Ukrainian Syndrome. Anatomy of a Modern Military Confrontation
By Viktor Medvedchuk, former Ukrainian opposition leader – Izvestia – 16.01.2023
Listening to many Western politicians, it seems completely impossible to understand the sense and mechanisms of the conflict in modern Ukraine. Take US President Biden. He denies the direct involvement of US troops in the conflict but at the same time he mentions on every occasion the billions in weapons the US supplies to the country.
If billions are spent for military purposes in Ukraine, it means Ukrainian interests are extremely important for the US. But the US army does not want to fight there. So probably they are not so important, after all. And what about these weapon supplies worth billions of dollars? Are they donations? Is it a profitable business? Investments? Some political combination? No answers, only smoke.
Or take the most recent revelations by German ex-Chancellor Merkel that the Minsk Agreements were just an attempt to give Ukraine time. Which means no one was ever going to establish peace in Ukraine. So, Russia was deceived. But what was the purpose? To protect Ukraine or to invade it themselves? Why did they need this deception if they could simply implement what was recommended by Germany? Or did Germany deliberately recommend something that could never be implemented? We could go as far as asking if political swindlers could be drawn to accountability, but it seems much more relevant today to start clearing the smoke around the current situation. That is how it has played out, anyway. But what were the root causes? And how can we get out of this situation, that is getting ever more dangerous? So let us begin our analysis by looking at the origins.
What Was the Outcome of the Cold War?
The beginning of a new war usually finds its origin in the end of a previous one. The Ukraine conflict was preceded by the Cold War. The answer to the question about its outcome will bring us closer to understanding of the essence of the current conflict, one which extends beyond Ukraine and affects many countries. The thing is that Western countries and the countries of the post-Soviet space, primarily Russia, have different perceptions of the outcome of this war.
The West definitely considers itself as a winner and Russia as a defeated party. Since, in their eyes, Russia was defeated, then the territories of the former USSR and the Eastern Bloc are the legitimate prey of the US and NATO and are subject to control by the West under the motto “Woe to the Conquered!” Hence Ukraine is in the zone of influence of the US and NATO, and certainly not Russia. So, any of Russia’s claims to at least any influence on Ukrainian politics and protection of its interests in the region are “groundless” and a clear infringement on the interests of the US and NATO. “We no longer have to view the world through a prism of East-West relations. The Cold War is over” – declared Margaret Thatcher in the early 1990s. It means the position of the East, of Russia, is no longer relevant. There is one victor, one master of the universe, one winner.
Russia has a completely different view of this process. In no way does it consider itself as a defeated party. The end of the Cold War was brought about by democratic reforms of political and economic life, and military confrontation was replaced by trade and integration with the West. So, if one’s former foe becomes a friend today, is it not a victory? Besides, the USSR and then the Russian Federation never had the goal of winning the Cold War but rather exiting the military confrontation between East and West that could have ended with a nuclear catastrophe. Moscow, together with Washington, found this way out, having reached the goals not so much for themselves as for the whole world.
This way out by no means implied that the West would take over the East and subordinate the post-Soviet space in economic, legal and cultural respects. Quite the contrary: it implied equal cooperation and joint work to build a new political and economic reality. So, there are clearly two different attitudes to the outcome of the Cold War: the triumph of the winners, on the one part, and building a new world and a new civilization, on the other. The difference between these two attitudes would predetermine the developments that followed.
New World or New Western Colonies?
In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed, but in 1992 the European Union was established – something the post-Soviet space including Russia associated big hopes with. Here, at last, there seemed to be a new world, a new supranational body, a new turn in the history of Western civilization. Russia, just like other states of the former Eastern Bloc and the USSR, saw itself in the future as an equal member of this Union. The vision of “Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok” was born.
In this context, Russia welcomed not only the reunification of Germany but also the accession of its former allies and even former Soviet republics to the EU. In the 1990s, economic integration with the West was a priority for Russia; Moscow considered it as key to its success as a modern state. The Russian leadership had no particular desire to bind to itself the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine. Most of the Soviet republics had lived off subsidies from the central government, in other words, Russia. So, the leaders of these countries were given a friendly pat on the shoulder while Moscow sought to get rid of their economic burden as soon as possible.
Faster than Ukraine, Russia began to integrate into the European market. Russia had vast volumes of energy resources that are in demand in Europe, while Ukraine, on the contrary, couldn’t afford to buy energy resources at European prices. Ukrainian independence could well have ended with an economic meltdown but for the South-East, where heavy fighting is going on right now. With its vast production facilities and advanced industry, the South-East helped Ukraine find its place in the international division of labor. One would not normally mention this fact, but in the 1990s it was the Russian-speaking South-East that saved the economic and hence political independence of Ukraine.
Now let us turn to something different. Since the 1990s, a series of major ethnic conflicts and wars involving millions of people emerged in Europe and close to its borders. Until 1991, there had not been such a big number of ethnic clashes. All of this led to the break-up of Yugoslavia and loss by Georgia, Moldova and Syria of their territorial integrity. This does not make any sense if we look at it from the perspective of European integration. The goal of this union was not the fragmentation of Europe into a multitude of small states, but quite the contrary: the creation of a huge supranational union of nations, and these nations would not have to exterminate each other, nor to multiply the borders, but rather build a new world together. So, what was wrong here?
It only seems wrong if one relies on the concept that Russia used to stick to. And if one proceeds from the concept of the victory of the West in the Cold War, then ethnic conflicts acquire a completely different meaning. The latter was articulated on numerous occasions, e.g., at the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on October 24, 1995, when US President Bill Clinton said: “Using the blunders of Soviet diplomacy, the extreme arrogance of Gorbachev and his entourage, including those who openly took a pro-American position, we achieved what President Truman was going to do with the Soviet Union through the atomic bomb.”
It suggests that far from all Western politicians wanted to build a new and just world. Their goal was to defeat the adversary – the USSR, Yugoslavia and other states. In this sense, the escalation of interethnic conflicts seems only logical, as they weaken the adversary and in the case of a victory, they help to dismember the country to make it easier for the winner to take over.
Under these circumstances, the real state of affairs does not play any role. The situation is being deliberately escalated. On the one hand, representatives of the titular nation are being declared as organizers of the genocide, annihilating the foreign language and culture and performing ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, representatives of the national minority living in communities in certain parts of the country are being declared separatists and a threat to the state. This tactic dates back to ancient times and was used by the Roman Empire. But the building of a new slaveholding empire is not something we are witnessing these days, is it? Or probably Washington, for example, does consider the post-Soviet space as some provinces of a greater empire that already have their metropole and should be protected from Barbarians who do not want to be under the control of this empire?
So, there are two political strategies: the economic and political integration of the countries with mutual benefit at the cornerstone, and the take-over of some countries by the others, with zero respect for the interests of the states that are being taken over. Such countries can be dismembered, declared rogue states or conquered.
Speaking of the Russian Federation, as it emerges from the crisis provoked by the dramatic change of its political and economic orientation, it is increasingly being faced with clear attempts to weaken it, humiliate it and put it at a disadvantage; increasingly often, is it being declared a rogue state despite its growing economic potential. Growing economic potential should normally increase the influence of the country and be welcomed in the Western world. But exactly the opposite happens. Not only is the Russian influence not welcomed – it is being declared wrong, criminal and corrupt.
Let us elaborate on this in more detail. Russia has taken Western democracy as a model, carried out reforms and begun to integrate into the Western world. From the point of view of building a common European house, this should be welcomed and encouraged. Europe gets a peaceful and economically reliable partner along with its markets and resources, which certainly makes it even stronger. But if one is guided by colonial thinking, one would not tolerate the economic growth and independence of a distant colony. Provinces should not overtake the metropole, neither financially, nor politically, nor culturally.
There is the EU that was engaged in building a new economic reality. And there is the NATO established in 1949 that confronted the East, primarily the USSR and later Russia. Remember the words by the first Secretary-General of the NATO Hastings Ismay: the bloc was intended “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.” Thus, the NATO ideology implies that the US is in Europe, and in a dominating position, and Russia is not.
But how should Russia take it? It ended the Cold War in good faith, while it seems that the US and the NATO have not. Which means that unification with the West intended for Russia will not happen on equal terms, but rather take the form of an economic and political take-over. Hence Moscow’s requirement to stop the enlargement towards Russia’s borders and revise the attitudes and the agreements. What we see now is that the NATO concept has not only derailed Russia’s integration into Europe but closed the door to Europe’s expansion and development. Of the two concepts mentioned in this article, one has clearly defeated the other.
Russia and Ukraine – the Tragedy of Relationships
Let us move on from the general picture directly to relations between Russia and Ukraine. Let us start from the fact that the relations between these countries have their own specific history. These relationships are closer than the collaboration between England and Scotland, or the Northern and Southern States of the US. Ukraine was part of Russia for more than three hundred years, which influenced its culture, ethnic composition and mentality. Ukraine’s independence in 1991 was gained through an agreement with Moscow, not as a result of a national struggle for liberation. The new economic and political reality prompted the Russian elite not only to grant independence to Ukraine, but also to push for it. At that time, no one could have imagined an armed clash between the two new states, even in a nightmare. The Ukrainians saw Russia as a friendly state, and the Russians as a fraternal nation, and these sentiments were shared by Russians.
In Russia, for a long time, the concept of “Another Russia” prevailed with respect to Ukraine, which supposes much closer relations than, for example, those between Britain and Canada. There was a popular saying in everyday life: “We have one people, but different states.” Ukrainians and Russians were very interested in the political life of their respective neighbors. A suitable example is the current President of Ukraine Zelensky, who made a living from political satire, usually based on the politics of both states.
