So, this thread was started almost a year before Putin's "Special operation" to counter US-led (Arguably Trump-supported) and Western oligarchic-inspired NAZI agitation in Ukraine provocations using NATO and EU proxies to push hard against Putin's complaints across the years against violations of US diplomatic agreements that NATO would not expand eastward "one inch" following the breakup of the USSR. The Western support for Ukranian military action against Russian ethnic separatists following the 2014 coup and subsequent increase in Ukranian ethnic measures against Russian-speaking or pro-Russian political people inside Ukraine. During the separatist civil war, some millions of people fled all the way to Russia, with stories of horrendous mistreatment. Leaders jailed, voter suppression, ethnic cleansing.
There was a settlement called the Minsk Accords which was supposed to resolve things peaceably and end the fighting in the donbas. Zelensky, who was a puppet set up by a TV mogul, a pro-Western oligarch in Ukraine, repudiated that agreement, and then began preparing for intensifying the suppression of the separatists, massing heavy artillery near the dug-in lines in the Donbas.
In the West, our media calls Putin's invasion "aggression" unprovoked. People in the West who knew the facts and researched the diplomacy train wrote books about how we were crossing a clearly stated "red line" that Russia, not just Putin, considered to be an existential threat against Russia.
Today, in the news, there are brags about over 5 attempts by Ukrainians to assassinate Putin, before the invasion was begun. In Foreign Affairs, the CFR rag, there have been many articles about how to overthrow Putin in the recent months, and there have been further attempts to assassinate him. Western-linked "traitors" inside Putin's military and diplomatic corps have been exposed, some even publicly resigning from posts in the West.
Meanwhile, there is a considerable pro-Russian "political left" and nominal multipolar political aspiration around the world that is just critical of the US for this proxy war with Russia. The President of South Africa, and both leading contenders in the upcoming election in Brazil, are saying this war is the fault of the US. Massive numbers of people around the world, not to mention China, call this a proxy war started by the US.
Only in "the West", that is the Eu/NATO, US/UK countires is this being sold and accepted by the public as purely Putin aggression.
The real context is cartel power positioning. BRICS is apparently a real thing. That is a growing economic grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. With satellite aspirants, other countries, in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Oil may not be the only resource at stake. Russia is the world leader in nuclear energy resources, having been active for years promoting this and building plants around the world for many countries. Russia is the leader in other resources as well.
Now we have Biden bearding the Chinese Tiger saying we will fight for Taiwan.
I just don't know how to tell anyone how stupid they are. Taiwan has never been a part of any Chinese Empire. It was settled by Malay peoples related to the Filipinos over a thousand years ago. It was occuppied by Japan in WWII. Chiang Kai Shek fled there with his Chinese supporters, displacing the aborigines. China has no valid terrirtorial claim in Taiwan, or more properly, in Formosa.. Our media just won't state the fact. Nobody will.
Russia, on the other hand, did hold Crimea and the Donbas as part of its sovereign territory prior to the Russian Revolution, the Communist 1917 revolution, along with the rest of Ukraine. The Ottoman Empire and the British fought wars there trying to push back the Moscow Russians and gain control all through the 1800s and even before. Catharine the Great set up Russian outposts, build cities across the region, including Odessa. It was Khruschev in 1954 that changed the boder between the provinces of Ukraine and Russia, for internal political purposes.
The difference in ethnicity is not all that great between a Ukrainian and a Russian. Both areas were subject to settlements by Vikings along the rivers, and incursions of peoples from the neighboring countries like Turkey (Ottoman). People from India came there for opportunity, who were called gypsys because of their manner of living out of wagons and outside of settlements. In India, they had been the "untouchables". Several huge invasions from the east affected the population as well. The oriental folks of hengisw Khan and Attila the Hun are examples. People from the Mediterranean (Romanians) and Greece moved there as well, but the originals were probably just people moving up from the middle east looking for a place to be. They formed a mix known as Slavs.
People not given to being part of anyone's Empire. People just proud to be themselves.
Ukraine will never just be a part of Russia, or Romania, either. Neither will the Poles ever be part of Germany, or Russia.
But the culture coming fromthe Catholic or Orthodox past is so authoritarian, and the influence of the Reformation so insufficient, they are not going to think of forming local governments controlled by the local people either. Authoritarians like the Czars or the Ottomans are what they know.
We had a chance when Putin asked the West to just include Russia in NATO or the EU, but we missed that. He was not going to just let our oligarchs monopolize Russia. That was the problem then. It will be the problem after Putin is gone.
