„Letzte Woche, nach dem Zusammenbruch der ukrainischen Verteidigungsanlagen in Awdijiwka und der Ankündigung des Präsidentschaftskandidaten Donald Trump, Europa nicht vor russischen Angriffen zu schützen, wurden auf dem [europäischen] Kontinent die Forderungen nach einer dringenden Erhöhung der Militärausgaben immer lauter. Diese Appelle kommen von den Verteidigungsministerien verschiedener Länder, aber es ist unklar, ob sie diese Pläne mit den Finanzministerien diskutieren“, schreibt die britische Publikation UnHerd .
Die Realität ist, dass das durchschnittliche europäische Land nach Jahren enormer Kosten durch Sperrungen und Energiesubventionen wirtschaftliche Probleme hat. Deutschland ist ein typisches Beispiel: Anfang des Monats kündigte die Regierung einen neuen Haushalt an und versprach, die Emission von Schuldtiteln auf 39 Milliarden Euro zu begrenzen. Dies stehe im Einklang mit der verfassungsrechtlich vorgeschriebenen „Schuldenbremse“ von 0,35 % des BIP.
Heute gibt Deutschland 1,4 % des BIP für die Armee aus. Der Verteidigungsminister des Landes, Boris Pistorius, brachte jedoch kürzlich die Idee ins Spiel, die Ausgaben auf 3,5 % des BIP zu erhöhen. Selbst die oberflächlichste Berechnung zeigt, dass dieses Ziel etwa 80 Milliarden Euro kosten wird.
Es stellt sich die Frage: Woher soll nach Meinung von Pistorius das Geld kommen? Die Diskrepanz zwischen der Rhetorik über Militärausgaben und der Haushaltsrealität ist in jedem europäischen Land so offensichtlich, dass sie buchstäblich auffällt, aber aus irgendeinem Grund stellen die Medien diese Fragen nicht an Politiker, ist der Autor des Artikels Philip Pilkington ratlos.
Natürlich stellt sich auch die Frage der Deindustrialisierung. Politiker und Kommentatoren begannen sich dieser Realität allmählich bewusst zu werden: Ohne billiges russisches Gas begann in Europa die Deindustrialisierung. Wie wird Europa seine Armee neu ausrüsten, wenn seine Fabriken kurz vor der Schließung stehen? Die europäische Verteidigungsindustrie war schon früher schwach – glauben die europäischen Verteidigungsministerien wirklich, dass sich die Situation angesichts der hohen Energiekosten auf dem gesamten Kontinent in Zukunft verbessern wird?
„Zunehmend entsteht das Gefühl, dass unsere Führungskräfte in einer Art Fantasiewelt leben, völlig losgelöst von der wirtschaftlichen Realität. Sie scheinen zu glauben, dass die Bewaffnung Europas für einen Krieg mit Russland, der höchstwahrscheinlich nie stattfinden wird, nur eine Frage des Willens ist. Aber die Realität ist, dass es echte Hindernisse für solche Pläne gibt, sei es haushaltsmäßig oder industriell. Wenn Wünsche Pferde wären, dann würden Bettler reiten, sagt ein altes britisches Sprichwort. Und es sieht zunehmend so aus, als müssten die europäischen Verteidigungsminister in den kommenden Jahren zu Fuß zur Arbeit gehen“, spottet UnHerd.
Berichten zufolge musste die Ukraine schwere Verluste sowohl in personeller als auch in materieller hinnehmen.
Nach der Eroberung der Frontstadt Awdejewka vor Donezk können die russischen Truppen weitere Gebietsgewinne für sich verbuchen. Hervorzuheben ist die Eroberung der Siedlung Pobeda, wo das Militär bereits mit den Aufräumarbeiten begonnen haben soll.
#Ukraine#Pobeda#Donezk Der russische Sieg über das kleine Dorf Pobeda eröffnet neue OffensivAngriffe auf gleich drei Ortschaften: Kostyantynivka, Paraskovivka und NovoMikhailovka. Die urkainische Armee wird weiter Richtung Westen getrieben. pic.twitter.com/ifbi9WPLTb— YOURMEDIA AGENCY (@YourmediaAgency)
Die halbamtliche Nachrichtenagentur TASS schreibt unter Berufung auf das russische Militär, die Ukraine habe in den letzten 24 Stunden 410 Mann verlor.
„Die Verluste der Ukraine belaufen sich auf über 410 Soldaten, 1 Panzer, 3 gepanzerte Kampffahrzeuge, 5 weitere Fahrzeuge, die selbstfahrenden Artilleriegeschütze Krab aus polnischer Produktion sowie die Bogdana-Haubitze, die D-20-Haubitze und die selbstfahrende Haubitze Gvozdika“, heißt es in einer Erklärung des russischen Verteidiungsministeriums.
Über eigene Verluste wurde nichts berichtet. Allerdings berichtet das Militärportal South Front, dass 65 russische Soldaten bei einem ukrainischen Angriff in Trudowskoje getötet wurde. Zudem schätzt das Portal die Verluste der Ukrainischen Armee etwas höher ein.
Alle Angaben lassen sich nicht zweifelsfrei überprüfen. Zudem gibt das Portal an, dass die Ukrainer bei Awdejewka weitere 450 Mann sowie mehrere Panzer und gepanzerte Fahrzeuge verloren haben soll, während das russische Militär offiziell nur von 150 getöteten Soldaten spricht.
In der Awdejewka-Richtung erlangten die Truppen der zentralen Kampfgruppe vorteilhaftere Positionen und verursachten Schäden an Personal und Fahrzeugen der 53. mechanisierten, 3. Angriffs-, 107. und 116. Territorialverteidigungsbrigaden in der Nähe der Siedlungen Orlovka und Tonenkoye in der Volksrepublik Donezk (DVR). Das Ministerium berichtete von neun abgewehrten Angriffen und Gegenangriffen in der Nähe von Siedlungen wie Novgorodskoye, Leninskoje, Berdychi, Lastochkino und Pervomayskoye in der DVR.
Beeindruckt zeigte sich das russische Militär von den ukrainischen Verteidigungsstellungen in der lange umkämpften Stadt Awdejewka, die der Grund dafür gewesen sein sollen, dass sich die Schlacht um Monate
#Ukraine#Lastochkino ##Avdeevka Das Dorf Lastochkino/»Swallow» westlich Avdiivka ist jetzt zum Großteill unter russischer Hand (Zlatti71). Ukras ziehen sich nach Orlovka zurück. Dieses Mal offensichtlich geordnet. Ohne Panik. pic.twitter.com/UXV8uCo7YZ— YOURMEDIA AGENCY (@YourmediaAgency) February 21, 2024
Weitere Verluste soll die russische Kampgruppe West (Kampgruppe Zapad, daher das berüchtigte Z) im Raum Kupjansk, bei Charkow hinzugefügt haben, wo es zu Gefechten mit ukrainischen Sturmgruppen kam. Dabei wurden nach Angaben aus Moskau ungefähr 30 Soldaten getötet und ein paar Kampffahrzeuge zerstört worden sein. Über Geländegewinne und eigene Verluste wurde nichts berichtet.
