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Russia doesn’t care about sanctions

Having conducted an interview with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Tucker Carlson has done recently the same with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. In this eighty-minute talk the interlocutors covered all the current political problems, focusing on Ukraine. Minister Sergei Lavrov enumerated major events leading up to the current war, facts that the Western man in the street is either ignorant of because the Western media choose not to present them, or facts that the Western man in the street is familiar with, but has been provided with an entirely different interpretation. We are not going to repeat all the points that were mentioned during the Carlson-Lavrov talk. What we are going to do is to call the reader’s attention to the following passage from the interview.

Tucker Carlson asked Sergei Lavrov about conditions the fulfilment of which would induce Russia to discontinue the military operation. The Russian foreign minister repeated the three principal demands:

[1] Ukraine must not be a member of NATO or indeed of any alliance nor even be allowed to conduct military exercises on its territory with the participation of foreign troops;

[2] the territorial changes must be accepted: that is, not only the incorporation of Crimea into Russia, but also the fact that the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson have now constitutionally become parts of Russia by the will of the people living there;

[3] the basic human rights as they are stipulated in the UN Charter about freedom of religious belief, preservation of the native language (in this case Russian) and the like must be abided by in Ukraine.

As Minister Lavrov finished the enumeration of Russia’s demands, Tucker Carlson – probably thinking that Sergei Lavrov forgot about one more point – asked whether Russia wouldn’t like to have the sanctions lifted. To this, Sergei Lavrov replied that sanctions were of little or no importance to Russia because

[1] Russia has learnt to live with them;

[2] Russia has become stronger because of them; and because

[3] Russia has learnt that autarky (economic self-sufficiency) is the best guarantor of independence.

This really should not come as a surprise to anyone. Iran, which is a much smaller country than Russia, has lived under sanctions for over forty years now; Cuba, a very small country, has coped with sanctions for a much longer period. Both these countries continue to survive and to challenge the United States. Russia has all the natural resources that an economy needs, and Russia has really learnt to rely on itself, or – to be more precise – Russia has learnt not to rely on the West, and not to trust the West, which was also what Minister Lavrov said.

Third front – Syria

When we think about the Crimean War of 1853-1856, we tend to think about fights that took place in the Crimean peninsula. The very name suggests it. It was the time when the Western powers – predominantly England and France, supported by Turkey and the Kingdom of Sardinia – made an attempt at weakening Russia. The hostilities, however, were not confined to the said peninsula. Russia’s enemies attempted landing troops, shelling ports and cities also along the Russian coastline of the Baltic and White Seas as well as in the Far East and the Caucasus.

Much the same happened when after the October Revolution of 1917 the Western powers tried to crush nascent Soviet Russia: they sent troops to intervene from the north (the Baltic Sea), from the south (the Black Sea) and in the Far East.

When today the West is waging a proxy war against Russia, it is, too, trying to engage Moscow in as many places as it is possible. Hence the Kremlin does not pay attention merely to Ukraine: it needs to be on guard in many other places simultaneously. Recently we have informed our readers about the riots in Georgia, where the Kiev-Maidan scenario is playing out a second time, and Georgia is being primed to become another Ukraine i.e. a state that will act aggressively towards Russia. so, willy-nilly, Moscow needs to divert some of Russia’s resources and troops to the Caucasus.

As if that were not enough, it is also in recent days that the long-term conflict in Syria has been reinvigorated, with the Turkish troops capturing Aleppo, and with the ISIS units making assaults here and there. Why in Syria? Because Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has been supported by Russia (and Iran), because Russians have saved him from being toppled by the United States, because Russians are militarily present in Syria. Under such circumstances, the Kremlin needs to attend to Ukraine, to Georgia, and Syria simultaneously; Russia must also have reserves and remain on its guard as to where else a new conflict is likely to erupt.

