War is raging in Ukraine, with German tanks once again headed for the Russian border. Every day that passes without peace increases the likelihood of nuclear war. Everyone should be working to end this conflict, which can only end in one of two ways: negotiations or nuclear Armageddon.
Avoiding the extinction of the human race should be our only priority, and a negotiated peace settlement is the only way that happens.
Unfortunately, the US has other ideas, and there are multiple layers to what’s happening.
The current, publicly stated goal is to arm Ukraine until military gains provide them a preferable negotiating position. Numerous US officials have stated that the goal is to weaken Russia militarily until they cannot possibly invade any other countries. President Biden has said that Russian President Putin “cannot remain in power.” Ukrainian President Zelensky has said that he will not negotiate so long as Putin remains in power.
So (regardless what WH aides say) regime change in Russia is another publicly stated goal of funding, supporting, and extending the war in Ukraine.
For this reason, Russia cannot lose. Putin cannot lose. He politically could not survive it domestically. And VP Harris has accused Putin of war crimes. He is being threatened with war crimes tribunal at The Hague. Putin cannot allow Russia to lose. It is an existential threat.
According to the Western, NATO version of events, Putin is a madman who suddenly just decided one day to randomly invade totally innocent Ukraine out of the blue. “Unprovoked” is the word they repeat ad nauseum – the first war labelled as such. Putin is a dictatorial, Hitlerian figure who, if successful in Ukraine, will go on to invade Poland and the rest of Europe, and democracy will cease to exist. But he’s also desperate, constantly on the verge of running out of ammunition, and so weak & inept that Russia is being successfully thwarted by the scrappy Ukrainians with no navy or air force to speak of. It’s quite frankly dizzying.
By their own deranged logic, desperate, unhinged Putin would nuke us all before he would allow himself to be tried for war crimes by the West. So they should be desperate to end the it. Instead, every Democrat in congress has voted to arm & extend the war. Republican Party leadership is also in lockstep with the war machine (Trump aside, bafflingly the sole remaining US statesman as per Chomsky). As such, the Doomsday Clock has been set to 90 seconds to midnight. Lights out on the human race. All over who gets to manage the borders of eastern effing Ukraine.
Now, the story of how we actually got here is actually quite different than the Official Narrative that Putin just up and decided one day and it’ll end when he decides – though saying as much has been labelled as “Kremlin propaganda” & “Russian disinformation.” Regardless, it’s peace or Armageddon.
To avoid an extinction level event, there must be a negotiated peace. Russia is winning the war. Every day that passes without a peace settlement results in more dead Ukrainians. No one should want that. The terms are this: Ukraine will agree to forsake aspirations of joining NATO. NATO will agree to withdraw it’s weapons from post-1997 NATO admittants. Ukraine will forsake aspirations of retaking Crimea, which is part of Russia, as per the peoples’ wishes. The people of the Donbas will have autonomy, whether as independent state(s) or as part of the Russian Federation – to be determined by referendum.
That is how the war in Ukraine will end. Or we will all die in a nuclear holocaust.
So, how did we get ourselves into this situation? And why?
In short: US hegemony. The US is the sole superpower, and we’ll burn this bitch down before giving that up. The Wolfowitz Doctrine states that the US intends to remain the sole superpower by prohibiting economic rivals from ascending – whether ally or foe.
The biggest threats to US hegemony are China, and Russia x Germany. China’s economy will soon surpass the US, if it hasn’t already. China also has the technology & manpower. China alone is a threat to US unipolarity. Germany has the technology & capital, which combined with Russia’s natural resources & manpower could also rival the US. The US had to stop that coalition by provoking Russia.
The goal of the US is to use Ukraine as a means to isolate Russia from Europe and especially Germany, then use Taiwan in the same manner to isolate China. The US intends to de-industrialize Europe and keep them subservient by replacing cheap Russian energy with expensive US liquid natural gas; continue funding terrorism & stealing oil from the Middle East; prohibit development of the global south in order to keep pillaging their mineral resources; and force American workers to compete with poverty wages of poor, Asian countries. We’ll own nothing, and be happy about it.
