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10:24 am, November 20th, 2025 - 151 comments
Categories: Europe, International, Russia, Ukraine, vladimir putin, war -
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This weeks’ sabotage of a Polish rail line that enables freight to get to Ukraine is a big step in the undeclared war by Russia against European countries that support Ukraine.
Russia is the most significant and direct threat to European and United States peace and stability. It’s only getting worse. Russia wants to establish spheres of influence and control over other countries through coercion, subversion, aggression and annexation. It uses conventional, cyber and hybrid means, and it is getting bolder and clearer in that aggression every week.
This shadow war has been going on for more than a decade, but the big one was the full tilt against the Democratic Party and towards the Republican candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Their efforts were successful in helping to defeat Hilary Clinton and get Donald Trump into power.
Here’s the FBI report summary.
Russia has also sought to alter the outcome of elections in their favour in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Sweden, Spain, Italy, and Georgia. The tactics used were similar to those used successfully in the United States: paid disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, and illicit financial support for pro-Kremlin parties and candidate.
Baltic states in particular are clear that Russia is threatening them through multiple means. Russia’s own foreign ministry views the Baltics as an irreversible area of future conflict.
How many democracies have to be damaged before the old left releases its century-long sympathy for Russia?
It is entirely deliberate that Russia’s escalating attacks are less than “war”. As a 2024 Norwegian intelligence assessment concluded, “Any act of sabotage would most likely be performed in a manner that would make it challenging to prove who was behind it. One important reason for this is that Russia wants to avoid any situation that could trigger Article 5 of the NATO Treaty regarding collective defense.”
Some on the left have an opinion of NATO that coincides nicely with the Russia view of NATO. It’s time for a correction.
NATO is not at war with Russia in Ukraine. NATO certainly supports Ukraine in its right to self defence since it was invaded by Russia, as enshrined in the UN Charter.
As a result of Russia’s invasion NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia. The Alliance will continue to respond to Russian threats and actions in a united and responsible way. NATO members will continue to out Russia’s actions and countering disinformation. They will also support Ukraine with training and equipment against this invasion.
NATO is a defensive alliance. It’s kept about 1 billion people safe from invasion for over 70 years. At the 2024 Washington Summit members were resolute in sustaining that protection in accordance with Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. NATO will also outlast Donald Trump’s reign.
Russia has continued to lie that NATO promised that it would not enlarge after the Cold War, and the old left repeats that lie. Records show that in the initial stages of discussions about German reunification, US Secretary of State James Baker and his West German counterpart, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, floated such an idea with each other and with Soviet leaders in 1990, but diplomatic negotiations quickly moved on and the idea was dropped.
No treaty signed by NATO Allies and Russia ever included provisions that NATO cannot take on new members. As a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its increasing threat to nearby states, more states have joined NATO with the full agreement of all other members.
All 32 NATO members have agreed that Ukraine may become a member of NATO. Russia does not have a veto on that. At the 2024 Washington Summit, Allies reaffirmed their full support for Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements and decide its own future, free from outside interference. Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance when conditions are met and Allies agree.
NATO has not tried to push Europe into a war with Russia. Russia started its war against Ukraine without being threatened by Ukraine or any other country in Europe. It illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and proceeded to seize territory in Donetsk and Luhansk. And in 2022, with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War 2.
Russia has struck hospitals, schools, power grids, dams, and shopping malls. Russia is killing Ukrainian civilians.
Ukraine has the right, and the responsibility, to protect its people. Self-defence is a fundamental right, which is enshrined in the UN Charter. NATO has the right to support Ukraine as it seeks to uphold its right to self-defence and to prevail as a sovereign state in Europe. Self-defence and the support of self-defence is in line with international law.
Three years on, Australia has made a fulsome commitment to support Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.
New Zealand has made much smaller supportive efforts.
It is time the old left accepted the truth about Russia as the most active enemy of democracy that we have on earth, stated fulsome support for Ukraine, and stopped believing Russia’s lies about NATO.
Completely this!
I honestly don’t understand how anyone with even a shred of intellectual honesty can still buy Russia’s narrative at this point.
Thanks for the simple re-stating of obvious truths, something the cooker left seems to be sadly infrequently familiar with on this issue.
The "old left" were of course the people who looked the other way during Stalin's purges, who swung behind Hitler's regime and condemned the west as "warmongers" after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and who only supported the war against fascism after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, and even then plenty of them spied for the Stalinist Russia against the democracies. The likes of Orwell loathed the "old left" with good reason.
