2 million draft dodgers

On Jan 30. 2026, Czech Radio Plus (Český rozhlas Plus) conducted a thirty-minute interview with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The journalist kept asking questions in English, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy kept answering in Ukrainian.

Most of the time the talk was predictable and boring. President Zelenskyy is giving such interviews by the hundreds, and there is really nothing new he might say. The war is going on as it has been going on for four years now. The president’s pleas and requests that he has been making throughout this time – at first embraced with understanding – have slowly begun to fall on deaf ears: Europe is no more capable of supporting Ukraine while the United States has reversed political course. If the European Union cannot send more aid to Kiev, what could Czechia do?

Towards the end of the talk there emerged an interesting piece of information. The journalist quoted Ukraine’s current minister of defence saying that there are as many as two million Ukrainian men avoiding draft, men who are for the most part outside Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was asked what he would like to say to those men and whether he would not like European governments – among others the Czech government – to push those men back to Ukraine. What may come as a surprise Volodymyr Zelenskyy neither condemned military dodgers nor did he call for measures to make them join the Ukrainian army. Ukraine’s president tried to understand the different motivations behind the decision that made those men quit their homeland. He also grew philosophical when he began describing the war-seasoned soldiers in the front and saying that they would not be too happy to have among themselves guys who are unwilling to fight. Fighting men necessarily hugely rely on their brothers in arms because they depend on them for their life. A dodger forced into military service might bring more detriment than be of any use.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s lenient stance on draft evasion poses questions. Has the president become soft on dodgers because he feels politically insecure? Has he become soft because he fears being imprisoned at the war’s end and accused of sending hundreds of thousands to the front to be killed and mutilated, knowing full well that the war cannot be won? Has Volodymyr Zelenskyy understood the senselessness of the hostilities? Does he anticipate the near end of the war? Or maybe he has realised that Ukraine will need men – lots of men – after the war for reconstruction? Has he understood that even if Ukraine won the war, the huge lack of men would make it impossible for the country to rebuild its economy?

One of the final questions was whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy considered being elected for the second term. The reply was that he did not know yet whether he would run again for president, but – yes – he kept thinking about it. Now, the Western listener might remain indifferent to this statement on the part of Ukraine’s president, but Ukrainians – at least some of them — remember that Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised to act in the capacity of president for only one term. What has changed? Has Volodymyr Zelenskyy tasted the flavour of power? Are the powers that be still backing him? Do the powers that be still wish him to occupy the highest post in Ukraine?

Two million draft dodgers and their families are not likely to vote Volodymyr Zelenskyy into office again. They remember one more thing: Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised to stop the hostilities in the Donbass. They remember that he even performed theatricals in the public in that he knelt down to show how urgently and humbly he would be in his talks with Moscow only to deescalate the conflict and bring peace. People remember. Instead of peace they got war and bussification – abducting people from the streets in broad daylight and sending them to the front. Two million draft dodgers are the tip of the iceberg. There are certainly more others who would have followed suit but for one reason or another could not. Ukrainians voted for Zelenskyy precisely because he promised to end the hostilities. Does he not know it? Does he cherish hopes of still being liked by the people? Does he think he might be elected?

It is often said that people vote with their feet. Yes, two million (officially) draftable men have already voted against Kiev’s bellicose policy. Add to this the women and the men that cannot be drafted, add the silent resistance inside the country and you will get the picture. Some commentators say that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is divorced from reality. His statement that he thinks about being re-elected – i.e. about being liked by the majority of Ukrainians – confirms that he is.

Iran in turmoil

Again and again, we hear news from Iran. We are hearing it right now. There are street demonstrations, there are street riots, there are arrests. We’ve been hearing about it for some time now, and we are hearing it at present. Obviously, the Iranian government does not suit the political plans of the powers that be or else there would be no riots, no demonstrations. What is happening in Iran has been practised in many other places around the globe, be it Syria or Libya, be it Serbia or Georgia, be it Venezuela or Kazakhstan. There is no evidence, but all the fingerprints point to the culprit behind the riots, and the culprit is always the same: CIA or MI6… or both.