True, the interests of particular nations in the region are opposed and of long historical standing. The Middle East – once a part of the Ottoman Empire – emerged as a mosaic of mainly Arab states at the end of World War One. The French and the British played major roles in creating “nations” and drawing or re-drawing state borders. The famed Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 was all about weakening Turkey and granting control of the Middle East to these two European powers. Yes, Russia was to participate in all this, but since Russia collapsed due to two revolutions and the ensuing civil war, it was the French and the British that remained in the region as dominant powers. Some of the national borders were drawn by means of a ruler (look at a map) with no regard for the ethnic or religious reality.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising the establishment of a home for the Jewish people added yet another piece to the Middle East political puzzle. The tensions in the region were exacerbated by the ever growing influx of the Jewish people to Palestine after World War Two. The ethnic composition of the Middle East underwent an appreciable change. The Arab – Muslim – world stood up to the expansion of the State of Israel, with Israel being eventually backed by the United States, while some of the Arab nations relied on the support of the Soviet Union.

Of the two American allies – Saudi Arabia and Iran – the latter changed its course in 1979 and became hostile to Washington. Saudi Arabia – drawn into the American sphere of interests – has long participated in the notorious worldwide scheme of backing the dollar as the world currency of international exchange in that Saudi Arabia would sell oil exclusively for dollars and made the other OPEC countries do the same. Riyadh remained on hostile terms with Tehran for decades. It is only recently that Riyadh – also due to the political influence of Beijing – re-purposed its foreign policy and buried the war hatched with Tehran.

Today, Turkey is reviving its dreams of recreating the Ottoman Empire. Ankara is active in Syria, but also in Africa (especially in Libya), and is attempting to extend its political leverage to all Turkish peoples in Central Asia, some of which used to be Soviet republics, some of which live in the far east of the Russian Federation.

The Middle East, the Caucasus (Georgia, but also Armenia along with Azerbaijan) and Ukraine: three conflagrations in which Russia is involved, into which Russia is drawn. Three conflagrations that tap into Russia’s resources. The United States might be aiming at either extending Moscow’s activities and thus weakening Russia, or at toppling Bashar al-Assad (Assad must go! as Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton used to repeat), or at both.

Georgia – repeat of Ukraine

These days there are street riots being held in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital city. Why? Well, because the ruling Dream Party has announced a delay in joining Georgia to the European Union (does it not remind you of something?), and while Georgia’s president – Salome Zourabichvili – has opposed the ruling party and called on the citizens to protest. The protests are supported by the West – the United States and the European Union – which claims that the recent parliamentary election were fraudulent. Georgia, according to the West, ought to hold new elections till Georgians elect the pro-Western parties. Sorry, till Georgians restore democracy and human rights.

Who is Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili, the woman who encourages protests against Georgia’s government and parliamentary majority? For all practical purposes she is French: she was born in France, educated in France, held French citizenship and made a career in the French diplomatic corps, acting among others as French ambassador to… Georgia. Ah yes, she was born to Georgian parents, but that’s about everything that makes her Georgian. Also Zbigniew Brzeziński was born to Polish parents, yet he identified as an American. By the way, during her educational career Salome Zourabichvili attended Columbia University, where she studied under the tutelage of… yes, Zbigniew Brzeziński. That’s how much Georgian Salome Zourabichvili is. But back to the street riots.

It somehow happens so that whenever a nation elects parties, prime ministers, presidents or heads of state that are even slightly not pro-Western, such a nation immediately has a revolution on its hands and is immediately beset with accusations of running foul of democracy and violating human rights. At present, that’s the fate of Georgia. More to it. A nation that is sceptical towards the West is automatically accused of acting on Russia’s advice, Russia’s orders, for Russia’s money. At present, that’s precisely what the Georgian Dream Party is accused of. It’s all as simple as that.