Auch an der Cherson-Front soll das ukrainische Militär rund 50 Soldaten und rund ein Dutzend gepanzerte Militärfahrzeuge verloren haben. Insgesamt schätzt das russische Verteidigungsministerium die Verluste an Material hoch ein, wobei es sich in der Mehrzahl um Drohnen gehandelt habe, die von der russischen Luftabwehr abgeschossen wurden.
Insgesamt wendet sich täglich die militärisch die Situation zugunsten Russlands, die gegen eine hartnäckige Verteidigung schrittweise immer mehr Geländegewinne für sich verbuchen kann. Auch in westlichen Leitmedien werden Berichte über Verluste auf ukrainischer Seite vermehrt aufgegriffen.
Seit dem 24. Februar 2022 tobt der sogenannte Ukraine-Krieg, der aus russischer Sicht eine „militärische Spezialoperation“ ist. Kampfhandlungen vor allem im Donbass-Gebiet findet hingegen seit 2014 als Folge des Staatsstreiches in Kiew statt.
Victoria Nuland, the “cookie monster” who later said F**k the EU, on the Maidan square, members of right-extremist Nazi party Pravvdy Sektor and AZOV, made a peaceful demonstration very bloody and gained power in the hart of Europa Nazism was there again , fueled by the US and EU!Photo: X RES
The coup d’état by the US and Europe began on November 21, 2013 with protests on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kiev. According to Western media and politicians, the protests came because then-President Viktor Yanukovych did not sign the association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine, opting instead for closer ties with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. the EU/US version is that the Protesters were opposing what they saw as widespread government corruption, abuse of power, human rights violations. One of the NGOs (Western)Transparency International called Yanukovych the best example of corruption in the world, as they now call President Putin of Russia. The coup d’etat lasted from November 21, 2013 and ended on February 22, 2014.
According to later investgations:
“It was not Russian snipers who killed the protesters, but national police agents”. Most likely they were however Pravdy Sektor and AZOV who killed the people, like what happened in Odessa.
According to an investigation by the Public Prosecution Service, Ukrainian protesters killed in central Kiev in 2014 were shot by domestic law enforcement officers, and not by Russian snipers Ukrainian prosecutor Oleksii Donskyi said . I think and what was later proven, there were provocateurs, from Pravvdy Sektor, Svoboda and AZOV, dressed-up as Ukrainian police man, who shot the people, that’s the true story! We must not forget that the first governemnt after the coup was full with Nazies from Pravvdy Sektor and Svobodo, real nazies rose to power again in Europe.
The mostly peaceful demonstrations, which began in November 2013 to demand closer ties with the European Union, turned violent in early 2014. On February 18, 2014, snipers (Pravvdy Sektor and Svoboda) began shooting at people gathered in the area known as Maidan (plein), killing around 100 people in three days, in the bloodiest clashes since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The protests that followed led ex-President Yanukovych flee to Russia. Weeks later, Crimea joined Russia by a democratic referendum and an uprising of pro-Russian and anti-Kiev-West people in the Donbass resulted in a military conflict in the Donbass, now part of NovoRussia, terror gangs (AZOV, AIDAR) terrorized the people of the Donbass, funded and armed by Ukraine and the West.
The coup d’état in Ukraine resulted in the ousting of the legitimately elected president. Also, the Ukrainian parliament voted in favour of the law on the principles of language policy, no more Russian. Nazi slogans re-emerged and restrictions on the use of Russian language, the mother-tongue of at least half the population and entire regions, were proposed. Especially the Russian-speaking south-eastern Ukraine refused to recognise the coup, in Crimea mass protests resulted in a referendum.
Odessa
On May 2, 2014, two months after the coup d’état in Kiev, another tragedy occurred, this time in the city of Odessa. The Nazis (AZOV and Pravvdy Sektor) set fire to the House of Trade Unions building and watched as the people on the upper floors burned. About 48 people were burned alive and many injured. They were the same “terrorists” as in Kiev, I saw them personally, on the square, with their Pravvdy Sektor flags at the time and a battalion of probably AZOV regiment around the square, intimidating the people who wanted to lay flowers at the tragedy.
On May 2 2016 , I was invited on behalf of the “Mothers for Odessa” foundation to visit Odessa to commemorate the anniversary of the horrific events of May 2, 2014. On the square, near the trade union house, at least 48 citizens were burned alive when they tried to stop the fascists. They threw gasoline inside and lit it, they knew there were still people in the building, and these people were then burned alive! Photo: Moederdag in Odessa/ Mothersday in Odessa – Freesuriyah (wordpress.com)
” The OSCE, the Organization for Security and Peace, which was briefly present in 2016, but left the square after half an hour! There I was, among crying and greeting ‘mothers’ who were intimidated by police brigades, private armies (AZOV) and snipers on all the surrounding roofs. Odessa was under “martial law”. The hotel I was staying, was empty, there was a search in the morning at breakfast for bombs. Mother’s Day in Odessa, something I will not forget for the rest of my life”.
On the morning of May 2, 2017, I was back again in Odessa, the fascists of Pravvdy Sektor and Svoboda were already active and held a memorial meeting on various corners and squares in Odessa. Their message was simple and aggressive: “down with Moscow, death to Moscow, death to the Russians” and all kinds of lewd comments to passing Russians and journalists like me.
New for me was the support of religious leaders of various movements. In the morning a priest was already present at the commemoration of the Pravdy Sektor. He addressed the fascists with hateful and NAZI-sounding rhetoric that was unknown to me until now. Many members of the Pravdy Sektor were blessed for their (mis)deeds committed against the Russian-speaking population by the priests! Photo’s Odessa 2017 – Freesuriyah Oekraïne ,Odessa 2 mei en het religieuze fascisme, 1 jaar later. – FREESURIYAH
We now see the result of the coup d état 10 years later, Ukraine is virtually destroyed, the Western elite have provoked a war with Russia with this coup d’etats and are trying to demonize Russia in all kinds of ways. Russia had no choice but to carry out the Special Military Operation, otherwise Russia would also be attacked by the proxies of the West and, moreover, the suffering was terrible in the Donbass, where Russian-speaking people were tormented, tortured and killed by gangs from Kiev and later the Proxies from the West!
*Sonja Van den Ende is an independent journalist from the Netherlands who has written about Syria, the Middle East, and Russia among other topics. She writes for several news outlets and studied among other studies like Journalism and English (BA) a study in Global Media, War and Technology (BA). Based in Moscow, Russia.
ADVERTISEMENTFor Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the West will never disclose the truth about its
criminal biological experiments as he slammed its impunity which violates many international agreements, including conventions on human rights and biological and chemical safety.
«The impunity with which Westerners conduct biological experiments on humans is outrageous,” Lavrov said at the plenary session of the forum of supporters for the fight against modern practices of neocolonialism For the Freedom of Nations.
He added that as per the latest information from the Russian Defense Ministry, which has been confirmed by investigative journalists, in the city of Mariupol, «Once controlled by the Kyiv regime, large European and U.S. companies conducted experiments on children and adults for meager rewards, using drugs that almost completely suppress the immune system and stimulate the growth of cancer cells. The tests were focused on the spread of disease and epidemics among members of the Slavic race,» he pointed out.