Germany & Russia were getting too close for comfort. They had the Nord Stream pipelines and were constructing two more with Nord Stream 2. Condoleeza Rice said in 2014 that the US had been trying “for years” to get Europe off of Russian energy and onto “an American energy platform.” Trump was mocked by German leaders for insisting they had become “totally dependent” on Russia. Trump sanctioned Nord Stream 2, which halted production. Biden said that if Russia invaded Ukraine, “We will bring (Nord Stream 2) to an end.”
Reporting by Sy Hersh has revealed what everyone knew: that the US had the Nord Stream pipelines blown up (with the help of Norway) in an act of environmental & economic terrorism against a supposed ally. Initially, Germany and most of Europe exempted Russian energy from the sanctions because they so heavily rely upon it. When Russia sent parts to Canada for repair and Nord Stream stopped flowing, Russia was accused of terrorism for using energy as a weapon. Once the pipelines were destroyed by the US, in addition to the US pressure for sanctions, the EU was left to purchase expensive US energy, allowing US-based energy companies to post record profits! Sensing a pattern here?
Europe is freezing this winter, so that the US can maintain unipolarity and pad the pockets of American capitalists. Pitiful German politicians have thus far remained subservient while their people suffer at the behest of American capital. Germany’s opposition would likely lead the EU to abandon the US and pressure Ukraine to end the war. But alas.
How was Russia provoked? For an American context, consider the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US put missiles in Turkey, too close for the USSR. The USSR responded by placing missiles in Cuba, too close for the US. Nuclear Armageddon was very nearly avoided by a heroic, young Soviet officer who overrode commands to initiate a nuclear missile exchange.
Russia has repeatedly allowed the West to trample over their stated red lines, with NATO already having swallowed the Baltic States, with NATO missiles already placed directly on Russia’s border. But no Russian leader could survive politically if they allowed NATO to swallow Ukraine.
Russia has been invaded multiple times via Ukraine. Napoleon did and burned Moscow to the ground. Hitler did and 27 million Soviets died in World War II.
NATO was an explicitly anti-Soviet organization for 50 years. They have remained anti-Russian, despite disingenuous claims to the contrary, proven so when Russia was denied NATO membership early into Putin’s rule (Khruschev, too).
When Gorbachev agreed in 1991 to disband the USSR and allow Germany to re-unite despite the Holocaust & 27 million dead Soviets, it was on the promise that NATO would not move “one inch east” of Germany.
The US, of course, began plans to do just that. Bill Clinton called for former Warsaw Pact nations to join NATO in 1996. Dubya Bush specifically called for Ukraine to be incorporated into NATO in 2008. Biden himself warned in 1997 that, if Russia were to be provoked, it would be over NATO expansion.
Everyone from Kissinger to Chomsky warned that Russia would invade Ukraine before NATO could take it.
The thing is, NATO expansion is profitable for the Military Industrial Complex. NATO members are required to spend 2% of their GDP on NATO-compatible weapons systems. More NATO countries means more profits for weapons dealers, regardless how Russia feels about it. Especially when they can replace Soviet-era weapons of former Warsaw Pact nations with weapons with NATO-compatibility. And if Russia ever responds to expansionary NATO hostility, it proves that NATOs existence post-Warsaw was justified all along!
So if the US wanted Putin to invade, and purposely provoked it – why’d he take the bait? Why did he risk having Russia isolated? Why did he risk the disbandment of the Russian Federation, and being tried for war crimes at The Hague?
Putin had little choice. War is never good. But it is at times necessary. No Russian leader could allow NATO into Ukraine. However, though NATO & Ukraine refused to rule it out, Ukraine’s membership also was not immediately imminent on February 24th, 2022.
Imminent on the day the Russian Special Military Operation began was the public threats, and plans already in place by the US to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines (which Russian intelligence could well have known). As well as a troop buildup on the border & dramatic increase in cease-fire violations by Ukraine against the people of the Donbas.