Now, the street riots in Tbilisi are comparable to the street riots that took place in Kiev in 2013/2014. Precisely the same forces were at play in Ukraine’s capital as are now in Georgia’s capital. Young, impressionable people yell their demand to join Georgia to the European Union – because, as we all know, there is no salvation outside the European Union – while the police are trying to keep the rioters under control, which they fail, as did their counterparts in Kiev ten years earlier, because their orders are to handle the rioters with kid gloves (such were also the orders that the Ukrainian police took ten years earlier). Soon, if not already, the rioters will start jumping and chanting “Who’s not jumping is a Moskal*(=Russian)!” as their Ukrainian counterparts did in 2013/2014 in Kiev. Because – you did expect it, didn’t you? – the delay that their ruling party announced in joining Georgia to the European Union was dictated by – yes! yes! – Russia. How otherwise? Just as it was in 2013 in the case of Ukraine! Again this Russian serpent suggesting a poisonous apple this time to Georgians who are on the threshold of entering the Garden of Eden known as the European Union. And – who knows? – on the threshold of joining peaceful-loving, defensive NATO. The ongoing war in Ukraine and the hundreds of thousands of victims do not seem to make an impression on Georgian protesters. Evidently, they also want to sit in the trenches, to have their arms and legs torn away by bombs and grenades, to have their cities shelled, to have their cemeteries filled to overflowing with corpses of very young men, draped with Georgian national flags. No price is too high for preserving democracy and human rights, is it?

Before Salome Zourabichvili as president, Georgia had one Mikheil Saakashvili as its head of state. Do you remember him? An adventurer that very few could rival. He took power in Georgia by means of… street riots and one of the many colour revolutions, accusing the acting government of… fraudulent elections. The same script is enacted again and again around the globe, and nobody seems to take notice. As president, Mikheil Saakashvili applied a shock therapy to the nation, purging the police and the administration, raising the military budget, yet lowering social expenditure and what not. He soon ran foul of his nation and prior to the next presidential election, with no hope of being reelected, he fled the country amid accusations of having opposition activists tortured. He landed a job in… Ukraine, of all the places, becoming governor of the Odessa region. And you know what? He wholeheartedly supported the Kiev Maidan of 2013/2014!

It did not last long till Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko – surely out of gratitude for his services – deprived him of Ukrainian citizenship. To be the governor of the Odessa region Mikheil Saakashvili needed to acquire Ukrainian citizenship, just as Salome Zourabichvili needed to renounce her French citizenship prior to running for president in Georgia. Such a formality. How often and how easily the pawns at the hands of the managers of the world change their citizenship! How often they hold citizenship of two or three countries simultaneously! But then, that’s probably one of those sacrosanct “hyooman rytes”. Such individuals, those who are our and presidents, renounce or accept citizenship the way you and me change clothes from casual to professional to casual, as the circumstances dictate.

You won’t really be surprised if you learn that – I quote Wikipedia – Mikheil Saakashvili “received an LL.M. from Columbia Law School […] took classes at the School of International and Public Affairs and the George Washington University Law School [and] received a diploma from the [talk of the wolf!] International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.” What a talented guy!

We have such talented men and women across Europe and across the world. They have necessarily been raised by the powers that be at Western universities or institutes, where they have been trained in – why – democracy and human rights!

It appears Georgia – just like any country – must have rulers with the Western blessing or else. Or else, Georgia will have unruly youth in Tbilisi’s centre chanting “Кто не скачет, тот москаль!” [He who is not jumping is a Moskal(=Russian)!]. This chanting and this jumping is repeated again and again and again in various cities across the world and… nobody seems to take notice of this pattern. Strange – or perhaps admirable – how the West manages to always have crowds of people in the streets of various capital cities at the West’s beckoning. In Moscow, in Tbilisi, in Kiev, in Minsk, in Warsaw, in Budapest, in Belgrade, in the Arabic states and about anywhere in the world.