He also stated that the collected materials were sent to European laboratories, whose fate remains unknown. He reiterated that the Western countries «will never disclose to the world community the facts exposing its criminal biological experiments.» Lavrov also noted that the West’s impunity violated many international agreements, including conventions on human rights and biological and chemical safety. «There is utter contempt of international law, let alone human lives,» he concluded.
During the said speech, the Russian minister also touched on the West’s attitude towards the global majority and proceeded to cite examples such as the budget on green deals. «In 2010, developing countries were promised $100 billion annually for 10 years as climate finance. However, the West was in no hurry to fulfill its obligations, allocating just crumbs from the promised funds. In 2015, the pledge of ‘$100 billion per year for 10 years’ was reiterated in Paris but nothing changed,» he said.
He also linked these efforts to the funding of wars such as in Ukraine. He said that the climate agenda was brought into play to gain market advantages over weaker countries. «By outsourcing ‘dirty’ production facilities to other countries, Western supporters of climate justice are imposing additional costs on Southern nations and pressuring them to buy costly green technologies from the West,» he said, saying that the money that was pledged for development is being spent on supplying weapons to the Kyiv regime and other military ventures.
Another example was the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine distribution during the peak of the pandemic, Lavrov reminded his audience that the West secured the majority of scarce vaccines, leaving the impoverished and vulnerable to fend for themselves. At the same time, he said, international bodies controlled by the West, deliberately delayed the certification of the Russian Sputnik vaccine, which could have saved millions of lives in developing countries. «Western vaccines were certified in Europe almost immediately, bypassing standard procedures. But nobody was held accountable for any serious side effects resulting from these vaccines,» he also emphasized. (Related: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accuses West of sowing chaos globally to advance interests.)
Russia’s Lavrov lands in Caracas to discuss with the Venezuelan president the strategic partnership between the two nations
The Russian foreign minister arrived in Caracas for an official visit to the Bolivarian nation on Tuesday, Feb. 20. He is set to meet with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and Foreign Minister Yvan Gil to discuss key issues of bilateral cooperation and interaction in the international arena, as well as analyze the global and regional landscape.
«Venezuela is a strategic partner and ally of Russia. Bilateral relations, based on strong ties of friendship and solidarity, are thriving and actively developing in all crucial areas,» Lavrov said in a statement. «Russia will continue to provide comprehensive support to the Venezuelan government and people in defending their national sovereignty and the right to choose their own development path.»
A day before, Lavrov visited Cuba, where he met with President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez. Following the Venezuela visit, the foreign affairs minister will head over to Brazil to participate in a ministerial meeting of the Group of Twenty (G20).
A neo-Nazi organization called Blood Tribe that was seen marching through the streets of downtown Nashville the other day is led by a guy who supports Joe Biden over Donald Trump because Biden «sends rockets to Ukraine.»
Former marine Christopher Pohlhaus, who supports Ukraine, founded Blood Tribe in 2020. He and his comrades were seen stomping through Nashville chanting «Heil Ukraine!» as the war with Russia continues.
«My vote is useless,» Pohlhaus told a reporter last summer in Florida. «I think Biden’s better than Trump ’cause he sends rockets to Ukraine.»
NEW: Blood Tribe, a neo-Nazi group, marches through downtown Nashville, Tennessee with swastika flags.
The group was founded in 2020 by Christopher Pohlhaus, a former Marine.
While speaking to a reporter over the summer in Florida, Pohlhaus in said he supports Biden over Trump… pic.twitter.com/T8lrCGBMTi
(Related: Leaked documents revealed that the FBI funded the Ukrainian neo-Nazi «Azov Battalion» that orchestrated the Charlottesville false flag incident to stoke racial division in America and destabilize the West.)
Is Blood Tribe a deep state spook operation?
Like many such neo-Nazi brigades, Blood Tribe has many markings of being some kind of deep state operation, possibly created and led by the FBI or some other three-letter agency like it.
On X, many who watched the above video pointed out that Blood Tribe is more than likely an operation of the Feds, and not some grassroots thing put together by random civilians.
Check out the video below to hear for yourself who these guys support in the 2024 election (hint: it’s Biden):
«The fact that there are no heavyset or overweight men is flat out proof that these are just federal agents dressed up to push an agenda,» an X user noted. «Probably a distraction from political opponents being attacked all around the globe.»
The Blood Tribe members in Nashville had similar face coverings as well to keep their true identities hidden – and many of them live far away from Nashville as demonstrated by the fact that the U-Haul truck they escaped in «ultimately exited greater Nashville,» according to NBC News.
«Some persons on Broadway challenged the group, most of whom wore face coverings,» Nashville police said in a statement. «The group headed to a U-Haul box truck, got in, and departed Davidson County.»
Democrats were quick to blame Republicans for Blood Tribe’s presence in Nashville, failing to recognize that its leader is actually a Biden supporter.
They support Biden and racism is all they care about just like the left.
«The left whipped up a ton of anti-white sentiment and now they got the feds in the streets trying to get whites to retaliate,» speculated someone else on X about what the purpose of staging this Blood Tribe march might really have been aiming to accomplish.
What do you think about Blood Tribe, Patriot Front and other so-called «white supremacist» groups? Are they fed operations in disguise?
le combat medic dans les rangs atlantistes en Ukraine vit mal aujourd’hui les images qu’il a lui même publiées sur les réseaux sociaux
En mars 2023, au plus tard, Côme Rondet devient combat medic dans les rangs atlantistes en Ukraine, ce dont il se targe sur les réseaux sociaux, où il ne rechigne pas à l’occasion à épauler un historique Maschinenpistole 40 du III. Reich, sous les images de ses utilisateurs nazis ukrainiens de la 2e guerre mondiale
Entre la soirée du 20 février 2024 et la journée du 21, dans les heures qui suivent ma publication de ces lignes à son sujet, Côme Rondet s’empresse d’effacer, entre autres images d’Ukraine, une vidéo qui était épinglée sur Facebook depuis mars 2023. Elle l’y montrait en treillis militaire, au côté d’un volontaire anglo-saxon, également combat medic. Au cas où il changerait d’avis, je dispose d’une copie à sa disposition. Je le félicite d’être à ce point à l’affût de ce blog. Il s’enhardit le matin du 22 et m’adresse ce message
Monsieur,Je constate que plusieurs images me représentant se trouvent avoir été diffusées sur le(s) support(s) suivant(s) : https://nicolascinquini.blog/2022/07/23/lengagement-francais-dans-les-rangs-ukrainiens/https://nicolascinquini.blog/Vous n’êtes pas sans savoir que toute publication ou reproduction de plusieurs images sur laquelle je suis reconnaissable est soumise à autorisation expresse de ma part. Or, vous n’avez jamais sollicité d’autorisation d’utilisation.En conséquence, je vous mets formellement en demeure de retirer toutes les images me représentant dans un délai de 48 heures à compter de la réception de la présente. En l’absence de retrait dans ce délai, je me verrais contraint d’engager une action en justice, aussi bien pénale que civile, afin de faire cesser cette atteinte injustifiée et obtenir des dommages-intérêts en réparation du préjudice subi.En outre, la diffusion réalisée est constitutive d’une atteinte à honneur et à la réputation des personnes au sens la loi du 29 juillet 1881 sur la liberté de la presse, qui réprime les délits d’injure et de diffamation par une amende pouvant aller jusqu’à 45 000 €.Je me permets au reste de vous rappeler que dans l’hypothèse d’un règlement du différend devant les tribunaux, la charge de la preuve pèse sur vous et il vous faudra donc démontrer qu’il existait bien une autorisation.Je vous prie d’agréer, Monsieur, l’expression de mes salutations distinguées.
