This is not going to be easy for the West (Europe/Germany notably), though we should do our best to convince anyone with spare capacity (SA? US frackers?) to add to the supply... but it'd be worth it.
The US is far from perfect (Iraq, cough, cough) but this is something else. No one has so blatantly tried to conquer a country in a long while. Saddam and the invasion of Kuwait is really the only thing that springs to mind. That too was met by unanimous world condemnation. For the same reason. Down with the Tamerlanes of this world!
I think the problem with the oil side is offramping Putin.
An oil embargo will either (A) break Putin within the year, or (B) make him dependent on China to buy it from him.
(A) is the outcome we want, of course. But (B) is RISKY. Either the Chinese gouge Putin and it drives a wedge into their burgeoning alliance, or they make the smart long-term move and don't gouge Putin, letting him keep feeling like A Big Boy and consolidating the alliance without much effect.
Worse, the latter basically results in a circular global economy that undermines NATO unity: "God damn you Americans! WE Germans gave up Russian oil, but now YOU can't wean yourselves off China's cheap consumer goods, which are ultimately helping their government finance Putin's war." The attack ads practically write themselves.
Taking away the oil just doesn't give Putin any good way to offramp. He's already fucked on oil, even with his precious loophole. I don't think the outcome is going to be determined by this one last sanction; rather, I think we need to pivot towards the killing blow by (1) giving the Ukrainians every last ATM/MANPADS they can physically use, (2) getting through to Russia's elites that Putin's lost it and they need to talk to him, and (3) penetrating the Russian public consciousness to fuel their backlash to the war.
Hm. China position seems a bit unclear at this point. They don't seem overly enamoured of the mess Putin has created. If he had won within days, maybe the story would be different.
Weaning ourselves off of Chinese cheap stuff isn't going to be a problem just for the USA but for the whole West - very much including Germany (and Europe) so I don't think that's a wedge between Europe and the US.
Indeed, disrupting the Russian economy is going to be a lot less painful and a lot easier than to try and do the same with China...
Are you going for understatement of the century award?
If you think what is happening in Russia/Ukraine right now has anything in the least to do with "conquering a country" you are completely lost when it comes to geopolitics.
The US and NATO have been meddling in the Ukraine for 3 decades and in the case of the US/CIA since the 1950's.
Please educate yourself.
It's very important that with the stakes being what they are you stop spreading such ignorance.
Uh, Russia is definitely trying to conquer a country. And countries “meddle” with other countries all the time. Heck, Russia has meddled in the US as well as elsewhere in the Americas. If you have a problem with Western “meddling” in Ukraine, do you have a problem with Russian meddling in the Americas?
Keep in mind this is only the list of US "military" interventions. If we included all actions by the NED, CIA, IMF and on and on we would be listing them off all week.
If you flip over the rock of American foreign policy of the past century, this is what crawls out… invasions … bombings … overthrowing governments … occupations … suppressing movements for social change … assassinating political leaders … perverting elections … manipulating labor unions … manufacturing “news” … death squads … torture … biological warfare … depleted uranium … drug trafficking … mercenaries …
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid?
Chapter 2: Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style
Chapter 3: Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state
Chapter 4: The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America’s oldest colony
Chapter 5: Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?
Chapter 6: Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy
Chapter 7: Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor
Chapter 8: Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism
Chapter 9: Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings
Chapter 10: Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched
Chapter 11: Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1
Chapter 12: Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government
Chapter 13: Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America
Chapter 14: Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography
Chapter 15: Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts
Chapter 16: British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA’s international labor mafia
Chapter 17: Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing
Chapter 18: Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal’s orphans and techno-fascism
Chapter 19: Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus
Chapter 20: Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism
Chapter 21: Laos - 1957-1973: L’Armée Clandestine
Chapter 22: Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again
Chapter 23: Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another
Chapter 24: France/Algeria - 1960s: L’état, c’est la CIA
Chapter 25: Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks
Chapter 26: The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba
Chapter 27: Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads
Chapter 28: Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle
Chapter 29: Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy
Chapter 30: Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution
Chapter 31: Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno ..: and 500,000 others; East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more
Chapter 32: Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line
Chapter 33: Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture—as American as apple pie
Chapter 34: Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child’s forehead
Chapter 35: Greece - 1964-1974: “Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution,” said the President of the United States
Chapter 36: Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d’etat
Chapter 37: Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized “final solution”
Chapter 38: Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally—Part 2
Chapter 39: Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work
Chapter 40: Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust
Chapter 41: Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game
Chapter 42: Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven
NATO TRAINS AND FINANCES NEO-NAZIS AND JIHADISTS IN UKRAINE
Feb 23, 2022 , 8:50 a.m.
After eight years of Ukrainian conflict after Euromaidan and the declaration of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent republics, the Russian government recognized the entities in the Donbas as a geopolitical, even existential, watershed. Meanwhile, Kiev cannot advance its actions without attacking citizens with Russian passports from these republics who, at any time, could apply to join the Russian Federation.
Incidents with Ukrainian "saboteurs" are becoming more and more frequent, including civilians killed in explosions and others killed for trying to enter Russian territory.
Also, in the midst of the operation to evacuate the Russian-speaking population, the presence of Ukrainian trolls on social networks has been highlighted, who try to make montages about the alleged "negative posture of Russian citizens" towards people evacuated from the conflict zone.
Although they seem isolated events, there is a thread that connects them: the financing of paramilitary groups and mercenary militias by the United States and NATO. This is not a new act of war, it is the expansion of a doctrine applied in different scenarios such as Western Asia, Latin America and Africa for many years.
A SPONSORSHIP DISGUISED AS AN OMISSION
Bob Menéndez, a Democratic senator, presented a law last January to grant 500 million dollars to Ukraine to buy weapons, also to impose the so-called "mother of all sanctions" on Russia if it invades it, as dictated by political dogma. -media. While he calls for rapid progress on the matter and calls for expanded US propaganda information, he makes no mention of monitoring whether US weapons go to white supremacists like the Azov Battalion.
When asked if his bill includes surveillance provisions, the senator told The Intercept that "that's a level of detail that I'm not sure of," but he assured that the Department of Defense "would have the conditions to ensure that they lead the Ukrainian armed forces, not others. He added that "there is a risk that in any part of the world these weapons could be used by others", even knowing the existence of neo-Nazi groups in the Ukrainian army.
The so-called " Leahy investigation " process is supposed to certify whether foreign forces have committed "serious human rights violations" before greenlighting US government support, yet it is clear that Washington does not have effective procedures in place to track where their weapons go and prevent them from ending up in the hands of extremists.
When a defense bill reached the Senate in 2021, the amendment sponsored by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, was cut from its final version. This change proposed to investigate forces receiving US military assistance for violent ideologies, "including those that are white identity terrorists, anti-Semitic, or Islamophobic."
Also in 2021, Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat MP, called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to label the Azov Battalion a foreign terrorist organization, stating that it "uses the internet to recruit new members and then radicalizes them into using violence to further its agenda." white identity politician. She was left on seen.
NATO and the CIA sponsored numerous Stay-Behind networks (spies and armed groups "behind enemy lines") in many European countries during the Cold War, the intention being to activate them in case Warsaw Pact countries attacked or attacked them. that some communist party of these countries came to power democratically, or even had some "threat" to the status quo favorable to US interests. In this way the American CIA and the British MI6 have supported neo-Nazi groups to launch them against Russia. Today they are highly dependent on Western financing.
According to the US Congressional Research Service, between 1991 and 2014 the United States contributed up to 4 billion dollars to Ukraine through military assistance, another 2 billion since 2014 and another 1 billion through NATO. The list continues with the United Kingdom and other Western countries with no less onerous contributions that have raised Ukraine's military spending from 3% of its GDP in 2014 to 6% in 2022, just over 11 billion dollars.