The young men are protesting today to have their limbs cut off tomorrow. They are rioting today to have their dead bodies wrapped in Georgian national flags tomorrow. They are following the bidding of the managers of the world today to be slaughtered like lambs tomorrow. They could watch Ukraine and learn from Ukraine’s fate, but learn they will not. When push comes to shove, Salome Zourabichvili will travel the world over in search of support – the way Zelensky has been doing so for the past three years – to eventually find a sanctuary in her native France or elsewhere in the West. When push comes to shove, Georgian youth will desperately pay through the nose to illegally leave the country and thus avoid conscription. Only the lucky will be able to leave, though. The majority will be drafted and will pay the price the way their Ukrainian peers have been paying the price for the last three years. The Georgian youth could learn from the fate of Ukraine but learn they will not. Sadly. They think they fight for democracy and human rights. It never occurs to them that they are tools – disposable tools – replaceable pawns – biodegradable pieces on “The Grand Chessboard” of the Brzezińskis of this world.

*Moskal (москаль) (literally: inhabitant of Moscow and the region) is an ethnic slur for a Russian.

Which of the Western Christian religious leaders would even dare to think?

On November 28 this year, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church (roughly an equivalent of the head of the Church of England), gave a speech at the 26th World Russian People’s Council. Here are the points that he addressed:

War in Ukraine. Patriarch Kirill views the conflict as the hostilities between two fraternal nations, hostilities that are fuelled by the managers of the world who pursue the policy of divide and rule. One of the goals of the war is to instil fear in people so as to make them obedient and compliant. Christians, said Patriarch Kirill, are, however, not afraid of the end of the world because Christians are awaiting the end of the world and the final judgment, the victory of good over evil.
Neo-paganism. A phenomenon that is taking root in Russia and although it is as yet a marginal trend, it nonetheless poses a threat to the existence of the nation. It is not merely Russia but also Ukraine, which are fraught with neo-pagans who – in the case of Ukraine – are so strong as to form their own military units. Their ideology or set of beliefs is very similar to Nazism.
Russophobia, a phenomenon that is produced in many universities. Patriarch Kirill posed a question why universities paid by the whole Russian nation produce so many individuals who dislike, despise or hate Russia. Similarly, he posed a question why there are so many books for children and adolescents that disseminate ideas that target the family, morality and all traditional values.
Abortion. Patriarch Kirill repeated as many times before that pregnancy termination was evil and that it ought to be forbidden by law. He praised the many local initiatives acting against abortion.
Excessive alcohol consumption. A problem that Russia has been beset with and continues to be so. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church called on taking up measures to curb this pernicious phenomenon.
Immigration. Patriarch Kirill said that too large a number of non-Russian, non-Orthodox immigrants with a different cultural code was a threat to the very existence of the Russian nation and Russian or orthodox civilization. He also exposed proponents of immigration as individuals who do not care about people from outside Russia but want to enrich themselves employing cheap labour.

Which of the Western Christian religious leaders would as much as think about saying anything against immigration? Against abortion? Against schools and universities that produce people who dislike, despise or hate their own national heritage?

Milei shows central bankers how to do it right

Argentina’s President Javier Milei, whom we praised in our article in February this year for his sober views and realpolitik, is showing his clout. Since he has been in office (exactly one year), applying radical measures, he has brought inflation in Argentina sharply down. At the beginning of his term of office, monthly inflation stood at 25.5 %, but it has now fallen to 3.5 %. This success is based on a comprehensive “shock program”, which included far-reaching cuts:

Reduction in government spending: Milei halved the number of ministries and laid off numerous civil servants. Subsidies, for example for energy and transportation, as well as social benefits such as food subsidies and support for soup kitchens were also cut.
Monetary and fiscal policy: Argentina’s national currency, the peso, was devalued and a strict austerity program was introduced to reduce the budget deficit. The aim was to achieve a balanced national budget.
Market-oriented reforms: Milei was guided by ultra-liberal principles, aiming for a drastic reduction in the state apparatus and greater deregulation.