The Western narrative that the war in Ukraine began when Putin invaded is false. The war on the people of Donbas, waged by the Ukrainian government, began in 2014.
It all started when corrupt Ukraine was deep in debt and needed a bail out. President Obama offered to help, but “help” from the US means IMF-imposed austerity. Ukraine could get loans, but they had to cut pensions & freeze wages to get them (which only hurts the economy, resulting in more debt & creating a vicious cycle). Ukrainian President Yanukovych could not survive this politically, so he instead made a deal with Russia.
However, Ukraine is a divided country. Eastern Ukraine (the Donbas) is largely Russian-speaking and identifies culturally with Russia, while western Ukraine leans European. Because of this split, Ukraine has maintained neutrality. So when Yanukovych made a deal with Russia, it sparked protests in Western Ukraine. In turn, there were pro-Russian protesters & protests and violence ensued. Pro-Russian protesters were locked inside a union building in Odesa and burned alive, with escaping protesters stabbed & beaten to death. Anti-Russian protesters were killed by Ukrainian nationalist rooftop snipers, in order to produce sympathy for the nationalist, anti-Russian movement.
As the CIA does, it took advantage of the civil unrest to bring about color revolution against a rogue government. And so, right-wing nationalist militias were funded by the US, and the Euromaidan revolution ousted duly-elected Yanukovych from power.
EU leaders had coalesced around Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko to be interim leader of Ukraine, but if there was any question as to who was really in charge, US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland was caught on recording saying, “fuck the EU, Yats is the guy.” And Yatsenyuk indeed was inserted by the US as interim puppet prime minister of the new, coup government.
Russia responded to the US-backed coup of Ukraine by annexing Crimea, home of Russia’s sole warm water port for the Black Sea fleet.
The people of the Donbas continued to resist and were brutalized by Ukrainian security forces and nationalist militias. Minsk Accords were held in 2014 & ’15, and peace agreements were reached with negotiations between Ukraine & Russia, led by France & Germany, hosted by Belarus. The Ukrainian government would stop killing the people of the Donbas, who would stop resisting the government in exchange for limited autonomy which would afford them a veto over NATO membership.
Unfortunately, Minsk was never implemented. In fact, the then-leaders of France & Germany (Hollande & Merkel) have since admitted that Minsk was a ploy which afforded Ukraine more time to build forces with NATO for eventual military conflict with Russia.
Gorbachev was burned by the West in 1991. Putin was burned with Minsk.
The Ukrainian coup government set about enacting anti-Russian legislation. They removed Russian as an official language. They banned Soviet, Russian, and communist public symbols, replacing them with nationalist Banderite (Nazi) ones. They shuttered Russian language schools & churches. They enacted cultural genocide against their own Russian-speaking population.
Ukraine’s “Nazi problem” was widely reported in the West. The US banned providing arms to the Nazi Azov Regiment, which was labelled a hate group by Facebook, their symbols labelled white nationalist by the UK, yet were formally incorporated into the Ukrainian military.
In the midst of civil unrest, actor-comedian Zelensky was elected president on a campaign of anti-corruption & peace. Zelensky was hand-picked by his billionaire backer, Ihor Kolomoisky, an oligarch infamous for keeping a shark tank in his office to intimidate business partners. Kolomoisky was removed as governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast after taking over government buildings with one of the nationalist militias he funds. He was also removed as head of PrivatBank when the the financial institution required a $3.5b government bailout. Kolomoisky denies laundering said amount out of the country via loans to businesses owned by himself and his associates. He wanted “his” bank back, and needed a president to get it. He interviewed numerous comedians, liked Zelensky best, and created the character & television show, Servant of the People, to air on Kolomoisky’s own television network. In which Zelensky’s school teacher character’s anti-corruption classroom rant is recorded by a student, goes viral, and he’s elected a reluctant president who kicks out the oligarchs & corrupt bureaucrats and replaces them with his friends & associates. The show was popular, Kolomoisky created a political party of the same name, just for Zelensky, his presidential campaign had only a couple hundred donors, was ran largely on billboard adverts conflating the character & the candidate. And they won!