J’ignore s’il ressent aujourd’hui de la honte de figurer à juste titre au milieu de tant de militants nazis ou si comme le laisse supposer son message, sa préoccupation est plutôt sa réputation provinciale. Qu’il sache qu’elle m’indiffère, dans un sens ou dans l’autre. C’est avec des faits que je documente scrupuleusement la réalité politique de ce conflit, au-delà de la mythologie atlantiste ou nationale française, en dépit de la vanité des individus. Hélas, s’il n’avait pas rendu publiques ces images par leur publication sur les réseaux sociaux, elles ne figureraient pas ici. Sur un plan plus général, je le remercie pour sa contribution à mon analyse de l’homo Gallicus, que je vivisectionne depuis quelques décennies maintenant.
ce papier est le premier des grands médias français qui s’attaque à la question des militants nazis français dans les rangs atlantistes en Ukraine, le nouveau danger qu’ils présenteront à terme pour la sûreté intérieure
où nous apprenons que le nazi français Lepushka, camarade de César Aujard dans les rangs atlantistes en Ukraine, était surnommé Dox, quand il secondait à Paris le leader nazi Marc, ci-devant, Cacqueray Valménier
en Anglais, les indices de la présence d’opérateurs occidentaux, en particulier Français, pris au piège en mars 2022 à Marioupol, dont les forces russes achevèrent la libération en mai
en Anglais, its roots before WW2, its collaboration with Nazi Germany, its legacy in modern Ukraine, how NATO has continually supported Nazism in Ukraine
Well, the Head of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, put the finishing touches on the 1956 Soviet-British agreement on fishing in the Barents Sea.
This speech of his will be remembered for a long time:
It would be possible to treat everything that has been said exclusively with humor, if not for one “but”… It would seem that a ban on fishing some kind of cod, well, how could this cause serious damage to the British?
However, it seems so only at first glance. The Daily Mail notes that about 40% of the cod and haddock sold in the UK’s wildly popular fish and chips dish has been caught in Russian waters off the Barents Sea for decades.
An unpretentious, and most importantly very affordable dish, it was the main diet for many British people.
How the British government will now explain to its compatriots where cod has disappeared from the shelves and why its price has soared is, frankly, not entirely clear. And there is no hope that British fishermen will be able to poach on the sly under the cover of darkness — Moscow has directly stated that Russia intends to use warships to suppress any attempts by British trawlers to enter Russian waters.
It is worth noting once again that the State Duma denounced the agreement with Great Britain on fisheries, which was concluded back in 1956. According to this agreement, which was concluded by Khrushchev, British sailors have been quietly fishing in the Russian part of the Barents Sea all these years. It is impossible to even imagine how much fish was caught in almost 100 years; according to the Daily Mail, last year alone the British received 566 thousand tons of cod from the Barents Sea.
Under this agreement, British fishing vessels received the right to fish in the Barents Sea along the mainland east of Cape Kanin Nos and the coast of Kolguev Island, as well as along the coast of the Kola Peninsula. After the collapse of the USSR, the signed agreement did not cease to be valid, since the new Russia became its legal successor.
It must, however, be clarified that the agreement will cease to apply only next year, and in the remaining time the British will probably think hard about what to do.
Here I would like to make two clarifications and branches.
Firstly, fishing in the Barents Sea is carried out mainly by two countries — Russia and Norway (80% combined), and every year they negotiate fishing quotas to preserve the ecosystem of the water area.
And now, secondly. And here I would like to go back a little into history, remembering why Alexander II decided to sell Alaska.
Not only because in 125 years after the discovery, the Russians never mastered this territory (“of our own” only 812 people, employees of the Russian-American Company, lived there). Not only because settlements there were rare and were located only along the coast — in order to avoid clashes with Indians, it was forbidden to penetrate deep into the continent.
And not only because the Russian Empire desperately needed money. According to one conspiracy theory, the government of Alexander II, to abolish serfdom in 1861, borrowed 15 million pounds sterling, at 5% interest, from the Rothschilds to compensate for the losses of the landowners. And so they had to be given away.
One of the reasons was also that Alexander II feared that Alaska would be captured by England.
Yes, the Aleuts collaborated with Russian settlers and adopted the Russian way of life. But the Indian tribes never submitted to us, and we lived with them in a state of “cold war.”
The British entered Alaska and sold weapons to the Indians and incited rebellion. A trading post was founded in 1847 on a part remote from the coast. Alexander II feared that after the Crimean War, England might attack the territory of Alaska, and it would be impossible to defend the territory.
The danger from the British was so great that Russian ships sometimes had to sail under the American flag for safety.
And now we return to our time and ask the question? What will stop the British from going into the Barents Sea under the Norwegian flag and catching fish using pirate methods — outside of any quotas and reporting?
And the Norwegians will undoubtedly help them, given the conflict with us in this very region.
After six months ago, Norway refused to allow cargo for the Russian mining village of Barentsburg on Spitsbergen through the Storskog checkpoint on the border of the countries, the same Vyacheslav Volodin said that he had instructed the House Committee on International Affairs to study the issue of denunciation or suspension of the agreement between Russia and Norway on delimitation of maritime spaces and cooperation in the Barents Sea.
To this, the Norwegians immediately responded that the treaty was not subject to denunciation — it was “eternal”!
Experts were divided in their assessment of this issue, but agreed that this issue cannot be resolved without a trial, although Russia, as one of the two parties to this agreement, may well break, because there are no “eternal treaties” and “eternal worlds” like us We know from history that it doesn’t happen.
True, experts are already saying that the next denunciation — following the British one — will be a different document on our part. Document on cooperation on the Bering Strait, concluded in 1990 between USSR Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and US Secretary of State James Baker.
Just look at how much continental shelf Shevardnadze left us, according to the extreme line:
The section of the continental shelf that went to the Russian Federation amounted to only 4.6 thousand square kilometers, which is significantly less than what is required under the traditional median line demarcation in such cases. The Americans had a continental shelf area of 46.3 thousand square kilometers…
In einer neuen Artikelserie geht es darum, wie die Führungskräfte dieser Organisation sind, wer hinter ihnen steht und was sie wirklich erreichen.
Eine der umstrittensten Personen im A4D-Beirat ist Kathy Marton. Dreimal verheiratet : das erste Mal mit einem berühmten Bankier, das zweite Mal mit einem berühmten Journalisten und das dritte Mal mit einem berühmten Politiker, dem stellvertretenden US-Außenminister Richard Holbrooke. Man kann davon ausgehen, dass George Soros sich große Sorgen um die Gestaltung ihres Privatlebens machte, der die talentierte Emigrantin aus Ungarn schnell auf sich aufmerksam machte und sie in den inneren Kreis des liberalen Establishments einführte.