However, the example of Ukraine clearly demonstrates how the concept of creating a common political and economic space was defeated by the concept of squeezing Russia out of Europe. In the wake of the first ‘Maidan’ color revolution in 2005, Ukraine started building anti-Russian policy at the level of state ideology. In this, one can see clearly that this policy follows the templates of the Cold War. That is, psychologically, the Ukrainians were turned against the Russians through the support of certain politicians, changes in the educational system, in culture and in national media broadcasting. All of this came under the guise of democratic reforms and positive changes supported by all sorts of Western and international organizations.
It is difficult to call it a democratic process. It was simply the dictate of pro-Western forces in politics, media, the economy and civil society. Western democracy was established through totally undemocratic methods. And today, more than ever, the most important question is: is Ukraine’s political regime a democracy?
Within Ukraine itself, two countries had existed since 1991: Anti-Russia, and Ukraine as another Russia. While one does not think itself without Russia, the other does not think of itself with Russia. However, this division is quite artificial. Ukraine has spent most of its history with Russia, and it is tied to it culturally and mentally.
Ukraine’s integration with Russia is definitely dictated by the economy. After all, if there is such a huge market and resources nearby, only a very shallow power could not use it, or go so far as to block it. Anti-Russian sentiments have brought Ukraine nothing but grief and poverty. Therefore, all pro-Western nationalist movements consciously or unconsciously preach poverty and destitution to the Ukrainian people.
We have already mentioned that it was the South-East with its production potential that helped the country find its footing in the international division of labor. It turned out that most of the money was earned by the East, a large Russian-speaking region. Naturally, this could not but effect its political representation in the Ukrainian government. The South-East had more human resources and financial tools, which did not fit into the pro-Western picture of Ukraine. The people who lived there were too proud, too free, and too rich.
Both the first and second Maidans were directed against Viktor Yanukovych, the former governor of Donetsk, the leader of Donbass and non-nationalist centrist political forces. Electoral support for such forces was very significant, and Ukraine did not want to be ‘Anti-Russia’ for a very long time. President Yushchenko, who arrived with the first Maidan, very quickly lost the confidence of the people, for the most part because of his anti-Russian policies.
Then an interesting trend emerged in Ukrainian politics. The elections after the second Maidan are won by President Poroshenko, who promised peace with Russia in one week. So, he was elected as a peacemaker president. Nevertheless, he became the president of the war, failed to implement the Minsk Agreements, and miserably lost the following election. He was replaced by Vladimir Zelensky, who also promised peace, but became the personification of war. So, the Ukrainian people are promised peace and then they are deceived. Having gained power under the rhetoric of peacemaking, he becomes the second Ukrainian leader to have taken an extremely radical position. If he had such a position at the beginning of the election campaign, no one would have elected him.
And now let us return to the general concept of this article. If one says that one is going to build a new world with the neighbors but simply pushes one’s own interests, regardless of anything, even war, even the threat of nuclear conflict, then obviously one is not going to build anything. This is what the ex-president of Ukraine Poroshenko did and this is what the current president Zelensky is doing, but not only them. This is what the NATO leadership and many American and European politicians are doing.
Before the armed conflict, Zelensky simply crushed any opposition, pushing through the interests of his party; he did not build any peace. In Ukraine, politicians, journalists, and public activists who spoke about peace and good-neighborly relations with Russia were repressed before the military clash, their media were closed without any legal grounds, and their property was plundered. When the Ukrainian authorities were reproached for violating the rule of law and freedom of speech, the answer was that the peace party was “a bunch of traitors and propagandists.” And the democratic West was satisfied with this answer.
In reality, the situation was not so simple and straightforward. “Traitors and propagandists” represented, including in the parliament, not just the lion’s share of the electorate, but also the basis of the country’s economic potential. So, the blow fell not only on democracy, but also on the well-being of the citizens. Zelensky’s policy has led to a situation where people began to leave Ukraine en masse due to adverse economic and social conditions, repression, and political persecution. Among them were a lot of Ukrainian politicians, journalists, businessmen, and cultural and religious figures who had done a lot for this country. These people have been excluded from politics and public life by the Ukrainian authorities, although they have the right to have their own position, no less than Zelensky and his team.
The business of the South-East of the country is largely tied to Russia and its interests; that is why the conflict has ceased to be an exclusively internal matter. Russia was faced with the need to protect not only its economic interests, but also international honor and dignity, which, as was shown above, had been systematically denied. There was no one to rectify the situation. The Ukrainian peace party was declared to be treacherous and power was seized by the war party. The conflict dragged on, and took on an international dimension.
It would seem that politics still mean something in Europe, but the politicians massively support Zelensky, dragging Europe into the war and towards the bloc’s economic downfall. It is no longer Europe that teaches Ukraine politics, but Ukraine that teaches Europe how to achieve economic decline and poverty with the help of a policy of hatred and intransigence. If Europe continues to support this policy, it will be dragged into a war, possibly into a nuclear one.
And now let us get back to where we started. The Cold War ended with a political decision to build a new world with no wars. It is clear that such a world has never been built, that current global politics has returned to where it started: with detente. Now there are only two ways out: to slide into a world war and a nuclear confrontation, or to restart the process of detente, for which it is necessary to take into account the interests of all parties. But for this to happen, it is necessary first to acknowledge that Russia has its own interests and that they must be taken into account in the creation of a new detente. And, most importantly, to play honestly, not to deceive anyone, not to blow smoke, and not to make money on someone else’s blood. But if the global political system is not capable of elementary decency; if it is blinded by pride and its own mercantile interests, then even harder times await us.
The Ukraine conflict will either grow further, spilling over to Europe and other countries, or it will be localized and resolved. But how can it be resolved if the party of war reigns supreme in Ukraine, escalating military hysteria that has already gone beyond the borders of the country, and the West for some reason stubbornly calls it democracy? This party of war has declared an infinite number of times that it does not need any peace: what it needs is more weapons and money for the war. These people have built their politics and business on the war, they have rapidly upgraded their international ratings. In Europe and in the US they are greeted with applause, they should not be asked uncomfortable questions, there should be no doubt in their sincerity and truthfulness. The Ukrainian party of war keeps delivering triumph after triumph, while no military breakthrough is observed.
But the Ukrainian party of peace is favored neither in Europe nor in the US. This eloquently suggests that most US and European politicians do not want any peace for Ukraine. But this does not mean at all that the Ukrainians do not want peace, or that Zelensky’s military triumph is more important to them than their lives and destroyed homes. It is just that those who stood for peace were slandered, intimidated and repressed following the incitement of the West. The Ukrainian party of peace simply did not fit into Western democracy.
And here the question arises: if the party of peace and civil dialogue does not fit into some kind of democracy, then is it a democracy? Perhaps, in order to save their country, the Ukrainians have to now start building their own democracy and open their civil dialogue without Western curators, the result of their governance of which is harmful and destructive. If the West does not want to listen to the point of view of the Other Ukraine, then this is its own business, but for Ukraine such a point of view is important and necessary, otherwise this nightmare will never end. This means that it is necessary to create a political movement composed of those who have not given up, who have not renounced their beliefs on pain of death and imprisonment, who do not want their country to become a place of geopolitical showdowns. The Ukrainian situation is catastrophically complex and dangerous, but it has nothing to do with what Zelensky says every day.
NATO waging ‘proxy war’ against Russia – Croatian president
RT | January 16, 2023
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic has claimed NATO, a military bloc of which Zagreb is a member, is waging a “proxy war” against Moscow in Ukraine. He also dismissed sanctions against Moscow as “nonsense,” adding that he does not want to be an “American slave.”
Speaking to Croatian reporters in the city of Vukovar on Sunday, Milanovic said, among other things: “Washington and NATO are waging a proxy war against Russia through Ukraine,” as quoted by media outlet Istra24.
He went on to argue that “The plan cannot be to remove Putin. The plan cannot be sanctions,” adding that such punitive measures are “nonsense and we will not achieve anything with them.”
“They go from war to war. And what should I be? An American slave?” Croatia’s president asked rhetorically.
Milanovic voiced his frustration with the US-led military bloc’s policies in the same interview in which he tore into Croatia’s prime minister, Andrej Plenkovic, over his latest Ukraine-related remark.
Speaking to news channel France 24 on Saturday, Plenkovic said the Balkan nation’s lawmakers, who in mid-December didn’t support the EU’s program to train Ukrainian military personnel in member states, have “failed to be on the right side of history.”
Commenting on the remark, Milanovic, in turn, slammed the premier for bringing “disgrace” to his country “and to its democratic representatives in front of others.” The Croatian president argued that this kind of behavior reaches a low that is “the bottom of the bottom.”
As for the EU’s mission, the Croatian president warned that it effectively means that “for the first time in its history, the EU is participating in a war.” This, according to Milanovic, is “against the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU.”
In December 2022, Milanovic argued that having Ukrainian service members train on Croatian soil would “bring war” to the Balkan nation.
He also insisted at the time that “Ukraine is not an ally,” criticizing Brussels’ decision last June to grant Kiev candidate status as “cynical.”
Ukraine Humiliated Western Propagandists After Its Defense Minister Admitted It’s A NATO Proxy
By Andrew Korybko | January 7, 2023
Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov’s description of the Ukrainian-NATO relationship perfectly aligns with Merriam-Webster’s definition of a proxy. Their official website informs readers that “A proxy may refer to a person who is authorized to act for another or it may designate the function or authority of serving in another’s stead.” The objectively existing military-strategic dynamics of the Ukrainian Conflict coupled with Reznikov’s candid admission therefore leave no doubt about the fact that Ukraine is a NATO proxy by definition.
The US-led West’s Mainstream Media (MSM) has insisted over the past 10,5 months that President Putin is supposedly insane for considering Ukraine a NATO proxy whose close military ties with that explicitly anti-Russian bloc pose a serious threat to his country’s national security red lines. Their perception managers subsequently expanded upon their gaslighting operation to discredit Russia’s special operation on the false basis that it’s driven by so-called “imperialism” and not self-defense.