The FED or the ECB take years to get inflation under control, surrounded by crowds of employees, in their towers in Frankfurt (ECB) and Basel (BIS), in their bunkers in Fort Knox, cut off from reality, with the media serving them, convincing the public of the efficiency, caring and reasonableness of central bankers, leading us from one crisis to another. The ECB can do nothing about the deepening recession in Germany. An Argentinean who is going against the tide, a showman whom all the Western media despised a year ago and predicted his quick downfall, has succeeded. Against all odds. Though he is on the side of Ukraine and Israel in their conflicts, though he speaks out against the BRICS, Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China, nonetheless he argues against woke culture and all left-wing ideas for social transformation. Note that he was the first head of state Donald Trump met with (informally) after his election. While Trump is a protectionist who will try to control the US market with administrative measures, Milei is an opponent of liberalism and open markets. After 20 years of socialist government in Argentina, came a man who keeps his promises: he is putting an end to socialism and its failed ideas. First in the economy, then in all areas of life. One man, one word.

What do stats say?

First and foremost note that the stats that we are going to look at below are taken from the International Monetary Fund website. In other words, they are neither Russian nor Chinese propaganda. As the year 2024 is running to its end, the IMF has made predictions about the annual projected real GDP. That is, what is projected is the remaining one last month of 2024 because the data from the preceding eleven months are available.

The data show that the growth of GDP of the G7 countries ranged between 0.0 (zero) and 2.8. The United States’ growth is that of 2.8, while that of Germany – Europe’s economic powerhouse! – hit zero, nada, nil, naught, nix. Japan with its 0.3 is following in Germany’s footsteps, while the GDP of such countries as France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Canada oscillates around 1.0:

United States 2.8
Canada 1.3
United Kingdom 1.1
France 1.1
Germany 0.0
Italy 0.7
Japan 0.3

What do stats tell us about the growth of the GDP of the five original BRICS countries? South Africa can boast 1.1, which does not come as a surprise, Brazil is just better off than the United States. Russia’s GDP stands at 3.6 – more than that of the United States by a large margin – while China’s and India’s – with 4.8 and 7.0 respectively – dwarfs that of the United States:

India 7.0
China 4.8
Russia 3.6
Brazil 3.0
South Africa 1.1

If we compile a list that combines the G7 (in blue) and the five original BRICS (in red) countries in descending order, that’s what we get:

India 7.0
China 4.8
Russia 3.6
Brazil 3.0
United States 2.8
Canada 1.3
United Kingdom 1.1 = France 1.1 = South Africa 1.1
Italy 0.7
Japan 0.3
Germany 0.0

The BRICS countries take the first four places. What is more remarkable, Russia and China are doing very well despite the numerous sanctions and tariffs. Surprisingly(?), Belarus with its GDP of 3.6, and Serbia with its GDP of 3.9 – both non-EU states – are doing better than the G7 countries and better than Poland (3.0) and Czechia (2.3) – both the EU member-states whose GDP is among the highest in the Union.

Even Asiatic and African countries can boast higher GDPs than the G7 states:

Vietnam 6.1
Uzbekistan 5.6
Iran 3.7
Kazakhstan 3.5
Nigeria 2.9
Zimbabwe 2.0

Notice Iran – another country that has been beset with sanctions for decades – and Zimbabwe, known rather for its hyperinflation, with a GDP higher than that of the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, France or Germany.

Haven’t we been told again and again that combining European states into one big economic organism would be beneficial to them all? It doesn’t seem it is. Haven’t we been told again and again that sanctions would ruin Russia and Iran? It doesn’t seem they have.

Gefira 88: Protection or protectionism?

In modern states, the control of those in power over the population is becoming ever greater. This applies not only to China or countries that are described as dictatorships by Western rulers, but to Western countries themselves. The EU countries have long since joined the ranks of the “surveillance states” by passing laws that enable mass surveillance and grant the security and intelligence services greater powers. The leftist terror of virtue knows no mercy in the West, so that in the modern version of George Orwell’s “thought crime”, people can be convicted for acts that have little to do with the actual crime (with crimes being redefined and acts or attitudes that were previously considered normal now being condemned all at once). The terror of virtue punishes anyone who thinks, writes, speaks or acts differently from the mainstream. And all this under the banners of protecting citizens, under the banners of fighting against imaginary enemies, against racism, misogyny, anti-vaccinationists, climate deniers, Putin’s trolls, diesel drivers, carnivores, North Korean hackers, right-wing extremists – the list of enemies is longer than in any dictatorship before. So we must defend our rights. Fight for freedom of speech again. We should not focus too much on the dilemma of left or right. The Democrats or the Republicans. No. This election is not the most important. We should pay attention to the ideas of libertarianism.