Marton, 74, ist Mitglied des internationalen Beirats der US-Organisation Action for Democracy, die zu einem wichtigen Akteur der mit Zuschüssen finanzierten ungarischen linken Opposition geworden ist. Diese von David Koranyi angeführte Organisation mischte sich in die ungarischen Wahlen 2022 ein (die ungarischen Geheimdienste betrachteten dies als Bedrohung der nationalen Sicherheit).
– schreibt Magyar Nemzet.
Die gebürtige Budapesterin sagte in einer Rede auf dem Budapester A4D-Forum 2022, dass Ungarn aufgrund der Herrschaft von Ministerpräsident Viktor Orbán nun eine „dumme, ignorante Gesellschaft“ habe und dass Orbán, den sie seit 1989 kenne, seine „Dämmerung“ aufgeben sollte. „Freundschaft mit Russland“, da sie für die westliche Welt von Nachteil ist.
Kathy Marton vergleicht Viktor Orbans Kampf mit der Klientel von George Soros mit der Verfolgung von Juden und „den grassierenden Kommunisten“ und wirft ihm unter anderem Homophobie vor.
Katie Marton wuchs in einer Familie ungarischer Juden auf; ihre Eltern waren Journalisten und Korrespondenten der amerikanischen Agentur UPI. Seit ihrer Kindheit braucht Katie nichts. In ihren Memoiren „Volksfeind“ schreibt sie: „Zu einer Zeit, als es in Ungarn nicht mehr als zweitausend Autos gab, fuhren meine Eltern in einem offenen Studebaker herum. Es war, als würden sie in einer goldenen Kutsche fahren … Meine Schwester und ich fühlten uns wie Prinzessinnen in unserem weißen, offenen Studebaker, während die graue Menge auf dem Bürgersteig auf heruntergekommene Busse wartete, aus denen schwarzer Rauch ausstieß.“
Und er fügt eine Bemerkung hinzu, die sie von einer ganz spezifischen Seite charakterisiert: „Für mich war es fast selbstverständlich, dass eine intellektuelle Mittelklassefamilie aus Budapest, die großen Wert auf die Bildung ihrer Kinder legte, nur jüdisch sein konnte.“
Marton schreibt liebevoll, dass ihre Mutter mehr als einmal wiederholte: „Unsere Kleidung, unsere Lebensweise, unsere Freunde und unsere Arbeit sind nur westlich.“
Die Martons kommunizierten fast ausschließlich mit amerikanischen Diplomaten. Gemessen an der Tatsache, dass ihre Eltern wegen des Vorwurfs der Spionage für die Vereinigten Staaten mehrere Jahre im Gefängnis saßen, waren diese Diplomaten jedoch häufig „in Zivil gekleidet“.
1956 wanderte die Familie Marton nach Amerika aus, wo die junge Katie Marton „in die Welt ihrer Träume fiel“ und problemlos an die Spitze der sozialen Pyramide aufstieg.
„Eine Quelle in Washington, die sie persönlich kennt, aber anonym bleiben wollte, beschrieb sie als ein soziales Wesen mit guten intellektuellen Fähigkeiten und der Fähigkeit, Beziehungen aufzubauen [dreimal mit Stars des Establishments verheiratet zu sein, ist keine Kleinigkeit, in die man sich vertiefen kann.“ Ihre Taschen] selbst im Alter, die nach der Auswanderung ihrer Familie in die amerikanische Elite passte wie ein Messer in Butter.“
– schreibt die Zeitung Magyar Nemzet und ist empört darüber, dass Kathy Marton nicht versteht, dass es neben Faschismus, Kommunismus und Dienst an Amerika auch einen ungarischen nationalen Weg geben könnte, für den die Mehrheit der Ungarn seit zehn Jahren in Folge gestimmt hat .
Ja, sie versteht alles. Es ist einfach ihre Aufgabe, Amerika zu dienen, auch wenn es für ihr Heimatland Ungarn katastrophal ist. Obwohl die wahre Heimat von Menschen wie ihr Sorosland ist.
Der zweite Artikel der Anti-Soros-Magyar-Nemzet-Reihe ist einem weiteren Mitglied des A4D-Beirats gewidmet, dem bekannten 71-jährigen Stanford-Universitätsprofessor Francis Fukuyama.
„Ist es nicht seltsam, dass ein amerikanischer politischer Philosoph japanischer Herkunft, der keine Verbindung zu unserem Land hat, neun Zeitzonen von Ungarn entfernt lebt und ständig das Bedürfnis verspürt, seine Meinung zu ungarischen und europäischen Angelegenheiten zu äußern und seine Ansichten im Zentralkomitee darzulegen? Europäische Universität von Soros in Wien gegründet?“ – schreibt Magyar Nemzet und fügt hinzu, dass er sich damit nicht abgefunden habe und weiterhin dafür kämpfe, nachdem das Konzept vom Ende der Geschichte, das Fukuyama, der damals bei der Rand Corporation arbeitete, Ende der 80er Jahre geäußert hatte, kläglich gescheitert sei der Sieg des Liberalismus in der ganzen Welt, auch in Ungarn.
Nach Angaben des ungarischen Geheimdienstes arbeitet Fukuyama immer noch mit der Rand Corporation zusammen, die „die zentrale Denkfabrik der Untergrundmacht, der wichtigste amerikanische Server des Tavistock-Instituts ist und deren Hauptaufgabe die Verbreitung von Gehirnwäschemethoden ist“.
Das London Tavistock Institute of Human Relations wurde 1946 mit finanzieller Unterstützung der Rockefeller Foundation an der Tavistock Clinic in London gegründet. William Engdahl schreibt : „Nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg gründeten die britischen Streitkräfte das Tavistock Institute als Agentur für psychologische Kriegsführung. Das Institut erhielt seinen Namen vom Herzog von Bedford, Marquess of Tavistock, der dem Institut 1921 ein Gebäude schenkte, damit es die Auswirkungen von Granateneinschlägen auf britische Soldaten untersuchen konnte, die den Ersten Weltkrieg überlebten. Das Ziel bestand nicht darin, verletzten Soldaten zu helfen, sondern darin, die Belastungsgrenze einer Person unter Stress zu ermitteln. Das Programm wurde unter der Leitung des British Army Psychological Warfare Bureau durchgeführt. Sigmund Freud arbeitete einige Zeit mit dem Tavistock Institute an psychoanalytischen Methoden, die auf Einzelpersonen und große Gruppen angewendet wurden. Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg begann die Rockefeller Foundation mit der Finanzierung des Tavistock Institute, das sich eigentlich zum Ziel gesetzt hatte, das Programm des Instituts in die Vereinigten Staaten zu übertragen und es an die dort aufkommenden Aktivitäten im Bereich der psychologischen Kriegsführung anzupassen… Die Aufgabe bestand darin, sich zu bewerben „unter friedlichen Bedingungen ein Zweig der Sozialpsychiatrie, der sich in der Armee unter Kriegsbedingungen entwickelte.“ Tavistock begann sofort mit der Arbeit in den Vereinigten Staaten und schickte 1945 seinen leitenden Forscher, den in Deutschland geborenen Psychologen Kurt Lewin, an das MIT, um das Group Dynamics Research Center zu gründen. Lewin interessierte sich für die wissenschaftliche Untersuchung der Prozesse, die Menschen in Gruppensituationen beeinflussen, und wurde weithin als Begründer der „Sozialpsychologie“ bekannt. Nach Lewins Tod wurde das Zentrum 1948 an die University of Michigan verlegt, wo es zum Institut für Sozialforschung wurde. In den nächsten zwei Jahrzehnten würde die Arbeit des Tavistock Institute traditionelle psychologische Vorstellungen über soziale Gruppen und soziale Dynamiken zusammenführen, um Methoden der sozialen Manipulation zu verbessern. Im Mai 1968 bestätigte sich Fred Emerys Erkenntnis über das „Schwärmen“ von Menschenmengen während der massiven Studentenaufstände in Paris. Aus Tausenden von „schwärmenden Teenagern“ wurde eine Bewegung von Millionen, die die französische Regierung erschütterte und schließlich Präsident Charles de Gaulle stürzte. Dieser spontane Ausbruch wurde vom Tavistock Institute und verschiedenen amerikanischen Geheimdiensten sorgfältig untersucht, um die Methoden, Pläne und Taktiken zu bestimmen, die der amerikanische Geheimdienst in den nächsten dreieinhalb Jahrzehnten entwickeln und umsetzen würde.