Every single one of the countless information warfare products that they’ve since created was just exposed as fraudulent by none other than Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov, who admitted during an appearance on national TV on Thursday that their country is indeed a NATO proxy. In his own words, “Today, Ukraine is addressing [the] threat (of Russia). We’re carrying out NATO’s mission today, without shedding their blood. We shed our blood, so we expect them to provide weapons.”
Reznikov’s description of the Ukrainian-NATO relationship perfectly aligns with Merriam-Webster’s definition of a proxy. Their official website informs readers that “A proxy may refer to a person who is authorized to act for another or it may designate the function or authority of serving in another’s stead.” The objectively existing military-strategic dynamics of the Ukrainian Conflict coupled with Reznikov’s candid admission therefore leave no doubt about the fact that Ukraine is a NATO proxy by definition.
This senior official likely didn’t intend to discredit his patrons’ “official narrative” for redistributing approximately $100 billion of their taxpayer-provided wealth to Ukraine and thus vindicate everything that President Putin said about why he commenced Russia’s special operation. What appears to have happened is that Reznikov lost his cool after becoming frustrated that NATO isn’t giving Kiev all the weapons that it demands, hence why he spilled the beans in an attempt to put pressure on them.
This emotional reaction to the pressure that’s being put upon his side by NATO’s military-industrial limitations, which the New York Times reported upon in late November and therefore can no longer be denied by the MSM, caused him to finally crack. Had he remained calm like senior officials are supposed to do, especially those leading their country’s military like he does, then he would never have admitted that Ukraine is a NATO proxy out of desperation to guilt it into giving Kiev all that it demands.
The average person in the US-led West’s Golden Billion probably won’t ever be informed of what he said since it’s in the MSM’s obvious interests to suppress all reporting about this embarrassing incident, but those who rely on Alternative Media will almost certainly come across it sooner or later. What they should then do is pass this “politically inconvenient” news along to as many people as possible in order to prove to them that they’ve been lied to by their government and media this entire time.
Approximately $100 billion worth of their hard-earned tax dollars weren’t diverted from domestic socio-economic projects to “protect Ukraine from Russian aggression”, but for NATO to aggressively exploit Ukraine as a literal proxy for waging Hybrid War on Russia. Its Defense Minister, who can’t realistically be described as a so-called “Russian agent/propagandist” or even “Russian-friendly”, wouldn’t have admitted that Ukraine is a NATO proxy if this truly wasn’t the case.
With that in mind, everything that everyone’s been told about this conflict by the MSM is built upon the “Big Lie” that Ukraine is a “fiercely independent state” that was “randomly victimized” by “Russian aggression”. The reality is that it’s Russia that’s the fiercely independent state that was victimized by NATO’s proxy war aggression via Ukraine, though this wasn’t done randomly, but as punishment for its leading role in accelerating the global systemic transition to multiplexity away from US-led unipolarity.
The New Cold War isn’t between “democracies and dictatorships” like Western propagandists falsely claim, but between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the jointly BRICS– & SCO-led Global South of which Russia is a part over the direction of that aforesaid systemic transition. The top proxy war between these de facto blocs is the Ukrainian Conflict, the outcome of which will determine whether the US can reverse its declining unipolar hegemony or if the Multipolar World Order is inevitable.
These unprecedented stakes explain why such an astronomical sum of taxpayer funds has already been expended on perpetuating this proxy war that otherwise would have ended sometime last spring had NATO not rushed to its proxy’s rescue. The approximately $100 billion spent so far obviously hasn’t been sufficient for dislodging Russia from the territory that Ukraine claims as its own, which suggests that the West might accept the fait accompli of Moscow’s victory and thus explains why Reznikov is panicking.
He and his ilk from that US-installed fascist regime know that they probably won’t politically survive the scenario of Kiev de facto acknowledging Russia’s control over its former regions, hence why he desperately sought to put maximum pressure on NATO to finally give them all that they’ve demanded. To that end, he publicly admitted that Ukraine is a NATO proxy in the hopes of guilting his patrons into complying, but he also unwittingly humiliated its propagandists and discredited their “official narrative”.
NATO’s Ominous Tank Orders for Ukraine… The Historic Spots of a Leopard
Strategic Culture Foundation | January 13, 2023
German-made tanks, the Panzer Leopard 2, are to be deployed in Ukraine in a war that is increasingly becoming an open confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO alliance and Russia.
Germany’s Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has given approval for the move following the announcement on Wednesday by Polish President Andrzej Duda that a “company” of Leopards was being supplied from Poland to Ukraine.
There are a reported 2,000 German-made Leopards in service across 13 European countries. Officially, Berlin has to give its approval for countries to re-export the tank, which is seen as one of the world’s best in its class of main battlefield armored vehicles. That approval was swiftly forthcoming in Habeck’s affirmative response.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is now under intense pressure to authorize the additional supply of Leopards directly from Germany to Ukraine. For months, Scholz has been refusing to provide the heavy armor out of concern not to provoke Moscow which would perceive it as a definitive escalation. Figures within the Berlin government, especially Habeck’s Green Party, have been cajoling the chancellor to increase the supply of weapons. It is a foregone conclusion that Scholz will cave in and give the green light, as he has done on several previous occasions concerning prohibitions on other categories of weaponry.
What is abundantly clear is that the United States and its NATO allies are coordinating a larger-scale involvement in the war in Ukraine against Russia. They are marching in lockstep.
Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an agreement with Germany to supply “light tanks” in the form of Bradley and Marder fighting vehicles. That move was coupled with an unprecedented decision by France to send AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine. This week, Britain upped the ante by trumpeting that it was ready to supply Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine.
Polish President Duda was in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Wednesday accompanied by Lithuanian counterpart Gitanas Nauseda and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. The day before, on Tuesday, the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock (another warmongering Green member), made a surprise visit to Ukraine’s eastern city of Kharkiv where she hinted that Leopard tanks would be forthcoming.
Speaking alongside Germany’s top diplomat, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said cryptically: “I have no doubt Germany will send Leopard tanks to Ukraine… The German government somewhere deep down understands that the decision will be made and the tanks will be transferred to Ukraine.”
The implied fait accompli echoed the words of Joe Biden who warned just before the eruption of conflict in Ukraine in February last year that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia would never become operational regardless of Berlin’s position.
In Lviv, the Polish leader also spoke about the deployment of Leopard tanks as part of an “international coalition” for sending such weaponry.
“A company of Leopard tanks will be handed over as part of a coalition that is being built because, as you know, a large number of formal requirements, agreements, and so on must be met, but primarily we want this to be an international coalition,” said Duda.
What that means is the German-made tanks are going to be sent to Ukraine as part of a much larger, coordinated NATO effort. There is an air of inevitability that the Leopards will be joined by U.S.-made M1 Abrams as well as British Challengers.
The narrative that is being propounded is that the heavy weapons must be ramped up to Ukraine in order to prevent an alleged Russian offensive from taking the capital Kiev and also to consolidate supposed gains made by Ukrainian military. This narrative is obviously contradictory and belies the Western disinformation peddled by its news media and governments which swivels between imminent defeat or imminent victory for the Kiev regime.
The significant military victory by Russian forces this week in taking control of Soledar, the salt mining town in Donbass, is being cited by NATO figures as evidence that heavier weapons and tanks must be urgently supplied to Ukraine.
What is astounding is the dearth of public debate in the Western states about the relentless supply of weaponry to Ukraine. Hundreds of billions of dollars and euros are given away to a corrupt cabal in Kiev without the slightest oversight. Despite unprecedented economic and social hardships for their general populations, the ruling elites of Western states are pumping more and more weaponry into a conflict that has got nothing to do with alleged “freedom and democracy” in Ukraine.
Western nations are being dragged deeper into a war against Russia with no public knowledge let alone democratic consent about the real reasons for the war. Those reasons are to do with promoting U.S.-led Western imperialist interests, which are profoundly at odds with those of ordinary citizens.
The move to supply main battle tanks by NATO powers is typical of the stealth that has driven the build-up to this war. Typically, the decision has been made in secret and everything else is all about delivering on the decision. Shameless lies about “defending democracy and freedom” are spouted, even though the regime being supported in Kiev by Western taxpayers’ money is one infested with NeoNazis.
Nations are being swept towards an all-out war between the U.S./NATO and Russia by elite rulers in hock to corporate interests and unaccountable deep-state planners.
Despicably and criminally, there is no call among Western governments or media for diplomatic initiatives to end the conflict in Ukraine and to address the deeper geopolitical causes. All elite discourse is about the imperative of “defeating Russia” and “regime change” in Moscow as if it is a doctrinal ordinance.
The conflict in Ukraine was sown in 2014 by the U.S. and NATO-backed coup against democracy and the subsequent weaponizing of a NeoNazi regime. But the seeds for that were borne from a more evil fruit that goes all the way back to the Second World War and Nazi Germany’s failed conquest of the Soviet Union.
The imperial designs of the Third Reich and its expansionist “lebensraum” have been inherited by the U.S.-led NATO axis. The deployment of Leopard tanks – in place of Panzer Tigers – trundling towards Russia is a visceral sign of antecedent and of who stands on the right side of history.
Russian MoD Announces Liberation of Soledar
Samizdat – 13.01.2023
The area around the strategic town, situated in the Donetsk People’s Republic’s northeast, has seen heavy fighting in recent days. The Soledar Salt Mine – opened in the 19th century and featuring a vast 201 km network of tunnels dug up to 288 meters underground, is the largest salt mine in Europe.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense has announced the complete liberation of the town of Soledar, saying the capture of the strategic settlement will make it possible to cut off supply routes used by Ukrainian forces in nearby Artemovsk (which was renamed Bakhmut by Ukraine’s post-coup government in 2016).
