Why Russia Won’t Invade Ukraine, but is Still Winning
John Morgan2,533 words
There are many reasons why I’m glad to not be living back home in America right now, and one of them is that I no longer have to listen to the American mainstream media — and worse, those normies who parrot their views in everyday conversations. I’ve been seeing that the alleged “crisis” between Ukraine and Russia has been a big deal in the American media for weeks now, but I wasn’t taking it seriously given that no one was talking about it where I live, which is in a country that borders on Ukraine, until recently at any rate — mainly because, as usual, Americans are compelling the rest of the world to buy into their own hysteria.
Even though some discussion of it is now taking place in Europe, however, my overall impression is that few people here, apart from America’s lackeys among the elites and especially in the typically russophobic countries such as Sweden, Poland, and the Baltics believe that a new war is actually imminent. But given that, judging from what I see in the US news, war hysteria there has reached a pitch that I haven’t seen since the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and which some are claiming is the most hysterical America has been since the Cuban Missile Crisis, I figured it was time to offer my own perspective to try to calm things down a bit — for those who will listen, at any rate.
Obviously there is an ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine between Ukraine, which is backed by NATO, and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which are backed by Russia, and there has been for nearly eight years now. That’s beyond dispute. What is ridiculous is the idea, which is circulating widely in the mainstream media and at a fever pitch, that President Vladimir Putin is on the verge of launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine all the way to Kiev — and presumably on to Lviv in the west.
This is ridiculous on its face, because if Putin actually wanted to conquer Ukraine, he wouldn’t have to invade. All he’d have to do is turn off the electricity, gasoline, and natural gas supplies that Russia sends there — and which account for approximately 80% of their supply. In the middle of winter, that would get the job done rather quickly. Moreover, he could have done this at any time in the past eight years, since the conflict started.
It’s true that Russia has positioned approximately 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Russian-allied Belarus, and has stationed some of its naval forces off Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. What the Western media fails to mention is that this is nowhere near adequate to mount a full-scale invasion of the country. Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe after Russia itself. It consists of 233,062 square miles of territory and has a population of over 44 million. For comparison, Iraq consists of approximately 168,753 square miles of territory (about 75% the size of Ukraine) and in 2003 had a population of 25 million. The US and its “coalition of the willing” invaded Iraq in March 2003 with a force of 310,000 troops. The initial invasion was indeed over in less than a month, but then the US and its allies found themselves bogged down in a brutal guerrilla war that only ended nearly nine years later when the US decided to withdraw. (And even today, the war still isn’t really over, of course.) Ukraine would therefore be an even tougher nut to crack, even with three times the number of troops Russia currently has deployed.
And if 100,000 soldiers sounds like a lot, bear in mind that they’re strung along a border that is 1,400 miles long — or slightly less (by 150 miles) than the distance from London to Moscow. And that’s not counting Ukraine’s border with Russian ally Belarus — an additional 700 miles.
Thus, Putin and his generals surely understand that it would take a lot more than 100,000 troops to subdue Ukraine — especially given that an important difference between Ukraine today and Iraq in 2003 is that Saddam’s Iraq was internationally isolated, whereas Ukraine is being backed by NATO and other powerful allies. And while the Ukrainian military is no match for Russia’s, and there may indeed be a lot of Ukrainian citizens sympathetic to Russia in the east, the western part of the country is implacably hostile and would undoubtedly give Moscow as much of a headache for years to come as the Iraqis gave Washington — and they could count on NATO support, as well. Not a pretty prospect.
The truth is that Putin is too smart to invade, and not only because of the strategic problems I’ve mentioned above. The fact is that Putin doesn’t want to deal with the international backlash, which would be considerable, nor does he want to deal with all the problems that would ensue from a costly invasion followed by having to govern an impoverished, corruption-riddled, and divided country. Economically speaking, Ukraine is to Russia roughly as Mexico is to the US. The per capita GDP of Russia in 2021 was $29,485, whereas in Ukraine it was $4,958. For comparison, America’s in 2021 was $74,725 and Mexico’s in 2020 was $10,405. Russia’s standard of living is therefore approximately seven times that of Ukraine, and the US’ is approximately seven times more than Mexico’s. For Russia to absorb Ukraine into itself would therefore be akin to attempting to incorporate a Third World state into its body.
