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The first attempt to realise Karl Marx’s dream of a communist utopia happened in the former Soviet Russia between 1917 and 1991. According to Stéphane Courtois, co-author of the seminal The Black Book of Communism (Harvard University Press, 1999), victims of that communist regime have been estimated to range around 20 million.[1]
On January 1, 1992, “the evil Soviet empire”, to borrow a term from a landmark 1983 speech by Ronald Reagan, finally came to an end. It collapsed and was replaced by 15 new nations, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian Federation. The imperial white-blue-red flag introduced by Peter the Great was reinstalled as the national flag in 1993. The Russian Church’s national holidays were restored.
For most Russians, however, the early 1990s was a time of despair, uncertainty and hardship. During that period, real power laid entirely in the hands of local oligarchs. As noted by Orlando Figes, a British historian best known for his outstanding books on Russian history, those oligarchs “behaved as if they were the government”, demanding posts from the then-president Boris Yeltsin, who was barely able to carry out his job due to heart attacks and heavy drinking. “The state was in danger of breaking into fiefdoms controlled by the oligarchs”, Figes says.[2]
By the end of the 1990s the Russians were desperately hoping for someone who could save their nation, someone who would be healthy, patriotic and … sober. It is in this context that a former intelligence officer was manoeuvred into power in the mid-1990s. Vladimir Putin had just returned from Germany to his hometown of St. Petersburg. In due course, he became the city’s deputy mayor, and, in 1996, he moved to Moscow. On 9 August 1999, he was appointed first deputy prime minister and later that year Yeltsin resigned. Then Putin became Russia’s acting president.[3]
Putin was a candidate in that year’s presidential election. He campaigned with the promise of a “dictatorship of the rule of law”, thus appealing to everyone tired of the lawlessness of the past decade.[4] As a result, Putin duly won in the first round of that election with 53 per cent of the vote.[5] Ordinary Russians, desperate for an end to their misery, believed they had found in their new president an energetic politician who could lead the nation towards a brighter future. Indeed, the early 2000s were marked by a remarkable recovery of the Russian economy, which allowed ordinary Russians to enjoy unprecedented levels of comfort and security.[6]
From the beginning of his second term as president, Putin set about making it patently clear that the years of oligarchical hegemony were over. The oligarchs were faced with a rather simple choice: accept that they could no longer dictate politics or pick a fight with the government and lose.[7] As a result, some of those oligarchs left Russia but the richest and most powerful, oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, stayed to back opposition candidates. He had ambitious plans to sell his shares in the oil and gas company Yukos (he had bought those shares during the notorious “loans for shares” auctions in the mid-1990s) to the U.S. oil giant company Exxon. In 2003, Khodorkovsky was sentenced to prison after been charged with extensive fraud and tax evasion, not least as a warning to all those oligarchs, some of them who were divested of their companies.[8]
The 2004 presidential election in Russia was held on March 14 and Putin won in a landslide with more than 71 per cent of the popular vote. In 2008, as the Russian Constitution did not allow a third consecutive term, Putin’s prime minister, Dmitry Medveded, was elected as the new president for a four-year term. When his term was nearing its end, he endorsed Putin’s presidential candidature again, in 2012.
Of course, Putin holds strong nationalist feelings but, at first, he was quite willing to be a partner with the West. He assumed that so long as his nation backed the U.S.-led ‘Global War on Terror’, then Western leaders would treat Russia with respect and not threaten its borders.[9] [10]
Following the beginning of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the US, the European Union, and other Western countries swiftly imposed a mix of wide-ranging diplomatic and economic sanctions.[11] These sanctions included asset freezes of Russian individuals and companies, as well as the removal of Russian banks from the SWIFT banking system, and the confiscation of about half of all Russia’s foreign reserves – roughly US$ 315 billion.[12] Some Western commentators predicted that such unprecedented sanctions would soon “bring the Russian economy on its knees”.[13] President Joe Biden declared on March 27, 2022, “As a result of our unprecedented sanctions, the ruble was almost immediately reduced to rubble. The Russian economy is on track to be cut in half”.[14]
One should indeed expect that a nation facing these unprecedented sanctions would see its currency dramatically decline in value. However, the effect of such sanctions has been the very opposite. Russia’s currency, the ruble, is now the best-performing fiat currency in the world, reaching record highs against the EU’s euro and the US dollar. It has increased in value by more than 25 per cent over the last nine months alone.[15] Thanks to the continuing sales of oil and gas, the nation’s foreign currency reserves remain the fourth-largest in the world, which explains the current levels of popularity enjoyed by their president.
