Posted on 02/28/2022 8:20:47 AM PST by datura
One of the questions asked over and over about Putin’s callous invasion of an inoffensive neighbor, an invasion that is mysteriously rationalized by an amazing number of people on the right who were apoplectic over Trudeau’s brutality with the Freedom Convoy, is what was his objective. It’s obvious that he was torqued about Ukraine flirting with EU and NATO membership, but if he wanted regime change, a few million dollars, an AstroTurfed mob, and a GRU or Spetsznaz hit squad could have accomplished that (look at how easily Putin installed his previous stooge, Yanukovych) with much less melodrama and loss of life.
Some have postulated that Putin launched this invasion as a way of warning any country thinking about joining NATO that NATO would do nothing to help them.
Good questions. If we don’t understand what motivated Putin to engage in this adventure, it becomes much more difficult to anticipate and deter future instances of him acting out.
What follows next, I think, fills in the blank spaces on what was behind the Ukraine invasion. I present it with grave reservations because I’m not all that familiar with the sources and am relying on the credibility of Christo Gorzev, an award-winning investigative journalist who is now the Executive Director of Bellingcat. Allegedly, the Russians have accused Bellingcat of being a front for Western intelligence; I don’t have an opinion on that. My sole experience in following their coverage following the downing of Ukrainian Airlines flight PS752 by an Iranian SAM found them to be so slavishly pro-Iran that I wondered if they were on retainer (It Looks Increasingly Likely That Iran Accidentally Shot Down That Ukrainian Airliner). Anyway, here goes.
So, the same essay appeared on Saturday in at least three Russian outlets, including Sputnik. Then it disappeared without notice. You can read the archive.org version here; I’ve provided some key snippets below.
A new world is being born before our eyes. Russia’s military operation in Ukraine has ushered in a new era – and in three dimensions at once. And of course, in the fourth, internal Russian. Here begins a new period both in ideology and in the very model of our socio-economic system – but this is worth talking about separately a little later.
Russia is restoring its unity – the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a virtual civil war, because now brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other, but there will be no more Ukraine as anti-Russia. Russia is restoring its historical fullness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together – in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we had abandoned this, if we had allowed the temporary division to take hold for centuries, then we would not only betray the memory of our ancestors, but would also be cursed by our descendants for allowing the disintegration of the Russian land.
… Now this problem is gone – Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be reorganized, re-established and returned to its natural state of part of the Russian world. In what borders, in what form will the alliance with Russia be fixed (through the CSTO and the Eurasian Union or the Union State of Russia and Belarus )? This will be decided after the end is put in the history of Ukraine as anti-Russia. In any case, the period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end.
And here begins the second dimension of the coming new era – it concerns Russia’s relations with the West. Not even Russia, but the Russian world, that is, three states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, acting in geopolitical terms as a single whole. These relations have entered a new stage – the West sees the return of Russia to its historical borders in Europe . And he is loudly indignant at this, although in the depths of his soul he must admit to himself that it could not be otherwise.
… Because the construction of a new world order – and this is the third dimension of current events – is accelerating, and its contours are more and more clearly visible through the spreading cover of Anglo-Saxon globalization. A multipolar world has finally become a reality – the operation in Ukraine is not capable of rallying anyone but the West against Russia. Because the rest of the world sees and understands perfectly well – this is a conflict between Russia and the West, this is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, this is Russia’s return of its historical space and its place in the world.
As I’ve noted a couple of times, my professional assessment is that Russia thought the Ukraine operation would be over by Happy Hour on Friday. Everything indicates they were moving on a tight timetable that assumed the flight of the Ukrainian government, the collapse of the Ukrainian armed forces, and the passivity of the Ukrainian people. The article would have coincided with photo ops taken in Kiev as soon as a new government was installed. When that didn’t happen, Russia acted like CNN covering up a mistake.
The content of the essay fits in very well with what we’ve seen from Russia for the past few years. I think the fact that the essay talks about uniting the Russian people and Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus acting as one polity is much closer to the view I expressed yesterday than to the idea that Putin wants to recreate the USSR. This is a quote from Putin’s Threats to Sweden and Finland Are Much More Real Than They Are Being Given Credit For; “If you think the goal is a reconstituted USSR, I believe you have it wrong. The goal is the Russia of Nicholas II. He’s not interested in Potemkin Soviet Socialist Republics. He sees Ukraine and Belarus, and Moldova as integral parts of Greater Russia.”
It is also interesting that Putin is targeting the entire international security order as it has existed since 1945. In fact, he’s actually trying to reestablish the security environment as it was on the eve of World War I with multiple centers of gravity and endless opportunities for Russia to expand her influence into areas where NATO has frozen her out.
I’m sure we’ll see more on this over the next days; if it turns out to be accurate, we’ve had a window open into Putin’s thinking that clarifies what his endgame is. Whether Joey SoftServe and the White Rage Warriors are up to dealing with it remains to be seen.
Forgot to add, watch the live cams. The MSM says one thing, the live cams tell another. They’re lying.
Ping to post 100.
You think Ukraine has more child trafficking than Russia?!!! And good guy Putin is going to wipe it out? You have lost your mind. But the Russian invasion is killing and maiming plenty of children. You have zero understanding of what is motivating patriotic Ukrainians and zero understanding of Putin’s long standing criminal thug behavior.