SCENARIO OF THE SYMBIOSIS BETWEEN NEO-NAZISM AND NATO
The war that is being forged from Ukraine has clear ideological features that promote values far from freedom, equality or fraternity with which Western propaganda makes continuous noise through the extraordinary number of networks available to it.
In November 2021, Dimitro Yarosh, founder of the ultra-nationalist and paramilitary Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) party, was appointed adviser to General Valeri Zaluzhni, head of the armed forces, by the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky. The "activist" is a veteran member of NATO's Stay-Behind networks . In 2007, during the second Chechen war, he was instructed by the CIA to coordinate Nazi and Islamist cells against Russia from Ternopol, in western Ukraine.
In 2014, Yarosh played a central role in the Euromaidan , then he was a deputy and a candidate for the presidential election, the following year he was seriously injured. He is responsible for leading the Azov Battalion, and young foreign fighters, in the bombardment of several towns in the Donbass during the Munich Security Conference held from February 18 to 20. There are reports that among the foreign fighters who participated in this provocation there were several jihadists brought to Ukraine from Syria.
The Azov Battalion, now a mechanized special forces regiment trained and armed by the United States and NATO, is renowned for its ferocity in attacks against Russian populations in Ukraine and recruits neo-Nazis from all over Europe under a banner inspired by on the insignia of the SS Das Reich Division, one of the 200 Hitlerite divisions that invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. It is under the command of Andrey Biletsky, its founder, now a colonel by the regime that rules from Kiev.
According to the military analyst Manlio Dinucci , it is not "a military unit but an ideological and political movement with Biletsky in the role of charismatic leader, especially in the eyes of a youth organization whose members have been educated in hatred of the Russians by reading Biletsky's own book, the title of which is very revealing: The White Fuhrer's Words".
The Leahy Law has been ineffective in ensuring that neo-Nazis in the Azov Battalion do not receive American training, the Daily Beast reported in 2015. Ukrainian-American researcher Oleksiy Kuzmenko reported last September that members of an informal group called Military Order Centuria, linked to the international Azov movement, they have been trained in a Western-backed military institution.
Members of Pravy Sektor are in Pávlopol, a town in Dombás, accompanied by an information and psychological operations center and the film crew of a Ukrainian channel, as reported by the deputy commander of the militia of the self-proclaimed Republic of Donetsk, Eduard Basurin.
TRANSMISSION BELTS: PARAMILITARISM, JIHADISM AND NATO
While the media reports that the Pentagon has withdrawn from Ukraine 160 military instructors who were training Ukrainian forces, former CIA and Homeland Security officials say there remain advisers and other military instructors belonging to the US Special Forces and from other NATO countries, insist that they are the ones who lead the army and the National Guard of Ukraine.
Some of the events seem to be repeated from scenes in Syria, the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has denounced the presence of US mercenaries equipped with chemical weapons in the Donbas to blame the Russian population and justify a "response" by the troops and paramilitaries from Kiev, who outnumber the defenders of the region.
Leonid Pásechnik, leader of the Lugansk People's Republic, denounced in an interview with Sputnik the sending of mercenaries to Ukraine who pose as NATO advisers and stated that there are many fighters who "speak other languages, wear foreign camouflage uniforms And they behave quite provocatively."
A report published on Yahoo! News refers to a program that Barack Obama implemented in 2015 in the southern United States and has been expanding during the presidencies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It includes training in the use of weapons, camouflage techniques, land navigation, "cover and move" tactics, intelligence and other "tactical things" that can be used as "offensives if the Russians invade Ukraine."
In addition, the private military company Blackwater (called Academi and later Constellis) markets mercenaries in order to carry out extralegal operations (torture and assassination) for the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department. Its founder, Erik Prince, planned last July to create a private army in Ukraine together with Lancaster 6, a British company through which he has already sent mercenaries to Africa and the Middle East. This plan adds up to 10 billion dollars and includes Ukrainian intelligence, also controlled by the CIA.
United World International reported that the United States has prepared a plan that seeks to provoke tensions between Turkey and Russia by moving Syrian jihadists and mercenaries to the Donbas region to fight against Russian and pro-Russian forces. According to international sources, it would be thousands of ISIS militants, including Tatars and Chechens, who know the region well. In 2020 the Ukrainian newspaper Zoborana published an article that provides some data:
Uh, no they're not. Countries "meddle" with other countries all the time is the level of your geopolitical analysis? You are completely ignorant.
And no Russia has not meddled in the US, please don't embarrass yourself by saying Russia meddled in US elections.
And then classic redirection. You not only are historically illiterate but can't construct a logical argument.
I'm pretty certain you won't but here are some opportunities to educate yourself:
For 70 years the CIA has been working to undermine and occupy Ukraine to bring down Russia using such things as paramilitaries, right wing Nazi groups, corrupt politicians and businessmen, coups, and warfare in the eastern Ukraine region of the Donbass.
None of these studiously ignorant individuals parading around with blue and yellow flag pins gave a thought to Ukraine a few days ago and now *poof* the mighty Wurlitzer has their scrambled brains thinking about "solidarity" with proto-fascists in one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. Meanwhile Operation Covid has been banished to the dustbin of their short memories.
An antidote to the historical illiteracy of the liberal academics and their legion of acolytes below. How is it possible that all of these "educators" can be this consistently ignorant on these matters:
Declassified CIA document: “Cold War Allies: The Origins of CIA’s Relationship with
Since 2014, with American help and money, Ukraine has been refashioned as a nationalistic state, a deadly weapon aimed against Russia. The Ukronazis, never spoken about on the West, have been given an easy road towards power. Other elements in the national makeup have been intimidated and suppressed as a Ukrainian national identity has been imposed on a multicultural people. The message from nationalists has been – become part of our dream of Ukraine, or leave. We have no use for you, this is our land now.
The Russian Orthodox Church was penetrated and turned against the church centre in Moscow. A tragic schism has taken place.
Terrible events – above all, the torching by Ukronazis of the Odessa Trades Union Building in April 2014, and the burning to death of 45 peaceful protesters who had taken refuge inside – drove home the deterrent message of suppression of human rights. Do not resist us, you will pay with your lives.
And the heroism of the people of Lugansk and Donetsk in saying no to such cruelty, in taking up arms to defend their vision of their homeland after Poroshenko in May 2014 ordered an all-out military assault on them – all this went unreported in the West.
For eight long years the Russian government tried to make the Minsk Accords peace process work. Kiev prevaricated and sneered, as the shells continued to rain down death on the rebel regions. And as the US and NATO pumped more and more weapons and instructors in terrorism and sabotage into Ukraine.
Finally in December last year, Russia had had enough. Putin tried to propose ambitious new principles for relations with the West, most importantly a pledge that Ukraine would never join NATO and the withdrawal of NATO weapons from Russia’s borders. All to no avail. The West prevaricated, cherry-picked and sneered at Russia’s peace proposals.
The west remains mired in its fantasy world of big bad aggressor Putin ruling his unhappy country with an iron fist. How totally untrue this narrative is, as I have tried to relate in my two books on Russia in 2017 and 2019.
Now, the real world of bombs and bullets, and the Western false narrative world of selective indignation and pointless ‘how does it feel’ fact-free journalism, finally have come together in jarring dissonance in Ukraine.
You seem to assume I'm an uneducated idiot instead of acknowledging we might view things differently.