According to the MoD’s figures, over 700 Ukrainian troops were killed and 300 pieces of weaponry, including three planes and a helicopter, were destroyed in fighting for Soledar over the past three days. Russian air defenses were said to have shot down nine HIMARS, Olha and Uragan rockets in the course of fighting.
“The liberation of the settlement of Soledar, important for the continuation of successful offensive operations in the Donetsk region, was completed on the evening of January 12,” MoD spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a briefing on Friday.
The Russian military said the capture of Soledar was made possible thanks to constant strikes by army aviation, rocket and artillery units, which pinned down Ukrainian forces and prevented the transfer of reserves and the delivery of ammunition, and blocked attempts to withdraw to new defensive lines. At the same time, Konashenkov said, Russian Airborne Forces occupied dominant heights and blockaded the town from the north and south.
According to Konashenkov, the liberation of Soledar will allow Russian forces to block Ukrainian forces in the region and pocket them in a cauldron.
The first days of 2023 witnessed heavy fighting for Soledar between Russian and Ukrainian forces, with DPR head Denis Pushilin announcing Tuesday that the city center was under the control of fighters from Wagner Group, a Russian private military company.
DPR lawmaker Vladislav Berdichevsky told Sputnik Thursday that the victory at Soledar opened the door for the liberation of the remainder of the Donbass, and that the battle for the town itself had created a mini-cauldron containing Ukrainian troops.
Ukrainian forces aided by US and NATO advisors spent years building up a complex network of fortifications and entrenchments in the Donbass, and have used these positions to launch indiscriminate artillery and rocket attacks into the areas of the region controlled by the Donbass People’s Militias and Russian forces. Donetsk’s major settlements, including the city of Donetsk itself, continue to experience severe shelling, often using US-made artillery and HIMARS rounds, on almost a daily basis, with the intensity of fire becoming the worst in 2022 since 2014-2015.
Russia kicked off a military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 amid concerns that Kiev was preparing to launch an all-out offensive against the Donbass. In the weeks leading up to the escalation, the Donbass republics experienced a dramatic increase in Ukrainian shelling and sabotage attacks and attempted assassinations, and the regions’ leaders ordered the evacuation of the civilian population to Russia. The crisis in the Donbass was complemented by heightened tensions between Moscow and NATO in late 2021 and early 2022, with the alliance rejecting a pair of comprehensive security proposals tabled by Russia to dramatically ease the strain – on the condition that the US-led military bloc give up its ambition to expand further east toward Russia’s borders, including into Ukraine.
NATO ramps up presence in Ukraine’s neighbor
RT | January 13, 2023
NATO will send a deployment of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) surveillance planes to Romania to “monitor Russian military activity” amid the Ukraine conflict, the US-led military bloc announced on Thursday.
In a statement, NATO said its “eyes in the sky” are expected to arrive in the Bucharest area on January 17, to strengthen the bloc’s presence in the region. Romania, which borders Ukraine, already hosts a number of NATO units, including the American 101st elite Airborne division.
The bloc did not specify how many planes will be stationed in Romania. However, the German press agency DPA reported that NATO plans to deploy three AWACS there.
The AWACS planes will begin reconnaissance flights, which will take place only over the alliance’s territory, in the coming days, with their mission scheduled to last “several weeks.” In addition, the surveillance mission will be supported by about 180 service members, who will be deployed at the Otopeni air force base near the Romanian capital, some 200km (124 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
The planes themselves are part of a fleet of 14 NATO surveillance aircraft usually based in Geilenkirchen in western Germany. These aircraft are equipped with long-range radar and passive sensors capable of detecting targets over large distances while staying in the air for hours.
The US-led military bloc has been conducting regular surveillance operations on its eastern flank, monitoring the conflict in Ukraine ever since Russia launched its military offensive against the neighboring state in February 2022.
The deployment of AWACS planes comes as a large number of US armor and military vehicles started to arrive in the Netherlands on Wednesday before heading out to NATO’s eastern flank, according to Reuters. In total, about 1,250 pieces of military equipment are said to be disembarking from the Dutch port of Vlissingen, US officials said.
On Monday, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s national security council, stated that the ongoing Ukraine conflict “is not a confrontation between Moscow and Kiev, but rather a military stand-off with NATO.”
‘No place’ for independent Russia in Western mindset – Moscow
RT | January 10, 2023
The secretary of Russia’s national security council has lashed out at the West, pointing to their habit of creating global threats, including numerous terrorist groups, in pursuit of their interests.
Nikolay Patrushev also claimed, in an interview published by news outlet Argumenti i Fakti, that Washington’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was a prelude to NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
“The events in Ukraine are not a confrontation between Moscow and Kiev. It’s a military confrontation of NATO – the US and England first and foremost – with Russia,” the top security official said in a newspaper interview. “They fear a direct standoff, so NATO instructors push Ukrainian guys toward their certain deaths.”
Patrushev argued that, while Western nations claim to be “defending civilization against barbarism” in Ukraine, they are actually motivated by selfish interests and won’t “save any lives at the expense of their enrichment and ambitions.”
He said there is an established pattern of the US creating threats that it later ostensibly fights against, he continued, citing terrorist organizations Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) as examples. Washington may occasionally show off the killing of individual terrorist leaders like Osama Bin Laden, but continue “training and arming a hundred others” at the same time, he added.
NATO’s mission in Afghanistan resulted “in the creation of multibillion-dollar corruption schemes” and a surge in illegal drug production, Patrushev claimed. And the US withdrawal from the country in 2019 was to a large degree about “focusing on Ukraine” and confrontation with Russia, he said.
The security official cited remarks made last month by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who admitted that, with the country’s military presence in Afghanistan finally ended, the administration of President Joe Biden had more opportunities to funnel arms to Kiev.
Patrushev believes that, in the wider picture, the interests of the US as a nation state are subservient to the interests of transnational corporations, which ultimately dictate the policies of many governments. Those unaccountable forces have inherited the colonialist approach that allowed Western nations to become wealthy and powerful, but they are no longer vested in national interests, he said.
Russia “has no place” in their schemes, since it “irritates the handful of world masters because of its natural riches, vast territories, and smart, self-sufficient people who love their country, its traditions and history,” he added.
US Arms Sales to NATO Allies Almost Double in 2022: Report
By Oleg Burunov – Samizdat – 31.12.2022
The number and price of arms sales approved by Washington to its NATO allies almost doubled in 2022 as compared to 2021, a US magazine has reported.
The outlet noted that last year, the US government approved 14 possible major arms sales to its allies in the alliance, worth about $15.5 billion. In 2022, the figure soared to 24 potential major arms sales with price tag of around $28 billion, including $1.24 billion worth of arms sales to possible new NATO member Finland.
The magazine pointed out that the data indicates that the US remains “a major arms supplier for allies in Europe in the short term,” in the midst of European defense industries’ push to “meet wartime demands for conventional arms and ammunition.”
According to the media outlet, the increase took place as NATO members scrambled “to stock up on high-end weapons” amid the ongoing Russian special military operation in Ukraine.
The outlet reported that although some of arms sales deals were negotiated years beforehand, the Russian special operation sent NATO’s European members scrambling to bump up their military spending, and to replenish vehicles, weapons, and ammunition delivered to the Ukrainian military.
Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia have all ordered HIMARS Multiple-Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), while the US State Department authorized earlier this month the sale of 116 M1A1 Abrams tanks to Poland, after Warsaw sent its Soviet-era T-72 and domestically-made PT-91 tanks to Kiev’s forces.
The report comes after President Joe Biden signed a new $1.7 trillion federal spending bill into law, a document that includes $858 billion in defense spending.
According to a statement released on the website of the US Senate Committee on Budget Appropriations, the so-called National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) comprises “$44.9 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and our [America’s] NATO allies.” Since Russia launched its special operation in Ukraine on February 24, the US and its allies have supplied more than $40 billion worth of arms to Kiev. Moscow has repeatedly warned that providing Kiev with arms prolongs the Ukraine conflict.
The signing of the NDAA followed a separate US media outlet reporting about a surge in the share prices of the four largest US defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Technologies, and Pratt & Whitney.
The outlet reported that Lockheed Martin “had booked more than $950 million worth of its own missile military orders from the Pentagon in part to refill stockpiles being used in Ukraine, while Raytheon Technologies was awarded with “more than $2 billion in contracts to deliver missile systems to expand or replenish weapons used to help Ukraine.”
Lavrov’s interview with the Great Game programme, December 28, 2022
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs | December 28, 2022
Question: Several years ago, I spoke with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. At that time I had just returned from Moscow and told him that if the US and NATO policy of ignoring Russia’s concerns – with a satisfying smack on the head – continued, Russia would have to use force. Kissinger said if we did this, we would suffer big damage and all of NATO would unite against us.
He was right – the collective West united in response to the special military operation and has shown even greater solidity than many expected. Russia stands proudly and confidently; Moscow does not look like a city that has wavered or that doubts its correctness and strength.
What do you think about the possibility of military escalation, on the one hand, and serious talks next year, on the other?
Sergey Lavrov: You are right that the collective West has closed ranks. But this was not because every country in the alliance felt it wanted to. They were rallied, by the United States, primarily. Their mentality of domination has not been moderated in any sense.
A couple of weeks ago, I noted a statement by a Stanford professor to the effect that the US needed to be a global policeman to save the world. Not only NATO but also the EU, as an association that only recently claimed strategic autonomy, has fully conformed to the West’s uniform policy. Centres for coordinating actions by NATO and the EU are being set up, neutral states (Finland and Sweden) are being included. A mobility programme began to be introduced long before that. It provides for using transport and other infrastructure in non-NATO countries for moving NATO’s equipment eastward, closer to our borders.