What is again occurring in Tehran is a typical example of a colour revolution, of a revolution from outside. It makes one think about the two Russian revolutions of 1917. Those, too, were instigated from abroad. The result, initially at least, was astonishing. The grand Russian Empire disappeared; Russia sank into a prolonged, atrocious civil war that was also a war of attrition. When the country eventually surfaced onto the political stage, barely anyone reckoned with it because it was so weakened.

Such revolutions, or regime changes as they are called, have been applied very frequently during the second half of the former century, and continue to be applied in the current century. They are very often successful. They were successful in Serbia and Libya, in Syria and in Ukraine. Attempts were made in Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan, but they failed. Recently, in Venezuela, another approach has been adopted: that of abduction.

Iran is supported by (first of all) China and Russia. China purchases large quantities of oil from Iran. Iran is a BRICS member. Iran forms a slightly remote underbelly of the Russian Federation. But Iran is also a thorn in Israel’s flesh, and since the United States serves Israel just as the European Union serves Ukraine, so Washington feels obliged to support Israel. We do remember – do we not? — last time when Iran was bombed while the Washington-Tehran negotiations were under way?

The West will either achieve its goal of regime change – like in Syria – or it will lose its grip on Iran for good – just like it lost its grip on Belarus. Let us not forget that it was the British and the Americans who toppled Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and paved the way for the monarchical political system to be installed in Tehran. It might be that the same political actors would not mind at all if monarchy were to be restored in Iran. No, it is not monarchy that they are after, we know. It might be monarchy, it might be oligarchy, it might be as well as democracy – or, indeed, any other system of government so long as it is compliant with the managers of the world.

Stated goals – genuine goals

Among the twenty-eight points of the peace proposal that has been drafted by the Americans is one that – if agreed upon – promises amnesty to all the participants of the conflict in Ukraine. This point reveals a huge lot.

For a long time now we’ve been fed the narrative that it was the Russian soldiers who were cruel and inhumane. Stories were spun and, indeed, pictures shown in the media about the atrocities committed by the Russians on Ukrainians. Do you still remember the notorious Bucha massacre? The intended pun on words – Butchery in Bucha or Butchers from Bucha – and the village carefully and intentionally selected to make the headlines sound alarming?

At the same time we’ve been fed the narrative that Ukrainian soldiers behave themselves gallantly. They are not the ones who commit atrocities, they are not the ones who assault civilians. Such things are only done by those evil Russians.

Let us assume the veracity of such statements. Then, like a bombshell, we can read one of the points of the peace proposals about pardoning the perpetrators of war crimes or other atrocities. If it was the Russians who committed those crimes, then the pardon extends to them and them alone, right? Why does the United States want to spare the Russian ruffians in uniform? Why such magnanimity? Didn’t the collective West – the United States and the European Union – label Russia’s president a killer, didn’t the commissioners want him on trial in the Hague? They wanted to hold accountable no less a figure than Russia’s president: surely they would be much stricter while handling figures of a lesser caliber!

Reading this point of the peace proposal you suddenly learn that atrocities and war crimes are not worth prosecuting. Are the Americans genuinely trying to shield the hated Russian evil-doers? Do the Americans genuinely suggest that justice should not be done? No, certainly not.

As usual, we need to distinguish between stated goals and genuine goals. The stated goal is the amnesty, something enticing for the Russians who are allegedly up to their hilts in blood. The genuine goal is – yes, you guessed it right – to protect the Ukrainian soldiers and the multiple mercenaries fighting on the Ukrainian side who have committed atrocities and downright war crimes. They are to be shielded from justice, they are to be protected, they are to be saved for future conflicts when they will come in handy.

Barely anyone remembers or, indeed, knows about the 2014 Odessa fire, a fire that burnt fifty or so (Russian) men and women alive in the Trade Union House, which was set ablaze by Ukrainian political activists. Still fewer people took notice when Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced in one of his speeches at the very beginning of the conflict in Ukraine that Moscow knew the identity of the perpetrators of that fire and was about to track them down with the purpose of bringing them to book. Europeans or Americans may not have taken notice of those words; most probably they wouldn’t have heard them, since they only consume the news from the official channels. Yet, the wrongdoers would certainly have heard those words and consequently must have had the fright of their lives. The influential ones, those with connections to the powerful figures in the West, must have used all their influence to extract that kind of guarantee for themselves from their Western overlords.