During the early stages of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, there was speculation in the Western media that Putin’s days as a leader were numbered.[16] Arguably, Russians would be going to abandon their loyalty to him as the wider population felt the economic pain and be unwilling to accept the growing death toll for Russians Forces in Ukraine.[17]
In reality, however, Putin’s approval rating among his people has remained well above 71 per cent since the beginning of the war and Western economic sanctions, according to the Levada Analytical Center (Levada-Center).[18] His public approval rating rose to 83 per cent in September, one of the highest levels of his presidency.[19] High global energy prices have helped him follow through on his pledge to reduce poverty and inequality despite the sanctions.[20] According to Alexander Hill, professor of military history at the University of Calgary:
Russian public opinion polls have suggested an increase in Putin’s popularity after the invasion. Support for the war itself is not as high as Putin’s overall approval rating – but he can still count on majority support for the invasion. Additionally, the Russian economy has remained surprisingly robust – to a considerable extent helped by the sanctions meant to damage it. By denying themselves Russian oil and to a lesser extent gas, European countries contributed to an increase in oil and gas prices that has buoyed the Russian coffers.[21]
At this moment in Russia, capital investment is up and the nation’s unemployment rate is only 3.9 per cent, its lowest since the statistics service started publishing the figure in 1992.[22] Numerous international buyers are paying for petroleum products in rubles.[23] The state-owned energy giant, Gasprom, has recently announced a record first-half profit of 2.5 trillion rubles (US$ 41.36 billion), sparking a 30 per cent in its share price.[24]
By contrast, Europe has seen a record depreciation of the euro over the past 20 years.[25] Many European companies are presently on the verge of bankruptcy. Europe’s economies are deteriorating and its population’s living standards are plummeting.[26] Following catastrophic electricity and heating bills, Europeans face mass unemployment and a dramatic decline in living standards.
In the United Kingdom, 60 per cent of all enterprises are on the verge of closing due to higher electricity prices. Thirteen per cent of all British factories have reduced their working hours and 7 per cent have temporarily or permanently closed down. Electricity bills have risen by more than 100 per cent on last year’s prices.[27] The natural consequences will be mass business closures and one of the worst rising employments in the UK’s history.
And the Germans are certainly not faring any better. “A German crisis would be a crisis for all of Europe, one that would rock the entire European Union and the many economies that surround it”, says Weimir Chen, a research assistant at the Austrian Economics Center.[28] In fact, the Germans are unable to avoid a serious recession that, according to the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, saw the number of companies going bankrupt in August rise by 26 per cent compared to the same period in 2021.[29] All the leading indicators point to significantly higher insolvency figures, which could be around a third higher than in October last year.[30] Not surprisingly, a recent poll reveals that one in two Germans is now concerned their nation is hurting itself more than it is impacting Russia’s political aims through tough sanctions.[31]
As for the US, Brian Brenberg, an economy professor at King’s College, comments that his country is on the verge of a “deeper recession”.[32] Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, comments that the U.S. is already in recession and “making people poorer”.[33] According to Nouriel Roubini, emeritus professor of economics at New York University, it is simply “delusional” to expect just a short and mild recession rather than one that will be “long and severe”.[34] In light of these depressing prospects, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine may at least assist the Biden administration deflect the attention of the American public to domestic problems that include raging inflation hitting, the worst crime wave in U.S. history and, a year ago in Afghanistan, the chaotic, shameful retreat from Kabul.[35]
Russia may very create a Eurasian bloc opposed to Western globalist hegemony. Arguably, Putin’s popularity can be partially justified by official propaganda convincing the local people that “mother Russia” is engaged in a “just war” not so much against Ukraine but, instead, for the end of Washington’s hegemony and America’s “post-modernist morality”.
Augusto Zimmermann is Professor and Head of Law at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education in Perth. He is also President of the Western Australian Legal Theory Association (WALTA) and Editor-in-Chief of the Western Australian Jurist law journal. From 2012 to 2017, he served as a Law Reform Commissioner in Western Australia.
[1] Stéphane Courtois, ‘Introduction: The Crimes of Communism’, in: S. Courtois et al, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Harvard University Press, 1999) 4. See also: Alexander N. Yakovlev, A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia (Yale University Press, 2002) 165.
[2] Orlando Figes, The Story of Russia (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022) 270.
[3] Mark Galeotti, A Short History of Russia (Penguin Random House, 2022) 173.
[4] Mark Galeotti, A Short History of Russia (Penguin Random House, 2022) 174.
[5] Mark Galeotti, A Short History of Russia (Penguin Random House, 2022) 174.
[6] Mark Galeotti, A Short History of Russia (Penguin Random House, 2022), 175.
[7] Mark Galeotti, A Short History of Russia (Penguin Random House, 2022) 174.
[8] Orlando Figes, The Story of Russia (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022) 282.
[9] Mark Galeotti, A Short History of Russia (Penguin Random House, 2022) 176.
[10] Orlando Figes, The Story of Russia (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022) 283.
[11] Christopher Michaelsen, ‘Are the West’s sanctions against Russia actually working?’ The Conversation, September 20, 2022.
[12] Christopher Michaelsen, ‘Are the West’s sanctions against Russia actually working?’ The Conversation, September 20, 2022.