It should now be obvious why there’s much to lose and little for Russia to gain by attempting to outright conquer Ukraine. Much more likely is that Putin is hoping to maneuver things in order to put a more Russia-friendly government back in power there — something that could very well happen given that many experts believe that the Ukrainian government as it currently stands is bound to collapse on its own sooner or later, anyway, due to internal pressures, corruption, and general incompetence. His deployment of forces along the Ukrainian borders is probably intended to put pressure on Kiev, to send a warning signal regarding the country’s possible accession to NATO, and also to provoke a reaction from the West — but more on that later.
I can add that, according to friends I have spoken to in Ukraine, the media there has not been reporting on the alleged “crisis” at all, which is an odd thing if there is indeed an imminent all-out invasion. As was widely reported even in the US media two weeks ago, even Ukraine’s President, the democratically elected Volodymyr Zelensky — who is literally a Jewish comedian –, argued on the phone with Biden when the latter warned him of an impending assault by the Russians. It’s rather confusing when even the people and leaders of the country you claim you desperately want to save insist that they don’t need saving.
The question is therefore why Washington is trying to foment the idea that war is imminent. One reason is likely that Biden and his people know full well that nothing dramatic is going to happen. Just about everything Biden has attempted to do over the past year has failed miserably, and he’s pretty desperate for a win now that his popularity is in the toilet. Thus, when there is no attack on Ukraine, he can take credit afterwards for having “stood up to Putin” and averted a catastrophe by claiming that he intimidated the Kremlin into standing down.
It’s even likelier, however, that Washington is manufacturing a crisis in order to distract from other issues and to try to manipulate its allies into doing its bidding. One reason for this is the fact that Russia has been pressing the US to address threats it perceives to its security. While it is not known exactly what Russia’s demands are, the fact that the Kremlin has been attempting to gain concessions and guarantees from the US has been widely reported in recent weeks. It’s not a great mystery as to what these demands probably are, however. Moscow certainly wants to pressure the US into withdrawing its anti-ballistic missile forces from Poland and Romania — practically in Russia’s backyard. It may also be that they are asking the US to remove the nuclear weapons that it maintains in Germany and Turkey, which are a stone’s throw from delivery to Russia, making the Russians extremely vulnerable to a first strike. From Russia’s point of view, these deployments threaten the nuclear balance of power that has been maintained since the end of the Cold War, given that Russia currently maintains no military forces in close proximity to the United States.
Further, it is no secret that the Kremlin has long wanted a guarantee that Ukraine will never be admitted to NATO, given that this would bring American forces right to their front door. Russia’s demands are understandable if one considers what the American reaction would be if the government of Mexico were announcing its intention of entering into a military alliance with Russia, that would in turn allow Russian forces and perhaps even nuclear weapons to be deployed just over the border from California, Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico. One only needs to recall Washington’s reaction when the Soviet deployment of nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba in 1962 was discovered, which could not exactly be called measured and restrained. So it may be that Washington is attempting to obscure Putin’s actual demands by drowning them out with talk of an imminent all-out invasion.
I should mention that for its part, the Russian media is also predicting war, but coming from the opposite direction. Just today, the Russian parliament asked Vladimir Putin to recognize the breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine. This was done because Moscow has been accusing Kiev of failing to abide by the Minsk Protocol, which was signed in 2014 in an attempt to resolve the conflict by getting the post-Maidan government to offer certain guarantees to the republics. Additionally, Moscow says that Kiev has been massing forces of its own near the breakaway republics, not as a defensive measure but as preparation for an all-out assault in the event that Putin does indeed extend official recognition to them. War scares can work both ways, you see.
Another factor is that Washington desperately wants to find a way to disrupt the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and more generally the increasingly warm relations between Berlin and Moscow. Nord Stream 2 will massively increase Russia’s capacity to deliver its natural gas to Germany, and from there to the rest of Europe. Washington is terrified that this will increase Russia’s influence in Europe and make it more difficult to persuade its European allies to stand up to the Kremlin when demanded. And if Germany, as the powerhouse that drives the entire European Union, continues cozying up to the Russians, this will leave America in a much weaker position in a region that it has considered part of its own sphere of influence since the end of the Second World War. Viewed from a Rightist perspective, however, splitting Europe off from the US and putting it in an alliance with conservative Russia is far preferable to the current order of things, where the cradle of our civilization has been reduced to little more than an American colony.