Trump once danced with Arabs to their sword dance, and today…

In November, Donald Trump announced that he would approve the sale of F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, the most advanced V-generation aircraft equipped with AI sensors and other technological innovations. Even more important is who the buyer of these weapons is. It is, of course, Saudi Arabia, which will purchase more than 20 F-35s, 300 Abrams tanks, MQ-9 Reaper drones, air defence systems and a variety of missiles. Why do the Arabs need so many advanced weapon systems? Well, it’s obviously about superiority over Iran, but also (though this is not said out loud) over Qatar, which is not exactly a friend of the Saudis and is armed to the teeth.

This is a situation similar to that of the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan tried to emphasize the power of the alliance with the Arabs by providing them with the latest military technology. At that time, AWACS systems and F-15 aircraft were sold despite opposition from the United States’ most important ally in the region, Israel. At that time, it was a blow to the Soviet Union, and today Trump’s game is focused on China and Russia. The Americans had to somehow “consolidate” the Saudis in their camp, as they had recently been buying more and more weapons from China and Russia. The purchase of weapons such as the F-35 makes Arabia dependent on American technology and service.

On the other hand, the US had to use the “carrot and stick” approach to keep oil prices low, which is unlikely to please the Arabs and OPEC+ as a whole. This is an important issue for the United States, as cheap black gold keeps inflation low in the country, satisfies consumers, secures the voter base, and weakens the major exporters of this commodity, such as Russia and Iran. This shows that it is enough for the US to be present in this region through arms exports in order to remain a strategic player there.

They should have sent the Western warmongers packing but they didn’t

They are dying and dying and dying. They have been dying for almost four years now. The Ukrainian soldiers. They have been dying for the delusion of Ukraine being non-Russia – anti-Russia, and for the delusion of Ukraine becoming a NATO member, and for the delusion of Ukraine becoming a sovereign state. Now Washington has rolled out a twenty-eight-point peace plan for the conclusion of the conflict, and some of the points of this plan say it openly that Ukraine will not be a NATO member, that Ukraine’s independence or sovereignty will be guaranteed by the United States (is it then sovereignty?) and that Ukraine will stop persecuting the Russian language or that part of the Orthodox Church that obeyed Moscow. And – to top it all – Kiev will have to cede territory to Russia.

Hundreds of thousands of men have died for what? Hundreds of thousands of men have died to compel reality to fulfil Ukraine’s political wish list. Hundreds of thousands of men have died so that the EU commissioners could play their political games. Hundreds of thousands of men have died as if the outcome of a war against Russia could not have been envisaged!

Ukraine’s political class should have a troubled, uneasy conscience. Ukraine’s political class should feel constant pricks of conscience. But do they have a conscience? Are they empaths? Barely. People holding the reigns of power rarely are. Anywhere, not merely in Ukraine. That’s why they have managed to make it to the top in politics (or business). Do the members of Ukraine’s ruling class feel responsibility for what they have done? Can they look straight in the face of the relatives of the fallen soldiers?

A country’s leaders should behave towards their country’s citizens like caring and responsible parents towards their children. A caring and responsible president should act like – forgive the pathos – a nation’s father. What should the purpose of a caring and responsible leader be? Yes, right, it should be the material welfare and the psychological wellbeing of the citizens. A responsible leader pursues these two goals. A responsible leader does not pursue a wish list because reality does not honour wish lists. A responsible leader should not even look for justice or sovereign rights out there in the world. These are mental constructs which – again – reality does not respect.

Imagine a father driving with his family somewhere and encountering irresponsible drivers along the way. What does a responsible father do? How does he behave? It might be that he has the right of way, but the other driver does not want to yield this right to him. Will the caring a responsible father drive on anyway because he has the right of way? Will he put the lives of his wife and children at risk by stubbornly driving on only because he has the right of way and he wants to exercise this right? Will he accelerate putting his vehicle on a collision course even if the other vehicle, the one that does not want to yield way to him, is a juggernaut?