And now of course we will have the old left lining up eagerly as cheerleaders for the deal being struck in secret –
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/19/us-and-russian-officials-draft-new-peace-plan-based-on-capitulation-from-ukraine
between Putin and Trump, a pair as equally loathsome as any you'd care to name, to condemn the West as warmongers.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Why do you care so much what the old left thinks?
It's not like they're the ones making the decisions
Perhaps you'd like to actually put up a rational argument to justify invasion of a neighbour. You have failed to make one in the past at all about Ukraine since 2022.
Probably for the same reason that people of similar views to yours are not the ones making the decisions…
Mosquitoes are only interested in their desire for blood and propagation.
Most of the ones that I know who would have fitted that description are dead. Long dead.
Yep, if anything it's the modern 'left' that needs to get it's house in order.
Agree on some principles, articulate them and form policy based on them.
You mean, something like this one?
That seems like a good first principle.
This post expresses my views entirely.
All of the propaganda about why Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and in a later offensive in 2022 is exactly that – crap. Putin invaded Ukraine for the classic imperial reasons
None of all of the crap I have seen since 2014 to deny either of those two opinions has been at all convincing.
The various ludicrous claims about Ukrainian 'Nazis', a military threat by Ukraine or NATO against Russia, or some kind of secret accord in the Budapest Memorandum fall apart within a few minutes of searching on google.
As for the spheres on influence argument, one only has to look at the history of the 19th and 20th century colonial and massively destructive wars to understand why that was the founding precept of the United Nations. Anyone arguing spheres of influence clearly has their head firmly stuck up their own arse because it is a completely failed philosophy of empire, regardless who propounds it (like both Trump and Putin) are clearly that kind of shithead.
I'm always surprised when I hear it in various forms – especially from the old leftists.
Nice post Ad.
Tautoko! Mine too!
It’s not just the old left, either. They have no great monopoly on idiocy.
If we want to be taken seriously, we have to be able to show that we at least have a basic grip on geopolitical reality. I thought the whole point of being a leftist was to oppose imperialism and the use of naked force in all its forms, no matter who’s doing the imperialising.
You hear the same kind of noises from a range of people. Those who like to drool over ‘strongman’ (eg the MAGA religion), or spheres of influence (usually a shorthand for colonialist and/or imperial economic exploitation spheres aka Winston Churchill), or many other political and social forms. Ones that make the assumption that other groups shouldn’t have a right to determination their own courses of action.
That in turn leading to an argument that it is justified to impose arbitrary constraints, violence, of warfare on others. Usually with by perpetrators having a strong sub-text of it being for their own perceived benefit.
The current TERF fetish of blowing mountains out of minuscule molehills of possible harm. How long until that descends into lynchings or stupid repression?
I just find it completely irritating. Especially when you follow one of those trends in the past from starting, through the gory repressions, and usually just dissipating into irrelevance – but sometimes to even gorier ends.
In the end, I only look at evidence of proven harm rather than waffling bullshit.
It is hard to see anything more proven harm than launching unjustifiable warfare. Especially to a old soldier. But it is pretty evident to me that not resisting is more costly in the long run than acquiescence.
I think if 4,000 years of recorded history has taught us anything, it's that. Sometimes, in order for a free and open and just society to survive, we are obliged to punch nazis in the face.
Oh hell yes.
Given Putin's KGB background I suspect he has his own spies and informants in Ukraine, and that he is therefor in a better position to know what's really going on in that area than any of us.
Unlikely, given the circumstances surrounding the start of this conflict: the Maidan protests, the ousting of Yunakovic, etc.
He better get in quick. Trump is also after those. Ukraine's rare earths would look alongside Venezuela's oil.
I read the same post by a certain G. Orwell 50 years ago.
So is the current right in the POTUS 47 regime.
"before the old left releases its century-long sympathy for Russia?". I lost any sympathy for it when it ceased being the USSR and because Russia. "Actually existing socialism" which at least sought to adhere to some level of social equity and class justice became a pseudo 'capitalist' oligarchy
I don't think there's any "pseudo" about it
Oh dear some straw man is getting a thumping here. I'm old and I'm left, have written on the topic of the war in Ukraine, and been assailed for it by some of the commentators above, but the left I support is not built on sympathy to Russia but opposition to war.
The other thing I would say is that I do not think that excess of indignation is a substitute for intelligent appreciation. I do prefer primary sources, and well-supported argument.