[13] Alexandre Hill, ‘Why Vladimir Putin still has widespread support in Russia’, The Conversation, September 7, 2022, at
[14] President Biden, Twitter, March 27, 2022, at https://twitter.com/potus/status/1507842574865866763?lang=en
[15] ‘Global Foreign Exchange Rates’, Reuters, http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/GLOBAL-CURRENCIES-PERFORMANCE/0100301V041/index.html
[16] Alexandre Hill, ‘Why Vladimir Putin still has widespread support in Russia’, The Conversation, September 7, 2022, at https://theconversation.com/why-vladimir-putin-still-has-widespread-support-in-russia-189211
[17] Alexandre Hill, ‘Why Vladimir Putin still has widespread support in Russia’, The Conversation, September 7, 2022, at https://theconversation.com/why-vladimir-putin-still-has-widespread-support-in-russia-189211
[18] ‘Global Foreign Exchange Rates’, Reuters, http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/GLOBAL-CURRENCIES-PERFORMANCE/0100301V041/index.html
[18] ‘Putin’s Approval Rating’, Levada-Center, September 14, 2022, at https://www.levada.ru/en
[19] ‘Putin’s Approval Rating’, Levada-Center, September 14, 2022, at https://www.levada.ru/en
[20] ‘Six months into the war, what is the state of Russia’s economy’, World Economic Forum, August 30, 2022
[21] Alexandre Hill, ‘Why Vladimir Putin still has widespread support in Russia’, The Conversation, September 7, 2022, at https://theconversation.com/why-vladimir-putin-still-has-widespread-support-in-russia-189211
[22] ‘Six months into the war, what is the state of Russia’s economy’, World Economic Forum, August 30, 2022
[23] ‘Harvard Economists Baffled By How Gold-Tied Russian Ruble Goes Up’, ZeroHedge, June 10, 2022, at
[24] Nik Martin, ‘Is Russia’s Economy Really Hurting?’, Deutsche Welle, September 6, 2022, at https://www.dw.com/en/is-russias-economy-really-hurting/a-63000166\
[25] ‘Europe’s Economy And Living Standards Are Plummeting’, Oriental Review, September 19, 2022, at https://orientalreview.org/2022/09/19/europes-economy-and-living-standards-are-plummeting/
[26] ‘Europe’s Economy And Living Standards Are Plummeting’, Oriental Review, September 19, 2022, at https://orientalreview.org/2022/09/19/europes-economy-and-living-standards-are-plummeting/
[27] ‘Europe’s Economy And Living Standards Are Plummeting’, Oriental Review, September 19, 2022, at https://orientalreview.org/2022/09/19/europes-economy-and-living-standards-are-plummeting/
[28] Weimin Chen, ‘Germany’s (And Europe’s Self-Inflicted Upcoming Energy’, The Mises Institute, September 19, 2022, at https://mises.org/wire/germanys-and-europes-self-inflicted-upcoming-energy-crunch
[29] ‘Europe’s Economy And Living Standards Are Plummeting’, Oriental Review, September 19, 2022, at https://orientalreview.org/2022/09/19/europes-economy-and-living-standards-are-plummeting/
[29] Weimin Chen, ‘Germany’s (And Europe’s Self-Inflicted Upcoming Energy’, The Mises Institute, September
[30] ‘Institute IWH expects more bankrupticies in Autumn’, NewsinGermany, at https://newsingermany.com/institute-iwh-expects-more-bankruptcies-in-autumn/
[31] Weimin Chen, ‘Germany’s (And Europe’s Self-Inflicted Upcoming Energy’, The Mises Institute, September 19, 2022, at https://mises.org/wire/germanys-and-europes-self-inflicted-upcoming-energy-crunch
[32] Tom Ozimek, ‘Steve Forbes Criticises Fed for ‘Making People Poorer’, Insists America Is in Recession’, The Epoch Times, September 20, 2022, at https://www.theepochtimes.com/steve-forbes-criticizes-fed-for-making-people-poorer-insists-america-is-in-recession_4742005.html?utm_source=ai&utm_medium=search
[33] Tom Ozimek, ‘Steve Forbes Criticises Fed for ‘Making People Poorer’, Insists America Is in Recession’, The Epoch Times, September 20, 2022, at https://www.theepochtimes.com/steve-forbes-criticizes-fed-for-making-people-poorer-insists-america-is-in-recession_4742005.html?utm_source=ai&utm_medium=search
[34] Tom Ozimek, ‘America is on the verge of a ‘Deeper Recession’ as Inflation Pushes Fed to Hit Brakes Harder: Economist’, The Epoch Times, September 1, 2022, at https://www.theepochtimes.com/america-is-on-the-verge-of-a-deeper-recession-as-inflation-pushes-fed-to-hit-brakes-harder-economist_4703914.html?utm_source=ai&utm_medium=search
[35] Wayne Root, ‘Here’s Your “Red Pill” Moment About the Russian-Ukraine War’, Gateway Pundit, March 6, 2022, at https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/wayne-root-red-pill-moment-russia-ukraine-war/?utm_source=add2any&utm_medium=PostSideSharingButtons&utm_campaign=websitesharingbuttons
A refreshing change from the mindless and poorly informed Putin hatefests. The propaganda is immense and the ignorance worse and it prevents understanding of Russia and Putin.