Is Russia not a juggernaut when compared to Ukraine? What did Ukraine’s ruling class expect? Ah, yes, they knew it right from the start that they would not prevail against the Russian juggernaut, but they counted on the aid from the European Union and especially the United States! If that was the case, then they should have remembered the classic Western movie under the title High Noon. The town’s marshal could not enlist the support of a single man. Yes, the marshal single-handedly routs the four members of Miller’s gang, but then it is a movie, and so in this respect the movie’s plot runs counter to reality. Ukraine’s ruling class should have known better. Ukraine’s ruling class should have also known that apart from the movie’s happy ending, the remaining plot depicts reality one to one: if you count on anybody’s help, then think again.

Ukraine’s ruling class will have been familiar with High Noon: the whole world is familiar with it. At least some of the members of Ukraine’s ruling class will also have been familiar with Aesop’s tales, some of which carry the same message: self-help is the best help. They should have recalled a tale of a bird who had a nest in a field of corn and who did not let herself be bothered by the alarmist stories of her nestlings when they would tell her what they had heard from the owner of the field. She remained calm so long as she herd from her nestlings that the owner of the field counted and the help of his relatives and neighbours in reaping the corn, thus putting her nest at danger. She only began to worry when she heard from her nestlings that the owner of the field decided to begin the harvest on his own. Only then did she know that now it was for real. The story, as old as the world, teaches you and me that you cannot – you should not – you must not rely on anybody’s help, especially if the help calls for huge sacrifices on the part of the helper. Shouldn’t Ukraine’s ruling classes have known it? Shouldn’t the ruling classes anywhere in the world know this age-old truth?

Four years ago Ukraine was larger by the four provinces, while eleven years ago it also controlled Crimea. Three and more years ago Ukraine’s population was much larger, especially its male population. Now all this – men and territory – is gone, gone irretrievably because Ukraine’s political class either wanted to prove a point taken straight from wishful thinking or refused to guard Ukraine’s interests trading them for the West’s interests. As a result, Ukraine let itself be used and abused and misused. The war is now in its final stages, territorial and human loss is unavoidable, while Ukraine’s sovereignty remains an unattainable dream: if Kiev does not need to obey Moscow, it certainly must obey Washington and Brussels. Was this outcome worth the hundreds of thousands dead or wounded, the territorial loss and the destruction of the country’s infrastructure?

Who in his right senses thought that Ukraine could become a NATO member without expecting Russia’s preventive and retaliatory reaction? Did nobody see what was coming? Obviously, Mexico militarily allied with China or Russia, hosting Chinese or Russian military bases – advisors – centres would be an abomination to the United States! Washington would intervene in Mexico in the same way as Moscow has in Ukraine. Really, was there no one in his right senses among the ranks of Ukraine’s political class to see how dangerous a game they were playing?

How sad! As we speak Ukrainians are dying and dying and dying by the thousands, and they have been dying for almost four years now in order to… finally and officially block Ukraine’s NATO membership for ever, and in order for Russia to gain some of Ukraine’s territory! What a calamity, what senselessness, what a disaster! And Ukraine’s fate will be decided by Washington and Moscow, not even by Brussels – Ukraine’s best friend – to say nothing of Kiev! Is that the sovereignty that Ukraine so desperately wanted to achieve?

One can make a safe guess that the closest family members of Ukraine’s ruling class have never ever exposed themselves to real warfare at the front. That explains why they did not care about common Ukrainians who have rotted and continue to rot in the trenches, bunkers and under the swarms of drones, for if the political class had had sons at the front, they would have long finished this senseless war; nay, they would not have allowed this war to break out, and they would have sent the Western warmongers packing.

War is a blessing while people are like grass

The war in Ukraine is dragging on. The end is nowhere in sight. It is dragging on and soon it will be entering its fourth year. Reason suggests that Russia with its demographic and industrial potential could put the hostilities to a rapid end. Nothing of the sort is happening. Reason suggests that Ukraine should lay down its arms since there is no way it can regain lost territories, not to speak of winning over its much stronger neighbour. Nothing of the sort is happening. Reason also suggests that the West should work towards ending the hostilities because if Ukraine’s defeat eventually comes, the EU will be politically worse off. Nothing of the sort is happening. Why?

Russia. Russia has been benefiting from the war effort just like the United States benefited from the First World War and the Second World War: at that time American economy was boosted, and so is Russia’s economy today. Russia is benefiting from the war also in terms of its society rallying around the head of the state. Precisely as it was the case with the United States in both world wars, so it is now in the case of Russia: it is not directly affected by the hostilities it. Yes, Russian soldiers are dying or are wounded, but Russian soil and Russian civilians remain for all practical purposes unscathed.