I would like to offer for consideration of all those interested this publicly available and downloadable book by Ivan Katchanovski "The Russia-Ukraine War and its Origins: from the Maidan to the Crimean War." It is detailed and even-handed, and everybody will find support for some of their views. It is downloadable here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/396694016_The_Russia-Ukraine_War_and_its_Origins_From_the_Maidan_to_the_Ukraine_War
I note that Boris Johnson is portrayed on the cover with Zelensky; in my view, Johnson's visit to Kiev in 2022 was where and when this disaster's prolongation definitely took a turn for the worse.
Only because the arguments you keep putting forward are routinely sloppy, selectively framed, and fundamentally detached from the geopolitical facts. And yes, I will continue to dismantle them when they appear.
The source you cited is not representative of any serious mainstream scholarly consensus.
Katchanovski’s work is detailed, but it wildly inflates the idea that Ukraine’s post-Maidan steps toward the West somehow “provoked” Russia into war.
That narrative only survives if one accepts an indefensible premise: that Ukraine has no sovereign right to seek security partnerships, and that Russia possesses a de facto veto over its neighbours’ foreign policy.
No credible analysis rests on that kind of logic.
And here is the unavoidable reality: Russia launched a war of aggression against a sovereign state. It chose invasion. It chose occupation. It chose mass violence.
No amount of tortured moralising, cherry-picked “primary sources,” or retrospective hand-wringing changes that core fact. Or transfers responsibility away from the state that initiated the war.
@Res Publica Did you read Katchanovski's book? You seem very biased towards a priori thinking, and overly high-handed at that.
Yes. I did.
Which is exactly why I can say, plainly, that while it’s an exhaustive catalogue of Ukrainian domestic politics, its explanation for the war is academically unserious. It takes a mountain of detail and then leaps to a conclusion that simply isn’t supported by any mainstream IR tradition or by the historical record of Russian foreign policy.
Katchanovski’s argument only works if you quietly accept two completely indefensible premises:
That’s not “insight.” That’s just reheated great-power chauvinism dressed up in footnotes. No realist, no liberal, no constructivist, no historical-institutionalist scholar would touch that logic with a ten-foot pole. It is the exact intellectual scaffolding of imperialism which was explicitly rejected by the UN Charter after nearly two centuries of carnage.
Even if you grant Katchanovski every generous interpretation possible, none of it gets you anywhere close to justifying, mitigating, or “contextualising” an unambiguous war of aggression by a nuclear-armed autocracy with a long, bloody record of invading and terrorising its neighbours (Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, and now Ukraine).
The pattern is obvious to everyone except those determined not to see it.
And on the ceasefire myth:
Your argument boils down to this: Ukraine should have accepted having its territory seized and its civilians brutalised because Boris Johnson happened to be the Prime Minister of a country entirely unrelated to the conflict.
Which is nothing more than simple moral cowardice dressed up as insight in the vain hope nobody notices. It erases Ukrainian agency, contradicts international law, and treats a sovereign country like a bargaining chip in someone else’s thought experiment.
You keep throwing around “straw man” and “a priori” like a couple of talismans that ward off inconvenient facts. They don’t. They’re not substitutes for evidence, and they don’t make your argument less hollow.
You’re absolutely entitled to your opinions.
But you’re not entitled to fabricate your own private version of reality and expect everyone else to nod along politely.
Please stop demolishing straw myths. My argument for what happened in 2022 is that an agreement to end the war was negotiated and signed in Turkey by sovereign Ukrainians and sovereign Russians, then sabotaged by Boris Johnson representing NATO in the interests of continuing the war.
And that's cool. But your argument is both a) stupid and b) not remotely aligned with the actual, documented (or even publicly released) record of the Istanbul talks.
You keep invoking this imaginary “signed peace deal” like that will suddenly transform a draft working paper into a binding agreement. It won’t. Repetition is not evidence.
Here’s the part you keep dodging:
Nothing was signed.
Not a treaty, not a ceasefire, not a withdrawal agreement. A draft proposal does not become a peace settlement by sheer force of wishing.
Russia refused to withdraw.
That’s the whole thing. If the invading army won’t stop the invasion, you don’t have a peace deal: you have extortion, just with receipts.
Ukraine made its own decisions.
This fantasy where Boris bloody Johnson parachutes into Kyiv and somehow overrides a sovereign government in the middle of an existential war isn’t just wrong, it's colonialist fantasy.
The war could have ended at any moment (and still can) if Russia stops its aggression.
That’s the mechanism. No NATO puppet strings required. No shadowy Western plot. Just the basic principle that the aggressor carries responsibility for the aggression.
