to try and defeat the Western Allies in the offensives of 1917-1918. They obviously failed and were defeated themselves, much like their Nazi proteges would a generation later and much like the Soviets ultimately would be both in 1920 and in the Cold War.
There’s much to admire about Mackinder, but his central heartland thesis was wrong.
Part 2
“Eurasian energy control, which is what it’s all about and solely what it’s all about, is the last remaining locked door in the globalist’s soon-to-be ‘unipolar world’.”
That’s BS, as you’d know if you’ve ever been to Moscow or Baku, but keep telling yourself that. Especially when you realize that “Eurasian energy control” is mostly a chimera caused by globalist green energy lunacy (generously financed by the CCP and the Kremlin of course). I don’t have too much positive to say about the Norwegian or Canadian governments lately but they show there.
“Ukraine is the key.”
It is a key. And one that the Kremlin ultimately alienated with its heavy handed actions and refusal to compromise.
“Russia is the 2nd largest oil exporter and largest (by far) natural gas producer”
A: Assuming you believe the Kremlin’s statistics, even after they got caught fudging the numbers.
B: It’s the 2nd largest oil exporter because the globalists of Europe decided they would quite literally rather import from Putin than Trump or Israel.
C: It isn’t the largest natural gas producer. That’s the US.
“and it all goes through Ukraine.”
No, no it does not. It also goes through Belarus and Central Asia, and before it went through the Baltic before Nordstream.
But I’m guessing you don’t want to mention that for a few reasons.
A: It would highlight the Russian government’s dismal treatment of even its closest allies in pipeline tariff disputes, hence why Lukashenko – a man ruling a “Union State” who betrayed his entire nation’s identity and claims to independence and rules with the literal KGB – has periodically been unable to accept Putin’s shifting goal posts and even claimed Putin tried to overthrow him.
B: It would make Ukraine less of “the key” and more of “a key”, and thus less central to “Eurasian energy control” and thus make the Kremlin’s illegal, unethical, falsely claimed actions less defensible.
“A secondary goal includes the agricultural control of the Black Sea.”
Guess who gave the West that? That’s right. Moscow with its invasion..
Part 3
“What you see in Ukraine today was put in motion by the then-VP Biden and Nuland after the Orange Revolution failure”
You give Biden and Nuland too much credit. They are repulsive people and had a baleful role in Ukraine, but they spent years bashing their heads against the wall funding groups with USAID in exchange for warring protestor bands and no great effect, being unable to stop the implosion of the Yuschenko Government and Yanukovych’s election…..
… right up until Putin handed them a win by strongarming Yanukovych to betray his election promises, walk back the EU Association Agreement (and thus aggravate even his own base in the economically depressed Donbas), and sign the Kharkhiv Pact giving a sweetheart deal for a premature continuation of the Sevastopol Base Lease on terms the Ukrainian Public viewed as unfair.
All of the money poured into Ukraine by Nuland, Soros, and Schwab put together accomplished less than Putin and Yanukovych’s overreach and abuse. They were quite literally doing Nuland’s work for her, and better. Which is why at the end Yanukovych’s own party abandoned and condemned him.
“and Zelenskyy is purely a globalist puppet put in place”
So what was Poroshenko? Chopped meat? You don’t seem to have a coherent answer. Why replace one “globalist puppet” with another “globalist puppet”?
“to begin the ousting of the Russian control of Eastern Europe energy.”
BEGIN?
Again, Russian control over Eastern European energy was a paper tiger created by corrupt globalist preference for a Russian energy alliance over an American energy one, and undermined by the Kremlin’s own issues.
“MAGA is simply a bump in the road – there have been several along the way – and will not prosper against the globalist agenda. ”
And yet the globalists have been consistently more opposed to Trump and MAGA than they have been to muh Eurasian Russian Energy Supremacy. Ever ask why?
“The rise of the globalist ‘beast’ is well under way and it’s only a matter of time before it’s fully formed and MAGA is simply delaying the inevitable for relatively small amount of time.”
They don’t act like it.
“The last few paragraphs of the final chapter are now being written and there are no forests and there are no trees, there is only a beast, and he will do as he will please.”
So what the beast pleases is Trump mocks them? News to me.
So WHEN did “MAGA” even enter the picture concerning Ukraine? Jan. 20, 2025! In a very short six weeks, the LIGHTS were turned on to the FRAUD, WASTE, and SENSELESS SLAUGHTER! If anyone considers ending ANY of as being WRONG then they must truly be on the DEMOcrat Plantation!
PRESIDENT TRUMP has consistently LED (not lead as so many think) with ENDING THE KILLING! What’s wrong with that? The Russians are dying as fast as the Ukrainians but there are more Russians remaining! MILLIONS of Ukrainians have fled their Nation. I don’t begrudge the WOMEN and CHILDREN and ELDERLY, but if YOUR Nation is at WAR then you must stand and fight. How many military age MEN are “refuges” in the USA and elsewhere? Maybe THEY don’t think the war is going well, but they’ll flood the streets with their FLAGS to support those who are doing the FIGHTING and DYING!
Then we get to the WASTE and FRAUD! Our Nation is $37 or so TRILLION in DEBT! US TAXPAYERS have had their hard earned money confiscated for way too long and way too much to support the left’s goal of permanent power! The FRAUD is necessary to FUND the left! How can stopping the flow of FRAUD be wrong? Why must WE fund UKRAINIANS’ PENSION FUNDS?? We can’t even fund OUR OWN SS adequately!
Mr. Murray should take his arguments to the EU Nations – let them REPAY us for OUR FUNDING and then THEY can OWN the WAR!!
Excellent points, BLSinSC.
The theoretical Ukraine is and has always been way better than the actual.
Of course, much like the theoretical U.S. is. But ideals are important and so is not being suckered by either Dime Store Churchill or the Bald Chekist in the Kremlin.
Douglas Murray seems to not get it, MAGA is good for USA – As USA goes so goes the world!
Which is why the globalists targeted USA first with the pLandemic – if they can bring down USA with bioweapons like the pLandemic covid, steal the 2020 election, install the corrupt dementia Joe Biden they will have the world and damn, this almost happened if not for YHVH’S Man, President Donald J. Trump who survived the demonKKKrat gauntlet. Stood before Congress this week and called them all out. The dinocrats will self destroy themselves and become extinct as the dinosaurs. This last Tuesday was the wailing of dying breed. No archeologists will dig up their bones thousands of years from now.
As USA goes so goes the world we are seeing is working with the MAGA Trump Affects. Zelensky enjoys his power and money laundering is not going to say no to his nation the Russia could have totally annihilated swiftly early on.
as it is the only issue he is wrong about so i guess we need to give him that one. I found it shocking when i heard him hold forth for the first time. jefrey sachs has it right be he is an embarrassment to the jewish community for. his views on israel and willful refusal in his blind admiration for china to see what kind of society it is. all he sees is economic success never mind the rest. ask those from nepal, xanjiang, tibet, mongolia. never mind the mind blowing level of surveillance all over country used to repress freedom of movement. social credit systems ? sure
Well, you’re right Donna.
Wasn’t it Obama that sanctioned Putin taking over two of the Ukraine’s providences in the Donbas region? I have read a couple of years ago that some of the military equipment that the US sent to the Ukraine ended up in the Middle East. Is this true? More recently I have heard that half the money that we have sent to the Ukraine has disappeared and the Ukraine didn’t receive it. Is this true?
If the answers to these questions are yes it is true equipment was found in the Middle East and money has disappeared, then I really do question the motives of anyone who wants to continue funneling money over to the Ukraine.
Do I like Zelenskyy? Not one bit. Do I want Russia taking it over? No I don’t. I would much prefer a cease fire and end to the madness.
Now that Trump has kicked Zelenskyy to the curb, I see that Europe is realizing that they need to step up. I have to say that Trump seems to completely understand what he is doing and I am behind him all the way.
Yes. Sort of. Obama did a lot to antagonize Pootler.
IMHO, though, he was only interested in promoting Islam, and that means making Russia’s situation with its Muslim population (40MM) and Muslim neighbors more difficult.
His globalist allies, of course, have other reasons for hating Russians.
But one thing we all don’t know – but should know –
is that the Dombass is Russian. Russians are the majority there. And they were a majority even before Stalin shoved more Russians into the region. Russians have been there for centuries.
The question should be: Why do the Ukrainians want to ethnically cleanse all the Russians from the Dombass? (Ans. Because they still hate them for the crimes of the USSR against Ukrainians)
Good article, Mr. Tapson. Murray thinks MAGA Americans are stupid and simple-minded apparently. While perhaps not everyone has a deep understanding of complex history as it relates to Putin, Russia, and the Ukraine, what the MAGA movement does understand is that America does not need/want to continue to pump taxpayers’ hard earned money into the desert called Ukraine. Nor does the US need to support the expansion of NATO to include Ukraine — NATO, the big thorn in Putin’s side. Nor does the US need to belong to NATO in order to protect the EU globalists from threats coming from Russia, Russia, Russia. Trump offered a reasonable first step towards negotiating peace between Ukraine and Russia last week. The Democrats, not MAGA, stymied that effort. Until a different tack is taken by a leader with a fresh perspective, it is unlikely the war will end, but don’t blame it on Trump and MAGA.
The Obama regime engineered the electoral “loss” in 2014 of a Russia-sympathetic candidate for president of Ukraine. Russian annexation of Crimea took place when Obama team had destabilized Ukraine’s government. The Obama regime placed dangerous disease labs in Ukraine. The Obama regime and its followers in the entrenched American bureaucracy supported the cross-dressing comedian president of Ukraine in his corruption. American consultants and politicians profited from selling access to American politicians, including Joe Biden.
Also, Democrats used Russia as a whipping boy to castrate the first Trump presidency. Whatever may be the state of government and life in Russia, past Russian policy was to settle Russian-speakers in every part of the former Soviet Union, and this was true in the east of the country whose borders Khrushchev fixed when he created the Ukrainian SSR. Ukraine’s government on the Dnipro looked askance at those Russian-Ukrainian citizens in the east, fearing more territorial loss.
American warmongers (politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and arms manufacturers) profit in gained influence and revenue from conflicts all over our planet, including the one in Ukraine. Russian warfighters, jobless after the collapse of the old Soviet Government, hire out to fight all over the world.
None of this explains American citizens should support either side of the Russo-Ukrainian dispute over land east of the Dnipro. Trump is right to try to end this, and other wars.
I suggest that Murray read Scott Horton’s PROVOKED.
I have. I found Horton to be a liar who would probably not like to meet any given Kartvelian Georgian or Moldovan in a dark alley. I’ve considered doing a longer running analysis and teardown of his source pdf point by point, but the fact that his own wife Larisa A. Alexandrovna refuted him (I imagine their marriage must be like the Carville/Matalin one) and he shills for Roger Waters is damning enough. As is smearing Trump over Syria and a host of other things.
Was the article trimmed at the end? From a US perspective I would like to understand more about the problem or opportunity represented by a deal that separates Russia from China and brings it more into the orbit of the US and Europe. During WWII, we made a deal with Stalin. Realpolitik is viable to achieve a strategic objective.
We made a deal with Stalin after he had been supporting and supplying Hitler’s rampages for years, only AFTER Hitler betrayed him and invaded the USSR to the shock of Stalin and almost nobody else. Putin has remained committed to the PRC alliance and an anti-US bent for about a quarter century. If I thought it likely we could get him to oppose Beijing I would be more supportive. But appeasing him has been a failed consensus choice from the Swamp.
The only American interest in this Ukraine-Russia war is corruption, kickbacks and money laundering. If the EU feels threatened let them pay for it. Not a penny more. Tell Zelensky to hold elections and let his opponents out of prison. Putin and Z a plague on both their houses.
This author is deadly wrong – and Douglas Murray right! I understood “How MAGA Lost Its Way on Ukraine” immediately after February 24, 2022, seeing thousands of comments from conservatives and articles of “pundits” despising Zelensky and admiring Putin! For discussions with them, I made two special pages:
http://judeochristianamerica.org/RussoNazism.htm
http://judeochristianamerica.org/AggressionForDummies.htm
In short, the answer to the title “How MAGA Lost Its Way” is:
* A few of “important” “pundits” are on Putin’s mission (doesn’t matter paid or voluntary).