The European Union. The European Union is in decline. A decline caused by its deviant green ideology, by the indiscriminate acceptance of the influx of foreigners, and lastly by its economic problems brought about by the renunciation of cheap Russian gas. The welfare state is becoming overburdened, the governments and heads of state are increasingly unpopular while national and right-wing parties are on the political rise. Not infrequently people take to the streets and show their disdain for their leaders. The European dream is shattered. What then are the EU managers trying to do the save the day? Yes, they are trying to find a scapegoat for all the negative phenomena. This scapegoat is Russia. A very convenient scapegoat. All economic problems can now be blamed on the aggressor from the east, all shortages and shortcomings – on the ‘Mongols’ looming large on the eastern horizon. Europeans ought only to understand what is at stake, and rally round the EU commissioners in a joint attempt to defend the Garden against the Jungle.

The United States. The United States has used the war in Ukraine not only to weaken Russia, but also to subjugate Europe. Yes, Washington knows that Russia will eventually win, but in the process it will lose some of the people, and it will be kept busy, letting Washington more leeway elsewhere in the world. Europe has been conveniently rendered economically impotent, which is another gain for Americans. A competitor has been removed. The competitor’s reliance on Russian energy sources has been significantly lowered. Washington is cherishing high hopes that some of Europe’s industries and businesses will relocate to the United States, which will further deindustrialize the Old Continent and re-industrialize America.

What is the attitude of the three mentioned players to Ukrainians?

Russia. Russia recognizes in Ukrainians brothers by ethnicity. That is one of the reasons why Russian troops steer clear of destroying civilian objects and objects of cultural heritage. Concurrently, Russian troops are fighting hard culling the Banderite-type troops. This alone will render Ukraine less hostile to Russia. Also, the Russian army is destroying Ukraine’s military, thus making it no match to the Russian Federation in the nearest future. The destruction of the civilian infrastructure will make it barely possible for Ukraine to be accepted as a member of the European Union.

The European Union. The European Union couldn’t care less about Ukrainian life though, sure enough, the EU managers say they do. Ukrainian lives are pawns on the geopolitical chessboard and are willingly sacrificed on the altar of combating Russia. And what a paradox! The EU commissioners are gladly embracing ‘refugees’ from Africa and Asia who allegedly escape from war while they would gladly see all Ukrainian able-bodied men drafted into the Ukrainian army and sent to the front! The European Union accepts males from the Third World: why would it rather not accept all Ukrainian men who want to be drafted? True, Europeans are not as yet rounding Ukrainian men up in their cities and sending them back home, but such ideas have emerged now and again, here and there.

The United States. The United States views Ukraine precisely as Europe does: after all it was Zbigniew Brzezinski, the American politician and political thinker, who famously framed the globe as a chessboard. That’s precisely how the big players think about nations and countries: nations are chessmen while their territories are black and white squares of the chessboard. Accordingly, you sacrifice a chessman or you let go of a square as the case may be. The United States is one player, Russia or China is the other. Anything between them is – as we have already said – chessmen and chessboard squares. That’s all there is to it.

That’s also precisely how the managers of the world view the common people and their countries. The European elites may be whipping up war hysteria, but they themselves will not handle rifles or lie in trenches. Far be it from them! Whatever they want to impose on the common man and woman, they themselves prefer not to be affected by. Immigrants by the million for the common European to live with on a daily basis, but the commissioners live in places where they do not need to bother about strangers. Is it any different with war? No. Consider Ukraine’s President Zelensky. How has he experienced the three years of hostilities? He’s been travelling the world over, has been warmly received everywhere, and has given hundreds of interviews and made hundreds speeches, issuing hundreds of statements. How about the members of the Ukrainian government, of Ukraine’s parliament, how about higher officers? Pretty much the same story.

It has always been so throughout human history. Napoleon Bonaparte had half a million soldiers killed, frozen, or maimed in Russian steppes, but he himself made sure to be able to escape from the enemy and the frost in a comfortable coach, wrapped in warm furs. Adolf Hitler and his entourage? After the Red Army had crossed the Oder and was approaching Berlin, he and his ministers and generals must have realized that the end was inevitable and that the end was just round the corner. Some of them must have already taken the decision to commit suicide, and yet in order to prolong their lives by mere three-four months they did not stop the war. Rather, they sent new waves of troops – teenagers and the elderly – and added hundreds of thousands if not millions deaths to the huge overall toll.