For example, I disagree with your assessment that the US "meddled" in Ukraine for 3 decades. They've certainly have had views and have had objectives (like convincing Ukraine to give up their nukes, certainly something Ukraine must bitterly regret since 2014) but I don't believe/have seen no proof that the US engineered Maidan (for example) and I should know. I lived in Kyiv at the time.
As to the idea that what is going on right now isn't one country trying to conquer another is... beyond naive, imho. Ukrainians have been very frigging vocal they do not want to "rejoin" Russia and they're putting their lives on the line to stop it (by and very large majorities ; some bits and pieces of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts do feel differently).
One does not have to buy an entire case of freedom/democracy to decide they like the taste of it. A single sip will do the trick.
You can get a sip, never drink it for a couple of decades and still you recall it with longing and fondness.
Ukraine has been facing west for 40 years, long ago decided they liked the vintage of freedom, and began to move that direction. 20 years ago they began to whisper they would like to be part of the EU and NATO.
When the US convinced them to give up their nukes (really Russian nukes) during the Clinton regime, we and Russia promised them we would take care of them. It has turned out to be a great lie.
Putin cannot have an ethnically similar Russian speaking free country on his border because that philosophy will pollute his authoritarian scheme and lead to his downfall.
You really care so much about Ukrainian lives? Since when?
Enough with the crocodile tears from all those sanctimonious Westerners, who either have no clue about what's happened in Ukraine since 2014, or just don't care.
Since 2014, with American help and money, Ukraine has been refashioned as a nationalistic state, a deadly weapon aimed against Russia. The Ukronazis, never spoken about on the West, have been given an easy road towards power. Other elements in the national makeup have been intimidated and suppressed as a Ukrainian national identity has been imposed on a multicultural people. The message from nationalists has been – become part of our dream of Ukraine, or leave. We have no use for you, this is our land now.
The Russian Orthodox Church was penetrated and turned against the church centre in Moscow. A tragic schism has taken place.
Terrible events – above all, the torching by Ukronazis of the Odessa Trades Union Building in April 2014, and the burning to death of 45 peaceful protesters who had taken refuge inside – drove home the deterrent message of suppression of human rights. Do not resist us, you will pay with your lives.
And the heroism of the people of Lugansk and Donetsk in saying no to such cruelty, in taking up arms to defend their vision of their homeland after Poroshenko in May 2014 ordered an all-out military assault on them – all this went unreported in the West.
For eight long years the Russian government tried to make the Minsk Accords peace process work. Kiev prevaricated and sneered, as the shells continued to rain down death on the rebel regions. And as the US and NATO pumped more and more weapons and instructors in terrorism and sabotage into Ukraine.
Finally in December last year, Russia had had enough. Putin tried to propose ambitious new principles for relations with the West, most importantly a pledge that Ukraine would never join NATO and the withdrawal of NATO weapons from Russia’s borders. All to no avail. The West prevaricated, cherry-picked and sneered at Russia’s peace proposals.
The west remains mired in its fantasy world of big bad aggressor Putin ruling his unhappy country with an iron fist. How totally untrue this narrative is, as I have tried to relate in my two books on Russia in 2017 and 2019.
Now, the real world of bombs and bullets, and the Western false narrative world of selective indignation and pointless ‘how does it feel’ fact-free journalism, finally have come together in jarring dissonance in Ukraine.
You really care so much about Ukrainian lives? Since when?
Enough with the crocodile tears from all those sanctimonious Westerners, who either have no clue about what's happened in Ukraine since 2014, or just don't care.
I agree with the conclusion that Putin is fucked. I had a look at OECD's Trade in Value database. An indicator that says a lot about that is the foreign value added shares of Russian final domestic demand (private and public consumption + investments). Foreign industries account for large shares of that in Computers & Electronics, Machinery and Transport equipment. In case you're interested I wrote a post about it hre with links to the OECD database. https://gubbdjavel.com/2022/03/03/putins-mistakes/
A Russian colleague I know, who managed to escape, says he feels that the corporate sanctions (like Visa and Mastercard) are just fucking up his life as an expat. He totally opposes the war, but feels unpersoned and almost like he wished he stayed home.
I urge policy makers to consider that Russian refugees are likely to be opposed to the war and need to continue to work and live, and we should in general be supporting them.
I don't know why people are celebrating this. We end up with nothing but a militarily weakened and paranoid Russia with 140m angry impoverished citizens and 6000 nukes pointed at the west.
Sure, we could have done some things better in the 90s (NATO could have rebranded, the extension could have sought to/aim to/propose to include Russia - which may have turned less resentful if they were the ones to turn us down).
But whatever mistakes we made, it is pretty clear we never intended to invade Russia and Ukraine in or out of NATO/the EU never posed any threat to Russia sovereignty and territorial integrity.
This is a war of conquest and it must be stopped/made as costly as possible to Putin/Russia.
Besides, once he's gone (whether in a month or in 10 years), I suspect the Russians will learn the truth and be willing to blame him more than us.
Could have avoided funding neo-Nazi paramilitaries in Ukraine. Could have stayed out of Euromaiden. Could have kept our fingers out of the USSR and not helped Yeltsin & Putin take power and turn Russia into a kleptocracy in the first place. Could have abided by our agreement to not expand NATO. Could have abolished NATO after we won the Cold war instead of using it to antagonize Russia. But where's the fun in acknowledging that? Way more fun to see things as good vs evil than as evil vs also evil.
Sorry, the first few items are pure dross. Agreed on abolishing/rebranding NATO post 1991.
And no country is good but there's certainly degrees in greys. Overall, post 1991, the general West is fairly light grey, the US is a bit darker (due to Iraq) and China and Russia are bloody dark grey (due to internal repression/ethnic cleansing and now war of conquest for Russia, with China really really clear they'd like to do the same to Taiwan).
I get what you're saying and I can agree with it, but the invasion of a peaceful neighbor whose sin is they like freedom and democracy whilst threatening nuclear annihilation is in a class of its own.
I agree with the idea of American exceptionalism, can take an index finger in the eye for the times we've colored outside the lines, but our track record on being on the right side of WWI/WWI, saving Europe and Private Ryan is still the leader in the clubhouse.
Nobody is breaking into Russia like our Southern border. Bit of wisdom in the crowd?
That's not the truth, that's at best a truncated version of the truth. You seem to forget the reason for the sanctions. This isn't Cuba or even Iran where sanctions were imposed to interfere with local political choices (and are therefore more debatable).
This is in reaction to something. Something that is illegal, immoral and, even more important, very dangerous to world stability and everyone's safety. I think the Russians, unlike you, will remember to include that something in their reasoning.
Not to over simplify things, but Russia is going to seem like Cuba -- an isolated, broke dick island of authoritarian control which buggers the quality of life and smothers freedom.
If it leads to a change in leadership -- not so successful in Cuba -- then bravo.
There has to be some hope that the Russian people will respond in some manner.
*Any* version of the truth has to be truncated somewhere. Why would they pick "civilians were justifiably targeted in response to this out-of-nothing military violation" rather than something about historical boundaries further back, or about going after civilians never being ok, or somesuch? Is it just that after we win we'll be able to impose our viewpoints?
History is written by the victors who can write. It only matters if it is read and understood.
Russia was the US' ally in WWII -- we fed, clothed, armed them truth be known.
Why do they hate us and Ukraine? Freedom.
The real touchstone is this -- freedom trumps all other concepts.
What is really Ukraine's sin? They decided they liked freedom, turned to face the West, embraced the move, and showed their naked backsides to Putin, et al.
He cannot allow a Russian speaking country to exist with the equivalent of indoor plumbing and survive.
1. The difference between the Ruble and Monopoly Money?
On Friday, Monopoly Money will be worth something.