Your story only holds together if you erase Ukraine as an actor with any, falsify the negotiating record, and outsource Russia’s decisions to everyone except Putin.
Which is why it disintegrates the moment it encounters even the slightest brush with reality.
Complete and utter bullshit. Repeating the Big Lie without even bothering to check it is really kind of stupid.
Try reading this wikipedia entry with links on the Istanbul peace talks.
In particular..
That last point is the damning one. At best under Ukrainian law a representative of the President could send a representative who could sign a proposed treaty. But there is no evidence at all that one with that level of representation was sent.
Treaties of high political, financial, or general importance (e.g., political, peace, or territorial agreements, or those concerning human rights, participation in interstate unions, or the use of territory) are typically signed on behalf of Ukraine itself, usually by the President. It’d usually be the presidents representative. This wasn’t, it was a negotiator, and you can’t show any evidence that they were authorized to sign anything for the president – because that was never announced.
Then to ratify and put into effect, the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament of Ukraine) must adopt a law to approve the ratification of the treaty. The President of Ukraine then signs the bill into law, thereby completing the ratification process and making the treaty binding on the state.
So the lie that Putin postulates is that a negotiator had the authority to commit the Zelensky as president of the council of ministers to a treaty isn’t provable.
But any peace treaty would also have to be something that could pass the Verkhovna Rada – which is a hard ask after the repeated attempts by various presidents of Ukraine to push through unpopular treaties have failed. And then get signed by the President. And this was only asserted about a draft treaty?
And as far as I can tell, Putin is the sole original source for this claim anyway…
FFS: why would anyone believe Putin or his representatives about anything? They were claiming right up to the start of the invasion that they weren’t massing troops to invade Ukraine.
So its disputed and you don't believe Putin about anything. That's why I prefer primary sources. Putin can be quite impressive
It's really not.
Of which you have quoted one. That, for the reasons I've outlined, isn't necessarily the intellectual takedown you were looking for.
Maybe read some actual IR literature written by people that actually know what they're talking about. Or have at least a vague idea of history.
Or, maybe, look at the actual reportage from the Istanbul talks.
Ukraine has no sovereign right to choose its own security arrangements
If Ukraine has that right then so has Russia. Russia's invasion seems to have been a preemptive attempt to prevent further encroachment Eastward by NATO, something which she had every reason to fear.
Which is why the two countries seem unable to reach a permanent cease fire agreement.
Gosh, so pre-emptive strikes are now a valid policy option, in your view.
Even though the application from Ukraine to join NATO was years away from being even considered, and may never have gone ahead (Ukraine didn't meet a lot of the criteria, and would have struggled to do so). Not to mention that there was little public support for NATO membership in Ukraine prior to 2014. After that date, of course, the Ukrainians could see that NATO was their only defence against Putin's aggression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations
How about considering the Occam's razor solution. Putin wanted Ukraine. NATO membership was a convenient figleaf of justification.
That actually seems to match your other commentary. Legitimacy doesn't matter. Might is right, when it comes to Russia.
I understand Russian intellectuals were urging the annexation of Crimea and the Donbas as early as in the nineties: Solzhentzyn was one though know who were the others. They argued that those areas had never really been part of Ukraine.
I understand also that Ukraine was also part of Russia until Yeltsin foolishly gave it away in the early nineties. The UkSSR, when it was set up in the early 1920's, was set up merely as a federal state within Russia. Yeltsin should have insisted on retaining those territories, and let the Ukrainians have the rest.
Yes, Gorbachev also approved Crimea returning to Russia "The people have spoken" and sais he would have acted the same as Putin
Gosh, ex-Soviet imperialists approving of imperialism. What a surprise. /sarc/
You seem to be remarkably ignorant of Gorbachev
https://theconversation.com/mikhail-gorbachev-the-contradictory-legacy-of-soviet-leader-who-attempted-revolution-from-above-189681
The Russian economic system seems to have become shambolic by the time Gorbachev took over. He had ideas of reform but was never given the chance to put those ideas into effect. Boris Yeltsin dismantled the Soviet system behind his back, effectively depriving him of power. Yeltsin took over the leadership and then proceeded to cock things up completely. It was a great pity we were never given the chance to what a reformed Soviet socialist system might have looked like.
"Gave it away" LOL
Following the ending of the Soviet Union – all of the constituent Soviet republics (including Ukraine) were equal. They all had equal opportunities to go it alone as individual countries, or remain in a rump state led by Russia.