*The majority of MAGA has a childish binary thinking, or they resort to the failed mantra “enemy of my enemy”, as I explained under the links above.
Now it all got worse. As much as I admire President Trump, whose internal policies exceed all my expectations, it happened that the Putin’s “pundits” (so-called Putinversteheners) have the ear of President Trump entirely! This is terrible in itself. What makes it even worse is the scoundrels in the Ukrainian government, their corruption, stupidity, unprofessionalism, and plain treason such as that of “Ambassadoress” Markarova – on top of the cowardice and impotence of Western Europe.
I posted this open letter to Pres. Trump: http://judeochristianamerica.org/OpenLetter/ToTrump2025.htm
Russia haters will never kill enough Russians to solve the problem your way.
We have to make peace.
Or prepare to nuke the planet.
“Russia haters will never kill enough Russians to solve the problem your way.”
Which is the problem with hating a people rather than a system, or hating anything more than you love something. I oppose the Kremlin not because I hate Russia and Russians but because I love both their potential and much of their actuality. The Russian peoples deserve better.
“We have to make peace.
Or prepare to nuke the planet.”
It takes two to make peace, and if we have to prepare to nuke the planet when Putin decides to cause yet another border conflict without legal or due cause, then the problem is we will always have to be on the razor’s edge of nuking the planet. Trump is a great Deal Maker but Putin is probably not interested in a deal. Ironically Zelenskyy came into office defeating Poroshenko on the platform of making a deal, even proposing a vote to split the Donbas much like Silesia was in WWI.
For this he was condemned by globalist radicals like the Soros fronts, and also by much of the Ukrainian public. And in return he did not even get a proper response from Moscow. Ironically Trump and Zelenskyy are more alike than people think, and while Trump is better I think he overlooks how similar their efforts were.
It’s hard to negotiate when substantial parts of one side’s government deny your ability to exist. Just ask Dima Medvedev.
Actually I agree with you.
Except the words “without legal or due cause.”
G-d bless you Turtler
Even Putin didn’t nuke the Butcher of Beslan (though Basayev comes closer to deserving it than most), in part because it wasn’t necessary or useful. But if he had to in order to put down a Wahhabi terrorist movement trying to rerun Dudayev’s success, I would mourn but I can’t say I would oppose him entirely.
God help you and be with you, NANC.
Why do we have to pity the Russians who go to kill the people in the neighboring nation? Yes, they are conscripted to go to fight, but so far there is no capital punishment for the refusal to go to war. They choose between incarceration (with almost 100% chance to survive) and going to war with a little chance to survive (never mind the scruples of killing Ukrainians, whose only guilt is that they defend their own nation from the aggressor).
Moreover, if the leader of Russia threatens resorting to nukes (and his intimidation works), what (if anything) will stop him from going farther?! What will stop CPC from taking Taiwan?
Well, Alexander,
I am not talking about pity for “Russians who go to kill the people in the neighboring nation”
What about pity on the Ukrainians?
What about pity on the people who will die in a nuclear war?
What about pity on the Russians who do not want to be nuked by us when we retaliate?
Quote: “if the leader of Russia threatens resorting to nukes”
If Pootler will not use nukes to destroy millions – or billions – of people,
… uh, have you thought about that?
If Pootler is not ready to nuke us “without legal or due cause” as Turtler put it,
then your whole claim that he’s just a madman that keeps crossing borders to kill for his jollies
sort of breaks down.
You have two choices:
a) Pootler will nuke us.
b) Pootler is not a madman and we can cut a deal with him.
I’m willing to try “b”
G-d love you, Alexander.
“Is MAGA Wrong on Ukraine?” Douglas Murray thinks so. I don’t.
Is MAGA Right on anything? FPM thinks so. I don’t. Just sayin’.
The “invasion” of Crimea is controversial. The Donbas not so much.
Thank you for your analysis, I was intrigued when I read this morning the introduction of Douglas Murray, why did he have this point of view on the MAGA deal with Ukraine?
Did you know that in Switzerland, people welcomed in their own house or flats refugees from Ukraine with no help from the state, did it happened previously during the Yugoslav war, Kosovo war, Syrian war ? No, I don’t think that people had to take care physically and financially of refugees. The Marxists started to ask elderlies if they wanted to welcome refugees in their house, maybe since 2017. Something is wrong, with others facts such as Hunter Biden worked for Burisma in Ukraine, the agreements signed since 2015 were never respected by Ukraine, the hidden biolabs in the country, the European nomenklatura supported president Zelensky and DEI at the same time, while president Putin spoke about families, 2 genders and talked about the neo-nazis in Europe, topic almost censured in all newspapers before the 7 October 2023. In Russia, Rostov, with the biggest pogrom of the country in 1942 made by the nazis, the entire community vanished and now, it has again around 15’000 Jews is incredible, while in Paris, since 2003, how many Jews went to Israel to escape death? Nonetheless, it was obvious after the 7th October that Russia was supporting Hamas and Iran. I still think that president Trump and the patriots around him are right, there are no sense with this war, where we see nothing, no real report, like in Gaza, even though it’s a lie, we saw photos since 2023, whereas nothing on Ukraine, we don’t really know what happened there, very dark. While for Israel, you can read the propaganda but also there are a lot of honest reports by good people worldwide. A lot of people here have very good experience in Hungaria or Russia for works and leisure, I’m always surprised about it, especially y for Russia, I think it is hard to express the feeling of being threatened in Western Europe.
You’re a great person Esther.
To accept the fact that Russia is a brutal enemy of Israel, and therefore a threat to America …
And also accept that Russian civilians have a right to live in peace in their homes without Ukrainian terrorism.
(And to respond to trolls – yes, I know – 80% of Ukrainians do not support the Ukrainian Nazis – but also do not accept ethnically cleansing the Dombass.)
G-d bless you, Esther.
What is mostly turned around in the Ukraine-Crimea-Russia scenario is the undercover and proxy side: What set it all on course was an apparently permanent telephone consultation of President Obama’s emissary/confidante Ms. Nuland wit “Our Yats” in Kiev, supported by a hefty CIA presence in Kiev (and an equally unhealthy alliance with fascist and openly anti-Jewish and generally xenophobic ultra-nationalists in “Our Yats’s” ‘Socialist-National Party’).
What happened then, on the Maidan Square, cannot have been the “bloodbath of the Yanukovic police”, as the “Fake News” of Washington DC still convey, as the Commission, then, of the Ukrainian Parliament found that “all victims were killed by the same weapons, which were neither police not Berkut (special police) issue”. Related questions might have been in order to Mr. Paruby, who was seen (and photographed) with men carrying rifle bags, just after the shooting, leaving the philharmony and the hotel facing Maidan – but he became “Our Yats’s” Security Minister..
What followed that murderous “regime change” in Kiev was a popular movement which was caused by the first few days of the fascist take-over in Kiev, when decrees were coming out that made the use of Russian language a crime – as well as any other “non-Ukrainian” cultural activities. This decree of the Junta-Chief, “Our Yats” was accompanied by fascist militias, the “Asov” and”Adar” brigades, wearing (Nazi) SS insignia on their uniforms and terrorizing regions with Russian-stock populations (which make out more than 1/3 of Ukraine).
I’m sorry, but that sounds just like “non-Aryan” ones, and we know what that means to Ukrainian nationalists: Remember Baby Yar where 80% of the mass murders (on Jews and Russians) were carried out, not by German troops or GeStaPo, but by ‘fascist National Ukrainan SS units.
Part 1
Almost nothing you wrote is accurate, and the fact that you decided to post this in spite of how EASY IT IS TO PROVE so many of your claims false is insane.
Let’s start with the low hanging fruit.
“(and an equally unhealthy alliance with fascist and openly anti-Jewish and generally xenophobic ultra-nationalists in “Our Yats’s” ‘Socialist-National Party’).”
“Yats”enyuk *was never part of the Socialist-Nationalist Party you simpering ignoramus. Indeed, he was REGULARLY CONDEMNED BY THEM.* Yatsenyuk was a member and then leader of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (it was called something else at the time of Euromaidan but was basically a rebranding). They were repulsive in their own right as fairly typical Euro Leftist Squishes, but they were openly pro-Jewish and skeptical to Ukrainian nationalism and the language issue.
Indeed, the ACTUAL SOCIALIST-NATIONALIST PARTY, quarreled with Yats and Tymoshenko extensively, including trying to blackmail Tymoshenko in 2012 and again in 2019, which helped break down the tentative 2015 agreement between them and other parties like the loyalist Regionnaires. The 2015 Agreement Nuland helped create.
So you have basically done the equivalent of accusing JD Vance of being head of the Aryan Brotherhood or Communist Party-USA. That’s how wrongheaded and ignorant on its face this claim is when talking about Ukrainian politics, and I hope it becomes clear why your analysis is grotesquely off kilter.
Moreover, while it is true the Socialist-Nationalist Party of Ukraine is grotesquely racist and anti-Jewish, they were outdone by Yanukovych’s hard core supporters in Berkut. A joint report by Memorial and Yad Vashem proved Yanukovych and his close loyalists were responsible for state-sponsored anti-Jewish blood libel of a “Nazi-Jewish Alliance” to help gin up the likes of Berkut.
(PS: Imagine being even more anti-Jewish than the literal “Ukrainian Nazi” Neo-Fascist groups like Svoboda and Right Sector. To the point where this ironically helped drive various Ukrainian Jewish communities into siding with Euromaidan protests and against Yanukovych’s government.)
Part 2
“What happened then, on the Maidan Square, cannot have been the “bloodbath of the Yanukovic police”, as the “Fake News” of Washington DC still convey, as the Commission, then, of the Ukrainian Parliament found that “all victims were killed by the same weapons, which were neither police not Berkut (special police) issue”. ”
This is blatantly untrue on multiple levels.
Firstly: both the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Parliament concluded the rifles used were consistent with standard issue for Berkut. Their main disagreement was on whether or not the perpetrators were Berkut alone or the Yanukovych-loyal SBU “Alfa” Unit.
Secondly: This ignores the fact that the Maidan Square Massacre were far from the first sniper deaths, with Berkut having sniped at least 5 protestors during the clash on Feb 19th, the day before Euromaidan, and as far as I can tell the culpability of Berkut for those snipings is not disputed by anybody, even the Kremlin or Yanukovych.
Thirdly: The only admitted Pro-Protestor/anti-Russian sniper on Maidan Square, Ivan Bubenchik, used a different weapon, claims to have only killed two Berkut officers, and fired from a different vantage point in response to yet more sniping deaths.
Fourthly: The Kremlin and Yanukovych farqed up by changing their story multiple times. First the Kremlin claimed Ukrainian protestors were responsible, probably exaggerating the role of Bubenchik to try and claim people like him were all the snipers rather than him being a counter-sniper against the attack. Then, true to form, they got dumb and accused Georgian snipers trained by the CIA of being responsible, not realizing how this showed how they were being utterly dishonest and upending the forensic evidence. It was only later that they tried to take the BS line you’re peddling.
More on that later.
Part 3
(Cont)
The Maidan Square Feb 20th sniper massacre was followed by the Ukrainian Army leaking that Yanukovych had tried to order them out of their barracks to clear the streets across the country, including of lawful protestors. The Ukrainian Army refused what they saw (and almost certainly was) as an unconstitutional order and sent word to Yanukovych’s own party and the Legislature as a whole. This coupled with Soviet police doctrine about provoking an incident to crush protests by having snipers shoot both police and protestors before moving in with secret police made Yanukovych the obvious candidate, and even if he wasn’t somehow guilty of the Maidan Square massacres he had done himself no favors by trying to get the army to disobey their oaths to the constitution, authorizing the murder and torture of prisoners by Berkut, and then fleeing the country when summoned to appear for questioning by a legislature dominated by his own party, the Party of Regions (aka Regionnaires).
” Related questions might have been in order to Mr. Paruby, who was seen (and photographed) with men carrying rifle bags, just after the shooting, leaving the philharmony and the hotel facing Maidan – but he became “Our Yats’s” Security Minister..”