Gefira Financial Bulletin #88 is available now

Protection or protectionism?
Data protection and Climate protection 3
Protection from terrorism or the whole truth about Hamas
Real Estate Investment Trusts

Put up a fight or throw a farewell party?

By a guest author.

Is it fundamentally not simple to see?

Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union the world was divided into two hostile blocs, and no one knew how that protracted conflict between West and East would resolve: would there be World War Three? Would the Cold War last forever? Would there be a string of proxy wars between the two political systems like that in Korea or that in Vietnam? Lo and behold, the Soviet Union, this terrible monster, this evil empire, laid down its arms, and

let go of all the central European states i.e. disbanded the Warsaw Pact (the military counterpart of NATO) and the Comecon (the economic counterpart of the EEC, the precursor of the European Union);
dissolved the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics itself;
threw away Marxist-Leninist ideology;
accepted capitalism with everything that this socio-economic system offers;

and while Russia – the Soviet Union’s successor – surrendered herself to the West, her President Boris Yeltsin famously said ‘God save America’ in Congress.

The astounded, mesmerised, astonished world heaved a deep sigh of relief and entertained high hopes about the peaceful future. The German rock band Scorpions encapsulated the atmosphere of that time in their winds of change song, which won enormous popularity across the Old Continent. Almost overnight events occurred that no one thought were possible. A miracle. Communism collapsed with not a single shot being fired. Annus mirabilis, indeed. That was day one. What happened on day two?

On day two all Central European countries flocked to NATO. They flocked to NATO to be protected from… well, from whom? There was no Soviet Union, there was no communist colossus, there was no hostile state in the east. European Russia had shrunk to the territorial size it had during the reign of Peter I three centuries earlier, its industry was in shatters, it had huge demographic problems, it was torn by factional feuds while the state property was appropriated by individuals, not infrequently of alien ethnicity, and its armed forces were weak and demoralised. So, what protection did the central European countries need? Still, they became NATO members.

As if that was not enough, on day two the CIA began supporting Chechen rebels and operating in the Caucasus, to name just a few areas, while NATO began deploying missiles to Poland and Romania with the ridiculous story that they were there to protect central Europe against… Iranian attacks! I rubbed my eyes and did not believe my ears when I heard that justification for the deployment of missiles as it was provided to us via the many media. Stupid, isn’t it? They should have come up with a better pretext, but there you have it.

Consider this historical event this way. A wild-west little settlement. The Russki posse on one side, the Yankee posse on the other. The gunslingers of both are holding their guns levelled at their opponents. The moment lasts all eternity until the Russki posse decides to give up. For whatever reason – psychological pressure, bad weather, the calculation of their chances of (not) prevailing in the shoot-out, whatever – the Russki posse lowers their hands, drops their guns, unbuckles their belts and throws them away. The Yankee posse emerges victorious. What do you think the Russki posse expects in return? Yes, you guessed it right. They expect a similar gesture. Right? But no. The Yankee posse not only does not lower their guns; no, they take over the members of the Russki posse (Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians etc.) and even take over Russki’s brother known as Ukraine and they begin to pit them all against the Russki. That’s what it all was about.

As far as I can search my memory, in between 1991 and 2022 I never heard or read in the media anything even slightly positive about Russia and things Russian. Anything to do with Russia was described as bad, ugly, repulsive, stupid, ridiculous, backward – you name it. Not one single positive piece of information about that country or its nation. Not one. I still remember the item of news just prior to the opening of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi that the toilets in hotels for the athletes were constructed in such a way as to have two toilet bowls per cabin i.e. as to force people to – sorry for the word – defecate side by side without an intervening partition wall. And you know what? My compatriots believed in it. Eagerly.