Recently, some in the Great Game discussed the global changes taking place in the EU and Europe as a whole, and a shift in the centre of gravity in favour of Europe, primarily Poland, the Baltic states. the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Europe’s grandees are lost in this situation. Four years ago, President of France Emmanuel Macron spoke about the need for Europe to rely on its own forces and to have its own army. A strategic compass was created as a step to strategic autonomy. He talked about NATO being braindead, in expressing his disappointment with the processes imposed from overseas. Now this talk is over. Mr Macron said at one time, it would be necessary to create a system of security in Europe with consideration for the interests of all countries, including Russia. But he was quickly rebuked by the junior members of the alliance. Everyone sees this as the normal course of events.
As for how Russia was perceived throughout these years, including the time you met with Mr Kissinger, our Western colleagues used to say that “Russia needs to know its place.” They said this with pleasure. This is an accurate observation. This “pleasure” was felt practically in the years after the USSR. First, they patted us on the shoulder in the direct and figurative sense of the word. They believed we were in the “the golden billion’s” pocket and were becoming part of the Western globalisation system. Now it is called a system of rules that must underlie the world order. We were seen as an ordinary junior partner that had the resources needed by the West and to which the West would transfer technology while preserving its position in its own coordinate system. The tune is set by the Western leaders, primarily the US and its closest allies in Europe, that have straightened their shoulders and think they have the right to dictate how Europe is developed.
A recent article by Henry Kissinger was widely commented on. We took note of his evaluations and forecasts, including the options for a final settlement. Surprisingly, no one paid attention to the line that said, “As the world’s leaders strive to end a war in which two nuclear powers contest a conventionally armed country.” It’s probably a Freudian slip, but Henry Kissinger is a wise person and never says anything for nothing.
But this is a candid statement about who is fighting against whom. We are at war with the collective West led by the United States which is a nuclear power. This war was declared years ago after the coup in Ukraine which was orchestrated by the United States and supported by the EU, and after no one planned to act on the Minsk agreements (as we now know for sure). Angela Merkel confirmed this.
Several years prior to her stepping down as chancellor, in a conversation with President Vladimir Putin, when he, for the umpteenth time, reminded her what was written in black and white about the importance of resolving special status-related issues in a direct dialogue between Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk, Merkel said that this was a case of “constructive ambiguity.” Allegedly, Russia was overseeing things in Donbass, so it was supposed to sort things out with Kiev as well. This was not an epiphany or an attempt to jump on the Russophobic “train” that was picking up speed. It was a deeply rooted stance.
Experts from the Presidential Executive Office and the Foreign Ministry drafted an approved text of agreements that confirmed the principled provisions of the Minsk agreements for the Normandy Four summit held in Paris in December 2019. A ceasefire and the disengagement of forces along the entire line of contact was the number one provision. This was agreed upon by everyone.
When the four leaders sat down at a table in the Elysee Palace and the parties took their seats along the perimeter, President of Ukraine Zelensky said that he would not act on or sign a document on disengaging forces along the entire line of contact. The most he was willing to do was pick three pilot sites and try to see if disengagement would work there. We had our suspicions right away, but we chose to clarify the reason behind the metamorphosis occurring on the way from the consensus achieved by the experts and the destruction of this consensus at the heads of state level. The Americans sent a signal that if Zelensky were to disengage forces along the entire line of contact, the Russians would never give Donbass back.
Question: Do you know for a fact that he received this kind of advice or instruction from the United States?
Sergey Lavrov: I’m not sure about the name of the person who conveyed that. But they told him what I just said: if he disengaged the forces, he would drastically reduce his chances of taking these territories back. They wanted to take them back through military force for one, and only one, reason. They were unwilling to fulfil the Minsk agreements in part concerning the terms and conditions for restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity which were quite straightforward: the Russian language, their own local police (like the state police in the United States), and central authorities holding mandatory consultations when appointing judges and prosecutors, as well as special economic relations with neighbouring Russian regions.
The Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina has that. This is also included in an agreement on the creation of a Community of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo reached by Pristina and Belgrade in 2013 with lots of ceremony and EU mediation. Almost the same rights were granted to the Serbs in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, the same as in the Minsk agreements for the Russians living on the territories in question.
Zelensky refused to restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity which he could do by providing to a portion of the people the rights enshrined in numerous international conventions and the constitution which still spells out the obligation of the state to ensure the rights of ethnic minorities, and the Russians are mentioned separately. Plan B has been in existence since 2019 in Paris. From time to time, certain Ukrainian leaders have let it out that the Minsk agreements were not in their interest and said military force must be used to take it back.
The Ukrainian tragedy goes back quite a while. They are now trying to cancel the portion of it that clarifies what is going on now and many other things as well. Russian culture in Ukraine has been cancelled for many years now. Laws to this end were adopted back when President Poroshenko was in office and continue to be pumped out under President Zelensky. A couple of years ago, they approved a law on the Ukrainian language as the state language. This caused alarm even at the CoE Venice Commission, the European Union, and the OSCE. But the most these venerable institutions could do at the time was tell the Ukrainians they could keep the law, but should update the applicable legislation on ethnic minorities.
A few weeks ago, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law on ethnic minorities in the second reading. This is Ukrainian lawmaking at its best. It says that the state guarantees the rights of all minorities to the extent defined in the applicable legislation. The new law on ethnic minorities includes everything that was restricted before that (education, media and culture) as the basis for the rights that the Kiev regime is willing to grant to ethnic minorities. The Romanian leadership is in uproar. They are now talking vociferously about the need for consultations and that no one asked them what they thought. The attitude towards the Hungarians and the way Kiev treats the Hungarian minority is well known. Needless to say, Russians are treated even worse than the Hungarians.
Forgive me for digressing before taking your question. The issue is about approving or not approving the neo-colonial international order, which President Vladimir Putin spoke about. The West is covering it in a shroud of respect for its rules-based order. When this term came into use, I asked my Western colleagues (we were still talking back then) to give us a list of these rules. No wonder no one has ever given us any reference material that would show the specific rules or the code of conduct. The answer is simple. These rules mean that everyone must do as the United States says.
Remark: These rules have been put forward by the West but they were never approved by the UN.
Sergey Lavrov: They have never been approved by anyone. No one has seen them. When they first introduced this into the international discourse, we immediately raised our concern and tried to engage them in rational discussion. However, they were unwilling to do anything of the sort.
These rules were best expressed in a statement made by a professor from Stanford University, who said that the United States had to be the global policeman to save the world. In many of America’s doctrinal documents, Russia is referred to as an immediate threat. That not because we are going to attack anyone somehow but because we have challenged this world order. China is next in line. It poses the most formidable and systemic long-term challenge, and it is the only country capable of surpassing the United States in almost all areas. In terms of nuclear weapons stockpiles and the development of nuclear capabilities, Beijing will soon be on a par with Moscow and Washington.
You can look for the answer to the question about the possibility of escalation in various statements and analyses by political scientists. The Russian authorities have not voiced an intention to take an escalation-based approach. We are committed to ensuring that the special military operation’s objectives are achieved. As President Vladimir Putin said, our indisputable priority is the four new regions of the Russian Federation. An end must be put to the threat of Nazification they have been exposed to for many years. We need to ensure security for all people living there, and their rights must be respected.
Another very important objective is to ensure that no threats to our security are created or remain on the Ukrainian territory. Now they say that the West did not try to urge Ukraine to engage in military action against Russia, however, I regard oppressing Russian-speaking people in Ukraine to be genuine aggression.
Question: I would like to clarify one issue. When you talk about the four regions, do you refer to their administrative borders or the part of their territory, as of today, that Russia has brought under its control?
Sergey Lavrov: No, I am talking about the borders of these regions as part of the Russian Federation, in keeping with our country’s Constitution. It is an obvious thing.
Question: Do you mean that Russia needs to liberate these regions?
Sergey Lavrov: Of course. It is required by the public vote held in each of the four regions. This happened long ago in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, while in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions it was in autumn 2022.
Question: What you expect to achieve by the end of the negotiating process, or the recognition of this fact by Ukraine – are these prerequisites for launching the talks?
Sergey Lavrov: President of Russia Vladimir Putin has said many times that we never reject any proposal to achieve diplomatic agreements. The terms on which we agree to discuss them are well known. The fact that four territories belong to the Russian Federation is an indispensable condition for talks. But this is not all that must be discussed.
The second large block of problems, in addition to the destinies of the people who do not want to live under the current regime with its open Nazi and racist views is the security of the Russian Federation that has been subjected to numerous threats created on Ukrainian territory. Now some people are saying that this is not at all the case, that these exercises in Ukraine, including in the Black Sea, were “military cooperation for peaceful purposes.” The territory of Ukraine was actively developed. There were plans (we are aware of these as well) to establish a naval base in the Sea of Azov. You know that at that time this was a sea of two states. The construction of an Anglo-Saxon naval base would have radically changed the security situation. In the same way, there were plans to create a military base in then Ukrainian Crimea before the coup and the referendum in order to neutralise our capabilities in the Black Sea.
We do not launch spontaneous, offensive or striking operations unlike Ukraine. As a rule, Ukraine does this regardless of its losses. Its main goal is to produce a media effect there and then. The West would have continued to endlessly extoll its current leaders as representatives of genuine democracy. Vladimir Zelensky would be portrayed as a hero of the times, and he should have everything he wants for this reason. Yet, his requests are sometimes rejected. There are smart people in the West, who understand that these people and this regime should not be given some categories of arms.