Despite claims, Putin is not a Hitler, nor a Stalin and neither is he a Communist. He is a committed Christian fighting for his faith and his nation and he is smart. The US/Nato aggression is decades old and Putin has been prepared for the outcomes of his actions in ways the West is not.
What a pity the Americans were not smart enough to draw Russia into the West after 1991.
Quantum thought…………….
And what a pity the Russians……….did not want to be drawn into the West after 1991.
Ah, the constraints of freedom.
It’ll always be American (individual) fault, that’s good management hey ros
And as for the Russian polity being smart enough or not smart enough by half!
Yours truly ,the mindless and poorly informed response.
@STD,
If you bothered to read some history you would know the Russians were open to joining the
West, including Putin.
American hegemonic arrogance and stupidity closed that door. I find it is better to work with facts than uninformed prejudice.
Left wing prejudice . And can you give me good moral reasons for Putin wanting to join the West?
Rosross hits the nail on the head AGAIN.
The villains here aren’t Russian. The guilty parties are the dozen or so neo-cons that run what remains of the American Empire. The demented fake president is just another puppet like most of the leaders that bow to the WEF. In their pursuit of destroying Russia and China, they are willing to sacrifice all of North America and Western Civ.
It is some years since more than one American general has said they believe they can win a nuclear war. Madness indeed.
Unfortunately declining empires are even more dangerous. The US army has male generals pretending to be women. The Russians and Chinese must fall about laughing. Sad thing is everyone gets dragged into the poisoned pit of American hegemonic delusion.
The stupidity is if the Americans had drawn Russia into Europe and Nato they would have made a Chinese/Russian alliance impossible., Now the West’s economy is going down the drain and Russia is allied with China, India, Iran and Brazil.
Quantum thought…………….
And what a pity the Russians……….did not want to be drawn into the West after 1991.
Ah, the constraints of freedom.
It’ll always be American (individual) fault, that’s good management hey ros
And as for the Russian polity being smart enough or not smart enough by half!
Yours truly ,the mindless and poorly informed response.
It is not simply the US which is to blame but its gutless lackey allies including Australia. All our own work through cowardice and stupidity.
Agreed, should have kept the nukes in Ukraine instead of withdrawing them as a gesture of peaceable co-existence.
I deduce you have read ME Sarotte’s comprehensively reserached account of NATO’s eastwards expansion in, ‘Not One Inch.’
Absolutely right. Augusto Zimmerman is a beacon of sanity. Why is Quadrant playing along with this anti-Putin drivel?
Interestingly Facebook has a ban on Oriental Review.
An informative and we’ll referenced but depressing analysis.
.
Much of what rosross says is correct. Pity she strays onto her anti-US hobby horse.
“Putin is not a Hitler, nor a Stalin and neither is he a Communist.” Agreed but it is a bit of a stretch to say he is a “Christian fighting for his faith”. He doesn’t fit my idea of Christianity.
The Stephane Courtois estimate of 20 million victims, (by which I assume she means deaths), of Soviet Russia, is hopelessly short of the mark, if ‘Soviet Russia’ means the USSR.
During Gorbachev’s time, a representative of the KGB admitted on Russian TV that 43 million deaths was ‘about right’.
In his book Death by Government, Prof. R.J. Rummel of the Univ of Hawaii estimates 61 million were murdered by the Soviet Union. Take your pick dear reader; 20, 43 or 62 million?
Some have said 60 million deaths. However none of it due to Putin who is not a Hitler or a Stalin,
Gosh. If deploying casual murder as a means of political control, looting state coffers on a cosmological scale, suborning the executive, corrupting the judiciary, causing the death and immiseration of millions, commanding an army that loots, tortures, rapes and murders at will, lying pathologically and keeping a succession of mistresses is compatible with being a “committed Christian”, there’s hope for me yet.
You are very right.
You just described the US. Try reading some history. Start with Barbara Tuchmann.
“deploying casual murder as a means of political control” in reference to the Clinton body bags?
“looting state coffers on a cosmological scale” like the Clinton Foundation, or seizing assets?
“suborning the executive” are we talking Rod Rosenstein here, or Peter Strozk?
“corrupting the judiciary” as in the way Chief Justice Roberts refused to here any of the ample eveidence of a stolen elecdtion perhaps?
“causing the death and immiseration of millions” as in Libia, Iraq, Syria, Afganistan perhaps?
“commanding an army that loots, tortures, rapes and murders at will”. “We came, we saw, he died. And what difference does it make?”
“lying pathologically and keeping a succession of mistresses” You’ll find out once Ghislane Maxwell starts to plea bargain who teh players are. She has until the end of June 23, and she is indicating she is ready to talk.
Rod, Maxwell will never testify. She will die in jail as did her boyfriend. She knows where too many bodies are buried.
Thanks Rosross and rod.stuart, but whether the US is guilty of any or all of those things has nothing to do with whether Vladimir Putin is a “committed Christian”, which was the subject of my post. Try to stay on topic.