Zelensky & Kolomoisky had to publicly part ways in a show of anti-corruption given Zelensky’s campaign promises. But peace was another thing altogether, whether he wanted it or not. Zelensky went and asked the nationalists personally to drop their weapons, and they practically laughed in his face. Rather, Zelensky was threatened with lynching were he to impose Minsk.
Had the US wanted peace, the US would have offered security assurances to Zelensky. Had the US wanted peace, they would have negotiated with Russia in good faith, and NATO at minimum would have officially declared Ukraine ineligible for membership given the corruption and disputed borders with the Donbas & Crimea.
The people in the Donbas had long declared their independence from Ukraine, and requested that Russia recognize the independence of the People’s Republics of Lugansk & Donetsk, respectively. And, as per the UN charter, that UN member Russia offer them military assistance to protect them from imminent invasion from a larger nation, Ukraine.
In early 2022, Ukraine began amassing troops along the border of the Donbas, and dramatically increased cease-fire violations in the week prior to Russia’s Special Military Operation. With bombs by then having been placed on Nord Stream and negotiations going nowhere, Putin recognized the DPR & LPR and initiated the SMO, dramatically escalating the war as a means to end it.
Personally, I didn’t think it would happen. I was ignorant of the history & importance of Ukraine to Russia. Obama gave financial aide to Ukraine, but refused to supply arms, arguing (with war hawks in the press) that Ukraine is of vital national security interest to Russia, and simply never will be for the US. Obama dared “anyone in this town” to publicly call for war with Russia over measly Ukraine. Obama and the Democrats mercilessly mocked Mitt Romney for saying that Russia was the #1 geopolitical foe of the US, joking that, “the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”
That was before liberals were inundated with years of Russiagate conspiracy nonsense which conditioned them to despise Russia. Liberals were taught that Russia had taken over the US government with pee-pee tape blackmail over Manchurian President Trump. They were convinced that Russia had stolen the presidency from rightful Hillary, and the Trump was a puppet of Putin, purposely destroying the country from within. We were attacked, they said. We were invaded. They fabricated maniacal stories of Russian bounties on US military forces, of futuristic sonic weapons used against US diplomats causing “Havana syndrome” (it was crickets & mass delusion hysteria).
The war in Ukraine ushered in an unprecedented propaganda warfare campaign against the US population as well as increased calls for censorship. The first “unprovoked” war. The fake Ghost of Kyiv. The video game footage supposedly highlighting Ukrainian air superiority. Russia striking a train station, firing missiles into Poland, carrying out the Bucha massacre…
Armies of bots were unleashed to propagandize the American public and fabricate a false narrative by attacking journalists & commentators with opposing views, accusing anyone who questions the NATO narrative of being an agent of the Kremlin.
Zelensky banned all leftist political opposition. He banned all but state news media. He banned the Russian & Ukrainian Orthodox churches. He stripped workers of collective bargaining rights. He’s selling off Ukraine’s public assets, inviting BlackRock and Goldman Sachs to plunder the country’s vital resources. His handlers had him grow a beard and dress him in army green, placed in front of green screens and encouraged to growl out deranged speeches at Hollywood award shows. The Western public was told that Ukraine’s fight is that for democracy itself.
As such, a peace settlement early on in the war was scuttled by the West and specifically the UK, which former Israeli PM Neftali Bennett has confirmed.
And Westerners freaked the eff out when they saw blonde-haired, blue-eyed, “civilized” people getting killed. Harsh economic sanctions were placed on Russia immediately, and they were banned from making financial transactions with SWIFT. The ruble is rubble, they proclaimed. And it was. For about a week.
A week was about as long as many experts gave Ukraine in a war against Russia. Western military experts assumed Russia would plow through Ukraine the way the West had initially plowed through Iraq in 2003, swiftly & brutally taking cities block by bloody block, killing civilians indiscriminately. Rather, Russia implemented a flow-like-water strategy: rolling tanks through areas where there was no resistance, and avoiding areas with resistance, in an effort to keep civilian casualties at a minimum for post-war relations with a neighbor. This left them vulnerable to attack from behind, which cost lives & prolonged the mission, and increased domestic political pressure on Putin to act more harshly against a government committing atrocities against Russophones and carrying out a Russian cultural genocide.