If Washington’s intention was to use the Ukraine crisis to weaken Russia’s position in Europe, however, it has backfired considerably. The reactions among most of Continental Europe’s NATO member states have ranged from skepticism to outright refusal to support the alliance in the event of war. Croatia has threatened to withdraw its forces from NATO entirely if the conflict with Russia escalates into a shooting war. Hungary stopped short of making such a bold statement, but said that its support for Ukraine could only be “limited” given the post-Maidan government’s mistreatment of its Hungarian minority, and also refused Biden’s offer to deploy 1,000 troops there as a defensive precaution. But worst of all for Biden, the prize itself, Germany, has declined to send weapons to Ukraine despite requests to do so, and moreover has remained noncommittal about cancelling Nord Stream 2 in response to the alleged Russian hostilities despite Joe’s insistence that it do so.
At this point in the game — which admittedly isn’t over yet — the winner is clearly Vladimir Putin, given that he has exposed the weaknesses and divisions within NATO and shown the world that America’s own allies will not simply follow like lemmings when it tries to drag Europe into a conflict with Russia. There has also been speculation that Washington has been hoping that by blowing the Ukrainian situation up into a full-blown crisis that it could intimidate Moscow into pulling its forces back from the Ukrainian borders. They have also failed to achieve this objective thus far. The fact is that America is much weaker today than at any other time since the Second World War and is now considered to be in decline by the rest of the world, as has already been shown in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and Putin is more than happy to be the one who exposes these new realities for all the globe to see.
If there is a war, it will come as a result of American aggression, not Russian. Washington of course would love to see Russia embark on a reckless adventure in Ukraine, because this might again drive Europe back into their camp, enable new sanctions against Moscow, and possibly lead to the end of Nord Stream 2. It may be that the US is in fact trying to provoke Russian intervention in the breakaway republics, and perhaps even Crimea, using Ukrainian forces as a proxy with the intention of presenting a Russian military response as “Russian aggression” and using it as a pretext to attain these goals. Only time will tell. Putin is shrewd, but it is still possible for Washington to force his hand, since it is unlikely he could afford to do nothing if NATO tries to reverse his gains in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. The breakaway republics offer a guarantee that Ukraine will not be admitted to NATO, since NATO would never accept Kiev’s membership for as long as there is an ongoing conflict there, and Crimea is of vital strategic importance to Moscow. Thus, while the game is so far playing out in Putin’s favor, it’s still possible for Washington to turn the tide.
For those who dream of a world liberated from the designs of the American elite, we can cautiously say that this seems to be a good development, at least so far. The Russian government is not the savior of Western civilization that it is made out by some to be, but we should still welcome this development as a challenge to globohomo’s grip on the world. And as for Ukraine, they should finally stop allowing themselves to be used as America’s pawn, get out from under NATO’s shadow, and actually begin acting in their own interests again rather than allowing Washington to continue fighting Moscow to the last drop of Ukrainian blood.
I would like to credit Russia commentator Valery Morozov for inspiring some of the points that I have discussed.
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28 comments
Russia knows that for every unit of power (legitimacy, energy, money) on Ukraine that they can make NATO expend at least ten times as many units because they will invariably freak out. Despite how NATO has more resources than Russia, Russia will still win this battle of attrition in the long run. It doesn’t help that NATO has internalized a lot of its anti-Russia hysteria.
This is also a golden opportunity for the trucker convoys to take off in America because then the regime will have both a domestic and a foreign crisis to handle at the same time. Thankfully this finally seems to be happening sooner rather than latter.
I second your hope for a serious trucker convoy in the US. I’m from a family of truckers in the Northwest. I’ve been glued to YouTube following it from Moscow.
Spot on! This seems to fit the mood here in Moscow. Ukraine is so desperately broke it’s unreal. An American man can get married there in a heartbeat, obviously not for love. People are desperate to escape, especially from the rural areas. Russia simply can’t afford to invade or absorb Ukraine, which has fallen into disrepair. The Soviet Ukrainian SR was a lot richer and influential in its day. Communism still sucks it goes without saying. Ukraine has a big hole to dig itself out of. I hope some positive changes in the right direction happen there soon.
If we for a moment can become agnostic to whatever political ideas might be in fashion in Kremlin (probably none, Kremlin is notoriously anti-sentimental), Russian attitude deserves respect, for they refuse to frame the dialog in any other way but as a matter of security, whereas the West wont ever get tired of nauseating farce of ‘equal rights’, ‘Helsinki principles’ and other high-sounding, convoluted claptrap that cant fail to inspire contempt in just about everyone. This is a classic Melian dialogue scenario.