The Ruble is dead and with the cutoff from foreign currency, including Russian owned but inaccessible foreign currency, the internal workings of the Russian economy is fried.
2. Russia's economy is 25% SMALLER than Italy's. Let that sink in.
It is a gas station with coal and a chip on its shoulder.
Even if oil goes to $200/bbl -- which I think it will -- they are still a little, tiny country with no real shock absorbers to deal with a united West stabbing them with progressively bigger pins.
3. Every financial malady you can identify is happening simultaneously -- Ruble is for shit down 86%, sovereign debt is in default and selling for $0.10/USD, credit - swap wholesale defaults, credit is equal to Cuba's, cannot access foreign reserves, no Visa/Mastercard/ApplePay/GooglePay/ATMs, run on the banks, exploding interest rates, and no goodwill anywhere in the financial world.
Take a breath -- every decent company leaving enmasse (with their jobs).
This is a wholesale disruption of gargantuan proportions that touches every aspect of the economy. This makes the NYC bond default seem like a spring day.
4. Russia has no friends. There are some folks who would like to steal assets, make great buys, but friends? Nope. Allies? Nope.
They have no friends because they are engaged in a medieval siege of a modern foreign capital wherein they are slaughtering children, women, and old people whilst using armaments that are war crimes.
Recovering from this uncivilized behavior is not like recovering from a sunburn you got in the Hamptons.
No, Russia is being disconnected from the civilized world because they have engaged in uncivilized behavior and it will work.
Not only that, but with Netflix pulling out, nobody is going to be distracted binge watching Yellowstone.
Your statement that "The only thing worse than going back to the 90s would be going back to the early 80s" reveals a shocking lack of understanding about Russia's recent economic history. The country went through an almost unprecedented decline in peacetime life expectancy through the nineties, as Yeltsin took a flawed but functional centrally planned economy and sold it off for scraps to gangsters.
By the mid nineties, Russian life expectancy had declined almost 8 years from its peak in 86. It was near the end of the 2000s before life expectancy even past its 1980 level.
I guess I'm a bit dubious about all of these predictions. I'm going to bookmark this post and come back in "a matter of weeks" and see which one of the quite specific predictions pan out. I feel like in general experts overreact when their niche is thrust into the spotlight. The state won't be able to pay anyone in a matter of weeks? Most private companies in all of Russia won't be able to make payroll? I'm dubious.
The issue will be with the actual buying power -- the PPP -- of the Ruble which will evaporate with the decline of the exchange rate and inflation. There is a Weimar Republic quality to all of this.
Russia's economy is 25% smaller than Italy.
They do not have much of a shock absorber to allow financial issues to achieve equilibrium when they are out of balance.
They have zero friends and a bunch of enemies. The enemies are collectively most of the wealth in the world.
Putin may be a world class asshole, but he missed econ classes and Russia is well and rightly fucked. Good.
Would the US actually be willing to impose the same sorts of sanctions on China (which IIUC is much more integrated with the US economy) that it has recently imposed on Russia?
China is already seeing the impact of simple "badwill" v "goodwill."
They get the message. There is a tsunami of chip plant manufacturing going on in the US. This is a fair example of returning strategic industries to a safe harbor.
The big prize on gameboard is and has always been access to the US market for consumers and the US financial system.
Could we live without both Russia and China? Yes. Painful, but not nearly as painful as we might expect. Watch how easily we spit out the Russian crude oil tit. $5/gal bas.
Can Russia and China live without access to US tech, market, financial systems? No.
I think you’re underestimating the ability of the average Russian to keep their mouth shut and put their shoulder to the wheel in the interest of the state. This is the way that they have survived for hundreds of years. I guess we will see if things have changed. Putin is betting that they haven’t.
It has now been nearly four weeks since Professor Olga Chyzh said "it is matter of weeks before the state can no longer pay its employees" and Derek claimed that most private companies would be unable to make payroll.
While Russia is certainly experiencing financial hardships, those specific predictions seem to have completely failed to manifest.
Any chance of an updated post on the effects of Russian sanctions and maybe a retrospective on which ones have worked better or worse than expected?
Very good piece. And thanks for posting Marcusson blog, which is also very good. Incidentally, we also published a similar blog on Russian import dependency (from EU and US). It might be a good complement. See the link here: https://ecipe.org/blog/russia-import-dependency-problem/
I hope we close the oil loophole soon.
This is not going to be easy for the West (Europe/Germany notably), though we should do our best to convince anyone with spare capacity (SA? US frackers?) to add to the supply... but it'd be worth it.
The US is far from perfect (Iraq, cough, cough) but this is something else. No one has so blatantly tried to conquer a country in a long while. Saddam and the invasion of Kuwait is really the only thing that springs to mind. That too was met by unanimous world condemnation. For the same reason. Down with the Tamerlanes of this world!
I think the problem with the oil side is offramping Putin.
An oil embargo will either (A) break Putin within the year, or (B) make him dependent on China to buy it from him.
(A) is the outcome we want, of course. But (B) is RISKY. Either the Chinese gouge Putin and it drives a wedge into their burgeoning alliance, or they make the smart long-term move and don't gouge Putin, letting him keep feeling like A Big Boy and consolidating the alliance without much effect.
Worse, the latter basically results in a circular global economy that undermines NATO unity: "God damn you Americans! WE Germans gave up Russian oil, but now YOU can't wean yourselves off China's cheap consumer goods, which are ultimately helping their government finance Putin's war." The attack ads practically write themselves.
Taking away the oil just doesn't give Putin any good way to offramp. He's already fucked on oil, even with his precious loophole. I don't think the outcome is going to be determined by this one last sanction; rather, I think we need to pivot towards the killing blow by (1) giving the Ukrainians every last ATM/MANPADS they can physically use, (2) getting through to Russia's elites that Putin's lost it and they need to talk to him, and (3) penetrating the Russian public consciousness to fuel their backlash to the war.
The challenge with Russia selling to China is the delivery system. It has to go via ship as there are no pipelines between Russia and China.
Ships are easy to interdict and fuel tankers are not looking for work.
All of this shipping would be a net add to the system and would also require massive LNG plants at both ends. Those are 2-3 year projects.
The Russia >>> China oil bailout is a pipe dream in the relevant time frame.
BTW, China wants cheap energy. The cheaper the better.
If US production would return to 13MM bbl/day as it was on Inauguration Day, crude would return to $20/bbl and life would be grand.
I could see China asking Russia to sell it all the land north of China?
JLM
www.themusingofthebigredcar.com
Hm. China position seems a bit unclear at this point. They don't seem overly enamoured of the mess Putin has created. If he had won within days, maybe the story would be different.
Weaning ourselves off of Chinese cheap stuff isn't going to be a problem just for the USA but for the whole West - very much including Germany (and Europe) so I don't think that's a wedge between Europe and the US.
Indeed, disrupting the Russian economy is going to be a lot less painful and a lot easier than to try and do the same with China...
The Chinese are always playing the long game. Why should they say or do anything when they can watch a full on lab experiment for free?
Of course, they will buy every barrel of oil Russia can deliver.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
"Far from perfect?"
Are you going for understatement of the century award?
If you think what is happening in Russia/Ukraine right now has anything in the least to do with "conquering a country" you are completely lost when it comes to geopolitics.
The US and NATO have been meddling in the Ukraine for 3 decades and in the case of the US/CIA since the 1950's.
Please educate yourself.
It's very important that with the stakes being what they are you stop spreading such ignorance.