I want everyone to pay attention, because this is what happens when you are so focused on propaganda you can’t even get your story straight.
The problem with this nonsense is that “Mr. Paruby” – Andriy Parubiy, Ukrainian Neo-Fascist leader of Svoboda and self-proclaimed “Defense Officer” for the protests – was also photographed on the street at the time of the shootings, including by live footage. He and his “self-defense” goons then tried to advance into the fire and investigate, well after the shots.
And again, equally damning is the fact that it took months for Yanukovych’s apologists and the Russian government to settle on this, instead favoring accusations of the CIA, Georgian Snipers, or for all I know Primordial Lizards. Only to realize how stupid and dishonest this made them look, going forward to “Yeah the snipers! They were Euromaidanites led by Paruby! Unlike the snipers that had been killing people since at least the previous day, and whose identities we generally know but which is less contentious because fewer died!”
Parubiy is a sleaze at best and an unsympathetic figure, but he didn’t do this.
Part 4
(Cont)
Moreover, it’s worth noting that the main “Primary Sources” attesting the “Parubiy on the Grassy Phillharmonica with the Berkut issued sniper rifles” BS is Aleksandr Yakimenko, who has been peddling this line on places like RT. And on the surface this might seem credible, since Yakimenko was head of the SBU (Ukraine’s equivalent of the FBI).
Unfortunately that falls apart when you start looking at him. While Yakimenko had no direct control of Berkut, he IS the person who would have had control of “Alfa” and was a dedicated Yanukovych loyalist with a reputation for cruelty and terror. If Minister of the Interior Zakharchenko had a reputation of being Yanukovych’s Beria equivalent, Yakimenko had the reputation of being his Chief Executioner and Assassin, Blokhin, with the added benefit of being noted for having outright Neo-Nazi affinities (he was probably responsible for the “bright idea” to promulgate the idea that Euromaidan was a Jewish plot, only to get countermanded by someone else revealing how damaging this was, leading to later compromises of it being a Jewish-Nazi Alliance. Because we are very obviously dealing with upstanding and thoroughly honest people here who are not at all lying in an attempt to cover their footsteps after the fact.)
Anyway, Yerimenko also had the bright idea of declaring the SBU was initiating an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” against Euromaidan on Feb 19th, over the protests of the Military and at least a few police authorities. Which is also the day when significant sniping deaths start happening. Funny coincidence like that, no?
Oh also, another problem with Yerimenko’s story that it was totally the “Ukrainian Nazis” that dun it: It was contingent on the idea that the SBU and Riot Police (mostly Berkut but a few others) wanted to clear the Philharmonic and Trade Union buildings for snipers before the shooting, but were stopped by protests from Parubiy, with the implicit assumption being Parubiy did not want them to search the very buildings he would be on camera searching later after the snipings.
Problem is: nobody else has records of this Parubiy. Neither does Yerimenko. Moreover, Yerimenko has never put forth an explanation of why he would listen to the protests of a “terrorist” not to search buildings the day after an “anti-terrorist operation” was announced.
Part 5
And I am totally sure that Yerimenko’s story has nothing at all to do with the fact that unless the Maidan Square sniper massacre was proven to be unrelated to the Yanukovych government, Yerimenko himself would be implicated as one of the chief suspects for ordering it. Like he ordered assassination and torture prior to this.
Which is why outside of the Kremlin (which has realized that this is basically the strongest reed they have to try and deflect responsibility for the massacre away from Yanukoovych and thus them) and its useful idiots, this story has generally been chucked in the trash along with the prior “Georgian Sniper” story and others. Which is why its main English language proponent is Katchanovski, a Canuck Professor with leftist, socialist leanings who among other things managed to screw up the floor plan of the Arkada Bank and lied blatantly about several of the most substantive video evidence we have in order to claim the main sniping platform was Hotel Ukraine, in spite of this being agreed with by literally nobody else (including Yerimenko himself), and how we see what Svoboda goons were filming from Hotel Ukraine coming under sniper fire themselves and shooting back.
PS: Since when did we start uncritically trusting Canadian Socialist professors?
“What followed that murderous “regime change” in Kiev -”
The Maidan Square Massacre was not the “regime change.” That came bloodlessly two days later on the 22nd, when Yanukovych had already fled the country (apparently not so worried about Parubiy and his Magical CIA Trained Georgian Snipers that he did not stop by the Presidential residence outside Kyiv to steal) after being summoned by the Rada to answer questions about it. In retaliation the Rada voted to declare him incapable of exercising the office of President (which he obviously was, having declared he would not return to Kyiv to appear before the Rada).
Part 6
(Cont)
“was a popular movement which was caused by the first few days of the fascist take-over in Kiev, when decrees were coming out that made the use of Russian language a crime – ”
I realize you’re credulous and by this stage probably outright lying, but this is jarring for multiple levels.
Firstly: NO SUCH DECREE EXISTED. No such decree exists NOW. Indeed, both Zelenskyy himself (in addition to being of Jewish ancestry) and many outright Ukrainian Neo-Fascists are native Russophones. You can and STILL SEE the likes of Svoboda making a few speeches in Russian.
But please, please do cite the name of the decree that supposedly made the use of the Russian language a crime. Go on, I’ll wait. I’m sure you’ll come back with that Annnnyyy second now.
Secondly: there WERE popular movements against Euromaidan in support of first the Yanukovych government and then against the post-Euromaidan governments. But within days they were supplemented by false flagged Russian special forces and assorted agents, as Putin admitted with his “Crimea: The Road Home” propaganda film and a number of things.
C: Curiously, at the time Putin denied all involvement and made no references to Ukraine banning the Russian language. Which is funny since you’d think this would be a massive bloody toga he could wave to justify oh…. just throwing this out there…. deploying military forces to seize Crimea or parts of the Donbas by being able to point to actual persecution of Russian culture.
“as well as any other “non-Ukrainian” cultural activities.”
Kay, like what? Name them. And the Decree.
I dare you.
“This decree of the Junta-Chief, “Our Yats” was accompanied by fascist militias, the “Asov” and”Adar” brigades, wearing (Nazi) SS insignia on their uniforms ”
That much is sadly true, but there were also plenty of non-Fascist paramilitaries among him and pro-Fascist and outright Neo-Nazi paramilitaries attacking him. As shown by the Russian Neo-Nazi Propaganda Piece 85 Days in Slovyansk by Alekzandr Zhuchkovsky, who while claiming that his unit went over the border independently of Putin to try and spur him into action (which is countermanded by the deployment of actual Russian Fed units before them) shows how anti-Maidan Neo-Nazi death squads doing Putin’s bidding were active in Ukraine by the start of March.
Part 7
“and terrorizing regions with Russian-stock populations (which make out more than 1/3 of Ukraine).”
This BS again?
Two Words; Andri Biletsky.
Neo-Fascist. Co-Founder of Azov. *OF ETHNIC RUSSIAN STOCK AND PROVABLY SO.*
Ditto other heavy hitters like Dima Yarosh. The best I can justify is the Kremlin’s propagandists got dumb and lazy recycling narratives from the Georgia and Prigodniye Wars which were indeed largely on ethnic lines, they didn’t realize how this would blatantly not work for justifying their invasions of Crimea or how many of their public enemies were ethnic an cultural Russians and native Russian speakers. And indeed how this would be an active problem in combat.
“I’m sorry, but that sounds just like “non-Aryan” ones,”
Far be it for me to claim Azov or Svoboda or Right Sector or saints, but they made uneasy partnerships with a number of outright Jewish parties and communities (complete with cringy and artificial videos) due to the latter figuring pogroms by Yanukovych’s government and the Kremlin were the bigger issue, and also have the decidedly non-“Aryan”* Crimean Tatars as one of the largest blocs of Ukrainian Loyalist supporters.
* Ironically they’re probably closer to being Indo-Aryan than the typical National Socialist German Workers’ Party ideal of le Blonde Blue Eyed Nord and the original Nazis worked themselves in tizzies arguing over the racial status of steppe nomads like the Tatars little knowing the highest ranking Nazi in the world would be Vice-President of Russia right now, but you know it’s a bad story when the Third Reich’s Racial Nonsense is one of the *LEAST* stupid and unmoored from reality parts of this.
Part 8
“and we know what that means to Ukrainian nationalists:
Remember Baby Yar where 80% of the mass murders (on Jews and Russians) were carried out, not by German troops or GeStaPo, but by ‘fascist National Ukrainan SS units.”
Except “fascist National Ukrainians” were one of the TARGETS at Babi Yar, albeit a minor one. In particular the Tehila Couple (staunch loyalists of Bandera and sort of poet lauretes of the OUN-B camp) were among those singled out and murdered, as part of Hitler’s orders (issued into evidence at Nuremburg by the Soviets) that “All functionaries of the Bandera Movement are to be immediately arrested and, after a thorough interrogation, secretly liquidated as pillagers.”
Why?
I don’t know. I’m not you so I’m not going to craft a lie that would be convenient to my narrative or argument. After all, I’m not you or Putin or Yerimenko. I’ve heard a bunch of arguments, such as this being a form of revenge from Bandera’s fellow fascist and rival for control of Ukraine’s underground Melnyk – who favored deeper collaboration with the Third Reich – as revenge on Bandera’s camp as well as their mutual Jewish and Romani bugaboos. Or that it was something the NSDAP ordered on their own initiative in keeping with their orders. I lean towards the latter, since some Melnykists were also killed.
There were plenty of Ukrainian collaborators involved in the murders, several of whom we know were working undercover for Bandera or Melnyk, but that was the key term. Undercover, and under the close supervision of the Third Reich, trusted even less than the likes of Kaminski. That doesn’t exonerate them (FAAAAR from it) but it does show who was driving the events behind Babi Yar, and how Kremlin propagandists (like you) have tried to ignore the fact that it was meant as an extermination campaign against ALL the undesirables for the Third Reich, not just Jews or Romani but also “fascist National Ukrainians.”
And how many of the murderers were ethnic Russians.
Contd.: To blame the self-defense of populations threatened by such “activists” (who anyone in EU or any other decent region should be ashamed to have on theirr side) on their brothers and sisters on the other side of the border is blatant ‘victim blaming’. It’s as with the (also Russian stock) people of Avkazia and South Ossetia in Georgia who were, on order of the, now ousted, President Sakashvili, bombarded with heavy artillery in a clear attempt of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’, before the asked for help and rescue from Russia. [By the way, Mr. Sakashvili, then, changed his loyalties and became Governor of Odessa (in Ukraine) where the second big massacre of over 100 people, this time Russian-speaking demonstrators, took place.
The EU in Ukraine would be tolerable to Russia, were not behind it the NATO – as usually follows that step! – And with that old Cold War machine still in Cold War strategies – and expanding into a siege circle around Russia, closing it with Ukraine – is that not worse than Cuba ever was? – Much more threatening than some missiles on one’s doorstep, esp. after our last two decades which have shown aggression, invasion, bombing, and covert undermining to be considered perfectly legal steps in some places.
And to play a sharade of surprise that someone whom we “contain” in old McNamara style of the Cold War could possibly see a threat in such encirclement is a bad back-street farce. It was clear from the start that this would frighten anyone who gets grabbed into an aggressive military pincer movement, whether they are called Vladimir or JFK – just that Vladimir has a lot more good reason to fear the US siege. That, at the same time, some others needed help and rescue from the same marauders would justify much more than President Putin did.
Part 8
Contd.: To blame the self-defense of populations threatened by such “activists” (who anyone in EU or any other decent region should be ashamed to have on theirr side) on their brothers and sisters on the other side of the border is blatant ‘victim blaming’. ”
No, it is not. Indeed, to exonerate the Kremlin of being the chief aggressor and terrorist is not only to fly in the face of the evidence from Maidan Square and elsewhere, but also to render the timeline incoherent. The Ukrainian Military is a particularly useful barometer for this precisely BECAUSE they had stayed in their barracks throughout the crisis, refusing to get involved except under direct appeal from the Rada, meaning they avoided getting involved in the protests street fighting that accompanied Maidan.. .but also meaning they were sitting ducks when Little Green Men started appearing and shooting at them with guns, tanks, and in several cases divisional artillery parks from over the border.