Ukraine chose to be independent. As did multiple other ex-soviet republics. Yeltsin 'gave' nothing away. He had nothing to give.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Soviet_Socialist_Republic
You cannot simultaneously argue that Russia (current state) has no responsibility for the historical actions of the Soviet Union; *and* that Russia has a historical 'right' to land which was previously occupied by the Soviet Union. Pick one.
I'm quite sure that Russian imperialists regret the loss of the Soviet Empire. But should imperialism drive foreign policy? That's a very 19th century attitude.
And it wasn't like they had much of a choice either. The Soviet Empire was dead.
All Gorbachev and Yeltsin did, was have the good sense to realize that fact and elect to let it happen peacefully rather than plunge the shattered union into a nuclear civil war which would have quickly ended up as Russia vs everyone else.
Those pro empire in Russia would have noted the Serbian experience and learnt from it. Or could have.
No more given away than Byelorussia.
And Ukraine has been a member of the UN since 1945, (independently of the USSR).
Yes: it’s always been a blatant contradiction.
Ukraine is treated as a totally separate country when that suits Moscow’s ends (treaties, borders, UN seat), and then when it doesn’t, it becomes an “artificial construct,” a slur on its identity, or “really part of Russia all along.”
You can’t have it both ways. Either Ukraine is a sovereign nation (which should be obvious to everyone is the case) or Moscow should stop pretending international law matters only when it’s convenient.
Sure. No-one can prevent Russia invading a sovereign country and annexing its territory, but we can hold Russia accountable for doing that, and should.
but we can hold Russia accountable for doing that, and should.
Quite right. She should be held accountable. And I'm sure Putin would be happy to answer any accusations. Though, given the Western bias against Russia, I don't think he would be expecting a fair hearing.
I don't think starting a war by invading a neighbouring country is really a question of bias. It's a fact.
The West has also entertained a bias with respect to Russia since 1917 (and probably even before that). That is also a fact.
It's a little difficult for any but the most self-blinded to regard an invasion of a neighbouring country, going on over multiple years, as 'Western bias'.
No one?
Well there is a refusal to recognise annexation, which is the right of every UN member under UN rules.
No one, but the USA, recognises annexation of the Golan Heights.
Generally the UN would organise collective security, but this not possible if a veto power is culprit, or protecting the culprit.
There can be sanctions and military aid as every nation has the right to seek that after being attacked.
Gee, I wonder why Russia would “fear” NATO expansion…
Maybe, just maybe ,it has something to do with them no longer being able to re-impose their old empire on their former
coloniespuppetssister republics.Those poor Russians. Forced, so reluctantly, to launch multiple invasions against their neighbours so those neighbours don’t checks notes seek alliances to protect themselves from Russia’s multiple invasions.
Gee, I wonder why Russia would “fear” NATO expansion
Yeah. Isn't he just a right old scaredy cat
Also profoundly stupid, if he really was afraid of NATO.
The current result of his imperialist wars as been to drive multiple neighbouring countries into joining NATO, and heavily investing in building up their military.
Entirely predictable. Countries which have experienced Russian occupation seem uniformly unlikely to want a second go.
So, unless you really think that Putin is a short-sighted cretin – what is really going on?
Also profoundly stupid, if he really was afraid of NATO.
NATO probably acts as a camouflage for American aggression, and America seems to be Russia's number one enemy.
The problem is that having an antipathy to war simply doesn’t stop a neighbor running troops, either covertly (Crimea 2014) or overtly (Ukraine 2022), over a border to seizing and then annexing territory.
As far as I am concerned the true straw man in this case has been trying to say that a military invasion is justified by having an intention of a sovereign nation to join a defensive military alliance. Which is in essence what I see you and others arguing.
You can use that kind of representation of a perceived threat to justify any travesty. It was almost the exact technique that was used, for instance, to justify the invasion of the Waikato in 1863, because Maori in Waikato were perceived as building a defensive alliance to resist a future occupation.
Hard to differentiate Browne and Grey’s ‘imminent attack’ justifications from those that Putin was doing in 2022. It isn’t exactly hard to find many examples in history where a nation of group wanting to control their own destiny has been viewed with alarm and violence by neighbors. But it is pretty hard to find a more flagrant example of bullshit justifications than those of Russia in 2022. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 over non-existent WMDs being another.
So in your view, that someone went to Ukraine and said in essence ‘after the unjustified invasion of your territory by a neighbor, we will support you’, followed by various support packages is a cause to prolong a unjustified invasion? Is your advice on how to respond to a surprise invasion by violent rapists and arbitrary executions is to thank them for the unique experience? Exactly what would you have had Ukraine do?