Uh, Russia is definitely trying to conquer a country. And countries “meddle” with other countries all the time. Heck, Russia has meddled in the US as well as elsewhere in the Americas. If you have a problem with Western “meddling” in Ukraine, do you have a problem with Russian meddling in the Americas?
Keep in mind this is only the list of US "military" interventions. If we included all actions by the NED, CIA, IMF and on and on we would be listing them off all week.
FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO SYRIA
U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS SINCE 1890
https://sites.evergreen.edu/zoltan/interventions/
But sure keep telling yourself "countries meddle with other countries" so that you can continue to live that lie.
Exhibit #5 in the "countries meddle with other countries" debate would be your link. Why not?
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Try reading a book:
https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-C-I-Interventions-II-Updated/dp/1567512526
If you flip over the rock of American foreign policy of the past century, this is what crawls out… invasions … bombings … overthrowing governments … occupations … suppressing movements for social change … assassinating political leaders … perverting elections … manipulating labor unions … manufacturing “news” … death squads … torture … biological warfare … depleted uranium … drug trafficking … mercenaries …
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid?
Chapter 2: Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style
Chapter 3: Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state
Chapter 4: The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America’s oldest colony
Chapter 5: Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?
Chapter 6: Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy
Chapter 7: Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor
Chapter 8: Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism
Chapter 9: Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings
Chapter 10: Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched
Chapter 11: Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1
Chapter 12: Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government
Chapter 13: Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America
Chapter 14: Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography
Chapter 15: Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts
Chapter 16: British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA’s international labor mafia
Chapter 17: Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing
Chapter 18: Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal’s orphans and techno-fascism
Chapter 19: Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus
Chapter 20: Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism
Chapter 21: Laos - 1957-1973: L’Armée Clandestine
Chapter 22: Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again
Chapter 23: Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another
Chapter 24: France/Algeria - 1960s: L’état, c’est la CIA
Chapter 25: Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks
Chapter 26: The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba
Chapter 27: Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads
Chapter 28: Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle
Chapter 29: Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy
Chapter 30: Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution
Chapter 31: Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno ..: and 500,000 others; East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more
Chapter 32: Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line
Chapter 33: Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture—as American as apple pie
Chapter 34: Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child’s forehead
Chapter 35: Greece - 1964-1974: “Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution,” said the President of the United States
Chapter 36: Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d’etat
Chapter 37: Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized “final solution”
Chapter 38: Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally—Part 2
Chapter 39: Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work
Chapter 40: Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust
Chapter 41: Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game
Chapter 42: Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven
Chapter 43: Jamaica - 1976-1980: Kissinger’s ultimatum
Chapter 44: Seychelles - 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance
Chapter 45: Grenada - 1979-1984: Lying—one of the few growth industries in Washington
Chapter 46: Morocco - 1983: A video nasty
Chapter 47: Suriname - 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman
Chapter 48: Libya - 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match
Chapter 49: Nicaragua - 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion
Chapter 50: Panama - 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier
Chapter 51: Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about
Chapter 52: Iraq - 1990-1991: Desert Holocaust
Chapter 53: Afghanistan - 1979-1992: America’s Jihad
Chapter 54: El Salvador - 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style
Chapter 55: Haiti - 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?
Chapter 56: The American Empire - 1992 to present
NATO TRAINS AND FINANCES NEO-NAZIS AND JIHADISTS IN UKRAINE
Feb 23, 2022 , 8:50 a.m.
After eight years of Ukrainian conflict after Euromaidan and the declaration of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent republics, the Russian government recognized the entities in the Donbas as a geopolitical, even existential, watershed. Meanwhile, Kiev cannot advance its actions without attacking citizens with Russian passports from these republics who, at any time, could apply to join the Russian Federation.
Incidents with Ukrainian "saboteurs" are becoming more and more frequent, including civilians killed in explosions and others killed for trying to enter Russian territory.
Also, in the midst of the operation to evacuate the Russian-speaking population, the presence of Ukrainian trolls on social networks has been highlighted, who try to make montages about the alleged "negative posture of Russian citizens" towards people evacuated from the conflict zone.
Although they seem isolated events, there is a thread that connects them: the financing of paramilitary groups and mercenary militias by the United States and NATO. This is not a new act of war, it is the expansion of a doctrine applied in different scenarios such as Western Asia, Latin America and Africa for many years.
A SPONSORSHIP DISGUISED AS AN OMISSION
Bob Menéndez, a Democratic senator, presented a law last January to grant 500 million dollars to Ukraine to buy weapons, also to impose the so-called "mother of all sanctions" on Russia if it invades it, as dictated by political dogma. -media. While he calls for rapid progress on the matter and calls for expanded US propaganda information, he makes no mention of monitoring whether US weapons go to white supremacists like the Azov Battalion.
When asked if his bill includes surveillance provisions, the senator told The Intercept that "that's a level of detail that I'm not sure of," but he assured that the Department of Defense "would have the conditions to ensure that they lead the Ukrainian armed forces, not others. He added that "there is a risk that in any part of the world these weapons could be used by others", even knowing the existence of neo-Nazi groups in the Ukrainian army.
The so-called " Leahy investigation " process is supposed to certify whether foreign forces have committed "serious human rights violations" before greenlighting US government support, yet it is clear that Washington does not have effective procedures in place to track where their weapons go and prevent them from ending up in the hands of extremists.
When a defense bill reached the Senate in 2021, the amendment sponsored by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, was cut from its final version. This change proposed to investigate forces receiving US military assistance for violent ideologies, "including those that are white identity terrorists, anti-Semitic, or Islamophobic."
Also in 2021, Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat MP, called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to label the Azov Battalion a foreign terrorist organization, stating that it "uses the internet to recruit new members and then radicalizes them into using violence to further its agenda." white identity politician. She was left on seen.
NATO and the CIA sponsored numerous Stay-Behind networks (spies and armed groups "behind enemy lines") in many European countries during the Cold War, the intention being to activate them in case Warsaw Pact countries attacked or attacked them. that some communist party of these countries came to power democratically, or even had some "threat" to the status quo favorable to US interests. In this way the American CIA and the British MI6 have supported neo-Nazi groups to launch them against Russia. Today they are highly dependent on Western financing.
According to the US Congressional Research Service, between 1991 and 2014 the United States contributed up to 4 billion dollars to Ukraine through military assistance, another 2 billion since 2014 and another 1 billion through NATO. The list continues with the United Kingdom and other Western countries with no less onerous contributions that have raised Ukraine's military spending from 3% of its GDP in 2014 to 6% in 2022, just over 11 billion dollars.
SCENARIO OF THE SYMBIOSIS BETWEEN NEO-NAZISM AND NATO
The war that is being forged from Ukraine has clear ideological features that promote values far from freedom, equality or fraternity with which Western propaganda makes continuous noise through the extraordinary number of networks available to it.
In November 2021, Dimitro Yarosh, founder of the ultra-nationalist and paramilitary Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) party, was appointed adviser to General Valeri Zaluzhni, head of the armed forces, by the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky. The "activist" is a veteran member of NATO's Stay-Behind networks . In 2007, during the second Chechen war, he was instructed by the CIA to coordinate Nazi and Islamist cells against Russia from Ternopol, in western Ukraine.
In 2014, Yarosh played a central role in the Euromaidan , then he was a deputy and a candidate for the presidential election, the following year he was seriously injured. He is responsible for leading the Azov Battalion, and young foreign fighters, in the bombardment of several towns in the Donbass during the Munich Security Conference held from February 18 to 20. There are reports that among the foreign fighters who participated in this provocation there were several jihadists brought to Ukraine from Syria.