“It’s as with the (also Russian stock) people of Avkazia and South Ossetia in Georgia who were, on order of the, now ousted,”
It is, but not in the ways you want it.
Firstly: NEITHER are “Russian Stock.” For starters the ancestors of them and modern Russians as well as their languages come from OPPOSITE ENDS OF WESTERN EURASIA (Russian originating from a fusion of Old Norse and East Slavic Languages with some others, Ossetian being Iranic, and nobody really knowing WTH is up with Abkhaz). Of course both have heavily mixed with Russians, but probably to a lesser degree than their rivals the Georgians.
Secondly: South Ossetian and Abkhaz paramilitaries were well armed, backed by Russian military chiefdoms (who among other things had their Dachas in Abkhazia), and aggressive, taking advantage of intra-Georgian fighting during the 90s to first declare their independence and then ethnically cleansing “undesirables”, including Georgians, Kalmyks, and a host of others. The Georgians had plenty of bad people, but they were outnumbered, outgunned, caught by surprise by their enemies on the initiative, divided among themselves between two Presidents, and pretty much on the back foot in the ethnic cleansing game. Which is why the Georgian Wars of the 1990s ended with one Georgian government but near total victory for Abkhazia and South Ossetia (the latter of which would go on to help commit genocide against the Ingush in “North Ossetia” on Russian territory).
Part 9
The Georgian government licked its wounds, rehoused the hundreds of thousands of refugees from the ethnic cleansing as best as it could, and tried to modernize and re-arm, culminating under Sakashvili, who tried to get Georgia into a NATO standard army for ultimate integration into the EU and NATO, including deploying Georgian troops to study with NATO armies and fight under the US and Poles.
“President Sakashvili, bombarded with heavy artillery in a clear attempt of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’, before the asked for help and rescue from Russia. ”
It’s amazing what you “conveniently” leave out.
The problem with this BS is simple.
The pride and joy of the Georgian Army and Sakashvili’s dream of integrating with NATO was the 1st Infantry Brigade, then easily almost the best of the best of Georgia’s soldiers save spec ops, equipped and trained by the US…. meant to be the model upon which the rest of the conventional Georgian military would be, with the government going to use the expertise and troops from it to remodel the other Infantry Brigades on its model, to be the New Model Army of any future Reconquista of South Ossetia or Abkhazia, or any other conflict.
Problem:
After defeating a previously pro-government paramilitary in Kodori Gorge that had fought the Abkhaz army refused to disband and be replaced by regulars, the 1st was deployed to Iraq since 2006 in full brigade strength, joining the earlier personnel that had trickled in since 2003.
Meaning that when the 2008 attack on Georgia happened, this BS “Georgian ethnic cleansing of Russian stock” you are peddling, the premier unit of the Georgian Military *WAS STUCK IN FREAKING IRAQ.*
As you’ll see, the chance that was a coincidence was basically nil.
Part 10
(Cont)
In 2008, with the 1st Brigade tied down fighting the Surge, Russia retaliated to Kosovo’s declaration of independence by walking out of its role as “neutral arbiter” of the Abkhaz/Ossetian-Georgian Peace Treaties and declaring voting precincts to be set up in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, essentially declaring these regions illegally annexed to the Russian Federation. This was accompanied by the Russian military deploying to Abkhazia in earnest, which the Georgians countered on the opposite as best as they could, but hamstrung by their prize unit fighting in Iraq. This coincided with a rampup of mostly separatist violence against Georgian communities and especially troop posts, which the Georgians (and assorted paramilitaries) responded to in pell mell fashion while trying to push for diplomatic solutions. Culminating in the arrest of an APC of Russian “peacekeepers” for “allegedly” causing a car accident that injured a civilian from a drunk driver (who was detained for longer), followed by tit for tat IED bombings .
It came to a head in July at Mount Achamkhara, when Georgian police marching near the border got into a “disputed” firefight with Abkhaz troops. Who curiously banned both Georgian and UN investigators for a full day while the Russian government demanded and got partial control of the investigation, whose results were never published. Followed close behind the previously tit-for-tat IED bombings on both sides of the line (and probably caused by warring paramilitaries) moving decidedly South to hit Georgian targets near exclusively and getting much more powerful in turn.
This climaxed with synchronized bombings on August 1st, focused on South Ossetian artillery strikes on Georgian villages. After a week of fighting – the 7th – Saakashvili issued orders for a ceasefire to his own troops (caught as he was without his best unit), but this did not happen. Which led to the Georgians counterfiring into the South Ossetian city of Tshkinvali.
At which point the Russian military began falling on Georgia’s head.
Curious how that works, isn’t it?
There was a conspiracy for ethnic cleansing in this war. But it wasn’t Georgia’s.
Part 11
Which is why the Kremlin’s narrative on this conflict (largely agreed to by leftist appeasers in the West like Obama and Swiss “Diplomat” Frau Tagliavini) makes little sense, unless you want to argue that Saakashvili intentionally sent mixed messages during combat and then went to war with a known Russian buildup without his best troops, who had to be hastily pulled out of combat in Iraq and airlifted back by the US.
” [By the way, Mr. Sakashvili, then, changed his loyalties and became Governor of Odessa (in Ukraine)”
Because after unsurprisingly losing the ensuing election to more pro-Russian parties, he was accused of war crimes by the Kremlin and brought up on corruption charges by his own government, leading to him fleeing.
” where the second big massacre of over 100 people, this time Russian-speaking demonstrators, took place.
”
There was no “second big massacre.” There were violent brawls between pro-Maidan and pro-Yanukovych groups in 2014 in Odessa. They left dead on both sides, especially the grisly Trade Union Arson that killed about 50, almost all anti-Maidanites. But there was no organized massacre.
And all of this happened before Saakashvilli had even moved to Ukraine, let alone become Governor of Odessa.
You’re mangling the timeline, and I’m guessing that’s intentional.
“The EU in Ukraine would be tolerable to Russia,”
No, it very obviously would not be, as we can see from Putin reacting vehemently to Yanukovych negotiating the EU *association* agreement.
” were not behind it the NATO – as usually follows that step! –”
So why then did Putin do NOTHING when Finland joined NATO, mocking Putin’s pretensions that he only seeks to defend Russia against NATO?
“And with that old Cold War machine still in Cold War strategies – and expanding into a siege circle around Russia, closing it with Ukraine –”
“Siege circle.” God give me strength.
Since 1991, Russia has been involved in violent conflicts with every country on the borders it has West of the Caspian and South of Novgorod. In the vast majority of those cases the Russian military was clearly the aggressor, and often guilty of ethnic cleansing. And notably, in every single case where the fighting escalated beyond skirmishes, the other side was NOT a member of NATO.
If NATO is so appealing for VOLUNTARY joining, perhaps the Russian dictatorship should stop making it so appealing by abusing its neighbors.
Part 12
” is that not worse than Cuba ever was? –”
No, it is not. Considering how the Chief Executioner of Castro’s Cuba was a photogenic Argentine Psychopath who openly admitted *HE INTENDED TO NUKE AMERICA.* Which we now know was a mindset shared by his boss Fidel.
“Much more threatening than some missiles on one’s doorstep,”
No, no it is not. And how do I know?
Firstly: You’re “conveniently” ignoring the fact that a major reason why Khruschev pulled the STRATEGIC nuclear missiles out of Cuba was because of the justified fear of what the Castros would use them for. Midway through the crisis he learned that the Cuban government had been feeding him provocative and moderately misleading information meant to indicate US involvement and help bring things closer to the threshold for first launch. This culminated with military reports from his own men about suspicious Cuban Army and Militia moves around their sites, making Khruschev conclude (accurately) that Fidel wanted to start WW3 with a nuclear first strike on the US. He had already been making progress towards an agreement, but this is what pushed him forward to do it quickly.
Thirdly: Even after the Missile Crisis, Tactical Nuclear Missiles incapable of reaching the American mainland but capable of hitting military naval targets in the surrounding waters remained for months with no complaint.
Fourthly: The USSR and now Russia have tolerated the basings of nuclear weapons by NATO on its borders without ANYTHING like the violent invasion Ukraine suffered in 2014 and 2022. For instance, the deal struck to end the Cuban Missile Crisis was mutual withdrawal of nuclear weapons, including US ones in Turkey on the Soviet border.
Fifthly: as the Russian government has made abundantly clear, it STILL claims to station nuclear weapons on its border and in Belarus.
So NATO is not as threatening as nuclear weapons, and nuclear weapons are not as threatening as being the Kremlin’s neighbor without NATO protection.
“esp. after our last two decades which have shown aggression, invasion, bombing, and covert undermining to be considered perfectly legal steps in some places.”
Obviously the Kremlin agrees, since it has been doing this since at least 1991 and has taken steps to whitewash and justify Stalin’s false flag ops in the 1930s and 1940s.
Part 13
“And to play a sharade of surprise that someone whom we “contain” in old McNamara style of the Cold War”
We weren’t containing Russia in the “old McNamara style of the Cold War” until 2022. This becomes abundantly clear if you compare the two.
PS: McNamara was not the master of containment. That was Kennan and Nitzke a full generation earlier. Your ignorance is once again showing.
“could possibly see a threat in such encirclement is a bad back-street farce.”
Russia is capable of seeing a threat all it wants. Just as Poland and the Baltics are able to see all the threat they want in Russia loudly stationing nukes in Kaliningrad.
The problem you “conveniently” overlook even if those you shill for do not, is that *THREATS ARE LEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW. WARS OF AGGRESSION AND PARTITION AND ETHNIC CLEANSING ARE NOT.*
If the Russian government feels threatened by NATO, they have every legal right to call up the UN and individual governments to complain to their hearts content.
But after things like Transnistria and Crimea, don’t expect too many people to listen.
“It was clear from the start that this would frighten anyone who gets grabbed into an aggressive military pincer movement, ”
Again, the Kremlin has every right to feel threatened. It does not have the right to violently lash out about it.
How would you feel if Poland responded to Moscow’s threats of nuclear attack on Poland if it hosted NATO nukes by publicly demanding a first strike on Russia?
“whether they are called Vladimir or JFK – just that Vladimir has a lot more good reason to fear the US siege.”
No, no he does not. And moreover, the archival research of people like Russia’s Dr. Bukhovsky *SHOWS THAT KHRUSCHEV ADMITTED HE DID NOT BECAUSE CASTRO WAS AN APOCALYPTIC PSYCHO WHO WANTED NUCLEAR WORLD WAR AND WENT SO FAR AS TO TRY AND CON HIS OWN PATRON INTO STARTING IT.*
It’s to his honour that he reacted with great restraint, and acted wisely – much more than some who thought (and, it seems, still think) they’re always right. Which is a grave self-deception in this case, as in many:
A. The people in Krym and Donbass did not revolt, but simply seceded;
B. Not Russia caused that but US interference (in more than an election);
C. The violence only erupted when the Kiev junta sent troops who did the first killing at polling stations for the people’s referendum;
D. A referendum is a popular voice of people – whereas a mob attacking an elected government -which they could replace next time by vote- is a putsch mob, especially when agents of foreign powers are seen in their midst.
And here, see CIA and Nuland, is where the Superpower is so visible that no journalist who deserves the name can overlook it!
Part 14
“It’s to his honour that he reacted with great restraint, and acted wisely – ”
He didn’t act with honor, restraint, or wisdom. He first raged at Yanukovych trying to take his election promise and trade seriously, demanded he stop and then pushed Yanukovych to adopt brutal methods, panicked when that blew up in his face, and immediately began launching false flag ops to seize large chunks of Ukraine under absolutely no legal pretext.
Ironically in doing so he probably wound up screwing himself over by putting him in about the LEAST defensible position either legally or ethically, because he COULDN’T claim he had just deployed troops to defend “Russians” (whatever the hell that means in this context) because officially he hadn’t deployed troops, and he COULDN’T claim to be fighting to restore Yanukovych as “rightful President” (nevermind the constitution violations) for similar reasons and his indecision.