Bear in mind that Putin hates child traffickers. That’s why he won’t allow adoption of their children.
Our 'rights' are listed in a founding document.
Many politicians and others have tried to add various 'rights' to our national ethic and they've also tried to ignore the ones listed.
When Man claims a 'right' it is really a 'privilege' - given or taken away at will.
Anyone on the right who thinks Putin is our most dangerous enemy are sadly out of touch.
Right on!!!
We ALL know it’s climate change!!
I don’t do FB either. My wife does I just copied address. Don’t even know who is speaking
Thank you for this insightful reply!
No, it's not.
It's actually a demand that I read and listen to propaganda I have the right to ignore
Kinda like what Occupy Wall Street, BLM and Antifa Terrorists do to ordinary Americans when they obstruct their movements on public streets, you will listen to their propaganda and agree, or they will block your movement until you do.
You should have figured that out.
” an invasion that is mysteriously rationalized by an amazing number of people on the right who were apoplectic over Trudeau’s brutality with the Freedom Convoy, “
Not mysterious. The common thread is that people are coming to despise leaders in DC, Brussels, Ottawa, etc. We correctly blame them for most of the evil and hardship in the world at the moment.
Empowering every camel moslem camel jockey they can? Check.
Enriching China and trying to implement their system here? Check.
Finding every way possible to humiliate and chest bump Russia? Check.
We are beginning to enjoy or at least understand when anyone shoves back against our enlightened western tyrants.
When I googled "GASK (State Architectural Construction Inspection in Vinnytsia oblast)" from the text on one of your .pdfs, this is the first response that I clicked on:
List of Ukrainian people's demands to international communityIt seems written in the language of an apparatchik of the central committee.
Your FReepiversary is only six month away.
So, I guess it's just coincidence that most of the guards at the NAZI Death Camps were Ukrainian?
More along the lines of old czarist schema holding out it’s nationalist structure vs. the NWO commercialism that nearly every other modern country has fallen into.
Putin fights the inevitable assimilation, with archaic Quixotian rhetoric. He’s old, probably sick, and his time is fading quickly away. This is likely his last hurrah.
He made it clear that the worst geopolitical disaster occurred in 1991, NOT 1917. And besides, if he TRULY wanted to bring back the historical glory of the Russian Empire, don’t you think he would have done stuff like, I don’t know, ban the Communist Party from even EXISTING in the USSR, ban Communist groups, including the Worldwide Youth Festival, that exist outside Russia from ever visiting, bulldoze Lenin’s Mausoleum, make sure his corpse is either buried in an unmarked plot or, ideally, is a permanent ornament from a nearby street post, and tear down Karl Marx’s statue, and then make sure Russia exclusively thinks and talks about the glories of the Russian Empire, and that the USSR, if it’s EVER talked about at all, is only with scorn? I know if it were ME in his position, those would all be things I’d make SURE to do to ensure a Russian Empire revival, NOT the stuff Putin is pulling.
And just as an FYI, anti-globalist guys such as Diana West, Ion Mihai Pacepa, JR Nyquist, and Trevor Loudon among others more than made it clear that Putin is still a Communist. Russia still isn’t free from Communism.
And Ukraine being corrupt is NO excuse to back a Communist like Putin. South Vietnam was also labeled as the most corrupt country in existence once upon a time. Want to know what happened the second we stopped supporting it? It went Communist, and ultimately led to the events of the Cambodian Massacre among others.
You ARE aware that Stalin literally tried to rehash Hitler’s Death Camps with his Doctor’s Plot, right?
My next door neighbors were Refuseniks that finally were allowed to leave Russia just before the Soviet Union fell.
Marat passed away several months ago and Galina is by herself now. They both became very proud US citizens and their son got a degree from Harvard and is now in med school at Georgetown, after working for several years at a non-profit.
So now we agree that neither Russia nor Ukraine is worth our concern as far as this fighting is help in any way. Especially the Ukraine with all the intrigue, bribes and collusion with our prominent Democrat and RINO leadership through their sons.
And they are getting those demands met. SMH
I may not care one bit for the Ukraine, but I ALSO realize it’s nonetheless VERY stupid to ignore the fighting. Assuming Putin wins, then given Putin’s making not so secret that he’ll be bringing back Communism to the USSR, that means we’ll have another Cold War on our hands. The only way to truly get rid of Communism besides Fatima is to make sure Putin doesn’t win.
Preventing Communism from gaining any more strength is the ONLY reason why I’d even consider supporting Ukraine in the loosest sense. If you ask me, we should have gone all Nuremberg on Russia and ALL the Communist Countries after the Cold War ended. Do the same thing we did to Nazi Germany. Thanks to stupidly assuming the USSR’s “collapse” meant Communism was discredited and not doing anything more to kill it, we just gave it time to regroup. And now thanks to Ayers and his ilk, it’s poisoned the educational water supply.
And don’t think going isolationist will work this time around. Let me point out that our going isolationist during the 1930s not only helped the Nazis gain power, but also had us coming VERY close to becoming a Soviet proxy state thanks to FDR.
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