As long as we’re slinging hot takes around, my own reading of Ukraine is that it’s Russia’s Texas, a region of great romantic significance to Russian history, but with its own distinct cultural heritage and ethnic element, sadly with an incomplete ethnogenetic process due to being sandwiched between great imperial centres. In the Texan case, between English and Spanish America, in the Ukrainian, between Moscow, Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin and Istanbul.
Maybe, but only Russia killed so many millions “incomplete” ukrainians. And usualy in the most horrible ways.
Even when allied with Russia, the Cossaks suffered greatly. Building Sankt Petersburg on freezing marshes and dying by the tens of thousands, or simply getting their last sich bombarded by their Russian orthodox brothers.
Unfortunately it was enough one stupid, no matter how brave, leader to distroy his people for hundreds of years. Bogdan Hmielnitski, brave but so utterly wrong. At least he had the dignity to write about his mistakes, on his death bed.
If Russians and Ukrainians were the same people how can you explain the 300 years of massacres and genocide? Why was that necessary?
Was Texas ever under the menace of genocide? Were they robbed by the federal government by their food and left to die and canibalize each other? Was every farmer in Texas killed and their small kids left to die from hunger or simply hanged for “vagabondage”?
Are you sure you really know what are you talking about?
I don’t claim Russians and Ukrainians are the same people. All I’m pointing out is that Texas and Ukraine are in similar positions relative to the surrounding imperial centers.
No, they are and were not, ever!
The good news is that the Russians are getting bored and are selling fuel and parts for booze. The window of oportunity has closed.
Putin and his extremely competent shaman Shoigu must be very proud.
Shoigu is a big Tuvanian mysticist. No joke: he quite seriously sees himself as reincarnation both of Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, the White Guard hero of the Russian Civil War, and of Prince Kül-Tegin or Kultigin, the great Batyr and commander of ancient Türks in the 8th century.
Russians and Ukrainians are not the same peoples. They just have been packed together in one Empire, Empire which was called Russian, but actually was a German semicolonial administration. We cannot call the different peoples of one Empire the same people, as we cannot say that Hindus or Maoris are the English, because they have been subjects of the British Empire.
There is a suggestion, that the Russians are majoritally slavized eastern Fins and partially Balts, the Ukrainians are (in the East, South and Center) the slavized descendants of the so-called horseriding peoples, both Iranoaryans like Saks/Scythians, Sarmatians/Alans and Türkic like Avars, Hazars, Bulgars, Bechineks, Kiptchaks and Tatars. The western Ukrainians are partially Thrakyans. The Ruthenes of Trans-Carpathia are western Slavs, and not ethnically Ukrainians. The Russian Slavs were the Slovenians of Novgorod, Ladoga and Pskov (Pleskow), but the majority of them were holocausted by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century, the rest are Pomors on the costs of the White Sea. The aborigines of both countries have embraced new similiar language, but biologically and racially they are different.
As a kid I read some Tuvanian legends… literature from the Big Brother. If he thinks that he’s the reincarnation of those heroes he might be crazy enough to kill Putin. Or start a nuclear war. White race saviours…
Who knows.
Why not have the USA politely decline to remain in NATO? They can then deal with Russia directly and for their own benefit. There is no benefit to the USA to remaining tied to it. We could choose to join a fight or not. Maybe Ukraine falls. Maybe we take our missiles home from Turkey and Germany. Maybe Russia gets aggressive. With no NATO treaty binding action, there is far more insecurity for Russia. But it’s their fight and not ours. I would certainly welcome Ukrainian women here. A nice upgrade from the usual refugees.
What is the main export of USA? Food, software, airplanes?
No. They are important of course, but the main export of USA is safety. Safety from Russia, and China mainly. This is why everybody is so eager to by American bonds and armament, but especially bonds.
Without an US led NATO, Europe with all its resources will get under the dominance of a psychopathic clique from Moscow. What do you think it will happen?
1.Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and a bunch of smaller companies will get a devastating hit.
2. The American bonds will get junk status. Good luck with that.
3. Europe will see USA as a traitor and a liar and you will be the most hated bipeds on the entire planet.
4. When Russia will control almost the entire planet, by itself or together with China, what do you think it will happen? When nobody will trust USA? But everybody will hate your guts?
This NATO dissolution is not only dangerous, and utterly stupid. It is pure Russian propaganda.