“Anonymous specialists from the Pentagon have said more than once that they don’t have the right to prohibit Zelensky from striking the territories that are internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, including Crimea. There is some anonymous but credible evidence that American specialists were directly involved in modernising multiple launch rocket systems to extend their range to 1,000 kilometres. Nobody hides the fact that information from military and civil satellites belonging to US owners are actively used in real time for adjusting fire. US specialists are directly involved in targeting. We asked the Americans through the channels our Embassy still has, whether a decision to transfer a Patriot battery means the presence of US experts, considering the expertise needed to use it. We were given a lengthy explanation that this was not planned because the US didn’t want to and would not fight against Russia directly. It will take several months to prepare the Patriots for action, until the Ukrainian military master this technology. But there are dozens and maybe even hundreds of American military personnel there, and they were in Ukraine even before the coup. CIA employees occupied at least one floor in the Ukraine Security Service building. Now they have a big military attaché office. Obviously, military experts are not just visiting the Defence Ministry of Ukraine. They are giving direct consultative services (and probably doing more than that). There is also a group of specialists that (as the Pentagon explained in the US Congress) have controlled how American weapons were being used for months now. So, when some members of Congress tried to demand the creation of a special mechanism for this purpose, the Pentagon reassured them that they were monitoring all this. This is a rather interesting situation. There are many facts indicating that Western weapons are surfacing in Europe (maybe now in other regions as well). I asked my staff to make an open source compilation to show our interlocutors what is being swept under the rug at this point.
We are in no hurry. President of Russia Vladimir Putin talked about this. We would like to finish, as soon as possible, the war the West was preparing for and eventually unleashed against us through Ukraine. Our priority is the lives of the soldiers and civilians that remain in the zone of hostilities. We are patient people. We will defend our compatriots, citizens and lands that belonged to Russia for centuries, proceeding from these priorities.
Question: You quite rightly said that the West is waging a war against us through Ukraine and not only. The West and the United States hypocritically claim (since they are not officially sending their troops to openly fight against Russia on Ukrainian territory) that they are not a party to this conflict. Therefore, without fear of a third world war, including a nuclear one, they can send Ukraine any type of weapons, provide them with intelligence and advise on the battlefield. We can see that both the number and quality of weapons the West provides to Ukraine is growing. The West is overcoming its own taboos established several months ago.
What is Russia doing and what will it do in 2023 to convince the West to abandon this dangerous logic and stop this trend?
Sergey Lavrov: I believe that we must continue our policy outlined by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the ground to strengthen our capabilities, both technologically and from the viewpoint of military personnel who, after the partial mobilisation, have undergone serious training. A significant part of them is already there but most are not on the frontline where professionals, contract soldiers are fighting. A significant part of them is in reserve.
We will continue to strengthen our deployment. This decision was made in September 2022. The commander of the joint force was appointed. We are engaged in actions that will allow us to operate much more effectively in these territories in the very near future. I have no doubts about this.
We also pay attention to what you said – pumping Ukraine with large quantities of advanced Western weapons. I follow the discussion in our society, and on your programme, and in other political circles and formats.
Retired military professionals say that the supply of Western weapons needs to be cut off. I mean railways, bridges and tunnels. I believe this issue cannot be ignored by professionals. They have been paying attention to it for quite some time. They are responsible for taking professional decisions on the methods of obstructing and, ideally, blocking these supplies. One such method has been used and is still being used, which is inflicting damage on infrastructure, including energy infrastructure that enables the supply of these weapons. I believe there are also other plans for achieving the same objective.
We have scarce opportunities for talking to the West now. There is no particular desire to do this when you read statements by foreign ministers, prime ministers or presidents about the need to address the issue of security of Europe to protect it against Russia. They used to say “without Russia” and now they say “against Russia.” The idea of French President Emmanuel Macron to create a European political community boils down, roughly speaking, to the OSCE without Russia and Belarus. This was proposed by a man who a bit later said it was important to stay open to opportunities for building security institutions with Russia. Yet, the European political community will be gaining in strength. They have scheduled a regular summit for spring and are trying to drag all our neighbours, except Belarus, into it.
Considering this, we have no particular desire to talk to the West. When a concrete situation emerges where the West openly commits unlawful actions, then we ask questions. According to recent reports, Greece plans to transfer its S-300 missile systems to Ukraine. We asked our ambassador to contact the Greek Foreign Ministry and Defence Ministry and remind them that the systems in question had been transferred to Greece. You might remember that they had to be delivered to Cyprus but the West did all it could to not allow this to happen, given the insularity of Cyprus and it not being a NATO member. As a result, a compromise was reached that suited everyone. Greece bought this system. Under the contract for this deal, Greece may not transfer missiles to anyone without our approval. We reminded the Greeks about this. They said they remembered their obligations. We are closely following things like this, all the more so as the same provision prohibiting the transfer of our weapons to anyone applies to the majority of weapons in Eastern Europe – the member countries of the former Warsaw Treaty – where they were produced under licence. We need to be on our guard. Many unlawful actions are being committed under the slogan “Let’s Save Ukraine,” because “Ukraine Is Europe” and “Europe Is Ukraine.”
Question: Is the United States mistaken in thinking that it is safe, need not worry about any escalation or a direct armed clash with Russia and can render any and all military assistance to Ukraine until it enters a direct war against Russia?
Sergey Lavrov: President of Russia Vladimir Putin spoke about this at the recent expanded meeting of the Defence Ministry Board. He formulated our position as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief (I won’t add anything to it) on the new systems of our Navy, which have been put into operation now.
Question: Dimitri Simes started our conversation by saying that the West has closed ranks. I think the outgoing year has revealed an even more important trend. This is the formation of a global majority – the countries of the East and South, which do not accept Western hegemony and refused to side with the West against Russia. I perceive this year as the moment of truth in relations with the West and with non-West. Will our turn to the global majority be a strategic rather than opportunistic trend in Russian foreign policy that will be preserved and strengthened in 2023? What will Russia do in 2023 to promote its ties to the global majority and its role in world affairs?
Sergey Lavrov: I agree with those analysts reviewing the outgoing year who note that the discord between the West that claims hegemony and control over compliance with “its rules” everywhere, on the one hand, and the global majority, on the other, is an objective phenomenon. It was brewing and would have come to the surface eventually. We could no longer tolerate how Russians were being humiliated in Ukraine and how threats to our security were created there. We launched the special military operation that served as a catalyst and sharply accelerated this process.
It seems to me that after sanctions imposed on Russia following the coup against it and after the Crimean referendum, the majority of non-Western states had already realised that the system they were in with other countries was unreliable. This is a system of international currency, finance, globalisation, logistics chains, insurance for international shipments, freight rates and technological products that are produced by a handful of states. This applies to the same conductors on which the Americans are now trying to impose a veto. They have sanctioned Chinese companies that produce conductors in an obvious bid to slow down the development of the PRC. Everything happened much faster.
Many countries had to make a choice then and there. It was probably difficult, considering how deeply they were intertwined in the globalisation system. It was created by the Americans and discredited by them because Washington proved to be an unreliable curator and operator of this system.
Yes, we have heard the Chinese authorities saying that they are against hegemony and for building a fair world order, and the Indian authorities saying that they will be guided by the interests of India and that it is useless trying to convince them to abandon their national interests in favour of American geopolitical interests. Türkiye and Algeria, as well as Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil have not joined the sanctions either. The emergence of a new world order will certainly gain momentum and is already gaining momentum. It will objectively be a whole historical era.
I noticed that somebody said during one of your shows that globalisation is giving way to regionalisation, and that there will be several large blocks formed around regional leaders. These blocks will create the instruments and mechanisms that replace globalisation instruments and mechanisms that are being abused by those who created them. The debate focused on whether the United States was aware of that process. Somebody said that it was and that the Americans would like to accelerate the regionalisation of the global economy and international relations in general. However, China, which is also aware of the importance of regionalisation and is not against regionalisation as such, is creating its own instruments and structures but would like this process to take as much time as possible.
I thought that it was an interesting opinion. It should be carefully analysed. If the Americans really wanted to accelerate regionalisation, they would have wanted to agree on the terms as much as possible and as soon as possible. The sooner you negotiate and come to certain terms, the better the chance that you will preserve the instruments you have been using globally.
There is no doubt that the process is underway. And the choice is not between the global majority and the West; we will choose those who are reliable partners and honour agreements, who hold a promise when it comes to long-term projects and will not only look for short-term benefits.
I discussed this with my American colleagues back when we had channels for a regular dialogue. Many officials in the US administration admitted at the beginning of the pandemic that democracy as it is understood in the West has its limitations and that there are certain advantages in the system which the Americans describe as autocracy. Ultimately, autocracy is a centralised state with a strong vertical system of power, which can quickly take decisions that are implemented throughout the national territory. If we compare how different countries dealt with Covid-19, we will see that there are advantages in both systems. Our Chinese comrades have ultimately admitted that their decision to completely close off the country was not entirely correct, because it prevented the development of herd immunity. They are working now to rectify their mistake. However, the United States had the largest number of Covid cases by far.
I discussed the matter with former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. I asked if presidential and parliamentary election campaigns, held every two years, interfered with governing their vast, great and diverse country, even though it is a melting pot that turns all its citizens into Americans. She said that they did. They have a cumbersome system, but this is their problem, and they know how to address it. However, this has also become a problem for the rest of the world, because the Americans need to invent an external problem, threat or goal for every election campaign. Given the US weight on the international stage, global processes become hostage to and are strongly influenced by the Americans’ discussions of domestic issues and political infighting. Autocratic states, as defined by the United States, with a centralised system of government at least have the advantage of a more predictable horizon, like in China. One can argue if it does or does not comply with the principles of democracy, but who said that American democracy is the best form of government?
Winston Churchill could have been right, in part, when he said that “democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” The world is changing, and we can still see something new invented in this domain.
Question: They ascribe another interesting statement to Winston Churchill, who reportedly said: “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” I would like to say that anyone who wants to comprehend how wrong US democracy is should talk to an average member of the US Congress, and much will become clear.
Several days ago, you said that, according to the US media, including The New York Times, some people in the Biden administration are seriously thinking about launching a pre-emptive strike against the top Russian leadership. I called Washington and spoke with two people in the US administration on condition of anonymity.