And BTW my preferred peddler of tiresome anti-Americanism is Noam Chomsky rather than Barbara Tuchman.
@ Sindri,
Putin as a committed Christian is horrified by Western Wokery and the attacks on traditional values. Many Christians agree.
You appear to have little understanding of Tuchman. She and Chomsky are very different.
Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was an American historian and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Guns of August, a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China, a biography of General Joseph Stilwell.
The March of Folly is well worth reading.
Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historical essayist, social critic, and political activist.
Chomsky has, at least arguably, been all of those things, but these days he is just a third-rate polemicist, and a tiresome one at that. A sort of thinking man’s Oliver Stone, perhaps.
I can’t say I read Chomsky but I admire his stand for Palestine,
I have not heard Facts and historical realities called – tiresome anti-Americanism before.
Neither have I. Sadly however we have different views on what constitutes “historical facts and realities”.
@ Sindri
One cannot have different views on facts because facts are facts, historical record which is validated. One can interpret the effect and meaning of facts but facts they remain.
Perhaps that is where you go wrong, Not understanding what a Fact is.
Did the Americans promise after the Soviet Union fell that Nato would not move an inch East? They did. They did not put it in writing but it is well documented. They either lied or broke that promise. FACT.
Was the US Government and CIA actively involved in the 2014 coup to throw out the pro-Russian President in Ukraine? They were. Also well documented, FACT.
Did the US Government set up 46 biolabs in Ukraine? They did and they have admitted it. FACT.
Have Nato and the US been arming and training Ukraine for some years? They have. FACT.
Have the Americans ignored Russian protests at their Nato creep? They have. Well documented, FACT.
Have American political and diplomatic experts warned against Nato expansion against Russia? They have, FACT.
See how facts work?
Please furnish evidence for all of this. I believe what you say- just show me.
Otherwise, as usual the left wing bias and uttered garbage is indeed and still remains FACT, that is ,yes it is stranger than, but at least akin to Bruce Pascoe’s fiction.
Think of this as Monash’s (fair dinkum) admonition..
Can’t quite tell whether this is a pile on ..….US…….a Russian pile on.
I’ll use the words of Spike Milligan,”an apart from that with a fire in my cap, it’s been rather wonderful day”.
Well stated. Never let facts get in the way of propaganda. The hypocrisy is easily seen.
The historical evidence for the creation of this war goes back decades for anyone who bothers to look for it.
Noted: George Kennan on NATO Expansion
Excerpt from George F. Kennan, “A Fateful Error,” New York Times, 05 Feb 1997
“Why, with all the hopeful possibilities engendered by the end of the Cold War, should East-West relations become centered on the question of who would be allied with whom and, by implication, against whom in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict?”
“[B]luntly stated…expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking … ”
George Frost Kennan was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly histories of the relations between the USSR and the United States.
Putin stays in power, as long as the Russian economy ploughs ahead.
Russians see their neighbours in Europe destroying their economies with failing “Climate Change” policies.
Rising rouble, falling euro.
What’s not to like?
@Brian Boru,
The Russian Orthodox Christianity is traditional and Christianity has a long history which fits with exactly what Russia and Putin are doing. Putin’s religious beliefs are why he rejects the Woke West and does not want those beliefs in Russia. So, yes, it is a battle for both nation and faith.
I am not anti-American, I am an American realist. The US calls itself a Christian country and has been waging war since it was invented.
By any stretch of sanity, however much one opposes war, the Russians have valid reasons for their actions in regard to literal security which the Americans did not have in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Palestine to name just a few of many.
The US has set the precedent and cannot complain when others imitate. Any reading of the history makes the US role in this war clear. Facts beat prejudice every time.
And prejudice interprets facts to suit prejudice.
The media and nearly all commentators have failed to connec three highly significant events that cannot be coincidence. All occurred on 27 February 2022:
1) The European Union agreed to provide some €500 million in arms and other aid to Ukraine in a move the bloc described as a “watershed moment” in its history.
2) Zelinski signed Ukraine’s formal application to join EU, following which the EU upgraded Ukraine’s status to an accession applicant.
3) German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a plan to beef up the German military, pledging €100 billion ($112.7 billion) of the 2022 budget for the armed forces , which he now claims will make them the most powerful armed forces in Europe. Scholz also reversed Germany’s previous policy not to supply arms to Ukraine.
This is a Faustian deal in which Zelensky signed away his country’s future sovereign independence, for which most Ukrainians believe they are fighhting, in exchange for weapons and finance. By any standards he was blackmailed by Germany and the EU in his country’s darkest hour.
Under this Faustian deal Germany’s EU empire will include the only substantial European mineral resources including Lithium and rare earths essential to Energiewende, not to mention the famous Bread Basket of Europe that is Ukraine. The EU has already made an agreement with Ukraine including specific access to these resources but, it is far better to have them securely under political and economic control inside one’s own territory.