And besides some dark waters fishermen like Viktor Orban and his propaganda machine nobody thinks that this is a good idea. Viktor Orban is daydreaming how will occupy Subcarpathia and Transylvania. It will not happen.
Now get a grip: Brandon won, Putin lost. It will be no full scale war. USA is still the greatest and mightiest country on Earth.Thankfully!
‘It will be no full scale war. USA is still the greatest and mightiest country on Earth.Thankfully!’
Hey Marco Rubio, is that you?
Read carefully what I wrote before that. Seems you swallowed the Russian propaganda entirely.
Who is that Rubio guy?
LOL! (laughing loudly)
Marco Rubio is a Cuban-American Senator from Florida. Not too awful in overall Senate voting, but a total neocon. Wants US to fight for “democracy” everywhere across the planet, but God forbid we should build a wall to secure our own Third World border.
Democracy can not survive in a racial diverse society.
That wall Trump didn’t build is as necessary for USA as it is for every South American country. How Mexico, Peru or Guatemala are to become stable and democratic while all the gangsters can roam freely, do business and launder money?
I understand that Rubio guy hates democracy, hates freedom, hates America. He should go back to Havana and fight for his people. They need him.
I would add that Russia already has 140 million people, many of whom are poor, that there are no jobs for many, and that the provinces are largely in decline. So adding another 30 million equally poor, and even poorer people, with even more backward infrastructure, and even hostile, Putin would hardly have had a desire.
Additionally, Moscow says that Kiev has been massing forces of its own near the breakaway republics, and they claim that this is a preparation for an all-out assault in the event that Putin does indeed extend official recognition to them.
As far as I know nobody in Ukraine want and will attack the “breakaway republics”, because in case of war it would bring big sacrifices on both sides. And if for Russia the loss of five thousand people would not be of great importance, then for Ukraine the loss of even 50 soldiers would already cause a shock. In addition, contrary to the rhetoric of the Ukrainian authorities, not the entire population of Ukraine wants the return of these territories. Many believe that it would be better for Ukraine to leave them alone, and think, that it would be better for Ukraine to live without them, as with them, because of hostile position of the population there, if only the leadership of the republics and Russia behind them did not try to expand their territory by force. Also they think it would be reasonably to do somethink like that, what de Gaulle did with Algeria. However, state propaganda does not allow statements of this kind. As in Russia, in Ukraine you can quite free criticize the president. But if in Russia one cannot speak publicly about the revision of the history of the Second World War or criticize the annexation of Crimea, then in Ukraine one cannot deny Russia’s participation in the conflict in the Donbass or offer to give up the lost territories. These are the taboos that restrict freedom of speech, and therefore it is impossible to tell from the outside what Russians and Ukrainians really think about the political situation.
And as for Ukraine, they should finally stop allowing themselves to be used as America’s pawn, get out from under NATO’s shadow, and actually begin acting in their own interests again rather than allowing Washington to continue fighting Moscow to the last drop of Ukrainian blood.
Likewise, Ukrainians should not be drawn into any alliance with Russia against their will. Ukraine could well maintain friendly relations with other countries such as Turkey, Azerbaijan, Qazaqstan. As far as Europe is concerned, neither Russians nor Ukrainians are Europeans, and, well, Europeans should not interfere in their affairs.
For anything related to this I think the best sources are: smoothiex12.blogspot.com , moonofalabama.org, and The Duran YouTube channel.
This is the best article I’ve read on the Ukraine crisis so far. In particular, the argument about Russia’s ability to bring Ukraine to its knees simply by cutting off the gas and oil supplies is absolutely plausible.
What happened!?
Spent over 2,000 words writing something that isn’t true.
I never claimed to be able to see into the future. I don’t want to say anything about what’s happening in Ukraine right now yet, because I don’t have any better idea of what’s going on than anyone else outside of the Kremlin at the moment. I was obviously wrong that Putin wouldn’t invade the entire country, but it still seems that he’s not planning to annex the entire country, only to disable the Ukrainian military and occupy the eastern provinces, which was my main point in this article. But I’m not sure of anything at this point, so even that could end up being incorrect.
It’s okay to be wrong. I just don’t understand why so many white nationalists love to defend Putin. Like my friend said: “Nothing based about a country that has no freedom of speech and attacks other Europeans over a power trip.” You go to Unz or Counter Currents, it’s always the same thing. Not a bad word against him. Always some kind of justification. Sometimes makes me think Russia sponsors it or there is some inherent bias.