So, as when Putin escalated to targeting energy infrastructure in response to the bombing of his prized Kerch bridge to Crimea, Russia is now training 500k more troops. Not an ill-trained conscript army with unfamiliar weapons systems, but a real one, with weapons they have the muscle memory to properly operate under pressure. Russia will not run out of ammunition. Russia will win. And time is on their side.
The clock is ticking on Europe, however, without the cheap Russian energy they relied on so heavily (40% of the EU’s energy, 60% of Germany’s). The West thought they would repeat the 1980s, when the US armed the Mujahideen against a socialist government & used Afghanistan to bait & eventually bankrupt the USSR. Instead, it’s Europe being bled out & de-industrialized. Which is great for nihilistic US elites!
Unfortunately for US elites, their plan appears to be backfiring. Sanctions-induced inflation compounds by the month, while the now oil- & gold-backed ruble is doing great. And the petrodollar, a pillar of US hegemony, is at risk of being replaced as the world’s reserve trading currency. With the petrodollar in place, Saudi Arabia would only sell oil in US dollars (in exchange they got to use our military how they liked -such as genociding Yemen- and they’d make us periodic reimbursements). So every country needed a stockpile. Since they were already buying oil in USD, most countries simply traded in USD exclusively by default, and utilized the West’s SWIFT financial system.
The petrodollar meant that the US could have massive debts, but since they print the fiat currency in which that debt was paid, they could essentially export most expected inflation onto other countries holding our currency in reserve, rather than domestically taxing the corporations and wealthy elites who sponsor the privately-funded election campaigns for the corrupt politicians!
Since the sanctions were placed on Russia, other countries have taken the lesson that any rogue US administration could randomly cut them off from the global financial system on a whim. Thus, many countries are considering implementing alternate systems. Indeed, Muammar Gaddafi was murdered for attempting just that. Gaddafi wanted African nations to unite & trade in a single currency. So the US falsely accused Gaddafi of unleashing genocidal, Viagra-fueled rape gangs on his people, and he was sodomized to death with a bayonet in the streets.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva has proposed a shared trade currency for South America, beginning with Brazil & Argentina. This in addition to BRICS, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, & South Africa – which already provides an alternate to SWIFT. Iran, and more significantly rival Saudi Arabia, have applied to join BRICS+, which would be a death knell to the petrodollar, and possibly the US empire.
Saudi Arabia has been one of the US’ closest allies since the 1970’s. But President Biden offended Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when he disingenuously promised on the campaign trail to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah” for MBS ordering the execution of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. After implementing sanctions on Russia, Biden went to Saudi Arabia and begged for increased oil production to make up the difference. Biden awkwardly gave MBS a choreographed fist-bump in order to avoid a somehow more hypocritical hand-shake. MBS agreed to do increase oil production – for six whole weeks! Since then, SA has decreased production, causing Biden to threaten of “consequences“, reportedly refused to answer Washington’s phone calls, is considering selling oil in Chinese yuan, and has applied for BRICS+ membership.
Putin took a huge gamble invading Ukraine, risking that his country be isolated & torn asunder, and personally being tried for war crimes – but he felt it necessary to put an end to US unipolarity. And China, India, & Indonesia are happy to buy all the cheap energy Russia wants to sell them if Europe chooses to decline.
To maintain unipolarity, the US may have assumed that it would simply run a propaganda campaign to justify money-printing for weapons, while Ukraine supplied the body bags & bloodied soil, and Russia would be isolated & defeated. Rinse, repeat with Taiwan & China, forcing countries to abandon relations with the latter. And the US would rule the world unchallenged for another century!
Instead, the petrodollar is on the verge of collapse and we’re a year into a war which increases by the day the risk of nuclear Armageddon. As Obama explained when refusing to endorse Biden against Hillary in 2016, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.”