Sergey Lavrov: I also quoted an anonymous source.
Question: They said that they could not vouch for all officials of the large US administration, but that, of course, there are no plans to hit the top Russian leadership, and that there can be no such plans. Do you believe, on the basis of what you know, that someone with real authority in Washington is planning a strike against the Russian leadership?
And my second question. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan have repeatedly said that Washington is warning Russia that it should not go down a certain road because this would cause the most serious repercussions. Would you like to use this opportunity and to tell the US administration what would happen if someone tried to conduct such a strike?
Sergey Lavrov: I quoted an anonymous source, but, unlike you, I don’t know him (you know your anonymous sources). I know that they called him a high-ranking source.
Question: Did The New York Times advertise him?
Sergey Lavrov: Yes.
Question: Does this mean that The New York Times took him seriously?
Sergey Lavrov: We are used to thinking that it is serious journalism. Although there are more and more indications that this is not always so, we, nevertheless, stick to this concept. I would like to deliberately exaggerate this anonymous leak because this source (he or she or it, using the current politically correct language) said that such a threat had been voiced and that, in principle, the Kremlin should not feel safe. The source said something along these lines. There was nothing specifically about Vladimir Putin, but everything was clear. I decided to deliberately emphasise this statement, made against the backdrop of constantly chattering talking heads who can obviously do nothing else but talk, but they aren’t very good at thinking. Alexey Danilov from Kiev, for example …
Question: National Security and Defence Council Secretary Alexey Danilov.
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, he is a great expert on foreign affairs. There is also Mikhail Podolyak …
Question: An adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine.
Sergey Lavrov: Every day, they say that they will take back Crimea, and that the Kremlin should know that they will reach it and drop their bombs there.
The US administration did not respond in any way to a similar but slightly less vulgar statement by an anonymous source in Washington. Journalists did not ask White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre what they think about this at a briefing. When they asked about Crimea, an anonymous Pentagon source said that they could not forbid the Ukrainians from using their armed forces against a territory they consider to be part of Ukraine. This highlights a serious change in their position.
In April 2014, after the coup and the referendum in Crimea (I have already talked about it, it is not a secret), we gathered in Geneva ‒ US Secretary of State John Kerry, myself, EU’s leading diplomat Catherine Ashton and Andrey Deshchitsa, who acted as a foreign policy curator for the putschists. We sat down and discussed a one-page document that included, as the main statement, support of Ukraine’s federalisation and the start of the process involving all Ukrainian regions. It was a completely natural development for the EU delegate and John Kerry. The paper was still there later; however, it did not gain any status either. Concurrently, John Kerry and I had lengthy bilateral conversations. During one of them, he said that they were well aware of the fact that Crimeans’ choice was sincere and there was no doubt about it. And yet, that choice had to be formalised, through another referendum, with invited representatives from the OSCE, the UN and others. The first referendum had been conducted in haste. I explained to him that the rush was due to the fact that the putschists had thrown their “friendship trains” at Crimea, with armed militants, the Right Sector and other neo-Nazi ultra-radical groups that stormed the Supreme Council of Crimea. The local population did not want to wait for another aggressive provocation.
US President Joe Biden keeps saying that Ukraine must win in order to prevent the third world war. He said something to that effect only recently. I don’t understand this kind of reasoning because first, he says they will not directly confront Russia otherwise it will trigger world war three and later, he adds that Ukraine must win to prevent the world war. We don’t have a dialogue channel. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley occasionally calls Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov. US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin has spoken to our Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu maybe a couple of times. That is all good and helpful. But it comes down to us having to be careful.
Question: Back when Hillary Clinton was US Secretary of State, she formulated the underlying principle of American diplomacy, which remains in effect to this day – the United States “can walk and chew gum at the same time.” In this case, if applied to US-Russian relations, it means the United States is containing Russia, providing all-out support to Ukraine and trying to help Ukraine “defeat Russia on the battlefield,” while at the same time it wants to discuss with Russia issues that are of interest to them. Now they are interested in talking with Russia about the resumption of START-3 inspections at nuclear facilities. The United States argues that we are both nuclear superpowers and the inspections are essential for strategic stability. In my opinion, this is very hypocritical. I see the main threat to strategic stability in the hybrid war that the United States is waging against us, not in inspections or a lack thereof. In any case, do you think we need this? True, it is one of the opportunities for dialogue with the United States; but in the context the United States is proposing, should we agree?
Sergey Lavrov: When I was young, I was perfectly comfortable walking and chewing gum at the same time. This is an American metaphor. But we use other idioms, including “the cat would eat fish but not wet her feet.”
You are absolutely right. They are interested in the resumption of inspections. Naturally, we are analysing the situation. According to our assessment, they need this to be able to know what to expect “just in case” – for all the mantras about nuclear war being unacceptable, and we are still one hundred percent committed to this. We recently reaffirmed our commitment in a special statement. I am referring to the Russia-initiated statements by the five nuclear states that there could be no winners in a nuclear war and no such war should ever be started. In June 2021, at Russia’s initiative, presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin at the summit updated and reaffirmed the statements signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s.
They want to do these inspections. They send signals to us; we receive calls from representatives of the National Security Council who want to resume everything. We quote the treaty to them – exactly in the vein of your assessment that stability is not ensured by inspections. The preamble to this treaty says that the Russian Federation and the United States, will be working “to forge a new strategic relationship based on mutual trust, openness, predictability, and cooperation.” All of the above has been derailed by the United States. They have as good as labelled Russia an enemy. There is no trust, and they say so directly to us.
In the preamble, the parties also recognise the existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms. And that was the farthest the Americans were willing to go to signal their understanding of our concerns about their missile defence plans, plans to create a global missile defence system. Well in any case, this interrelationship is enshrined in the treaty. Even in the previous period, before the current events, we highlighted that connection during consultations on the treaty’s implementation. The treaty further adds that this interrelationship will become more important as strategic nuclear arms are reduced. They said, it is just the preamble. We pointed out that after ratifying the treaty, our State Duma issued a statement that the treaty could not have been ratified unless it mentioned the close inseparable interrelationship between offensive and defensive strategic arms. This is not “just a preamble” to something unimportant; it is a legal fact. Of course, they are violating this obligation. A global missile defence system is being built along the perimeter of Russian and Chinese borders. All this “not to worry, it’s all against Iran and North Korea” talk is a thing of the past. Nobody remembers this anymore. It is openly declared that the anti-missile systems are there to “deter” Russia and China.
In this situation, if the only important part they see in this treaty is “you let us come and see,” this is not too fair. From a technical point of view, the sanctions have seriously hampered our ability to carry out cross inspections. Even if Russia is (hypothetically) given permission for aircraft to fly across all the countries on the way to Geneva, the members of the delegation and the crews, as we have found, will have problems paying for their hotel, food, and refuelling of the aircraft. None of this can be guaranteed. “Let’s just resume the inspections, and then we will solve things as we go.” The technical side is treated like a minor, even immaterial issue.
A strategically important issue is that they have undermined all the foundations this treaty relied on. Despite that, as we spelled this all out to our American colleagues, we said that we were fully committed to our obligations under the treaty as long as they could be implemented on an equal footing: we will provide them with the information as required by the treaty in a timely and complete manner and will send appropriate notices.
Question: Continuing the theme of real threats to strategic stability, Joe Biden said Ukraine must win on the battlefield to prevent a third world war. What do you think the US will do when Ukraine loses on the battlefield? This seems inevitable to me. They have convinced themselves that this war is not only (and not so much) for Ukraine, but for American leadership, for the notorious “rules-based international order,” that is for American hegemony. What will they do when Ukraine loses?
Sergey Lavrov: Your question has cornered me. I usually try to think before I say something. Even so, I let things slip sometimes, I confess. When a person says such things, they probably have something up their sleeve; if they really mean what they say, that is.
There is increasing talk on the need to start negotiating. But then Russia is accused of refusing, while President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that there have been no serious proposals.
The Istanbul episode clearly showed that Ukraine was immediately scolded then: “Too early. You haven’t yet exhausted Russia to the point the United States would deem acceptable.” Now they don’t even blink when saying Kiev is “ready” to talk and Russia isn’t, amid Kiev’s declarations that Ukraine will never sit down at the negotiating table until they have their “native Ukrainian-Crimean” land and others back, until Russia “capitulates,” and pays “reparations.” Only then will we be accepted into some new “party.” After a tribunal, naturally. And in February 2023, they will put together some new ranks. It will be interesting to see.
Most processes have long been taken outside the UN framework. The French and the Germans have created some new platforms on international humanitarian law. Then they created an EU-led Alliance for Multilateralism. When asked why they couldn’t do this at the UN, a format as multilateral as possible, they said the old members were retrogrades, while they were progressive multilateralists.
Joe Biden later convened the Summit for Democracy, assuming the right to decide which democracy is more democratic. The criterion for being a democracy in the American interpretation is not just being loyal to the United States, but to the US Democratic Party. Linguistically understandable. Then came the European Political Community forum. The US recently hosted a US-Africa Summit. Unlike us, (Russia invited every African country to the first such summit and to the second one in mid-2023), the Americans themselves decided what Africa was, as a geographical concept. Six or seven countries were left out, because the governments were not “legitimate” enough, i.e., not appointed through elections. At the same time, the Ukrainian government came to power as a result of a bloody coup.
Question: As someone who has just arrived from Washington, I can argue with you. If the Biden administration decided that a country is not part of Africa, then it isn’t, full stop. You are challenging the basic premise. If someone has made a decision that a certain country is not part of Africa, why does Moscow object?
Sergey Lavrov: I’d like to finish the list of their bizarre manipulations with the possibility of creating another security forum excluding Russia. Vladimir Zelensky has put forward a 10-point plan, and Dmitry Kuleba is already appointing supervisors from the Western camp for each of the ten points. They will start handing out instructions soon.