” much more than some who thought (and, it seems, still think) they’re always right. Which is a grave self-deception in this case, as in many:”
This is ironic considering how you are quite literally warping history in order to try and claim that, just for the Kremlin and your side. Even if you make ludicrously insane, easily debunkable claims.
“A. The people in Krym and Donbass did not revolt, but simply seceded;”
No, they did not. There was low level street jostling and competing protests throughout the Euromaidan Crisis, but this suddenly escalated with the deployment of Russian Federation troops and assorted paramilitaries like the Russian Imperial Movement and Rusich, who quickly began attacking the outnumbered and mostly unarmed protestors and the confused, neutral, and still barracks-bound Ukrainian military.
At which point the Russian government stage managed mock elections held under the shadow of a bayonet, violating many of the basic tenets of ballot security.
“B. Not Russia caused that but US interference (in more than an election);”
Translation: you’re not even paying attention to what Putin admits with his “Crimea; The Road Home” where he admitted the Russian government and its troops deployed in Crimea before the secession. He doesn’t make similar admissions for the Donbas, but the testimony of others plus stuff like the cross border artillery fire and RusFed exclusive equipment says plenty.
Part 15
“C. The violence only erupted when the Kiev junta sent troops who did the first killing at polling stations for the people’s referendum;”
No, no it didn’t. Again, Reshat Ametov was murdered, his tortured corpse left on March 16th, the morning before the fake vote in Crimea. He had been kidnapped on March the 3rd, and had harmed noone.
Indeed, frankly the Ukrainian government probably would’ve had BETTER LUCK had it sent troops to stop the takeover and rigged elections by the Russian occupation. But it didn’t. Paralyzed, trying diplomacy, confused, and outmaneuvered, they remained in barracks as they were slowly taken.
“D. A referendum is a popular voice of people – ”
When it’s not rigged.
Considering this website and the discussion of voter fraud, you should have expected that.
Unfortunately we now know that not only were the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk referendums rigged, they were A: Very Rigged, B: Conducted under foreign military occupation with palpable fear for life, and C: Under circumstances made to make it impossible to check.
“whereas a mob attacking an elected government -which they could replace next time by vote- is a putsch mob, ”
Except the “mob” wasn’t “attacking an elected government.” They were clashing with All The President’s Men as the latter conducted unethical orders and the Elected Legislature dithered.
And the violent mobs were on both sides.
“especially when agents of foreign powers are seen in their midst.”
You do not want to use that argument to defend the Crimeaschluss and the Donbas Steals, given what we know of the late Mr. Utkin’s whereabouts, as well as others.
“And here, see CIA and Nuland, is where the Superpower is so visible that no journalist who deserves the name can overlook it!”
Correct, though there are sadly few. However, Nuland and the CIA were scum but utterly overblown. Especially by you. And the reaction to Euromaidan and then the following Russian 2014 invasion shows it. They were used to peddling influence and bribing people to little effect, which meant the mass movement of Euromaidan spreading outside the “Orange” West and into the “Blue” East took them by surprise, as did Yanukovych’s violence and then fleeing. And especially the Kremlin’s takeover.
Also, the Yats government differed from what the phone call said, and then collapsed.
This is pretty close to my analysis as well but the entire issue has always confused me. How did Russia not just roll over Ukraine in 2 months? They’re not lacking the tools, tech, and know how … yet they’ve been repeatedly rebuffed.
Yes, Russia’s aggression seems uncalled for – the argument that they were concerned about NATO in Ukraine isn’t strong enough, yet the far right has added a litany of “reasons” … sure, there’s the Azov brigade but they only call themselves Nazis.
I’ve dealt with Leftists and people on the right who’ve come to conclusions without the data that would allow them to do so.
I do tend to see this as a political boondoggle to financially benefit the parties involved, but again … really not sure.
The ‘blitzkrieg’ failed due to Russian incompetence.
Once the ‘surprise’ element was lost – not a surprise to anyone btw. We knew it was coming weeks in advance … (that is the 2/24/22 phase).
Pootler decided to exercise restraint – fearing an all out war with the West – if he pushed into Ukraine.
Pootler actually explained this in at least one speech – noting the West would use nuclear weapons to stop Russia.
Does anyone care about all those billions to Ukraine without an accounting and the reported shopping sprees of Zelensky and others? . Has anyone seen the pictures of American politicians grinning ear to ear while visiting this “war zone” as if they just won the lottery – which maybe they did. Why on earth was the US attorney general and his wife there grinning for the camera? Why did my town raise Ukrainian flags on July fourth? Yes, this obsession with Ukraine was pushed by mainstream media. Not many trust the media. But, July Fourth is for American flags.
In WWII Ukrainians. were said to be harsher than German Nazis.
Putin is not a good guy. Ukraine is not my flag to wave. This has nothing to do with MAGA or “the right” or Trump.
MAGA supporters (I stopped being one on Friday, March 1) need to ask themselves some questions. Do they want to be Putin supporters? Do they get it that Russia has put out a lot of disinformation and that they have not understood when they are being lied to? Are they aware that the US need not spend money on Ukraine any longer but does not have to justify it by humiliating Zelinsky and his country? Or do they think that sadism is the manliness that America needs to be great again?
I asked those questions a long time ago, and I concluded that Reagan was correct that we must defend American liberty here because if it is lost there is absolutely nowhere safe for freedom. And after Jan 6th I recognized the need to stop the tyrannical bureaucracy and the left here. That doesn’t mean I approve of everything Trump has done (in particular cancelling the intel sharing with Ukraine without warning is something I view as dishonorable and despicable), but he is very much better than the alternatives.
I am sadly well aware of many “MAGA Supporters” that are pro-Putin, like Carlson, and I oppose them on this even if I recognize they might be useful against other enemies. I also recognize a great many others that are not pro-Putin but are wavering on Ukraine after Zelenskyy and the long war. I am not either of them, as shown by my actions.
Before the election I stated that I would gift wrap all of Ukraine to Putin if I had to in order to save American freedom, and as someone who knows the Kremlin’s evil that is NOT something I said lightly, but I meant it. But that doesn’t mean I have to advocate for it now that Trump is there.
As for Zelenskyy, he is not innocent in this. He stonewalled Trump investigating Burisma and Biden’s corruption, leading directly to Trump’s impeachment, and apparently lied about the conditions of the mineral deal before the Oval Office, and began the fight with Trump. I still blame Trump more for poisoning the immediate leadup to the Oval Office by calling him a dictator but Putin not, but Zelenskyy has his share of the blame. But I believe BOTH Need to get over themselves and their grievances against each other in order to deal with the greater issue.
As for sadism, do you remember what Biden did? Gloating about firing Shokin by holding Ukrainian funding hostage? Mocking the dead of Afghanistan and the Jan 6 victims? Trump is many things but he is far less sadistic than his enemies here.
The politicians are all liers and self inflated idiots, the real issue in the Donbass is Lithium, the Donbass is the New Saudia Arabia of Lithium, there’s enough lithium in the Donbass to supply the world & keep prices under control for decades.
China owns/manages/has it’s fingers into 98% of the current world lithium market, prices are already too high, lithium is going to run the world like we can’t imagine soon.. it’s already everywhere in our daily lives.. Ask people like Elon Musk that use a lot of it, you can bet they’re sick of being screwed by the chinese.
Trumps plan is to get American mining companies well in control of all those underground resources, and say to Putin, “one more rocket and I’ll blow the stupid coloured roofs off your Kremlin”. Having the west involved with all those resources totally resets the scales on what has to happen there. It’s no longer about political ego’s, Putin masterbating about the old russia, the old russia doesn’t have any value if all you’re doing is growing outback and grass, besides what are you going to do with a population that’s already escaped to the west, or is planning a way out..
Has anyone else noticed, after Crimea the Donbass was the first to be invaded, and the russians have hung on to it like hell.
In 10 years time the Donbass is going to be worth trillions&trillions, the europeans want russia subdued, the Ukranians want democracy, they want to be a part of Europe (hopefully without all the muslims, but that’s another story)
All the political parading is paper thin, as always, the real reason behind everything is money and people would do well looking at from that perspective…
Here’s a novel idea. Ukraine gets to have ALL the use of the Donbas minerals. After all, it’s Ukraine’s land. Russia is no longer part of the picture because one way or another it has been subdued and is content to live within its vast borders. That is a moral map. Remember morals? Now go figure out how to secure Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Nuke Russia.
Don’t worry.
How and why is anything going on in Ukraine our (we the American people) business? Haven’t we made enough enemies around the world by involving ourselves in other countries business?
Given what our own CIA’s dark and sinister record around the world, I’ll bet good money that their fingerprints are all over what’s happening in Ukraine. It happened in Iraq, it happened in Afghanistan it happened in Vietnam, it happened in Cuba, it happened in several central & south American countries and it happened in Iran.
The bottom line is that the US is in no position to moralize about who’s right or wrong in that part of the world. The Ukraine-Russia dispute is none of our business and it’s wrongheaded to make it our business.
Unfortunately, many in this forum do not realize that by taking sides, they are tacitly supporting world war 3 which will inevitably go nuclear. As an engineer, I can say with certainty that the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were mere party poppers compared to the nukes we have today.
Lastly, I have children and grandchildren………..
Part 1
“How and why is anything going on in Ukraine our (we the American people) business?”
Budapest 1994. Research it. Whether or not you think it was WISE, we’re already involved.
“Haven’t we made enough enemies around the world by involving ourselves in other countries business?”
Awww, the isolationist fanatic thinks we need to involve ourselves in other countries’ business in order for them to become our enemies! That’s cuuuuuteee…. Research Wilhelm II planning to invade the US in the late 1890s out of the blue, or Hitler’s Second Book, or Lenin.
Also it is amusing you don’t apply this line of thought to the Kremlin or other countries interfering in their businesses.
“Given what our own CIA’s dark and sinister record around the world, I’ll bet good money that their fingerprints are all over what’s happening in Ukraine.”
They are, but
A: As bad as the CIA has been, it can’t hold a candle to that of the “Chekisty”, now the FSB. Where do you think Putin got his start?
and
B: Frankly what we know of the CIA’s fingerprints in modern Ukraine paint them to be corrupt bumblers who limited themselves to intel gathering and bribing locals with little effect only for Putin and Yanukovych to hand them a Win by being corrupt, abusive prats that divided their own Ukrainian base of support.
“It happened in Iraq,”
Iraq was about Saddam Hussein being a genocidal, terrorist sponsoring, perfidious nut who only took breaks in between financing Al Qaeda splinter cells and worshipping both his Hitler-loving Uncle and Stalin to sprout nonsense.
“it happened in Afghanistan”
Afghanistan was the case of the Taliban aiding and sheltering Al Qaeda and Osama as they plotted to attack the US, lying all the way, and rejecting a last minute ultimatum to turn him over.
” it happened in Vietnam, ”
Vietnam was the result of power hungry Communists attacking and betraying everyone from the French to other Vietnamese and Indochinese nationalists to ultimately each other, murdering millions and plunging the region into peacetime famine when they finally won. Unfortunately they had good PR and subversion here in the West
Part 2
“it happened in Cuba,”
This is true but not for the reasons you think. The US worked hard to free Cuba from Spain, and then adopted it as a client state and helped defend its governments. Unfortunately we grew disdainful and distrustful of Batista (who was admittedly an usurping thug) and trusted the cover story of Castro that he would overthrow Batista and restore constitutional democracy.
Unfortunately he was lying and was already a communist, and so began to purge his former anti-Batista comrades before throwing the doors open to the Soviets.
Before thinking they weren’t radical enough and then trying to con them into launching nukes at the US.
” it happened in several central & south American countries”
That much is true.
” and it happened in Iran.”
Not really. Mossadegh was already an enemy of our ally the Shah and the British, but we were generally supportive of him until he MADE HIMSELF our enemy by aligning with the Iranian Stalinists in the Tudeh, usurping power from the constitution in what was basically an Autogolpa, rigging elections with street violence, putting his lawful liege the Shah under house arrest, and responding to the Shah sending envoys to exercise his constitutional authority to remove Mossadegh from the PM position by unjustly imprisoning said envoys. Which plunged Iran into Chaos and made Eisenhower conclude he had to go.