I’d have to say turning the other cheek to carefully planned and executed violence as a tactic hasn’t been a notable success where-ever it has been previously tried in past history (please provide examples if you actually disagree). Typically it just encourages a further sustained campaigns of the same over decades or centuries (I’m sure that you can think of examples). Generally the only time it seems to stop is when it is hard to get through the bodies to find fresh victims – for instance the colonial record in India or the Belgium Congo.
Johnson didn't merely promise to provide Western military support, he indicated if there was a negotiated settlement then Western military support would be withdrawn. Pushing Ukraine into a further fight with the neighboring Russian superpower was always going to be a mistake and has not gone well and it's not going to get any better.
Unfortunately, there are approximately zero outcomes when Putin faces international law consequences for his illegal invasion, just as there are zero outcomes when the living presidents of the US face consequences for the US wars they have overseen or started. That's the nature of leaders of superpowers unfortunately.
That is the prerogative of any donor. Any support usually comes with baggage. The person taking the donations can take or leave it.
But in this case you are clearly not looking at the background to the support. That was a security guarantee made in 1993 made by the UK. It doesn’t require any further support if Ukraine gives in to their forsworn invader.
Support from Western nations was were done largely as a result of the security guarantees made by nations in the West as part of Budapest Memorandum. BTW: Russia’s only apparent contribution in support of the security guarantees was a series of invasions.
Similarly as members of the United Nations, all members are required to support victims of 2(4) of the UN Charter. Nations like Britian took their obligations seriously. But they have no obligation to do so if Ukraine gives in to their invader, they’d effectively be giving military aid to a what would become a military satellite of their invader.
The only major direct arms and technical from Western guarantors happened after those invasions. The donations were to contain acts of aggression by Russia.
Are you so seeriously deluded to suggest that Ukraine giving into Russian demands to become a economic and military satellite of their aggressor required Britain to continue their security guarantees? That would seem rather pointless.
No, I'm clearly not saying Britain was required to provide security guarantees (actually it was clearly a message from the Biden administration about their involvement) as these were to be withdrawn. Just that without any Western backup Ukraine would most surely end up as an economic and military satellite of Russia.
It's pretty understandable that Ukraine went for the continued fighting with Western backing at that point, but the result has been both sides have lost a lot more as it continued and Putin seems less reasonable about how much Russia will expand into Ukraine as a conclusion of that.
The basic problem was that Putin was after a regime change with economic and military guarantees that Ukraine would become a satellite of Russia. Like Belarus is, and as is currently happening in Georgia – regardless of what its citizens wanted.
Effectively that its economy would be tied to and plundered by Putin’s economy in Russia. That its military forces would be token and content to have Russian forces permanently ‘training’ in Ukraine to prop up an puppet regime. ie the Belarus model.
Perhaps you have never read any economic history of Ukraine. For instance the Dekulakization, the subsequent famines, or the way that the wealth of the agricultural and minerals in Ukraine never seemed to stick in the region under either the Russian empire or the USSR.
If you look to the present day the depopulation of the east, particularly the planned forced movement of children to be raised in Russia raises specters of Stalin’s policies that moved at least 1.8 million Ukrainians to slave labour camps past the Urals, and the separation to their children to be educated as ‘orphans’.
It wasn’t the arrival of aid that stiffened resistance in Ukraine in April 2022. Probably the biggest factor was when the Russian forces were forced to withdraw after failing to capture Kyiv in March 2022. They left behind a wasteland of FSB/GRU executions after interrogations, mass grave sites, rapes, and stolen household items. I’m pretty certain that Putin and his aides never expected that to become visible.
It was probably the main thing that sparked historical memories of the effect of Russian domination. But I guess that apologists prefer that it was the effect of the evil and conniving Johnson (yeah right – that buffon?) because they prefer to never face actual reality.
Or, to quote a famous Russian leftist: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
The problem is that having an antipathy to war simply doesn’t stop a neighbour running troops, either covertly (Crimea 2014) or overtly (Ukraine 2022), over a border to seizing and then annexing territory.
Actually Russia had 25,000 troops stationed in Crimea already, probably in connection with the naval base, under an agreement with the Ukrainian government. These were probably the source of the so called "little green men".
Just a minor point.
Really, the Russians have admitted using special forces in Crimea.
And how they arrived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukrainian_war)
You can use that kind of representation of a perceived threat to justify any travesty.
If the threat was merely perceived, as opposed to real, then any result would have to be a travesty.