The Azov Battalion, now a mechanized special forces regiment trained and armed by the United States and NATO, is renowned for its ferocity in attacks against Russian populations in Ukraine and recruits neo-Nazis from all over Europe under a banner inspired by on the insignia of the SS Das Reich Division, one of the 200 Hitlerite divisions that invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. It is under the command of Andrey Biletsky, its founder, now a colonel by the regime that rules from Kiev.
According to the military analyst Manlio Dinucci , it is not "a military unit but an ideological and political movement with Biletsky in the role of charismatic leader, especially in the eyes of a youth organization whose members have been educated in hatred of the Russians by reading Biletsky's own book, the title of which is very revealing: The White Fuhrer's Words".
The Leahy Law has been ineffective in ensuring that neo-Nazis in the Azov Battalion do not receive American training, the Daily Beast reported in 2015. Ukrainian-American researcher Oleksiy Kuzmenko reported last September that members of an informal group called Military Order Centuria, linked to the international Azov movement, they have been trained in a Western-backed military institution.
Members of Pravy Sektor are in Pávlopol, a town in Dombás, accompanied by an information and psychological operations center and the film crew of a Ukrainian channel, as reported by the deputy commander of the militia of the self-proclaimed Republic of Donetsk, Eduard Basurin.
TRANSMISSION BELTS: PARAMILITARISM, JIHADISM AND NATO
While the media reports that the Pentagon has withdrawn from Ukraine 160 military instructors who were training Ukrainian forces, former CIA and Homeland Security officials say there remain advisers and other military instructors belonging to the US Special Forces and from other NATO countries, insist that they are the ones who lead the army and the National Guard of Ukraine.
Some of the events seem to be repeated from scenes in Syria, the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has denounced the presence of US mercenaries equipped with chemical weapons in the Donbas to blame the Russian population and justify a "response" by the troops and paramilitaries from Kiev, who outnumber the defenders of the region.
Leonid Pásechnik, leader of the Lugansk People's Republic, denounced in an interview with Sputnik the sending of mercenaries to Ukraine who pose as NATO advisers and stated that there are many fighters who "speak other languages, wear foreign camouflage uniforms And they behave quite provocatively."
A report published on Yahoo! News refers to a program that Barack Obama implemented in 2015 in the southern United States and has been expanding during the presidencies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It includes training in the use of weapons, camouflage techniques, land navigation, "cover and move" tactics, intelligence and other "tactical things" that can be used as "offensives if the Russians invade Ukraine."
In addition, the private military company Blackwater (called Academi and later Constellis) markets mercenaries in order to carry out extralegal operations (torture and assassination) for the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department. Its founder, Erik Prince, planned last July to create a private army in Ukraine together with Lancaster 6, a British company through which he has already sent mercenaries to Africa and the Middle East. This plan adds up to 10 billion dollars and includes Ukrainian intelligence, also controlled by the CIA.
United World International reported that the United States has prepared a plan that seeks to provoke tensions between Turkey and Russia by moving Syrian jihadists and mercenaries to the Donbas region to fight against Russian and pro-Russian forces. According to international sources, it would be thousands of ISIS militants, including Tatars and Chechens, who know the region well. In 2020 the Ukrainian newspaper Zoborana published an article that provides some data:
More:
https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/otan-entrena-y-financia-neonazis-y-yihadistas-en-ucrania
Uh, no they're not. Countries "meddle" with other countries all the time is the level of your geopolitical analysis? You are completely ignorant.
And no Russia has not meddled in the US, please don't embarrass yourself by saying Russia meddled in US elections.
And then classic redirection. You not only are historically illiterate but can't construct a logical argument.
I'm pretty certain you won't but here are some opportunities to educate yourself:
For 70 years the CIA has been working to undermine and occupy Ukraine to bring down Russia using such things as paramilitaries, right wing Nazi groups, corrupt politicians and businessmen, coups, and warfare in the eastern Ukraine region of the Donbass.
None of these studiously ignorant individuals parading around with blue and yellow flag pins gave a thought to Ukraine a few days ago and now *poof* the mighty Wurlitzer has their scrambled brains thinking about "solidarity" with proto-fascists in one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. Meanwhile Operation Covid has been banished to the dustbin of their short memories.
An antidote to the historical illiteracy of the liberal academics and their legion of acolytes below. How is it possible that all of these "educators" can be this consistently ignorant on these matters:
Declassified CIA document: “Cold War Allies: The Origins of CIA’s Relationship with
Ukrainian Nationalists”
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/STUDIES%20IN%20INTELLIGENCE%20NAZI%20-%20RELATED%20ARTICLES_0015.pdf
https://ehfafcommunity.blogspot.com/2022/03/what-media-is-hiding-about-ukrainerussia.html
And this:
Since 2014, with American help and money, Ukraine has been refashioned as a nationalistic state, a deadly weapon aimed against Russia. The Ukronazis, never spoken about on the West, have been given an easy road towards power. Other elements in the national makeup have been intimidated and suppressed as a Ukrainian national identity has been imposed on a multicultural people. The message from nationalists has been – become part of our dream of Ukraine, or leave. We have no use for you, this is our land now.
The Russian Orthodox Church was penetrated and turned against the church centre in Moscow. A tragic schism has taken place.
Terrible events – above all, the torching by Ukronazis of the Odessa Trades Union Building in April 2014, and the burning to death of 45 peaceful protesters who had taken refuge inside – drove home the deterrent message of suppression of human rights. Do not resist us, you will pay with your lives.
And the heroism of the people of Lugansk and Donetsk in saying no to such cruelty, in taking up arms to defend their vision of their homeland after Poroshenko in May 2014 ordered an all-out military assault on them – all this went unreported in the West.
For eight long years the Russian government tried to make the Minsk Accords peace process work. Kiev prevaricated and sneered, as the shells continued to rain down death on the rebel regions. And as the US and NATO pumped more and more weapons and instructors in terrorism and sabotage into Ukraine.
Finally in December last year, Russia had had enough. Putin tried to propose ambitious new principles for relations with the West, most importantly a pledge that Ukraine would never join NATO and the withdrawal of NATO weapons from Russia’s borders. All to no avail. The West prevaricated, cherry-picked and sneered at Russia’s peace proposals.
The west remains mired in its fantasy world of big bad aggressor Putin ruling his unhappy country with an iron fist. How totally untrue this narrative is, as I have tried to relate in my two books on Russia in 2017 and 2019.
Now, the real world of bombs and bullets, and the Western false narrative world of selective indignation and pointless ‘how does it feel’ fact-free journalism, finally have come together in jarring dissonance in Ukraine.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/thoughts-endgame-ukraine/5772305
There has been an American Communist Party in the US since the time of Lenin. Until the breakup of the USSR, it was directly funded by Russia.
There is no particular sting associated with the word "nationalists." I am a bit of a nationalist and I live in Texas so that speaks for itself.
It is a cheap, intellectually fallacious move to morph that word into the word "Nazis."
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
More than one thing can be happening at the same time as in Ukraine.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
So that kind of comments is bad, Allen.
You seem to assume I'm an uneducated idiot instead of acknowledging we might view things differently.
For example, I disagree with your assessment that the US "meddled" in Ukraine for 3 decades. They've certainly have had views and have had objectives (like convincing Ukraine to give up their nukes, certainly something Ukraine must bitterly regret since 2014) but I don't believe/have seen no proof that the US engineered Maidan (for example) and I should know. I lived in Kyiv at the time.
As to the idea that what is going on right now isn't one country trying to conquer another is... beyond naive, imho. Ukrainians have been very frigging vocal they do not want to "rejoin" Russia and they're putting their lives on the line to stop it (by and very large majorities ; some bits and pieces of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts do feel differently).