What, you believed in the parable of St. Mossadegh, champion of Democracy and Democratically Elected* Prime Minister overthrown by the Evul CIA and SIS over Oil? Which is spread by the current Iranian theocrats (that we also appeased and propped up as principled opponents to the Shah’s later autocracy) whose forebearers helped the royalists and the Western Allies topple Mossadegh?
(*Iran’s constitution at the time had no provisions for “electing” the Prime Minister; the PM was appointed by the Shah, and while Mossadegh was the choice of the Iranian Parliament there was no legal obligation for the Shah to choose him.)
Yeah, it’s depressing to realize how common that is.
Part 3
To what credit I will give Mossadegh, he DID have valid grievances against us, the Shah, and the British, he was not a Communist (“Merely” someone unprincipled and foolish enough to get into bed with them just years after they tried to split Iran down the middle), and does seem to have wanted sincere and more popular electoral reforms.
But whatever his noble intentions, he played DIRTY and illegally and endangered the West and his own country. He made himself a threat that went far beyond Eisenhower’s general sympathy to decolonization and nationalism, and betrayed almost everyone he did business with (that didn’t betray him first, like the Tudeh that tried to coup him in the middle of his own coup, leaving both vulnerable to the Royalist/Constitutionalist/Western/Islamist coalition’s counter-coup). He could have worked with us, but he instead worked with the Soviets and made his own bed.
“The bottom line is that the US is in no position to moralize about who’s right or wrong in that part of the world.”
Incorrect. Even Goebbels had the right to moralize about Katyn in spite of being Goebbels, in much the same way the Soviets had the right to moralize about Auschwitz in spite of being the Soviets. In the valley of the blind the one eyed man is King, and nothing the US has done in Ukraine matches up to what the Kremlin has done, or what the US’s ties are.
” The Ukraine-Russia dispute is none of our business and it’s wrongheaded to make it our business.”
It is our business and has been for decades. You may not like that but it is true. Moreover, the Ukrainians that fought alongside us in Afghanistan and Iraq made avenging 9/11 their business when they did not have to. They have been truer allies than Putin has been or is likely to be.
“Unfortunately, many in this forum do not realize that by taking sides, they are tacitly supporting world war 3 which will inevitably go nuclear. ”
If that is true, then what makes you think rewarding illegal aggression by our enemies will make things better?
Part 4
“As an engineer, I can say with certainty that the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were mere party poppers compared to the nukes we have today.”
That is very true. Which is why I advocate safety in numbers to deter. So that God may know we stood up and were counted in trying to stop the world war.
Especially as Putin already decided his side many many times before, as Mark Steyn (By NO means a Ukraine War Hawk) noted. He has sided with the PRC and the Iranian Islamists, and has for decades. And rewarding him just gives him more resources.
“Lastly, I have children and grandchildren………..”
My sympathies, and congratulations. I wish to have children and grandchildren too, one day. Some of my fondest memories are of my grandparents, and if I can be even a fraction of as good as they were to me, I would look forward to it.
But that is why I think we need to ask ourselves hard questions on what gives them the best odds. What serves them best. And a hard bargained peace deal that may involve (grudging for me) granting Putin some territory is one thing, but outright not responding to illegal, perfidious, evil invasion on false grounds by the Kremlin and the ensuing mass murders? That’s not likely to help stop him or his friends, who are our mortal enemies.
That’s why I argue we have to stand up to be counted as those who tried to prevent that kind of World War by deterring the Warmongerers, scaring them so straight they stop.
And if worst comes to worst? The cruel reality is that your family has a far better chance of surviving and prospering if the enemy has to nuke Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkhiv, and a host of others as well as our allies and the rest of us. That sounds horrible because it is, but tell me I am not correct in that calculus.
American taxpayers spent $40 trillion protecting the free world since WW2 and putting their economies back on their feet, yet out of hundreds of comments by foreigners to articles elsewhere there are none showing understanding of the American taxpayers viewpoint, all the comments are hate America comments. Why should the American taxpayers want to give them more money if all we get in return is hate?
This is such a lengthy scroll that I may be risking repeating arguments already made, but here goes:
In both Tapson’s and Nance’s defense of the MAGA position on Ukraine, there were a number of points that neither mentioned.
–well over 20 years ago, the US had promised Russia that NATO would not encroach one inch farther east, which promise was repeatedly broken
–this war was effectively started in 2014 when the CIA ran a color revolution to remove a duly elected and Russia-friendly president and installed their own pro-western puppet
–The same CIA has been operating dozens of biolabs in Ukraine since then, a fact attested to by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. Of course, according to her, they were “defensive” biolabs. Question: how the bloody hell do you make a defensive biolab?
–what no one seems to want to admit is that if Russia wanted to, they could have flattened Ukraine in a week. Why didn’t they? IMO, Russia has shown admirable restraint in this war.
–now that President Trump has refused to support and supply the war any longer, Europe is in a tizzy, rushing to see if they can keep the war going without the US.. They’ve obviously been caught with their pants down, not really having much military capability at all since they’ve been relying on the US up to now for all that nasty, messy business
–by the same token, it’s pretty obvious now who wants to see this war continue: Zelensky and the EU, aka NATO. Here’s a question for you: WHY?
These are just a few right off the top of my head. There are more..
Thank you Mr Tapson for your editorial.
Part 1
“–well over 20 years ago, the US had promised Russia that NATO would not encroach one inch farther east, which promise was repeatedly broken”
We did absolutely no such thing. And I challenge you to point to when and how that was. Indeed even looking at the Kremlin’s own documents on this issue (most notably Baker) underlined how this was the PERSONAL HOPE of Baker, he admitted that was contingent on the rest of NATO and the “partners” in the East. Who to Baker’s surprise quickly rushed to join NATO (now why might that be? Perhaps decades if not centuries of bad memories of armies recruited and directed from Moscow?).
“–this war was effectively started in 2014 when the CIA ran a color revolution to remove a duly elected and Russia-friendly president and installed their own pro-western puppet”
The CIA didn’t do much of anything worth talking about in 2014, and was apparently struck dumb and ineffective when Putin handed his opponents in Ukraine a gift on a platter by arm-twisting Yanukovych into betraying both his election promises and his public support base in the East by signing the Kharkhiv Pact and selling out negotiations on the EU Association for Russian concessions that were viewed as laughably weak.
And then responding to “mostly peaceful protests” by overreacting, violating the Constitution, and doing things like driving the Rent-a-Protestors both he and his enemies (like the CIA) had hired to rally against him.
He also wasn’t removed by the CIA, but by the Democratically Elected Ukrainian Legislature *Dominated By His Own Party* when he was called to answer questions before the legislature about his legal conduct during Euromaidan (including things like authorizing widespread torture and murder of prisoners by Berkut and promoting state sponsored blood libel against Jews), and rather than show up fled the country (stopping by just to loot state property at some of the President’s official retreats).
It’s amusing how there seems to be an inverse probability in those mentioning Yanukovych was Democratically Elected with their chances of mentioning that the Legislature that canned him was *ALSO DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED IN THE SAME DAMN ELECTIONS THAT ELECTED YANUKOVYCH.* And ultimately his actions were so egregious they even alienated the others in the pro-Russian Regionnaire Party he was leader of.
Part 2
“–what no one seems to want to admit is that if Russia wanted to, they could have flattened Ukraine in a week. Why didn’t they? IMO, Russia has shown admirable restraint in this war.”
Your opinion is provably ignorant. Russia could not have flattened Ukraine in a week, even with unlimited WMD. Stephan Bandera led a fascist-centered popular front (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the UPA) in a guerilla war against the Soviets, their puppets, the Polish Home Army, and after 1941 and their betrayal of Bandera the Nazis for about a decade and a half, in spite of the UPA being underground, brutal, fighting the Soviet Union in its WWII height under Stalin, and cut off from almost any direct aid while surrounded by enemies. Oh yeah, and being limited to Galicia.
Even after the Soviets retook the wider area from the Axis in 1944, it still took them until 1956 before they and their new communist puppets in Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia to put the UPA down.
And suffice it to say Bandera’s gang had nowhere near the numbers, spread, or loyalty of the Ukrainian government (which I note even Moscow acknowledged the legitimacy of following the Poroshenko election).
Even today you still have Ukrainian Loyalist guerillas operating in Crimea (the heart of Russian power in the legal territory of Ukraine) and the occupied Donbas.
There’s no freaking way Russia “flattens Ukraine” in a week. And I would be curious to hear you explain how you think they would do it.
Far from showing admirable restraint, the Russian soldier has shown themselves to be brutal, often slovenly, and often clumsy (though not as much as NAFO memes make). And their mercenary or foreign ally goon squads like Rusich have distinguished themselves as *even worse.*
Rusich regularly posts snuff films on their social media and Putin’s Vice President Medvedev talked about the need to destroy the Ukrainian identity.
“–now that President Trump has refused to support and supply the war any longer,”
Point of order; Trump said he would pause aid, not that he would cancel all support yet. Which he did.
Part 3
” Europe is in a tizzy, rushing to see if they can keep the war going without the US.. They’ve obviously been caught with their pants down, not really having much military capability at all since they’ve been relying on the US up to now for all that nasty, messy business”
Agreed there.
“–by the same token, it’s pretty obvious now who wants to see this war continue: Zelensky and the EU, aka NATO. Here’s a question for you: WHY?”
You’re ignoring someone. The Kremlin and its allies. Zelenskyy tried to cut a deal with the Kremlin for peace, such as dividing the Donbas by vote and pledging to try to reclaim Crimea by negotiations only. At the time he was condemned by many of the same globalists and war hawks singing his praises now, such as Soros front groups like Euromaidan Press.
But Putin never gave him the time of day on the issue, in part because that would solve the war. Similar to how he has avoided coming to a permanent territorial solution in Moldova or Georgia in spite of the fighting in the former being done decades ago and the latter having nasty frontier tit for tat fighting that the world has ignored (and the globalists threw under the bus with Obama and his Reset, if not earlier with the loathesome Frau Tagliavini and her whitewash of Putin’s aggression in Georgia while blaming Saakashvili for starting the war by daring to respond to separatist artillery barrages).
To this day Putin has never codified any terms for peace beyond “Denazification”, “Demilitarization”, and “Neutrality” while he openly allows those advocating genocide to talk on the air waves, but not those pointing out the criminality of Molotov-Ribbentrop.
“These are just a few right off the top of my head. There are more..”
This is the problem with going off of the top of your head without careful research, and particularly going off of what seems to be pop culture style Kremlin propaganda. It doesn’t hold up.
LOL. You triggered Turtler,
To be fair, Turtler has his facts in order, and you should read his posts to be better informed …
if you read his posts, you will see that the situation is complex.
I don’t want to trigger him again,
but according to him,
Pootler’s starts everything, but thankfully he fails,
And our only solution to this Pootler is war.
Here’s the key to the riddle:
Is Russia better off in 2025 than it was in 1991?
Are its neighbors better off?
Are we better off?
Don’t forget .. the whole time – since 1991 to 2025 – our borders went undefended until 6 1/2 weeks ago.
G-d love you and yours.
If you have to strawman my arguments, you have a problem.
Actually was taking a break for work and food, but was going to get back.
I also absolutely was not claiming he starts everything (I pointed to Second Chechnya being caused by Jihadi terrorism and a failed Islamist invasion of Dagestan, and now Putin was taken aback by Euromaidan). He also does not fail everything. He yoked the oligarchs, reconquered Chechnya, played Georgia and much of the world like a fiddle in 2008 before beating them, consolidated his alliance with the PRC and several others, played rope a dope with several world leaders including Trump. I find many of these achievements to be dubious or pyrrhic but they remain wins. I find him to be highly cunning in a “Penny Wise, Pound Foolish” fashion.
As for if Russia is better in 1991 than 2025, You’re not going to like this but I think it is a lot more questionable than you think and probably depends on how the war and some others end. A big part of it is opportunity cost and squandered time. Who thinks that the Admiral Kuznetsov is going to be able to be worthy of the name? Or have a workable dock? How would the Moskva be replaced? Why is the Russian population pyramid disintegrating even more than before, resulting in knock on effects everywhere? And how badly off are the places outside the Duopoli of Peter and Moscow between 91 and 25?