I think that that is what logic buffs call a meaningless 'tautology'. It begs the question really: "What would you say about a real threat."
For heaven's sake Lynn if you want to critique my view get it right. Setting up another straw man with silly rhetorical questions is not satisfactory. Johnson's intervention in 2022 was significant because he scuppered a ceasefire negotiated in Turkey, an outcome Ukraine would now dearly love to have.
And if your description of my position had any more straw in it, it’d be auditioning for The Wizard of Oz.
Western reviews of Katchanowski's book
“Katchanovski’s study is a model of contemporary social science research based on social media, testimonies of participants, and evidence and verdicts of subsequent legal trials. Analysis derived from the data is unparalleled in the study of extra-legal politics in post-Soviet Ukraine. This is a convincing book which should be read by everyone interested in knowing the truth about current developments in Ukraine and especially the underlying causes of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict.” (David Lane, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Cambridge University)
“A courageous and important study of one of the most momentous events in recent history. Based on a painstaking analysis of the available evidence, Katchanovski demonstrates how the false flag shootings of 18-20 February 2014 unfolded and their impact on subsequent developments in Ukraine. If a single book can change our understanding of a historical event, this is it.” (Richard Sakwa, Emeritus Professor of Russian and European Politics, University of Kent, UK)
Given Putin's KGB background I suspect he has his own spies and informants in Ukraine, and that he is therefor in a better position to know what's really going on in that area than any of us.
and that legitimises the invasion of Ukraine… how, exactly?
"Legitimise" is just a word. Who decides its connotation? It's too easy to bandy such words about and put someone, or some country, "in the wrong".
To be honest, I don't think Vladimir cares much whether his invasion is “legitimate” or not when the defence of his country is at stake.
So 'legitimate', in your view, doesn't matter when it comes to Putin. Does it matter for anyone else?
Ukraine has a far greater claim to be acting in the 'defence of their country' – after all – they're the ones who have been invaded.
Well said Belladonna.
https://thestandard.nz/open-mike-19-03-2025/#comment-2029068
Nearly fell off my chair, because you were agreeing with me 🙂
Sorry B, didn't mean to give you such a start.
It's a risk we all take when commenting here.
Does it matter for anyone else?
Probably not. Not in international affairs anyway. Still, I guess it's a useful term to put forward in an argument.
The nation state as sovereign citizen cult ended in 1945 and is only sustained by access to the UNSC veto – something Peter Fraser said was an abomination and would result in abominations.
Meanwhile the current right is proposing another Munich – Sudetenland (at first, then Prague and Warsaw).
It is asking Ukraine to give up its remaining Donbas land (fortress belt), reduce the size of its military and give up some of its military weapons capability.
The White House spokesperson has reassured us
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly1ypqlle0o
International law.
https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1376#:~:text
Molotov Ribbentrop lives.
/
Larry Johnson worth a read: https://sonar21.com/countering-the-myths-of-western-analysts-on-ukraine/
lol
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/gchqmichelleobamajohnkerryhoax-a7636996.html
Well Larry C Johnson would certainly be in a position to know about intelligence practices
and Obama was most probably aware of the surveillance on Merkel.Why not Trump if he was suspected of treasonous relations with Russia
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/10/28/reports-obama-was-aware-of-spying-on-merkel
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39310801
NZ's GCSB shares intelligence with the US as part of the 5Eyes alliance,
It's not that outlandish to suggest GCHQ would be asked to keep an eye on Trump.
News media gets pretty ridiculous.
Just like the recent dog -chases- phantom -bone rumour that Lavrov was out of favour with the Kremlin and had disappeared .
2 weeks later ., there he is again .Click bait and propaganda
Johnson spent 4 years as an analyst for the CIA and another 4 working for the US state department.
In July 2001, two months before the September 11 attacks, Johnson wrote in a NYT op-ed that terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States, and it should not be portrayed that way.
Any insights he may have are >30 years out of date.
His speciality was counter-intelligence (in the Reagan-GHWB era).
I wouldn't be so sure , Paul Buchanan was once a consultant for the CIA and still has plenty of insights to offer, despite the fact he now lives in NZ.
The difference is that Buchanan, unlike Johnson, actually has a reputation to maintain.
A reputation somewhat marred by his being sacked and marrying his much younger student, and he did rather blunder in my mind when he suggested once on RNZ that Snowden had fled to Russia,and may have been a Russian mole when Russia was a transit stop and the US revoked his passport mid air so he was stranded in the airport.Morales jet was ordered down by the US at one stage because they thought he was on his way to Sth America
Marred by marrying a former student?