Question: Let’s get back to Henry Kissinger. Many years ago he wrote that leaders rarely lie to each other. Things are different in public diplomacy, where telling the truth and nothing but the truth in dealings with the counterparty is not something that diplomats are expected to do. When leaders talk to each other, though, they don’t usually lie to each other, because they know they will have to deal with each other again and minimal trust is a bedrock principle of diplomacy.
Now, it appears that we have arrived at a point where trust is nonexistent, and Washington and Brussels are bragging about the fact that there is no trust in relations with Russia and cannot be any. Things that were discussed during talks with the President or with you are made public. They say warnings were issued during the Georgia crisis of 2008 to the effect that it was necessary to get Mikheil Saakashvili “out of the way.” Remarks are being ascribed to President Putin and you which (as it turned out later) you never made.
I have a question for you: how are you supposed to deal with your former US colleagues in these circumstances? For better or worse, the United States remains a great power, and you have to deal with them in order to maintain token public dialogues and a confidential dialogue that is still ongoing. What do you wish for in this regard? Not a rhetorical wish, but a serious wish to policymakers in Washington, so that a serious dialogue could start in the new year?
Sergey Lavrov: We are not going to make any wishes with regard to the dialogue. They are well aware of the fact that it was not us who broke off the dialogue. We are not going to ask them to resume it. That’s not who we are. We respond only to sensible offers when we receive an offer to meet.
There were several informal proposals during this period. Each time we agreed to meet. One of them materialised when Director of the Central Intelligence Agency William Burns met with Head of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Naryshkin in Ankara. The meeting was supposed to be confidential, but every piece of information under discussion was leaked to the public domain. Few things are kept secret these days, although we always try to keep up our end of the deal. More attempts were made to set up a meeting which also included references to Washington-issued instructions. We never said no. But eventually these attempts tapered off.
My wish is for them to be a little more democratic, not in the way they understand it, but in the way it is understood in the international arena. When we are talking about democratising international relations, we are not talking about some supernatural or breakthrough approaches. We are talking about the importance of having these relations rely on the UN Charter, according to which the UN is based on the sovereign equality of states. There’s no need for anything other than that. All we need to do is act in line with this commitment, which the United States (in conjunction with Russia) wrote with its own hands in this fundamental document. Otherwise, they feel entitled (I cited these examples and everyone is aware of them) to suddenly decide that the security of the United States has deteriorated abruptly or seriously depends on what is going on in Yugoslavia; or, someone suddenly begins to suspect Saddam Hussein of doing some kind of research in the field of WMD; or Muammar Gaddafi is all of a sudden not “good” enough or maybe knows too much about funding a presidential campaign in France in a given year. That is all they need to get going. An expeditionary force is then sent to a country lying 10,000 miles away from the United States. They levelled Libya. Now they are trying to put it back together again. Just like the Americans insisted at some point that Sudan must be divided into two parts. Then they started complaining that neither part is listening to them. Now, they demand that sanctions should be imposed against Sudan and South Sudan and are, in fact, imposing them.
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Iraq and cities were razed to the ground. No weapons were found. Tony Blair in his memoirs said that they made a mistake, but it can happen to anyone. All of that was done to the countries located on the other side of the ocean. I’m not even talking about the reasons the Americans came up with for intervening the Dominican Republic or Grenada. President Reagan was talking about a threat to the lives of US citizens. Just a threat. There were thousands of Americans there. They invade countries, topple governments, etc.
In our case with the Russians and the Russian-speaking people in Ukraine, their rights, language, education, media and culture were trampled on under the law. Then, there was the coup. The putschists then said that the Russian language must be banned and outlawed, and Russians should be driven out of Crimea. We went ahead and signed the Minsk agreements, which covered a small portion of the territories that are now under dispute. Not a single law was adopted in Ukraine under President Poroshenko or President Zelensky without the United States providing strong advice. Nothing would have happened if the West, primarily the United States, had complied with these overall simple agreements. There would have been no putsch or the coup if the Germans, French and Poles, who acted as guarantors of the deal signed by President Yanukovych and the opposition, had insisted on the putschists ending this mayhem and following up on the agreement. There would have been elections there five to six months down the road and the opposition would have won. Things were clear. Why did they have to do it? I have only one answer to that question. If this were the case, the theory put forward by Zbigniew Brzezinski would have come under revision and risk. Then, provided that the existing agreements were fulfilled, and everything remained within the 1991 borders, this would have created an environment for Russia and Ukraine to maintain good relations (it’s a fantasy, but I think it’s not far from the truth).
What they did instead was put Russophobes in place, break the deal with President Yanukovych and start doing what they keep doing now, namely, legitimising the Nazi theory and promoting Nazi practices via battalions into everyday life.
When US Congress was approving the US military budget, as it does every year, they imposed a ban on any kind of help, including military and financial, to Azov. Each time, the Pentagon objects to this and pushes for having this ban removed from the US budget. This speaks volumes.
Question: What is your forecast for the next year? I am not asking you to fantasise, it is not what a minister should do. Just what you can share in terms of your own expectations.
Sergey Lavrov: We must always be realistic. I am not a pessimist, although they say that a pessimist is simply a well-informed optimist. As for the glass, whether it is half full or half empty – it is also important which liquid is there.
My expectations are realistic. I am confident that with our resilience, patience and sense of purpose, we will defend the noble goals that are crucially important for our people and our country. We will do it consistently, while remaining ready for an equal dialogue and agreements that will ensure a truly equitable and indivisible security in Europe.
This includes respect for Russia’s interests. It is not something we have made up and now demand to be implemented. It is what all Western leaders put their names to in Istanbul in 1999 and in Astana in 2010, and also in the Russia-NATO Council documents. What they told us was untrue, to put it diplomatically.
Top German general calls for an end to Ukraine war
Free West Media | December 30, 2022
The longtime military policy advisor to NATO, Helmut W. Ganser sees the chance of an early end to the war in winter, especially for military reasons. With this, Ganser explicitly contradicted NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, who has spoken out against peace negotiations.
Ganser is a retired brigadier general and was, among other things, deputy head of the military policy department in the Federal Ministry of Defense and military policy advisor to the German Permanent Representative to NATO. Born in 1948, he worked in the command staff of the German armed forces from 1992.
He argued for a cessation of hostilities: “Military-political reason speaks for an early end to this costly war”. A victory for Kiev is unrealistic, he said. “After Moscow’s initial failures in Ukraine, some observers “overreacted” and overestimated Ukraine’s chances of victory.
Militarily, there is currently a stalemate situation, while at the same time the ammunition consumption on both sides is exceptionally high.
The West has reached its limits in this war since their ammunition depots are being depleted. This applies in particular to Germany. Ganser was quoted in the German ipg-journal for international politics.
Counter-offensives by Kiev only result in losses and are unsuccessful
Russia currently occupies well under 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory. After considerable losses of terrain and the retreat to the east bank of the Dnieper, the Russian army “substantially shortened and consolidated the front”.
“Attempts at further extensive counter-offensives by Kiev […] are likely not only to result in extremely heavy losses, but will also be to no avail,” according to Ganser.
He added that the wide Dnieper river posed “a significant barrier to possible counter-attack operations by Ukrainian forces in the southern part of the front”.
High ammo consumption
At the moment there is a stalemate situation, but there is a risk of a longer war of attrition and position, with occasional thrusts and counter-thrusts. At the same time, the consumption of ammunition on both sides is unusually high. The West is also reaching its limits here, Ganser warned.
“The western side can no longer intervene in the blocked stocks of the ammunition depots of their armed forces and deliver unlimited supplies. […] Ammunition supplies for the M777 howitzers and the long-range HIMARS rocket launchers are also reaching their limits in the US,” said the psychologist and political scientist.
Be sure to take fears of nuclear escalation seriously
The danger of a nuclear escalation also speaks in favor of peace negotiations. Although this is not desired by either side, the risk still exists. “One cannot yet speak of nuclear detente,” he underscored. US President Joe Biden had also warned of a nuclear war and has used the term “Armageddon”.
Peace talks should therefore take place as soon as possible, albeit behind closed doors. “To present warnings of a nuclear escalation as exaggerated fears is irresponsible,” Ganser said.
The solution to this lies with Moscow and Washington, the two actual players. Without Western support, Kiev would have lost the war long ago. “On the geopolitical level, this is a Russian-American conflict.”
The war is very costly for Ukraine
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, General Mark Milley, has also made a similar statement: Russia and Ukraine must mutually recognize “that a military victory is not achievable and that the winter months should be used for negotiations”.
But there are many critics of this proposal, which Ganser contradicted. “The argument that is heard again and again that the West must bring the Russian military to its knees with the help of Ukraine, because otherwise Putin will be the next to attack the NATO East Europeans, is simply a weak analysis.” After this war of attrition, Russia will first have to deal with military reform. In addition, NATO is building up forces on its eastern flank.
“The widespread counter-argument, including from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, that Moscow is only interested in an operational pause in order to attack again in the spring, may be correct. But even the Ukrainian army, with Western help, would use a ceasefire to bolster its defensive and counterattack capabilities.”
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From the Archives
Mutually Assured Delusion (MAD)
By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | November 5, 2013
Groupthink: A pattern of thought charaterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.
Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets, by Roland Benabou, published in the Review of Economic Studies. Benabou also has a talk (ppt slides) on this subject.
First, a definition of groupthink (from the ppt slides):
Janis (1972)’s eight symptoms [of groupthink]:
- illusion of invulnerability
- collective rationalization
- belief in inherent morality
- stereotyped views of out-groups
- direct pressure on dissenters
- self-censorship
- illusion of unanimity
- self-appointed mind guards
Sound like any groups that we know? … continue
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