My compatriots – just as the Western intellectuals – defended Khodorkovsky in his conflict with President Putin because Khodorkovsky was Putin’s enemy, and the enemy of our enemy is our friend. Never mind that a personage like Khodorkovsky in my own country would have been hated by the majority of people because they would have all figured out – and rightly so — that his enormous fortune was the result of theft, deceit, murder and all other kinds of crime. Still, anybody was regarded as saintly and a hero so long as he opposed Putin. Much the same story repeated itself with my compatriots wholeheartedly supporting Ukrainians, a nation otherwise commonly disliked in my country.

My countrymen – just like Western citizens – were all in favour of Navalny because he was – yes, you guessed it right – anti-Putin. They knew nothing about him: it was enough that he was anti-Putin to view him as a hero. No common sense applied. You remember how Putin tried to poison Navalny? It all bordered on the surreal and the absurd: the otherwise monstrous and effective KGB turned out to be unable to kill one dissident; Navalny’s wife demanded that her unconscious husband be transferred to Germany for treatment; the Russian government docilely agreed, knowing full well that German doctors would find the traces of poison in Navalny’s body; the traces of poison were found, of course!, but still Navalny came back to Russia after his recovery only to be killed a few months later in prison, this time successfully! My oh my, how foolish it all can be and still people accepted all this as pure truth!

Then came day three. The West began penetrating Ukraine and Belarus. The West began to turn those two Russian nations into anti-Russia. Just like that. It was like pitting Canada against the United States or setting New Zealand against Australia. It really is as absurd as that. The three states – Belarus, Ukraine and Russia – stem from one medieval Rus’, just like the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are historical offshoots of the United Kingdom, and just as people in last mentioned countries generally speak English, so do people in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine generally speak Russian.

No, Ukrainians do not speak Ukrainian for the most part. There are a few millions of them in my country, I happened to work with some of them, and I have my ears wide open. And you know what? Maybe two, maybe three out of every hundred speak Ukrainian or something that is a mix between Ukrainian and Russian. Maybe two, maybe three out of every hundred! Yet, my government pretends not to notice this fact, and the newspapers or a television channel dedicated to the refugees from Ukraine as well as all the inscriptions and legend in shops, means of public transport and offices are printed in Ukrainian. Now to bring my point home: since almost all those Ukrainians speak Russian – Russian is their mother tongue – so what my government is doing is comparable to having a huge refugee population from Ireland and addressing all of them in the Irish language rather than English! That’s how downright foolish it all is, that’s how mendacious the powers that be are, that’s how the managers of the world create ‘reality’.

It’s not merely that Ukrainians speak Russian: Ukrainian children (just as Belorussian children) when they study at school about the beginning of the history of their nation, they learn about the same legends and the same first rules as Russian children do. Again, let me bring my point home: there is almost no such historical overlap between Polish and Czech history. Never mind, Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine’s second president, made a name for himself authoring a book entitled Ukraine is not Russia. The title says it all what the book is about. Now, if Ukraine were not Russia, no one in his right senses would speak about it not being Russia, let alone write a whole book to prove it! Do we have books like France is not Germany or vice versa? This title alone proves how much Ukraine is Russia.

Which is one of the reasons why so many Ukrainians (Russians) fled the country and did not want to defend it. If they were ‘Ukrainians-not-Russians’, they would have defended Not-Russia against Russia, but somehow they don’t want to. I see them in my city everywhere around. Young, sporty men. On the one hand it is morally reprehensible: their mates are dying in the trenches or losing limbs, while these sporty guys are in safety. On the other hand I understand them: they are not going to kill Russian brethren, they are not going to kill people speaking the same language, professing the same Orthodox Christian faith, writing in the same script, sharing the same legends, having close or distant relatives on either side of the border. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, an ethnic Russian, with both his parents and a brother living in Russia, is a glaring and telling illustration of the problem! For reasons known to himself he decided to fight against his own nation: millions of others decided otherwise.