He never wanted Ukrainian neutrality. He wants Ukraine under his control with a pro-Russian puppet government installed. He wants to avoid the “neighborhood effect” where his own neighbor looks politically free in comparison to his authoritarian rule.
I’m not sure where you got the idea that Counter-Currents is a pro-Putin site. If you read most of the articles in the archive about Russia and Ukraine, nearly all of them are written from an anti-Putin and pro-Ukrainian perspective. I admit that, having witnessed the outcome of the Maidan revolution in Ukraine over the past 8 years, I am politically more sympathetic to Russia (“freedom of speech” for the LGBTQWERTYUIOP crowd and such is not a priority for me), even if I am not “against Ukraine” or opposed to sovereignty for those parts of Ukraine that are not ethnically Russian. I may be the only Counter-Currents writer who is, actually. But I don’t know how you could say that this article was pro-Putin. I didn’t write it to be pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian, I just presented the facts as I understood them at the time, as should be clear from the tone it’s written in. And I still maintain that in the end the Russians will not annex the whole of Ukraine, and this was the main point of this article, even if I didn’t anticipate how hard and deep Putin would go in to realize his demands. If you look at where Russian ground troops are currently engaged, it’s in only a small percentage of the country overall, and there are none in western Ukraine so far. It’s not at all clear that Putin’s goal is to take over the entire country and make it part of Russia. Only time will tell what will happen, but as I wrote above, 170,000 troops or whatever is not enough to occupy the entirety of a country the size of Ukraine. Given Washington, NATO, and Kiev’s refusal to negotiate with Moscow on any of their points, the Russian reaction is an understandable one, even if tragic.
I only saw the new ones published in Unz, and none of them were critical of Putin.
You’re a good writer, and I grant that your article isn’t overtly “pro-Putin.” But my point was that your sympathy to Russia put a blinder over your eyes, which is why you made the argument that Washington was creating a false narrative about him wanting to invade. Biases like these can prevent people from seeing what’s really going on.
Putin is saying that the whole of Ukraine is illegitimate – that there is no historical basis for their national identity. He said the same about Kazakhstan (that it never had a national identity before 1991, which isn’t true). If you follow this hint, you can see what his next moves might be.
Okay, you may be right about Unz, but your claim — “You go to Unz or Counter Currents, it’s always the same thing. Not a bad word against him. Always some kind of justification. Sometimes makes me think Russia sponsors it or there is some inherent bias.” — is demonstrably false about CC.
“You’re a good writer” — Thanks.
“But my point was that your sympathy to Russia put a blinder over your eyes” — Many commentators besides me didn’t anticipate this move by Putin. Even in Ukraine up until the day of the attack, many Ukrainian politicians were skeptical about the possibility. The man who gave me several of the points that I reiterated here, Valery Morozov, was a Russian whistleblower who had to flee the country after he exposed corruption in the government around the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, so is not someone who is inclined to be sympathetic to Putin. Besides which the experiences of the past couple of decades haven’t exactly given me much faith in the CIA’s claims about anything.
“Putin is saying that the whole of Ukraine is illegitimate – that there is no historical basis for their national identity.” — This is a common viewpoint in Russia, not only Putin’s. But for me the issue isn’t about history, it’s about current reality. For Ukraine to be allied with Russia is a better option than being allied with NATO, the EU, and the US when looked at from a genuine Right-wing perspective, for many different reasons. Russia is no Right-wing utopia but it would be a better guardian of the Ukrainian ethnos than Western globohomo, which destroys everything it touches. We only have to see the effect that the West has had on Ukraine just in the last 8 years to see an indication of what would happen going forward. The small nationalist groups in Ukraine have been talking about a “third way” between Russia and NATO, Intermarium, and so on for 8 years now, but all I see in reality is total submission to globohomo while people on both sides are dying for the sake of NATO. And if you look at the performance of the Right-wing parties in the two post-Maidan elections, where collectively they won votes only in the low single digits, this doesn’t suggest to me that many Ukrainians believe in the vision they’re offering. This means there aren’t any viable options for an independent Ukraine. Hopefully in the long run this war will lead to a better situation for both nations.
because I don’t have any better idea of what’s going on than anyone else outside of the Kremlin at the moment.
Did you mean the details? I found this:
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/how-is-patrick-lancaster-the-only?utm_source=url
By the way, Celia Farber was onto the AIDS scam more than 25 years ago with her series of articles in Spin magazine.
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