I have said Putin would never be able to re-assemble the USSR. I say now we will never run Russia.
Russia will perhaps be the odd-man out for our lifetimes. We will have bigger problems all over the rest of the damn world. We will not be a unipolar UN world order. We will not win the globalism race for a Western-led UN with global governance. We are just too stupid to do all that.
There was a settlement called the Minsk Accords which was supposed to resolve things peaceably and end the fighting in the donbas. Zelensky, who was a puppet set up by a TV mogul, a pro-Western oligarch in Ukraine, repudiated that agreement, and then began preparing for intensifying the suppression of the separatists, massing heavy artillery near the dug-in lines in the Donbas.
In the West, our media calls Putin's invasion "aggression" unprovoked. People in the West who knew the facts and researched the diplomacy train wrote books about how we were crossing a clearly stated "red line" that Russia, not just Putin, considered to be an existential threat against Russia.
Today, in the news, there are brags about over 5 attempts by Ukrainians to assassinate Putin, before the invasion was begun. In Foreign Affairs, the CFR rag, there have been many articles about how to overthrow Putin in the recent months, and there have been further attempts to assassinate him. Western-linked "traitors" inside Putin's military and diplomatic corps have been exposed, some even publicly resigning from posts in the West.
Meanwhile, there is a considerable pro-Russian "political left" and nominal multipolar political aspiration around the world that is just critical of the US for this proxy war with Russia. The President of South Africa, and both leading contenders in the upcoming election in Brazil, are saying this war is the fault of the US. Massive numbers of people around the world, not to mention China, call this a proxy war started by the US.
Only in "the West", that is the Eu/NATO, US/UK countires is this being sold and accepted by the public as purely Putin aggression.
The real context is cartel power positioning. BRICS is apparently a real thing. That is a growing economic grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. With satellite aspirants, other countries, in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Oil may not be the only resource at stake. Russia is the world leader in nuclear energy resources, having been active for years promoting this and building plants around the world for many countries. Russia is the leader in other resources as well.
Now we have Biden bearding the Chinese Tiger saying we will fight for Taiwan.
I just don't know how to tell anyone how stupid they are. Taiwan has never been a part of any Chinese Empire. It was settled by Malay peoples related to the Filipinos over a thousand years ago. It was occuppied by Japan in WWII. Chiang Kai Shek fled there with his Chinese supporters, displacing the aborigines. China has no valid terrirtorial claim in Taiwan, or more properly, in Formosa.. Our media just won't state the fact. Nobody will.
Russia, on the other hand, did hold Crimea and the Donbas as part of its sovereign territory prior to the Russian Revolution, the Communist 1917 revolution, along with the rest of Ukraine. The Ottoman Empire and the British fought wars there trying to push back the Moscow Russians and gain control all through the 1800s and even before. Catharine the Great set up Russian outposts, build cities across the region, including Odessa. It was Khruschev in 1954 that changed the boder between the provinces of Ukraine and Russia, for internal political purposes.
The difference in ethnicity is not all that great between a Ukrainian and a Russian. Both areas were subject to settlements by Vikings along the rivers, and incursions of peoples from the neighboring countries like Turkey (Ottoman). People from India came there for opportunity, who were called gypsys because of their manner of living out of wagons and outside of settlements. In India, they had been the "untouchables". Several huge invasions from the east affected the population as well. The oriental folks of hengisw Khan and Attila the Hun are examples. People from the Mediterranean (Romanians) and Greece moved there as well, but the originals were probably just people moving up from the middle east looking for a place to be. They formed a mix known as Slavs.
People not given to being part of anyone's Empire. People just proud to be themselves.
Ukraine will never just be a part of Russia, or Romania, either. Neither will the Poles ever be part of Germany, or Russia.
But the culture coming fromthe Catholic or Orthodox past is so authoritarian, and the influence of the Reformation so insufficient, they are not going to think of forming local governments controlled by the local people either. Authoritarians like the Czars or the Ottomans are what they know.
We had a chance when Putin asked the West to just include Russia in NATO or the EU, but we missed that. He was not going to just let our oligarchs monopolize Russia. That was the problem then. It will be the problem after Putin is gone.
I have said Putin would never be able to re-assemble the USSR. I say now we will never run Russia.
Russia will perhaps be the odd-man out for our lifetimes. We will have bigger problems all over the rest of the damn world. We will not be a unipolar UN world order. We will not win the globalism race for a Western-led UN with global governance. We are just too stupid to do all that.