Even if Russia is made to exit Ukraine and leaves it a smoking ruin, those resources will still be there virtually untouched and ready, in almost a replay of Germany’s occupation of Ukraine in WW1, for exploitation by German industry for the benefit not of Ukraine but of Germany and the EU.
Anatomy of a Coup: How CIA front laid foundations for Ukraine war https://mronline.org/2022/07/06/anatomy-of-a-coup/
Quote: Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs “Toria” Nuland was the “mastermind” behind the Feb. 22, 2014 “regime change” in Ukraine, plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych while convincing the ever-gullible US mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for “democracy.”
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-ukraine-mess-that-nuland-made/
rosross, have you read either of Bill Browder’s books, “Red Notice” or “Freezing Order”? It’s also worth listening to this revealing interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkZMH7mx2nE
To me, you seem to have an extremely idealistic notion of Putin and Russia, no doubt influenced by ideology, and wishful thinking (I understand, having once been in that situation myself).
Have you been to Russia in recent years? Outside Moscow and St, Petersburg, you’d swear you were in a third world country. Given all its natural resources, Russia’s citizens should be amongst the world’s most affluent, yet many live in desperate poverty, eased only by alcoholism and suicide (religion might fit in there somewhere). Why have so many educated Russians escaped abroad? Where has all the wealth gone? It’s certainly not being invested in Russia itself, not even in its military forces, as we’ve recently discovered. Or do you believe that Putin is a peace-lover, and so chose not to beef up his war machine? How about Putin’s threats of deploying nuclear weapons?
When reading history, it’s important to take into account the ideological background of its authors — although, given the huge range of books on Russia, some readers select only those which agree with their politics.
Bill Browder is a highly subjective, clearly biased source. There are more objective historians and political analysts to read.
Yes, I did spend a lot of time in Russia 10 years ago.
And well outside Moscow. I have no illusions about Russia, the Soviet era or Putin. I have read a lot of Russian history and literature. I have also spent a lot of time in the US and have family there and I find Russians and Americans very similar which is not surprising although Russians are more street-smart and have a better sense of humour.
Your last comment applies to Browder.
All I do know, from the facts, is that the Americans created this war, either by design or stupidity and Putin is much smarter than Biden.
We would agree, I presume, that Canada and Mexico are independent States. However, do you think they are respectful toward the demands and needs of their powerful neighbour, the US? They appear to be.
What do you think the US would do if Canada or Mexico embarked on the same sort of course as Ukraine has done, and wanted to enter into a military alliance with China for instance which would see Chinese missile launchers on the US border? What do you think the Americans would do if Canada or Mexico allowed the Chinese to set up bioweapons laboratories?
What do you think the Americans would do if there were a Chinese-backed coup in Canada or Mexico which installed a pro-Chinese and anti-American Government? Any guesses? You appear to have limited knowledge of the leadup to this conflict so perhaps you are unaware that the CIA backed coup in Ukraine tossed out a pro-Russian President and installed a pro-American/Nato President. And you wonder why the Russians have invaded Ukraine.
My guess is the Americans would do exactly what the Russians are doing because that is how global power politics works. The Ukrainians were foolish getting into bed with the Americans and their Nato lackeys and it was only ever going to end badly for Ukraine.
Putin did not invade because he disapproved of Ukraine joining Nato. He invaded because it was clear the US/Nato aggression had become more dangerous and the Americans and Europeans were ignoring the valid concerns of the Russians.
Since the US had promised not to advance Nato one step closer to Russia’s borders when the Soviet Union fell in 1991 and then embarked on a process of doing exactly that, one can, if common sense and reason are applied, understand why the Russians had become a tad wary of American promises and realised that they and they alone had to ensure their secure and defended borders.
States which border powerful nations are never and can never be truly independent. That is the reality of global politics, like it or not. The Ukrainians are dying in the tens of thousands and watching their country being destroyed because they did not accept the reality that their powerful neighbour, Russia, was not going to sit back while they jumped into bed with the American enemy.
In truth, in this age, few nations have true independence and even Australia does what the Americans tell it to do. So, the concept of national independence is more fantasy than reality.
Thanks, I lived and worked there during the 90’s, a terrible time initially but improved out of sight as the 90’s ended and Putin became President and the place has gone ahead in leaps and bounds since then. The State geological and geophysical company that employed my wife had to hand out food parcels at one stage of the game and things were so tight that the staff of that company had to take the company to court about every three months to get their salary. Corruption was rife, there were gunfights in the streets as one Mafia faction fought another, and the 900 square metres of land we leased to erect a hangar at the airport cost USD 28K a month paid into a New York bank! Those of us used to corruption in S E Asia were surprised by the corruption in both Russia and the Ukraine for those people made the Asiatic bandits look like kindy kids as far as corruption was concerned. Me, I think Putin is justified in many ways because the USA is using The Ukraine as a pawn and wish that Zelenskyy should have pursued his role as a comedian but my Russian family disagree mainly because of the slaughter of innocent civilians. Many comments are from people who haven’t the faintest idea of the background of this conflict, haven’t lived in any of those places, haven’t read the history, and believe it or not have succumbed to western propaganda that is every bit as good or even better than Russian propaganda. People have to be pragmatic and acknowledge the rights and wrongs of both the USA and Russia instead of blaming everything on Russia and ignoring all the bad stuff done by the USA over the years. The mere mention of the goings on of the last three Ukrainian presidents isn’t mentioned, Poroshenko having the Donbas area shelled in 2014, Biden’s son, Mrs. Clinton with her fingers in the pie, all never mentioned. Both are great countries but we must judge them fairly without bias and remember that Russia has never really known democracy, the USA had democracy and is throwing it away under the present regime and of course President Biden blames Russia.