So yeah.
One does not have to buy an entire case of freedom/democracy to decide they like the taste of it. A single sip will do the trick.
You can get a sip, never drink it for a couple of decades and still you recall it with longing and fondness.
Ukraine has been facing west for 40 years, long ago decided they liked the vintage of freedom, and began to move that direction. 20 years ago they began to whisper they would like to be part of the EU and NATO.
When the US convinced them to give up their nukes (really Russian nukes) during the Clinton regime, we and Russia promised them we would take care of them. It has turned out to be a great lie.
Putin cannot have an ethnically similar Russian speaking free country on his border because that philosophy will pollute his authoritarian scheme and lead to his downfall.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
You really care so much about Ukrainian lives? Since when?
Enough with the crocodile tears from all those sanctimonious Westerners, who either have no clue about what's happened in Ukraine since 2014, or just don't care.
Watch this:
https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/you-really-care-so-much-about-ukrainian?s=r
You are supporting my position that you are an uneducated idiot on this matter.
CIA: Undermining and Nazifying Ukraine since 1953
http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/18181
If you want to get beyond the propaganda that you are currently swallowing and perpetuating you can go here:
The CIA - 70 years in Ukraine
9 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRicZc-cZ0I
Declassified CIA document: “Cold War Allies: The Origins of CIA’s Relationship with Ukrainian Nationalists”
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/STUDIES%20IN%20INTELLIGENCE%20NAZI%20-%20RELATED%20ARTICLES_0015.pdf
https://ehfafcommunity.blogspot.com/2022/03/what-media-is-hiding-about-ukrainerussia.html
And this:
Since 2014, with American help and money, Ukraine has been refashioned as a nationalistic state, a deadly weapon aimed against Russia. The Ukronazis, never spoken about on the West, have been given an easy road towards power. Other elements in the national makeup have been intimidated and suppressed as a Ukrainian national identity has been imposed on a multicultural people. The message from nationalists has been – become part of our dream of Ukraine, or leave. We have no use for you, this is our land now.
The Russian Orthodox Church was penetrated and turned against the church centre in Moscow. A tragic schism has taken place.
Terrible events – above all, the torching by Ukronazis of the Odessa Trades Union Building in April 2014, and the burning to death of 45 peaceful protesters who had taken refuge inside – drove home the deterrent message of suppression of human rights. Do not resist us, you will pay with your lives.
And the heroism of the people of Lugansk and Donetsk in saying no to such cruelty, in taking up arms to defend their vision of their homeland after Poroshenko in May 2014 ordered an all-out military assault on them – all this went unreported in the West.
For eight long years the Russian government tried to make the Minsk Accords peace process work. Kiev prevaricated and sneered, as the shells continued to rain down death on the rebel regions. And as the US and NATO pumped more and more weapons and instructors in terrorism and sabotage into Ukraine.
Finally in December last year, Russia had had enough. Putin tried to propose ambitious new principles for relations with the West, most importantly a pledge that Ukraine would never join NATO and the withdrawal of NATO weapons from Russia’s borders. All to no avail. The West prevaricated, cherry-picked and sneered at Russia’s peace proposals.
The west remains mired in its fantasy world of big bad aggressor Putin ruling his unhappy country with an iron fist. How totally untrue this narrative is, as I have tried to relate in my two books on Russia in 2017 and 2019.
Now, the real world of bombs and bullets, and the Western false narrative world of selective indignation and pointless ‘how does it feel’ fact-free journalism, finally have come together in jarring dissonance in Ukraine.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/thoughts-endgame-ukraine/5772305
https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/now-that-covids-over-were-all-getting?s=r
You really care so much about Ukrainian lives? Since when?
Enough with the crocodile tears from all those sanctimonious Westerners, who either have no clue about what's happened in Ukraine since 2014, or just don't care.
https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/you-really-care-so-much-about-ukrainian?s=r
Serious question: Does the Russian bot racket pay well?
Not total nonsense, but a huge steaming helping of it.
Let's assume if we must that every word you write is true --so what?
Countries in 2022 cannot invade their peaceful neighbors and conduct medieval siege assaults on their capitals. It just isn't done.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Facile.
Facile = glib = adroit?
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I agree with the conclusion that Putin is fucked. I had a look at OECD's Trade in Value database. An indicator that says a lot about that is the foreign value added shares of Russian final domestic demand (private and public consumption + investments). Foreign industries account for large shares of that in Computers & Electronics, Machinery and Transport equipment. In case you're interested I wrote a post about it hre with links to the OECD database. https://gubbdjavel.com/2022/03/03/putins-mistakes/
That's awesome. I'll add a link!
Thanks a lot!
No, thank you! 😊
Excellent article Noah.
A Russian colleague I know, who managed to escape, says he feels that the corporate sanctions (like Visa and Mastercard) are just fucking up his life as an expat. He totally opposes the war, but feels unpersoned and almost like he wished he stayed home.
I urge policy makers to consider that Russian refugees are likely to be opposed to the war and need to continue to work and live, and we should in general be supporting them.
Visa has a program to speak with refugees from Russia to re-issue Visa cards that work.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I don't know why people are celebrating this. We end up with nothing but a militarily weakened and paranoid Russia with 140m angry impoverished citizens and 6000 nukes pointed at the west.
We didn't choose this.
Sure, we could have done some things better in the 90s (NATO could have rebranded, the extension could have sought to/aim to/propose to include Russia - which may have turned less resentful if they were the ones to turn us down).
But whatever mistakes we made, it is pretty clear we never intended to invade Russia and Ukraine in or out of NATO/the EU never posed any threat to Russia sovereignty and territorial integrity.
This is a war of conquest and it must be stopped/made as costly as possible to Putin/Russia.
Besides, once he's gone (whether in a month or in 10 years), I suspect the Russians will learn the truth and be willing to blame him more than us.
Could have avoided funding neo-Nazi paramilitaries in Ukraine. Could have stayed out of Euromaiden. Could have kept our fingers out of the USSR and not helped Yeltsin & Putin take power and turn Russia into a kleptocracy in the first place. Could have abided by our agreement to not expand NATO. Could have abolished NATO after we won the Cold war instead of using it to antagonize Russia. But where's the fun in acknowledging that? Way more fun to see things as good vs evil than as evil vs also evil.
Sorry, the first few items are pure dross. Agreed on abolishing/rebranding NATO post 1991.
And no country is good but there's certainly degrees in greys. Overall, post 1991, the general West is fairly light grey, the US is a bit darker (due to Iraq) and China and Russia are bloody dark grey (due to internal repression/ethnic cleansing and now war of conquest for Russia, with China really really clear they'd like to do the same to Taiwan).
I get what you're saying and I can agree with it, but the invasion of a peaceful neighbor whose sin is they like freedom and democracy whilst threatening nuclear annihilation is in a class of its own.
I agree with the idea of American exceptionalism, can take an index finger in the eye for the times we've colored outside the lines, but our track record on being on the right side of WWI/WWI, saving Europe and Private Ryan is still the leader in the clubhouse.
Nobody is breaking into Russia like our Southern border. Bit of wisdom in the crowd?
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
"our track record on being on the right side of WWI/WWI, saving Europe and Private Ryan is still the leader in the clubhouse."
You'll go to your grave believing that propaganda.
Just Iraq?
Did you forget about Haiti, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, etcetera.....
The wisdom of not abolishing NATO stands out fairly clearly today, no?
The USSR may have crumbled, but the evil that was Russian Communism lived on.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
> Besides, once he's gone (whether in a month or in 10 years), I suspect the Russians will learn the truth and be willing to blame him more than us.