For the managers of the world affairs, war is a game, a game that thrills them because it is a game played in reality. It is not a computer game. Augustus II the Strong (1670-1733), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland conspired with Tsar Peter I of Russia to attack Sweden in the latter’s possession on the Baltic. The war, which began in 1700 and lasted till 1721, soon after its outbreak turned to be a catastrophe for Saxony and partly for Russia. Augustus was forced to draft new and new men to either defend his country or help his Russian ally. When someone pointed to him that so many men had died and so many more were about to die, he shrugged his shoulders and merely replied: people are like grass. The more you trample it, the more abundantly it will regrow.

The Spell that Has Lingered for so Long is Broken

Several generations back, India was under British dominion and the British monarch – Queen Victoria – was even crowned Empress of India. We need to understand that India up to the end of the Second World War comprised today’s India along with today’s Pakistan and Bangladesh. The monarch of a lilliputian country – UK – became a ruler of a subcontinent. Then came World War One and World War Two, which resulted at first in the weakening, and then in the disintegration of the British Empire. The world came to be dominated by the United States of America, which was on the one hand a change, but on the other it was not a very great change as the United States is historically the offspring of the United Kingdom or Great Britain. Though the pound sterling has been supplanted by the dollar as the currency of international exchange, the language of the world’s hegemon has remained the same: English.

As the Suez Crisis of 1956 eventually broke the backbone of both France and Great Britain along with their fast shrinking empires and disappearing colonies, the United States emerged as a hegemon which had only the Soviet Union to reckon with. In 1991, the Soviet rival ceased to exist and so – by God’s grace as President Bush senior framed it – America reported a global victory. It seemed the Land of the Free was destined to lord it over for a good couple of decades. If older standards were to be restored, American presidents could be crowned emperors of China and India or viceroys of Russia and Europe. It turned however out, soon enough, that the Middle Kingdom with huge American infusions into its economy gradually emerged as a potentate, and so did India. The mental or psychological inertia lingered, though. Both the Chinese and the Indians are rather prone to looking up to the former powers as something better than they are: English still plays such a role around the globe that Latin did in medieval Europe, while British and American culture is still craved by many Chinese and Indians. One might say that though the economic and political influence has somewhat flagged, the spell still holds. Or does it?

Today Beijing and Delhi are in control of their own countries and pursue an international policy that serves their respective interests. The time when the both capitals would occasionally turn to Washington for advice, aid or approval is gone. The mental or psychological inertia persists… but more on the part of the Western world. In his proxy war against Russia the American president has made an attempt to isolate Russia economically in that he threatened those that continued to purchase Russian gas and oil with exorbitant tariffs. President Donald Trump’s favourite tactics may have had some effect in the case of some governments, but when it came to India, the American president met with a decisive resistance. As soon as India was threatened with retaliatory steps for exports from Russia, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi immediately turned to Moscow and Beijing for help, and had the commercial deal with the American Boeing annulled. In an effort to put things to rights, President Donald Trump decided to quickly call India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi… to no avail. Political rumour has it that Trump made as many as four calls and none was answered. The rumour is spread by the respected Frankfurter Allgemeiner Zeitung and confirmed by other unnamed sources.

Be that as it may, the very idea that a leader of a country that used to be another country’s colony and used to rely on international aid for nourishing its citizens, plus the fact that one can spread news – rumour or no rumour – about any one leader refusing to respond to an American president’s phone four times is a telling mark of the change that is sweeping the whole globe. Narendra Modi’s sudden and decisive political swing towards China is a fact, a disturbing fact. The Moscow-Delhi-Beijing trio is to the United States an unpalatable event. Historically speaking, it was not so long ago when both China and India were under the West’s political and economic control. Today they have both thrown down the gauntlet to their former colonizers. Their ostentatious cooperation makes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s rumour look like fact. Trump’s remark on TruthSocial that we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China substantiates this rumour even further. While Queen Victoria was India’s Empress, Donald Trump is not even India’s respected partner.