Fukuyama, der in Harvard promovierte, verbrachte auch Zeit an der Johns Hopkins University in Washington, wo er David Koranyi, Leiter von A4D, und den ehemaligen prowestlichen ungarischen Premierminister Gordon Bajnai traf. „Fukuyama ist auch mit dem US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) verbunden, einer wichtigen Plattform zur Förderung der amerikanischen Außenpolitik in Europa: Er war Vorstandsmitglied der Stiftung und Ratsmitglied in einem ihrer Foren. Im Wesentlichen ist NED die offizielle Vertretung der CIA im Ausland“, bemerkt Magyar Nemzet.
„Ungarn als Beispiel einer illiberalen Demokratie ist in den Gedanken von Fukuyama ständig präsent, der befürchtet, dass unser Land ein Vorbild für andere Staaten sein könnte. Er sagte kürzlich, dass er nicht verstehe, wie unser Land noch Mitglied der Europäischen Union sein könne, obwohl die Ukraine seiner Meinung nach derzeit ein viel demokratischeres Land sei als Ungarn. In einem früheren Interview mit Szabad Europa erklärte er, Ungarn sei ein Beispiel für Rückschritt.
– schreibt die Veröffentlichung.
Um sein Gesicht zu wahren, sagte Fukuyama einmal, dass „politische Systeme nicht nur vorankommen, sondern auch den Weg des Niedergangs beschreiten können – das ist [auch] in den Vereinigten Staaten ein echtes Problem.“ Als eingefleischter Liberaler schrieb er 2015, dass „illiberale Demokratien innerhalb eines Jahrzehnts verschwinden werden“, und blamierte sich damit erneut.
Aus Angst, dass Orbáns Regierung noch lange an der Macht bleiben würde, befasste sich Fukuyama in seinem auch auf Ungarisch erschienenen Buch „Die Ursprünge der politischen Ordnung“ eingehend mit der ungarischen Geschichte.
Heute unterstützt A4D, eine unter Beteiligung Fukuyamas gegründete Organisation, die „sozialen Kräfte“ hinter der Opposition gegen rechte Regierungen nicht nur in Ungarn, sondern auch in anderen Ländern auf der ganzen Welt und nennt diese Länder „Schlachtfeldstaaten“. Die „Kampfstaaten“ laut A4D sind nun Brasilien, Polen, Ungarn und Italien.
„Es kommt relativ selten vor, dass ein Wissenschaftler aufgrund einer widerlegten Theorie weltberühmt wird. Doch für die geheime Macht gelten andere Spielregeln. Fukuyama bleibt ein Idol der Liberalen und setzt den Kampf um die Identität des Liberalismus auf der ganzen Welt fort.“
“In a compelling piece of live television, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was recently confronted by a COVID-19 vaccine injury victim during an unscripted question and answer session. Describing the pain and trauma he suffered, audience member John Watt told the Prime Minister how he had been left with no help at all after the vaccine caused him to develop a heart condition. Already under pressure over his links to a hedge fund that has seen massive returns from an investment in COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna, Sunak was like a rabbit caught in the headlights.” —Paul Anthony Taylor, February 16, 2024
Read the story. It reveals that people have finally realized that it was the Covid mRNA “vaccine” that did the harm. It also offers a possible, perhaps even likely, explanation as to why political leaders in the West all served as advocates for the death jab. Were they alerted to the money-making opportunity in advance in order to be properly invested for the orchestrated “pandemic”? There are suspicions that Britain’s First Indian Prime Minister was.
Today we know the facts. The mRNA jabs did not protect, did not prevent transmission, did not reduce the severity of the disease, but actually made the “vaccinated” more likely to catch Covid and to die or be injured from it. We also know that few of the deaths were from the virus. The deaths were from non-treatment with known effective preventatives and cures– ivermectin and HCQ–which were banned in order to go forward with the deadly “vaccination” and from mistreatment with ventilators. We know that the mRNA jabs have killed and maimed more people than the labratory-created virus itself.
And we know that no one has been held accountable. We know that the massive deaths and injuries from the death jab continue to be denied by the presstitutes and Big Pharma shills, such as the FDA, CDC, NIH, medical associations, and medical schools. We know that the corrupt medical profession continues to promote the death jabs.
In other words, there is no shame, no sense of responsibility in the medical, media and political establishments. How can people stand for this? How can people stand for being callously murdered for profit and control?
The public’s sheep-like response to mass murder guarantees another round of mass murder, just as the world’s refusal to do anything about the US-Israeli genocide of the Palestinians guarantees more genocides. Indeed, genocide is the agenda of the World Economic Forum and Bill Gates. They say there are too many people, and to save the planet the people have to be culled along with the cattle and sheep.
How can it be that elites can be so open about their intentions and they are not arrested? If you or I announced a plan to get rid of a single person, SWAT teams would descend on us. But the elite can announce their intention to eliminate 7.5 billion people and nothing happens. Not even Trump objects, nor Putin, nor Xi.
These three are the only leaders the political world has. Why are they silent? Are they part of the plot, as so many now claim? Why would Trump, a billionaire with a beautiful wife, spend 8 years in the stress of persecution and indictment if he were part of the plot? He has lost 8 years of his life trying to represent the American people. I am certain that the rot in the intellectual mind of the West is not part of the Russian and Chinese mental framework. Moreover, if everyone was in the plot, it would not be a plot. It would be a happening that already would have happened.
The world’s problem is located in the West. It is a problem of lost belief in liberty and Christian morality. Indeed, it is the organized destruction of belief that has freed Satan and released him upon the world.
How did it happen that the United States was transformed into the most immoral, other than Israel, government on earth, a servant of Satan.