@O’Hooligan,
Excellent post.
Please give your Russian family my warm regards. Thanks for giving us that insight.
Great article Augusto and a much needed counter to the barrage of propaganda that so easily blinds the once naturally sceptical Australian population. Thanks also Ros Ross, Rod.stuart and others for your sound commentaries.
What has happened to our BS meters?
During the Covid psyop the apparently easily terrified Australian public discarded all rationality. I heard the term “Covidiot” applied to anyone who had the temerity to even ask rational and obvious questions.
It was “unfashionable” to express anything but disdain for Trump because so many swallowed the transparently inverted propaganda we were fed by the usual suspects.
Now we are expected to believe that Putin is “insane” and leading the world into armageddon. One can only believe by ignoring history, in particular the funded aggression to Ukrainian Russians since 2014 .
People like to blame others. We live in an age of idiocy. Any reading of history makes the Russian response tragic but understandable. And any understanding of the US makes their hegemonic actions tragic but pathetically predictable. We have changed little in thousands of years.
In my circle, intimate and wider, “Covidiot” was used frequently, and exclusively to describe those who believed the lies from Government, Big Pharma and Big Media about Covid, masks, “vaccines”, lockdowns…….
My experience also. People will do anything, including lie to themselves and others to maintain the illusion of certainty which comforts their fears. To have simple black and white, goodies and baddies, right and wrong supports the illusion of certainty. It is a childlike approach but as Covid reminded us, all too common in adults. And many people love a war which supports their beliefs, also childlike, in good and evil.
“Zelensky and his cabinet are not motivated by the stability and integrity of Ukraine. Instead, they are motivated by billions in financial aid. Between 2014 and 2020, Ukraine received more than $51.3 billion in and economic aid. Much of this enormous financial assistance was simply stolen by the commercial, military, and political elites. “”
https://orientalreview.org/2022/08/09/why-are-the-u-s-and-other-nato-countries-spending-billions-on-ukraine/
Heading of an article in The Guardian pre-war:
Welcome to Ukraine the most corrupt nation in Europe
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Heading of an article in The Guardian after the start of the war:
The fight for Ukraine is a fight for liberal ideas
It would be funny if it were not so evil.
Good to see the Subjunctive used correctly.
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The Engagement Editor at The Australian took issue with my correct use:
If the ABC was a privately owned broadcaster …
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He accepted my educational response and replied:
“I stand corrected. Cheers. So if you are using ‘if’ it becomes conditional, and thus ‘were’.
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Does it matter? Not really, but wrongly criticising another does.
The Engagement Editor at the Australian hasn’t quite got it right. The subjunctive is only used in a subordinate clause with “if” to express something wholly hypothetical or contrary to the fact: “If Putin were less of a coward, he wouldn’t murder his political opponents”. The indicative, not the subjunctive, is used to express an affirmative or probable proposition: “If Putin was responsible for poisoning the Skripals, and they didn’t just have a bout of food poisoning as Jaques Baud claims, then he should be put in trial for murder”. In reality, the subjunctive is, as you point out, almost dead in English. In some European languages on the other hand, just about every subordinate clause takes the subjunctive.
@ Sindri,
If the charges against Putin were proven you would have a case. Until they are, he remains innocent. The Americans have killed plenty of opponents globally and who knows internally.
Facts matter even more in the face of propaganda.
Who shot down MAL17? The Russians say the Ukrainians who mistook it for a plane carrying Putin. The Ukrainians say the Russians. We don’t know. It may have been neither. Without facts all claims are conjecture.
Yes and the BUK M1 that shot it down was owned and operated by Russia. Keep In mind the intention of Russia post this event was to occupy and take control of Ukraine , presumably this would include the said airspace- either way the West was being put on notice- and still the Russian apology is not forthcoming- presumably there is no apology intended by Russia for other intentional Ukrainian deaths.
The unreported shirt fronting by Putin on Tony Abbott speaks volumes for the general lack of integrity in Australian and journalists generally.
You said: Yes and the BUK M1 that shot it down was owned and operated by Russia.
Many things in Ukraine were owned by Russia. Who says it was operated by Russia? Ukraine? Nothing out of Ukraine can be trusted. They make the Russians look honest.
You said: Keep In mind the intention of Russia post this event was to occupy and take control of Ukraine .
