Thanks for posting this. It is very good.
I’m a little disappointed in the author’s short shrift given to Ukraine. I’m always hungry for more info about what Russia did there, since it was my area of “study” in the army, and I have a Ukranian girlfriend.
It seems that all the news about Ukraine is hopelessly slanted one way or another. When I read the opening to his only paragraph regarding Ukraine I was hopeful for a learned summary on these events.
But the author’s “Both of these accounts are perfectly correct...” bailout disappointed me greatly.
>I’m a little disappointed in the author’s short shrift given to Ukraine. I’m always hungry for more info about what Russia did there, since it was my area of “study” in the army, and I have a Ukranian girlfriend.
>It seems that all the news about Ukraine is hopelessly slanted one way or another. When I read the opening to his only paragraph regarding Ukraine I was hopeful for a learned summary of these events.
What happened in the Ukraine is pretty simple: US state department overthrew the government to enrich US oligarchs and to punish Russia for Syria. Joe Biden’s son was one of the people to be immediately appointed to a state Oil Company board after the coup. Then Russia kept the Crimea which is where most of the oil and gas is located. The conflict in the Ukraine is kept going so the country can’t join NATO and thus place bases deep in the heart of Russian territory.
During the USSR Crimea and Eastern Ukraine was transferred from Russia to the Ukraine to make sure there was always a Russian majority in the Ukraine. After the breakup of the Soviet Union candidates friendly to Russia generally won the elections due to these populations.
The leader who was overthrown by the Maiden coup won mostly from votes in the Russia portions of the country. A sensible solution to the Ukraine would have been divisions along ethnic lines but all the available land and resources are in the Russian areas. There should never have been an armed conflict in the country but Obama funded the Ukraine government to launch offensive after offensive against the Russians in the east(Via the IMF) while Putin sent supplies, weapons, and eventually troops to protect the east.
Putin prefers a frozen conflict because occupying the Ukraine would cost a lot more than it’s worth (Crimea’s already a huge money sink) and US Neo-Cons favored crushing and driving out the Russian populations. The Neo-Con idea that Russia will allow that is frankly insane.
People have this idea from Marxist teachers that empires make nations rich. This isn’t true. Empires always cost more than they produce and Russia isn’t rich enough to support an empire at the moment, thus the conflict stays fronzen.
>>I’m a little disappointed in the author’s short shrift given to Ukraine. I’m always hungry for more info about what Russia did there, since it was my area of “study” in the army, and I have a Ukranian girlfriend.<<
If you want to know what Russia did to Ukraine, pick up a copy of the book entitled Execution By Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust, by the Ukrainian author Miron Dolot.