It was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who identified the problem in his famous speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2006. As he stood at the podium, his opening words referring to President George W. Bush, were “yesterday at this very podium stood Satan himself, speaking as if he owned the world. You can still smell the sulfur.”
I have spent my life in defense of the Constitution, sound economic policy and in defense of truth. It has been my great distress to see the widening gap between agenda-controlled narratives and truth. Evil is a powerful force, and truth alone is not a match for it. The pen is mightier than the sword, but it doesn’t seem to be mightier than Evil.
As I have previously noted, there is nowhere in the West a countervailing power to the Evil that is engulfing us.
Try organizing one, and the FBI will arrest you or the CIA will assassinate you. No one will come to your defense.
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
The genocide in Gaza – or more precisely the major NATO powers’ active and practical support for the genocide in Gaza – has forced me to re-evaluate my views on Ukraine in a manner more sympathetic to the Russian narrative.
In particular, I was complacent in my dismissive attitude to the argument that the Western powers would back ethnic cleansing and massacre in the Donbass, by forces including some motivated by Nazi ideology. The same powers who are funding and arming Ukraine are funding and arming a genocide by racial supremacist Israeli forces in Gaza. It is beyond argument that my belief in some kind of inherent decency in the Western political Establishment was naive.
I apologise.
This does not mean that I was wrong to call the Russian invasion of the Ukrainian state illegal. I am afraid it was. You see, the law is the law. It has only a tenuous connection to either morality or justice. A thing can be justified and morally right, but still illegal.
The proof of this is that we have an entire legal structure governing transactions which is designed to achieve massive concentration of wealth. In consequence, the world is predicted to have its first trillionaires inside the next five years, while millions of children go hungry. That is plainly immoral. It is plainly unjust. But it is not only legal, it is the purpose of the system of law.
I am, however, content that the “Right to Protect” doctrine has not become accepted in international law, because it is in general application neo-imperialist. It was developed by the Blair government initially to justify NATO bombing of Serbia and the British re-occupation of Sierra Leone, and was used by Hillary Clinton to justify the destruction of Libya on the basis of lies about an imminent massacre in Benghazi. We should be wary of the doctrine.
The causes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine are plain. Alarm at NATO expansionism and forward positioning of aggressive military assets encircling Russia. The Ukrainian coup of 2014. Exasperation at Ukrainian bad faith and the ignoring of the Minsk accords. The continuing death toll from shelling of Russian speakers in the Donbass.
The suppression of the Russian language, of Russian Orthodox religion and of the main pro-Russian opposition political party in Ukraine are simple facts. These I have always acknowledged: until I saw the positive enthusiasm of leaders of the Western states for massacre in Gaza, I was not convinced they could not have been addressed by diplomacy and negotiation. I now have to reassess that view in the light of new information, and I now think Putin was justified in the invasion.
It is not that any of the arguments are new. It is simply that before I did not believe that the West would sponsor mass ethnic cleansing and genocidal attack on the Donbass by extreme Ukrainian nationalist-led, Western-armed forces. I thought the “West” was more civilised than that. I now have to face the fact that I was wrong about the character of the NATO powers.
The alternative to Putin’s action probably was indeed massacre and ethnic cleansing.
The urgent need now is for negotiation to put an end to the war. On that my position has not changed. The war is a disaster for the people of Europe. The American destruction of Nord Stream has devastated the German economy and resulted in huge energy price increases for consumers all across Europe, including the UK. There was a step jump in food inflation which has not been pulled back.
The continuation of the war will of course prime the pump of the military-industrial complex. Massive defence spending is the most efficient way to ensure kickbacks to the political class who control the flow of state funds, through both legal and illegal forms of corrupt reward to politicians.
As Julian Assange said, the object is not to win wars: the object is forever wars, to keep the funds flowing.
The truth is that the longer the war persists, the less generous Russia will be over returning occupied territory to Ukraine. The deal which was torpedoed by the West nearly two years ago (and in truth the US played more of a role than Boris Johnson – I was actually there in Turkey) ceded only the Crimea to Russia, with a Minsk plus deal for the Donbass which would have remained Ukrainian. That is unthinkable now. The major question is how large a coastal corridor Russia will insist on keeping westward from Crimea, and whether Putin can be persuaded to accept less than the historical dividing line of the Dnieper.
I do not share the Russian triumphalism at the dwindling manpower resources of the Ukraine. With the obscene billions the West is pumping into remote warfare in Ukraine, that is not the factor you might expect. But the political will of the West to continue to pump in these billions is plainly sapping, as it becomes obvious there will be no successful Ukrainian offensive. Put simply, Russia will outlast its opponents.
It has always been the case that the sooner Ukraine and the West settle, the better deal they will get, and that is more true every day. But prolonging the war is an end in itself to those who make money from it.
Putin’s historical disquisition to Tucker Carlson opened some Western eyes to another national perspective, and gave rise to widespread claims by Western media that Putin was factually wrong. In fact almost all of his facts were correct. The interpretation of them, and the position of other facts which were omitted or given less weight, is of course the art of history.
There is no question I find more fascinating in history than the formation and dissolution of national identities.
My own perspective on this – and there is no subject on which it is more important to understand the vantage point of the person writing – is governed by two factors in particular. Firstly, I am a Scot and come from one of Europe’s oldest nation states, which then lost its independence and struggles to regain it after being submerged in a new “British” national identity.
Secondly, as a former diplomat I lived and worked in the political field in a number of countries with differing histories of national identity.
These include Poland, a nation state which the historian Norman Davies brilliantly quipped “Has emerged from time to time through the mists of history – but never in the same place twice”.
It includes Ghana, a state with an extremely strong sense of national identity but which was an entirely artificial colonial creation.
It includes Nigeria, another entirely artificial colonial creation but which has struggled enormously to build national identity against deep and often violent ethnic and cultural differences.
It includes Uzbekistan, a country which also has entirely artificial colonial borders but which the western “left” fail to recognise as an ex-colony because they refuse to acknowledge the Soviet Union was a continuation of the Russian Empire.
So I have seen all this, as someone with a training and interest as a historian, who has read a great deal of Eastern European history. I have also lived in Russia and was for a time both a fluent Russian and Polish speaker. I do not write this to claim I am right, but so that you know what has formed my view.
Putin argued at great length that there never was such a country as “Ukraine”. The BBC has run a “fact check” and claimed this is “Nonsense”.
There are several points to make about this. The first is that the BBC did not, as it claimed, go to “independent historians”. It went to Polish, Ukrainian and Armenian historians with their own very distinct agenda.
The second is that these historians did not actually take issue with Putin’s facts. For a fact-check it does not really examine any of Putin’s historical facts at all. What the historians did was put forward other facts they felt deserve more weight, or different interpretations of the facts referenced by Putin. But none argued convincingly for the former existence of a Ukrainian national state or even the long term existence of Ukrainian national identity.
In fact their arguments were largely consistent with Putin. The BBC quote Prof Ronald Suny:
Mr Suny points out that the inhabitants of these lands when they were conquered by Russia were neither Russian nor Ukrainian, but Ottoman, Tatar or Cossacks – Slavic peasants who had fled to the frontiers.