I’d say 91 still beats it out but it is close. Part of this is simply because a lot of the material – especially human material – has just decayed more, with the population thinning out, technological hallmarks going by the wayside, and so on. Accelerated by this. 91 was a year of crushing disappointment for Russia, and immense shock and shame, but also opportunity. How many people in Russia look at 2025 and see this as a year of great opportunity or a changing era?
That I think is a major reason why Putin and the powers that be believe war is an unavoidable part of how to cope. That the population and war material are a “use it or lose it” issue made worse by the population pyramid also making similar problems with pensions and others to an even worse degree than most of the world.
I don’t believe the only option is war, especially not for the West. I prefer containment. But I accept war if it is forced on us like it was on Ukraine.
“MAGA”? “Not MAGA”? How about second and third order consequences, Mr. Tapson?
Here’s some fault line exploration questions:
1. Did or did not Ukraine after the USSR collapsed have 2,000+ tactical and strategic nuclear weapons and delivery systems aimed at the nascent Russian Federation as both a deterrent and defense?
2. Did or did not an earlier president disarm Ukraine of those nukes that terrified us so much, by promising Ukraine’s government of the day that if they would surrender those nukes we were terrified of them having, we would provide them with the American military to be their replacement deterrent and defense? (after all, who would dare attack a country when that meant you were attacking our American military).
The Ukrainians accepted that offer as being our military defending them – not us purchasing indulgences by instead sending blankets, rations, weapons to fight alone with, etc?
We wrote a military check to Ukraine, assuming it would never be cashed. But it was.
Here’s the big question Mr. Tapson, regardless of political party affiliation, that flies right into the face of political populism and everyone desperately attempting to see this with their Populist Beer Goggles on:
WOULD PUTIN HAVE INVADED UKRAINE IF THOSE NUKES WERE STILL IN UKRAINE POINTED AT MOSCOW INSTEAD OF NOW BEING IN RUSSIA POINTED AT AMERICA?
WOULD PUTIN HAVE INVADED UKRAINE IF WE HAD MADE IT CLEAR TO HIM THAT AN ATTACK ON OUR WAR ALLY, UKRAINE, WOULD BE THE SAME AS LAUNCHING AN ATTACK ON OUR MILITARY FORCES?
Should be easy questions to answer for any adult in the room, Mr. Tapson.
Ukraine by itself means little, either to us or the entire world. What we have done and not done regarding Ukraine matters.
A LOT!
Yes, MAGA is wrong about Ukraine, Douglas Murray is right. Ukraine is fighting for all of us, including MAGA. Putin must not succeed in his “special military operation”, otherwise there is another, and another, and another… He is running a project to reconstitute the Soviet Union. He broke the security assurances given in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 after Ukraine gave up its nukes. He denies their separate ethnic identity and the right to statehood. He is a war criminal.
In the procees of this conflict Ukraine exposed and discredited Russian substandard conventional armed forces, the equipment, tactics and generalship. This was supposed top be a couple-of-weeks affair, now into its 4th year. No, China is not the main enemy, it is the new Axis of totalitarian powers: Russia, China and North Korea (+ some fellow travellers, like Iran).
Mark Tapson largely hits the nail on the head here, but much more scholarship on Ukraine can be added to further delineate the nature of the “new” Ukraine that manifested after the US led coup d’etat in 2014, better known as the Maidan Uprising, which saw the bloody overthrow of the legitimate, mildly pro-Russian president Yanukovych by hard-core Nationalist forces definitely riddled with Neo-Nazis. That American Neocons like Victoria Nuland were actually on the ground in Ukraine at this time cheering-leading this overthrow tells you all you need to know. She was even caught in a bugged telephone conversation discussing who should be the new leaders of Ukraine with the then American Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. The bottom line is that this Neocon metamorphosis of Ukraine had long been a deep state project, promoted in tandem with other Western powers’ elites.
Before one could hardly bat an eye, suddenly in post-Maidan Ukraine, CIA listening posts and American bio-labs were popping up. Of course, the Western Media went into overdrive to brand any news of this as “Russian” propaganda, the same media which had been also gaslighting us into believing that Trump was a Russian puppet. And for eight long years, Putin and Russia had to deal with this radical Ukrainian regime that began relentlessly oppressing and then militarily attacking ethnic Russian Ukrainian citizens who wanted no part of this new “order”.
Meanwhile, Ukraine was being transformed by the West into Battleship Ukraine, and pushing for NATO membership, which Putin openly told Biden was an absolute red line for him. Biden dismissed Putin’s warning, so Putin launched his Special Military Operation. This escalating conflict soon transmuted, not merely into a proxy war between NATO and Russia, but into a real war between the United States-led West and Russia, with the former providing every possible facet of war-making capabilities except for the bulk of army grunts. That’s been Ukraine’s job, to provide endless meat for the meat-grinder, although we know that Western forces, either as mercenaries or as “in-country assets”, have indeed been fighting (and dying) too.
This is Project Ukraine, a Western-Globalist Neocon fever-dream to damage if not destroy Russia, bankrupt morally, militarily, financially and economically, and ultimately capable of sparking World War III.
Part 1
“Mark Tapson largely hits the nail on the head here, but much more scholarship on Ukraine can be added to further delineate the nature of the “new” Ukraine that manifested after the US led coup d’etat in 2014, better known as the Maidan Uprising, ”
Maidan wasn’t “US led”, and it becomes vanishingly clear if you study it. I am loathe to defend Nuland and Obama and co, but I will when the evidence warrants it in the same way I’ll defend Putin as being the aggressed party in the Second Chechen War (when a rogue terror state invaded Russia proper). It was certainly US *FUNDED*, like the Ukrainian Oranges had been for decades, and that doubtless included massive amounts of graft, corruption, and globalist propaganda marching hand in hand with Soros and others. But the magnitude of Euromaidan has more to do with EU funding (admittedly much of it is probably that), and even MORE has to do with the Kremlin and Yanukovych utterly spazzing out and rejecting Yanukovych’s own election promises in a public, disgraceful, and seemingly servile fashion. with things like the Kharkhiv Pacts.
Nuland and the CIA and State were so out to lunch they were almost as taken aback by this as Putin was, having been used to funneling money to the usual suspects so that they did not realize things like medium sized Maidan protests popping up even in Yanukovych’s supposedly-safe Donbas political base and even small ones in Crimea, in addition to gigantic ones in the West and Kyiv. Because it turns out that contrary to memes that Russians have horns, a tail, and feed on misery, they are humans like any other. And if you’re a Russophone Russky living in the Donbas Rust Belt that has seen worse economic forecasts than Germany’s former coal deposits under Green Energy and who has lived through multiple rounds of tariff wars with the government that rules over your cousin Ilya over the border, you’re probably going to be desperate enough that any trade looks like a good idea, even if it’s from the EU.
The fact that none of the morons considered this up until major protests were hitting Kyiv again and this time not going through the usual channels even THOUGH Nuland’s preferred golden clients like Yushenko and Tymoshenko were neutralized or discredited speaks to that.
Part 2
To what grudging credit I will give Nuland and co, it seems like while surprised and not very in touch they DID react better than Yanukovych and co, hence things like the umpteenillion dollars being funded to train “activists” in “computer literacy” over in Poland. But they weren’t sinister masterminds pulling puppet strings, they were sinister midwit minds pulling a tugrope trying to herd cats while being continually outmaneuvered by events on the ground, and in particular Yanukovych adopting much of the worst feedback Putin gave him and ignoring some of the better ones to abandon the strategies that had gotten him to win the election.
Protip: If you have literally thousands of Rent-a-Protestors acting as mercenaries for decades (some basically their entire lives) throughout Ukraine and especially in major cities like Kyiv, you have thousands of possible assets you can bid on with your opponents (as we know both sides did). But the problem with issuing unconstitutional decrees clamping down on free speech and freedom of expression is that in addition to being evil, looking evil, and making your name mud to the person on the street, *It pushes those Rent a Protestors from a market you could recruit from if you had enough dirty money and into a captive audience for your enemies while making yourself compromised for future impeachment by betraying your oath.*
Nuland and many other globalists come across as sinister geniuses in popular stories because they are sinister, corrupt, and were playing the field, but also because they simply made fewer and less glaring mistakes than Team Yanukovych did. In part because they were making fewer actions because of how secondary they were. Which is also why most accounts of “VIctoria Nuland in the Phillharmonica with the Berkut Issue Sniper Rife” tend to mention talking about a cabinet headed by “Yats” and the overlap between what actually happened and the ministers she suggested, but pointedly IGNORE both the ministers that were different from what she wanted, AND the fact that that “Yats” cabinet collapsed in a manner of months and a different one had to be rebuilt from scratch that she liked even less.
Part 2
To what grudging credit I will give Nuland and co, it seems like while surprised and not very in touch they DID react better than Yanukovych and co, hence things like the umpteenillion dollars being funded to train “activists” in “computer literacy” over in Poland. But they weren’t sinister masterminds pulling puppet strings, they were sinister midwit minds pulling a tug rope trying to herd cats while being continually outmaneuvered by events on the ground, and in particular Yanukovych adopting much of the worst feedback Putin gave him and ignoring some of the better ones to abandon the strategies that had gotten him to win the election.
Protip: If you have literally thousands of Rent-a-Protestors acting as mercenaries for decades (some basically their entire lives) throughout Ukraine and especially in major cities like Kyiv, you have thousands of possible assets you can bid on with your opponents (as we know both sides did). But the problem with issuing unconstitutional decrees clamping down on free speech and freedom of expression is that in addition to being evil, looking evil, and making your name mud to the person on the street, *It pushes those Rent a Protestors from a market you could recruit from if you had enough dirty money and into a captive audience for your enemies while making yourself compromised for future impeachment by betraying your oath.*
Nuland and many other globalists come across as sinister geniuses in popular stories because they are sinister, corrupt, and were playing the field, but also because they simply made fewer and less glaring mistakes than Team Yanukovych did. In part because they were making fewer actions because of how secondary they were. Which is also why most accounts of “VIctoria Nuland in the Phillharmonica with the Berkut Issue Sniper Rife” tend to mention talking about a cabinet headed by “Yats” and the overlap between what actually happened and the ministers she suggested, but pointedly IGNORE both the ministers that were different from what she wanted, AND the fact that that “Yats” cabinet collapsed in a manner of months and a different one had to be rebuilt from scratch that she liked even less.
Duplicate comment 2, apologies.
Part 3
“which saw the bloody overthrow of the legitimate, mildly pro-Russian president Yanukovych by hard-core Nationalist forces definitely riddled with Neo-Nazis.”
Almost nothing in this comment is not a lie.
A: The overthrow of Yanukovych himself came from the Verknovna Rada, democratically elected and dominated by YANUKOVYCH’S OWN PARTY AND COALITION, when they summoned him to appear before them to answer questions about his cabinet’s conduct during the crisis (immediately after people-who-were-totally-not-Berkut-and-or-pro-Yanu-Spetznaz sniped dozens of people to death just a couple days ago). Yanukovych and his cabinet decided to flee rather than face the music.
B: The “hard core nationalist forces definitively riddled with Neo-Nazis” used less Nazi iconography than the supposedly legitimate government led by such lovely people as Yerimenko, who helped distribute accusations that Euromaidan was a Jewish plot and who had his goons engage in pogroms against Ukrainian Jews, only for the government to change midway through and decide to instead claim Euromaidan was a Jewish-Nazi plot, complete with produced documentation about it.
There were and are certainly neo-fascists among the Euromaidan coalition. I’ve talked quite a lot about them, and they are almost as repulsive as you’d think. Unsurprisingly most of the people blaming Nuland for this and regurgitating Kremlin propaganda have little idea of who they are or how many they were, much like those regurgitating globalist propaganda do (indeed, they’re often LESS informed).
And it’s grimly amusing to me to see just like how many supposedly proud anti-fascist leftists will bend over backwards to make exceptions for the likes of Svoboda, to see how many supposedly rock ribbed anti-socialist conservatives who are supposedly oh so concerned about a “Ukrainian Nazis” in Euromaidan are utterly silent about Comrade Yerimenko and the strong NatBol and more conventional pro-Nazi anti-Bandera sentiments in the Yanukovych cabinet.