Russians – like all those central and eastern European nations – have a huge inferiority complex towards the West. Go open Leo Tolstoy’s war and peace in the Russian original and you will see huge chunks of text written in French. Why? It’s not simply because sometimes the author presents the French characters speaking in their language; it is also and predominantly because Russian upper classes would speak French now and again, because Russians (and Poles, and Romanians, and, and, and) were enamoured of France and anything French; today they love English and anything having to do with the Anglosphere. Why am I saying this? I’m saying this to show that the West knowing about this inferiority complex could have controlled Russia ad infinitum if only the control were measured, moderate and mild; if only the West were not throwing its weight about as it has, as it is, as it invariably will. Sadly, the West threw its weight around and we are facing the sad result.

Hey, even a Navalny at the helm of the Russian state would have reacted to Ukraine being drawn into NATO in a way similar to what Putin did! How can you fail to see it? A putsch in Kiev, an attempted putsch in Minsk, the Baltic states as NATO members, missiles in Poland and Romania, constant political turmoil in the Caucasus – which Russian leader would remain passive? I didn’t want to repeat this banal comparison that many others keep using, but I feel compelled to do so: what would Washington do if Russia or China were about to draw Mexico and Canada to a military pact hostile to the United States? What would the Hill do if a Russian Nuland or a Chinese Pyatt were openly instigating putschists in Ottawa or Mexico City? We know what Washington would do. Why then are we so surprised at what Moscow has done? Quite apart from whether you like Putin or not, quite apart from whether you like Russia or not: apply just plain thinking like in a game of chess. Beijing must have applied such thinking, and must have been watching what had been happening to the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation, and they must have drawn the only right inference: surely, we might let go of Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongols – why not? these are alien nations – but we can’t: the moment we let them go, they will flock to a NATO or an AUKUS, and become springboards for Western penetration and aggression. (Notice in passing the geopolitical similarity of the crescent made up of the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine west of Russia and that made up of Mongols, Uyghurs and Tibetans west of China.)

Notice also this hubris: Americans say that losing control over Taiwan, which is located thousands of miles across the Pacific away from the United States, threatens their national security; now Russians must not say that having Ukraine, which is located next door, controlled by Americans threatens their national security. Gee… how biased one needs to be to say that!?

When you listen to Western leaders you cannot get rid of the impression that they are obsessed with Putin. Putin, Putin, Putin is the word that they love to hate. I’m sure they have Putin-dolls which they punch with voodoo pins. I think they would readily bless Russia with the whole of Ukraine if only in return they could lay their hands on Putin to court-martial him, to humiliate him, and to hang him. Putin, Putin, Putin – a sickly obsession. The Western leaders simply indulge in the Orwellian two minutes of hate of Putin, who in their eyes is second only to Hitler. Before Putin there were a few others, with one especially imprinted on my memory: Serbia’s President Slobodan Milošević. He, too, was an incarnation of all evil, while Serbs – and only Serbs – were to blame for anything and everything. Saintly Albanians and Bosnians, not so saintly Croats, and those devils – Serbs! At that time I did not need to delve into the Balkan conflict very much to realise one thing: Milošević must have thrown a monkey wrench in the works of the powers that be. This glaring, enormous bias against little Serbia was enough to make me wonder.

So, how would the managers on the Potomac react to Mexico or Canada being drawn into a military bloc hostile to the United States? No Russian attentive to the world of politics and ideologies fails to notice that the West is hostile to Russia. What of the RAND think-tank publications, what of others – they make no bones about it: Ruthenia delenda est. These aims are declared openly with conferences taking par during which Russia’s territory is being divided into over twenty political entities with none – not a single one – of them bearing the name Russia. don’t Russians know about it? Of course they do! Such conferences are not kept secret, after all. so they react accordingly. “We are not interested in a world without Russia,” said the Russian president. “We are not interested in a world without Poland, France, Hungary, the United States…” would say any patriotic president, would he not? So what’s so strange about it? If they want to subjugate you, to enslave you, to annihilate you, you put up a fight.

Or maybe you throw a farewell party?

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