Which is absolutely true: 18th century Russia did not conquer a territory called “Ukraine”. Much of the land of Ukraine was under Muslim rule when conquered by Catherine the Great, and nobody called themselves “Ukrainian”.
The BBC then gives this quote:
But Anita Prazmowska, a professor emerita at the LSE, says that although a national consciousness emerged later among Ukrainians than other central European nations, there were Ukrainians during that period.
“[Vladimir Putin] is using a 20th Century concept of the state based on the protection of a defined nation, as something that goes back. It doesn’t.”
Which is hardly accusing Putin of speaking “nonsense” either. Prazmowska admits the development of Ukrainian national consciousness came “later than other Central European states”, which is very definitely true. Prazmowska herself has a very Central European take – the idea of the nation state in England, Scotland and France, for example, developed well ahead of the period of which she was speaking.
I should address the weakness in Putin’s narrative, around the origins of World War 2. Russian nationalists have great difficulty in accommodating the Stalin/Hitler pact into the narrative of the Great Patriotic War, and while Putin did briefly reference it, his attempt to blame World War 2 essentially on Poland was a low point. But even here, there was a historical truth that the standard Western narrative ignores.
The Rydz-Smigly–led military dictatorship in Poland after the death of Pilsudski was not a pleasant regime. Putin was actually correct about Munich: both the UK and France had asked Poland to allow the Soviet army to march through to bolster Czechoslovakia against Germany, and Poland refused (Ridz-Smigly did not trust Stalin, and frankly I don’t blame him). But this is an example of part of Putin’s narrative that countered the received Western tradition, that most well-informed people in the West have no idea happened, and is perfectly true.
The fusing back then of Ukrainian nationalism with Nazism, and the atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists in WW2 against not just Jews but also Poles and other minorities, were also perfectly true.
It is a simple and stark truth there never was a Ukrainian state before 1991. There just was not. Lands currently comprising Ukraine were at various times under the rule of Muslim Khans, of the Ottomans, of Cossack Hetmans (possibly the closest thing to proto-Ukrainians), the Polish-Lithuanian confederation and Russian Tsars.
As I have stated on this blog before, the boundary between Polish/Lithuanian and Russian influence became settled on the Dnieper. I have also published this map before, showing that history resonates through the current conflict.
There is also the case of third-party recognition of the Ukrainian nationality. I have read, for example, the letters and memoirs, both published and unpublished, of scores of British soldiers and civil servants involved in the Imperial rivalry with Russia in Asia. Many had contact with Russian officers or diplomats. They did clearly recognise different ethnic identities within the Russian Empire. The Russian diplomat Jan Witkiewicz was described repeatedly by British officers as “Polish”, for example. “Cossack” and “Tartar” were frequently used. I cannot recall any of these British sources ever using the description “Ukrainian”.
Nor did British officers who actually passed through Ukraine, like Fred Burnaby and Arthur Connolly, describe it as such in their memoirs. Now I am not claiming that if British imperialists did not notice something, it did not exist. But if there were a centuries-old recognition by the rival Empire of the existence of a Ukrainian national identity, that would definitely mean something. There does not appear to be such.
I should be interested to know where Ukrainian nationalists claim their cultural heritage lies as proof of early national identity. What is the Ukrainian equivalent of Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt speech, of Scotland’s Blind Harry, or even of Poland’s Pan Tadeusz? (This is a genuine question. There may be areas of Ukrainian historic identity of which I am unaware).
Putin was not wrong about history (apart from the dodgy bit about origins of the second world war). But the correct question is whether any of this matters.
It is not whether Putin’s historical analysis is broadly correct, it is whether this matters. I am inclined to the view that Putin is correct that there is little evidence that the people living in Ukraine, hundreds of years ago, ever considered themselves a distinct national entity.
But they are all dead, so they don’t get a vote. The only thing that matters is the opinion of those living there now.
It seems to me beyond dispute that there is now a Ukrainian national identity. I know several Ukrainians who consider themselves joyously and patriotically Ukrainian, just as I know patriotic Ghanaians and even patriotic Uzbeks. The question of how this identity was forged and how recently is not the point.
I should add there are undoubtedly a great many Ukrainians whose sense of national identity is not linked to Nazism. There is a historical and a current strain of Nazism in Ukrainian nationalism, and it is far too tolerated by the Ukrainian state; that is certainly true. But to claim all Ukrainian nationalists are Nazis is a nonsense.
The formation of national identity is a very curious thing. Ivory Coast has just won the African Cup of Nations at soccer, beating Nigeria in the final. The competition arouses huge patriotic fervour throughout the continent of Africa. But the boundaries of all the African nations, except arguably Ethiopia, are entirely artificial colonial constructs. They cut right across ethnic, cultural and linguistic boundaries.
Much of modern Ghana was the old Ashanti kingdom, but that extended much further into now Ivory Coast. The coastal areas were never Ashanti. In the east, the Ewe people’s lands are cut by a completely artificial boundary with Togo. To the north, largely Muslim populations live a much more rural lifestyle. Yet Ghanaians are fiercely proud of this imposed state of Ghana. They are proud it was the first African state to attain Independence, they are proud of its heritage of supporting African liberation movements including the ANC, they are proud of its education system. They have a real sense of national identity that goes far beyond the passionate support of its sporting teams.
Ghanaian identity is modern, ahistoric, within entirely colonial boundaries. But it is real and valid.
In Central Asia, the boundaries of the “stans” are again colonial boundaries that cut right across the pre-existing Khanates. The boundaries of these ex-Soviet republics were carefully designated by Stalin not to be ethnically or culturally coherent, to guard against the development of national opposition. So the greatest Tajik cities, Bokhara and Samarkand, are not in Tajikistan but Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan has important similarities to Ukraine. Both are states with boundaries of Soviet republics, which have no relationship to any pre-existing state or nation. In both – and this may be a legacy of Soviet authoritarianism – the state has attempted to force national identity by compulsory homogeneity. So Russian language medium in education was first banned in Uzbekistan, and then Tajik. Ukraine has similarly banned the Russian language. This of course is nothing new in state behaviour, as Highland Scots well know.
Yet even in Uzbekistan, a passionate national identity has been created, even among Kazakhs, Tajiks etc who reside there. The alchemy by which this happens is mystifying; partly it seems to depend on a natural loyalty to whatever authority exists, which is a rather troubling thought. For Central Asia, Olivier Roy’s The New Central Asia, the Creation of Nations has some thoughts on the sociology of the process.
I am aware I need to read more on the creation of national identity, because most of my thought is based on simple observation. It is however entirely plain that national identity can appear, and can be genuine, and can do so in a period of merely decades. There is now a Ukrainian national identity, and those who subscribe to it have the right to their state.
That they have a right to the former boundaries of Soviet Ukraine is a different proposition. Given the reality that it is plain a significant minority of the population do not subscribe to Ukrainian national identity, that civil war broke out, and that this relates to historic geographic fracture lines, it seems that division of territory is now not only inevitable but desirable.
All people of good will should therefore wish to see an end to fighting and a peace settlement, of which the territorial elements are somewhere close to the current lines between the forces, with Russia giving back some territory in return for recognition of its gains. The alternative is more death, human misery and economic malaise.
Der Friedensstifter 