...the "truth" being that we acted with specific intent to harm the citizenry for the purpose of causing pressure for political change?
That's not the truth, that's at best a truncated version of the truth. You seem to forget the reason for the sanctions. This isn't Cuba or even Iran where sanctions were imposed to interfere with local political choices (and are therefore more debatable).
This is in reaction to something. Something that is illegal, immoral and, even more important, very dangerous to world stability and everyone's safety. I think the Russians, unlike you, will remember to include that something in their reasoning.
Not to over simplify things, but Russia is going to seem like Cuba -- an isolated, broke dick island of authoritarian control which buggers the quality of life and smothers freedom.
If it leads to a change in leadership -- not so successful in Cuba -- then bravo.
There has to be some hope that the Russian people will respond in some manner.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
*Any* version of the truth has to be truncated somewhere. Why would they pick "civilians were justifiably targeted in response to this out-of-nothing military violation" rather than something about historical boundaries further back, or about going after civilians never being ok, or somesuch? Is it just that after we win we'll be able to impose our viewpoints?
Doesn't the "truth" have like three sides or so?
The whole truth is history.
But they're not gonna forget who got them into the mess, even if they blame the West too.
History is written by the victors who can write. It only matters if it is read and understood.
Russia was the US' ally in WWII -- we fed, clothed, armed them truth be known.
Why do they hate us and Ukraine? Freedom.
The real touchstone is this -- freedom trumps all other concepts.
What is really Ukraine's sin? They decided they liked freedom, turned to face the West, embraced the move, and showed their naked backsides to Putin, et al.
He cannot allow a Russian speaking country to exist with the equivalent of indoor plumbing and survive.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Fabulous post. A couple of small additions:
1. The difference between the Ruble and Monopoly Money?
On Friday, Monopoly Money will be worth something.
The Ruble is dead and with the cutoff from foreign currency, including Russian owned but inaccessible foreign currency, the internal workings of the Russian economy is fried.
2. Russia's economy is 25% SMALLER than Italy's. Let that sink in.
It is a gas station with coal and a chip on its shoulder.
Even if oil goes to $200/bbl -- which I think it will -- they are still a little, tiny country with no real shock absorbers to deal with a united West stabbing them with progressively bigger pins.
3. Every financial malady you can identify is happening simultaneously -- Ruble is for shit down 86%, sovereign debt is in default and selling for $0.10/USD, credit - swap wholesale defaults, credit is equal to Cuba's, cannot access foreign reserves, no Visa/Mastercard/ApplePay/GooglePay/ATMs, run on the banks, exploding interest rates, and no goodwill anywhere in the financial world.
Take a breath -- every decent company leaving enmasse (with their jobs).
This is a wholesale disruption of gargantuan proportions that touches every aspect of the economy. This makes the NYC bond default seem like a spring day.
4. Russia has no friends. There are some folks who would like to steal assets, make great buys, but friends? Nope. Allies? Nope.
They have no friends because they are engaged in a medieval siege of a modern foreign capital wherein they are slaughtering children, women, and old people whilst using armaments that are war crimes.
Recovering from this uncivilized behavior is not like recovering from a sunburn you got in the Hamptons.
No, Russia is being disconnected from the civilized world because they have engaged in uncivilized behavior and it will work.
Not only that, but with Netflix pulling out, nobody is going to be distracted binge watching Yellowstone.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Awesome analysis!!! Two things I’d like to know though is
1. What could we do to hurt Russia further(you had mentioned this in your tweet but didn’t really see it here unless I missed something) and
2. What are some hypothetical timelines for many of these consequences? Kind of conjecture, but I’m interested in seeing how long this can play out.
As a friendly amendment, I'd note a fourth purpose for sanctions: making an example of Russia so other nations know not to wage aggressive war.
Your statement that "The only thing worse than going back to the 90s would be going back to the early 80s" reveals a shocking lack of understanding about Russia's recent economic history. The country went through an almost unprecedented decline in peacetime life expectancy through the nineties, as Yeltsin took a flawed but functional centrally planned economy and sold it off for scraps to gangsters.
By the mid nineties, Russian life expectancy had declined almost 8 years from its peak in 86. It was near the end of the 2000s before life expectancy even past its 1980 level.
I know "Soviet = bad" is axiomatic for liberals, but come on. If you're going to give Russian economic analysis, do a little research at least. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.MA.IN?end=2000&locations=RU&start=1980
I don't think this individual is interested in such research they would then have to deal with too much cognitive dissonance.
Easier to parrot slogans and maintain a cartoon version of history.
Somebody needs another semester or two at charm school?
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I guess I'm a bit dubious about all of these predictions. I'm going to bookmark this post and come back in "a matter of weeks" and see which one of the quite specific predictions pan out. I feel like in general experts overreact when their niche is thrust into the spotlight. The state won't be able to pay anyone in a matter of weeks? Most private companies in all of Russia won't be able to make payroll? I'm dubious.
The issue will be with the actual buying power -- the PPP -- of the Ruble which will evaporate with the decline of the exchange rate and inflation. There is a Weimar Republic quality to all of this.
Russia's economy is 25% smaller than Italy.
They do not have much of a shock absorber to allow financial issues to achieve equilibrium when they are out of balance.
They have zero friends and a bunch of enemies. The enemies are collectively most of the wealth in the world.
Putin may be a world class asshole, but he missed econ classes and Russia is well and rightly fucked. Good.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
You can do something in the spirit of https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ukraine-warcasting?s=r
And of course, there's a fourth purpose for the sanctions: to serve as a warning to Beijing about the consequences of invading Taiwan.
Would the US actually be willing to impose the same sorts of sanctions on China (which IIUC is much more integrated with the US economy) that it has recently imposed on Russia?
Maybe not today, but we should be looking at what's possible to disentangle.
China is already seeing the impact of simple "badwill" v "goodwill."
They get the message. There is a tsunami of chip plant manufacturing going on in the US. This is a fair example of returning strategic industries to a safe harbor.
The big prize on gameboard is and has always been access to the US market for consumers and the US financial system.
Could we live without both Russia and China? Yes. Painful, but not nearly as painful as we might expect. Watch how easily we spit out the Russian crude oil tit. $5/gal bas.
Can Russia and China live without access to US tech, market, financial systems? No.
JLM
www.themusingofthebigredcar.com
“Russians are being asked to go back to the economic isolation, shortages, and hardship of the 90s, or even of the USSR, almost overnight.”
There’s Cold Wars, and then there’s Brave New World Wars.
Any word on when the Russian stock market will open again?
Theoretically on Wednesday, but I doubt it. When they do open, I will be in front of my computer watching the stocks slide into the Slime Pit.
Already, London based Russian securities are down 88%.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I think you’re underestimating the ability of the average Russian to keep their mouth shut and put their shoulder to the wheel in the interest of the state. This is the way that they have survived for hundreds of years. I guess we will see if things have changed. Putin is betting that they haven’t.
Eh, Putin may not be overthrown but the Russian economy will remain a basketcase.
It has now been nearly four weeks since Professor Olga Chyzh said "it is matter of weeks before the state can no longer pay its employees" and Derek claimed that most private companies would be unable to make payroll.
While Russia is certainly experiencing financial hardships, those specific predictions seem to have completely failed to manifest.
Any chance of an updated post on the effects of Russian sanctions and maybe a retrospective on which ones have worked better or worse than expected?
Very good piece. And thanks for posting Marcusson blog, which is also very good. Incidentally, we also published a similar blog on Russian import dependency (from EU and US). It might be a good complement. See the link here: https://ecipe.org/blog/russia-import-dependency-problem/