Says who? Keep in mind when the plane was shot down in July 2014, it was five months after the CIA-staged coup in Ukraine to throw out the pro-Russian President. At that point who would benefit from Russia being blamed for such an atrocity. Let me think!
Why would the Russians apologise if they did not do it. And would they if they did? Did the Americans apologise for shooting down the Iranian airliner in 1988? Nope they did not: The U.S. government issued notes of regret for the loss of human lives, but never formally apologized or acknowledged wrongdoing.
Pray, what would Russia gain from such an atrocity? Nada. What would the Ukrainians and Americans gain from a false flag which blamed Russia? Quite a bit. Common sense is a good fallback.
You said: presumably there is no apology intended by Russia for other intentional Ukrainian deaths.
Have the Ukrainians apologised for the Russian-speakers they slaughtered in the Donbas for nearly a decade?
Did the Americans apologise for the Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Syrians they have slaughtered? Don’t think so.
You appear to apply double standards.
Yes indeed I do- For the second time can you not over look this question which I posed at the top of the comments section, very specifically directed to you-can you give me good moral reasons for Putin wanting to Join the West?
@ Sindri
You said: can you give me good moral reasons for Putin wanting to Join the West?
Do you mean what moral reasons would Putin have for joining the West? Morality does not enter into it. He needs no moral reasons.
Russia is a part of the European continent and has a long history of European interaction. Surely Russia on board is better for Europe than Russia as enemy?
Given the horrors Russians have suffered in recent centuries from the French and Germans and their own personal suffering inflicted by the Bolsheviks and then Stalin, they want peace and security like anyone else.
The Americans chose to make Russia an eternal enemy, no doubt to fuel their war coffers. That is the tragedy. And as the noted American analyst, John Mearsheimer said, the US will fight to the last Ukrainian in its bid to cripple Russia. Although that plan does seem to be failing.
If you mean a good moral reason for Russia becoming a part of the West, the answer would be less war and suffering and more peace. That would apply to the Europeans and Americans who appear to have no morals on this issue.
Quote: “The Engagement Editor at the Australian hasn’t quite got it right”.
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He had it quite wrong, I had it quite right.
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More fully (I kept the previous short figuring it was clear enough):
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I wrote: “If the ABC were a privately-owned broadcaster, the Australian Communications and Media Authority would likely suspend its licence”.
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His response included “If the ABC was a privately owned broadcaster … ” with “was” in italics and the … followed by a “smiley”. They don’t appear thus in Quadrant comments.
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I set him straight with:
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“The SUBJUNCTIVE use of were:
The Subjunctive is about things that are unreal or conditional. When you’re talking about your hopes and dreams, you’re using the subjunctive mood. The same goes for talking about something you intend or want to do, as well as for things you know will never be true or are no longer true.
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A sign that you’re working with the subjunctive mood is the word if, because this suggests a hypothetical. For example, “If I were to go shopping, I could search for spices”. It doesn’t matter if the subject is singular or plural, or if it’s first, second, or third person. If you’re using the subjunctive mood, the grammatically correct past tense of to be is were.
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If you’re discussing things that are unreal or conditional, then use were: I were and he/she/it/you were. Here are some more example sentences:
“If I were in better shape, I would run in the race”.
“She took over the meeting as if she were the boss”.
“His father talked to him as though he were a child.
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Rolf Harris – If I Were A Rich Man
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSTPMBPXFxs
Yes, I agree with all of that. I was only indulging in a bit of polite understatement when I said the Engagement Editor had not quite got it right . .
And what is an “Engagement Editor”? A modern-day version of the old society pages writer who keeps us up to date with weddings, perhaps 🙂
For me, he’s the bloke who reinstates a comment when he agrees with me that a moderator has wrongly REJECTED it.
The moderators there tend to be sensitive souls. I’m amazed they even entertain any debate before hitting the delete button.
Rosross, you may or may not be correct, but I’m talking about grammar. It’s a matter of what the speaker intends to convey. Putin may be the bravest man alive, but a speaker who doesn’t sign up to that viewpoint would use the subjunctive in my first sentence above.
You are talking about English grammar which does not apply to Russian. And interpreters are not all equal and some are very poor indeed.
Rosross, I have no idea what your point is. Yes, I am indeed talking about English grammar, not Russian.
My point is you seem to be applying English grammar rules to Russian and putting much faith in the English interpretation of what Putin said. It does not work.
I haven’t quoted or paraphrased Putin at all, or interpreted anything he has said.
You said: “If Putin were less of a coward, he wouldn’t murder his political opponents”. The indicative, not the subjunctive, is used to express an affirmative or probable proposition: “If Putin was responsible for poisoning the Skripals, and they didn’t just have a bout of food poisoning as Jaques Baud claims, then he should be put in trial for murder”.
You obviously have know liking for beetroot. That’s ok at least I know that you know that I know .
I don’t get the beetroot reference but I do make excellent Borscht.
Glad to hear it. The one form in which I find beetroot palatable.
@ Sindri,
Apologies if I have misunderstood. You seemed to be ‘accusing’ Putin of those crimes.