“That American Neocons like Victoria Nuland -”
There were and are plenty of bad Neocons – looking at you Cheneys. But Nuland wasn’t one of them. Nuland was a disciple of famously pro-socialist, pro-Soviet, and pro-Putin Talbott Strobe and was an early Obama Acolyte.
Part 4
“were actually on the ground in Ukraine at this time cheering-leading this overthrow tells you all you need to know. ”
No it doesn’t tell you all you need to know, as shown by the lack of knowledge of the history. They were on the ground in Ukraine at the time cheering, but they weren’t leading the “overthrow.” Indeed, they had spent good taxpayer money trying to prevent the election of many of the people that actually “overthrew” Yanukovych after he fled, because they came from WITHIN HIS OWN COALITION and State Department’s globalists – being the utter morons they were – could not think of much more beyond messaging and funneling resources to the same parties and leaders without reaching out.
“She was even caught in a bugged telephone conversation discussing who should be the new leaders of Ukraine with the then American Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. ”
This is absolutely true, as I mentioned before, though more in a wishcasting/”can we make this happen?” way rather than Xi’s “Comrade So and So is going to retire.”. What tends NOT to get mentioned is how while “Yats” did indeed become Prime Minister of the caretaker government and several ministers Nuland pushed for in the cabinet didn’t get in.
And then that the entire cabinet collapsed under its own contradictions and the stresses of preparing for snap elections to make a new government, leading to a second one being consisting of people Nuland liked even less.
“The bottom line is that this Neocon metamorphosis of Ukraine had long been a deep state project, promoted in tandem with other Western powers’ elites.”
True enough, and even before and separate from “Neocons.” In part due to there being significant sentiment in Ukraine that was irritated at Moscow treating it like literal second class humans and neglecting the interests of even those most inclined to be pro-Russian like the Donbas miners.
“Before one could hardly bat an eye, suddenly in post-Maidan Ukraine,”
What you’re “conveniently” ignoring is that those CIA listening posts and US funded biolabs had popped up in *PRE-Maidan Ukraine.* CIA listening posts had been present in Ukraine since before Stalin died, as we know from declassified documents from both sides of the Cold War, and some got reshuffled and legitimized after Ukrainian independence.
Part 5
(Cont)
But US funding for biolabs was inked in 2008 at the very latest, under Yanukovych’s predecessor and rival Yuschenko, probably in order to do biological research in a corrupt or unethical fashion outside of close oversight by the legislature. Which is bad enough. But it’s still a full half a decade before Euromaidan. And when Yanukovych came in to power, he continued the previous policies, meaning that he and Putin knew full well what was going on in these labs and they weren’t “bioweapons.” Nor did Putin allege these labs were being used as such at the time, in part due to him knowing better than most that their facilities weren’t useful for them, and in part because he had no good explanation for A: How he couldn’t have known in a famously corrupt country with many spies in it and with Russian Fed scientists periodically visiting the Biolabs, or B: If he did know how he didn’t say anything until 2022.
“Of course, the Western Media went into overdrive to brand any news of this as “Russian” propaganda, the same media which had been also gaslighting us into believing that Trump was a Russian puppet.”
Indeed, which also underlines how utterly, psychopathically dishonest and STUPID the MSM and the Obama-Biden regime could be, even when it was not to their benefit. If they had any sense whatsoever, they’d have slapped Putin upside the head with the documents we now have (and often had AT THE TIME), pointed to the dates and a basic chronology, and publicly humiliated the Russian government for lying about what went on there and how it and its former golden boy Yanukovych had control over the biolabs where the mythical “Anti-Slavic Genetic Bioweapons” were supposed to be.
But that would have meant admitting USAID and the like did an end run around Congress and engaged in lobbying and unethical research sourcing that if not outright illegal was still corrupt and unprofessional. Which was a great gift to Putin’s regime because rather than yet more grey area grift that would probably go unpunished, Nuland etc. al.’s stupid and easily debunkable lies became a humiliation that distracted from the Kremlin’s somehow even dumber and even more easily debunkable lies.
Part 6
It also underlines how psychopathically stupid, dishonest, and incompetent the Russian Dictatorship is even when it has no good reason to lie. Had it limited itself to pointing out the fact that Nuland and co had helped do an end run around Congress by outsourcing supposedly important research and dangerous (because you don’t need to be planning to weaponize the kind of laboratory materials and substances there in order for them to be dangerous) substances to a corrupt third world country, they went mad and blathered a lot of obvious horsedung about biological weaponry, anti-Slavic bioweapons (that can’t exist yet under science and which Putin and Yanukovych and so on were apparently chill having present in Ukraine).
“And for eight long years, Putin and Russia had to deal with this radical Ukrainian regime that began relentlessly oppressing and then militarily attacking ethnic Russian Ukrainian citizens who wanted no part of this new “order”.”
Oh yes, poor Putin, he was just FORCED to invade Crimea and the Donbass with state sponsored terrorists under false flag in 2014, lie about it (unconvincingly), and jury rig bogus elections.
Except no.
Firstly: there was no one “radical Ukrainian regime.” First there was the Yatsenyuk caretaker cabinets (both of them) that the invasion began under, which were meant to be stopgaps to organize new democratic elections. Then there was the “radical Ukrainian regime” of Chocolate King Petro Poroshenko, who “allegedly” never fully divested from Russia. And who the Russian dictatorship extended full diplomatic recognition to in spite of Yanukovych still being in exile on their turf and the obvious political issue of Putin occupying larger chunks of Ukraine and fighting a war. Then Poroshenko went up against Zelenskyy and was beaten.
Secondly: Even many of the resident actual Neo-Fascist goons were Russophone ethnic Russians, who for obvious reasons could not ethnically cleanse ethnic Russians for fear of friendly fire or being purged themselves. They had some cabinet positions but were minority members in the “radical Ukrainian regime”, even before they made the terminal mistake of resigning from cabinet and embarrass their non-fascist coalition members. Which backfired utterly and saw them be reduced to a single Legislative Member.
Part 7
(Cont)
Also, while there were “Pro-Russian” citizens, and even some that wanted to be directly annexed to Russia, armed separatism was vanishingly rare. We now know the FSB and GRU had to outright arm and coach the most organized and numerous among them – the “Crimean Self Defense Units” – since they were used to picketing their opponents and getting into fisticuffs or molotov throws with other civilian punks like them, NOT full scale combined arms. Moreover, armed separatism only kicks off after the traceable arrival of a bunch of “Little Green Men” from Russia proper, now acknowledged to be Russian Federation military troops by Putin in Crimea, even if he denies that was so in Donbas. In spite of the obvious similarities and how his lie is exposed by the tracking of people like Girkin and Utkin, as well as the testimony of several of the Russian-regime-tied condottieri.
They were the primary drivers of the violence, as they perfidiously attacked Ukrainian government positions and the military that had remained in barracks precisely to avoid abuse of their power against protestors like the Maidanites and anti-Maidanites. This was also shown by DIVISION LEVEL ARTILLERY FIRE BEING SHOT OVER THE BORDER as picked up by multiple satellites, including the US’s forest fire detection system.
Now, far be it for me to claim that the Ukrainian Loyalists never committed atrocities (some of the scumbags have even documented themselves doing so). They did. If the world was just Gaidar and Tornado would be even more infamous than Azov is, with similar “standing” to Rusich and just below Wagner and the Kadyrovsty. But those atrocities were not against “Russians” per se, and not on ethnic lines. In sharp contrast to the occupation governments working hard to destroy the idea of a separate Ukrainian nationality or culture on the territory they controlled.
“Meanwhile, Ukraine was being transformed by the West into Battleship Ukraine,”
That’s ironic considering the closest thing Ukraine actually had to battleships were captured early on in 2014 by Russian Federation Sailors and GRU Spetznaz without resistance, peacefully protesting. even as at least two of their compatriots on land were killed and the rest kidnapped in addition to several civilians deemed opposed to the Kremlin’s military rule and rigged elections also were publicly disappeared or dropped as dead bodies, a bloody foretelling to come.
Part 8
It’s also amusing how you pointedly ignore the now undeniable admissions by the Russian government of Russian Federation military forces in both Crimea (coming from Putin’s own mouth) and the Donbas (through things such as leaked court reportings and tracking equipment) in 2014. And the Minsk Agreements.
” and pushing for NATO membership, which Putin openly told Biden was an absolute red line for him. ”
Yeah well Putin told the exact opposite to the Ukrainian government earlier with the Russo-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty of 1997 and the Astana Declaration.
In case you haven’t noticed, Putin lies a lot. No wonder he and the globalist left get along so well until they fight over territory like rival street gangs.
Moreover, the reason Ukraine pushed for NATO membership was because its constitutional neutrality *WAS REWARDED BY BEING INVADED AND PARTITIONED WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION OR EXCUSE BY A RUSSIAN DICTATORSHIP THAT WOULD NOT EVEN CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY OR ANY OF THE EXCUSES AT THE TIME THAT YOU ARE TRYING TO ATTRIBUTE.*
Any question why it would seek to join NATO after that?
And in any case joining NATO would be a pipe dream due to the rules it has against accepting members with ongoing territorial disputes. Which putin forced.
“Biden dismissed Putin’s warning, so Putin launched his Special Military Operation.”
Which even on the face of it is illegal. Again, the Russo-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, the Helsinki Final Act, the Astana Declaration, and all others affirm the right of Ukraine to join any alliances it wishes, including none. That includes NATO.
Meaning even this stated, inaccurate, BS “stopping NATO expansion bruh” excuse is utterly immoral, illegal, and perfidious.
Moreover, I find it amusing how you’re jumping right from Obama to Biden, while ignoring Trump. Trump also sought good relations with the Kremlin, but he did not accept their pretenses or attempts to dictate to him. Which is why he unfroze lethal aid that Obama had frozen and sent it to them (funny how you don’t mention that) and upheld the right of the US and NATO to conduct their affairs as they wish, and for Ukraine to do the same.
And that strength and competition helped deter Putin.
Part 9
“This escalating conflict soon transmuted, not merely into a proxy war between NATO and Russia, but into a real war between the United States-led West and Russia, with the former providing every possible facet of war-making capabilities except for the bulk of army grunts. ”
Not really. There’s a reason why pro-Ukrainian partisan ops are still going on in Crimea even more than a decade later.
“That’s been Ukraine’s job, to provide endless meat for the meat-grinder, ”
Which Ukrainians have mostly accepted due to the alternative being things like Bucha or the Maidan Square Sniper Massacre that I’m sure was committed by CIA Trained Georgian Mercenaries led by a Neo-Fascist Street Brawler, and not by Yanukovych’s own death squads like the Alfa unit or Berkut whose standard issue rifles were the murder weapons.
“although we know that Western forces, either as mercenaries or as “in-country assets”, have indeed been fighting (and dying) too.”
“We know” says the person who didn’t know USAID funding of dubious medical research under the lax, corrupt Ukrainian system predated Maidan and reached its zenith under Yanukovych with Putin’s approval.
“We know” says the person who will not admit what even Vladimir Putin has about the deployment of Spetznaz from the Russian Federation under False Flag to Crimea.
“We know” says the lying fool trying to ignore most of a decade, four changes of Ukrainian government, three different US Presidencies, Minsk I, and Minsk II in an attempt to absolve the Kremlin and its state sponsored terrorists of blame.
Ok, How do we “know”?
“This is Project Ukraine, a Western-Globalist Neocon fever-dream to damage if not destroy Russia, bankrupt morally, militarily, financially and economically, and ultimately capable of sparking World War III.”
Let me get this straight. “Project Ukraine” headed up by Western Globalist Neocons under the anti-Neocon Obama forced Yanukovych the convicted mobster and failed vote rigger from the Orange Revolution to defeat the US’s preferred candidates in an election by election promises, break those election promises, organize murders and rapes of protestors, and get ousted by his own party.
And they “forced” Putin to invade with the intention of dismembering Ukraine under false flag and pretenses.
At what point is the Kremlin responsible for its own crimes?