Assange/WikiLeaks was helping him – from Moscow onto Cuba and then Ecuador.
He is at least back in Oz.
Well yes Assange is back in OZ
Snowden a citizen of Russia, though I think he’d like to be in his homeland
Given that he's sworn an oath of allegiance (whatever that's worth, from him) to Russia – and is now a citizen. I'm not sure where he'd think his “homeland” is. He may have been born in the US, but his heart seems to be in Russia.
He's certainly toeing the party line there – US warnings about the Russian invasion of Ukraine were, in his opinion, a US disinformation campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Asylum_in_Russia
And, for a fearless speaker of 'truth to power' – he's been conspicuously silent over the war in Ukraine. Could it be that Putin's Russia is less accommodating of dissenting views, than is publicized? /sarc/
I give you Al Jazeera on the subject – since you're unlikely to accept any 'Western' journalism.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/18/the-trouble-with-edward-snowden
Those who preach the inevitability of Ukraine's annexation into Russia and the collapse of NATO see Trump as their agent.
https://uwidata.com/25911-natos-pledges-in-documents-not-to-expand-eastward/
It was pretty incredible how Gorbachev and Reagan were able to end..or at least to begin to end the terrible uncertainties and risk of the Cold War.The Cold War blighted my childhood.I remember being herded in a school class into a speculative film/doco being screened in town.It was about the aftermath of a nuclear bomb being dropped in the UK.Sheer terror and chaos.I internalised the adult’s sense of imminent annihilation during the Cuban missile crisis.So , yeah, like you Mike ,I’m old enough to remember and I’m definitely old left , before it was contaminated by neo liberalism and jingoism .
I’m not sure if it was Gorbachev or one of his aides , who said ;Our biggest mistake was to trust you too much;
The US must have been laughing up its sleeve when it got Gorbachev to agree to let East Germany into NATO with nothing but a liar’s empty verbal promise in return
The promised him no NATO forces in East Germany after re-unification.
Given they already had them in West Germany …
And I remember reading about the actual old left, hearing stories of Savage, Fraser, Nash, and Lee. A leftism that hadn’t yet been tainted by moral hand-wringing and intellectual laziness. Before it, and people like you, decided to build a politics entirely on avoiding responsibility.
Before you convinced yourselves that all the hard work was done, that nobody had suffered more or worse; even though the generations before and after you have lived through war, pestilence, economic collapse, and the toppling of a global order. Before you retreated into nostalgia and started mistaking your own selective memory for wisdom.
Those people you claim lineage from? They would loathe what you’ve become. Not just for your shortsightedness, but for your cowardice: your unwillingness to stand up for better simply because it isn’t perfect.
You’d gladly see eighty years of progress burned to the ground just so you could gloat that you were right about the ashes. And you’d happily pat yourselves on the back for abandoning others to violence rather than confronting an uncomfortable truth. A truth that better, braver, and far more deserving people are dying and bleeding this very moment to defend.
So yes: I say it’s our duty to hold the line. To fight. To struggle. To win.
The frontline isn’t only in the trenches and the cold and dark of southern Ukraine. It’s here too. In refusing to let cowardice, bad history, and lazy cynicism erode our intellectual and moral heritage into nothingness.
Easy to say Res to fit your own world belief .They’re not here to put the record straight .I find you very partisan .Willing to forgive the US it’s “mistakes” ….but when it comes to other world powers , no such generosity
The high mindedness and piety is off the scales
The Churchill imitation isn’t working
You mean, reality?
And if being in favour of intervening to protect democracy from authoritarianism and empire makes me a partisan, then yes. Sign me up.
I haven’t “forgiven” the US anything. I’m simply honest enough to recognise that all empires are bad. But in the real world, we don’t get to pretend they don’t exist. We have to deal with the one that’s actively invading its neighbours and trying to erase countries off the map.
Not the ones living rent-free in your nostalgia.
"eighty years of progress"?…Jesus , here we are facing existential annihilation from ecological collapse, let alone a creeping fascism whereby the poor are getting priced out of existence, while you grandstand drunk on your own rectitude.Pardon me if I'm not feeling it .But rant to your heart's content, it aint convincing me.
If we should only discuss climate change and the economy – then why are you even supporting Russia's political ambitions at all? Surely they are irrelevant in your world view.
I think that you'll find that the "existential annihilation from ecological collapse" is happening in Russia as well as the rest of the world.
They come out even worse than NZ does on the climate action tracker.
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russian-federation/
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/new-zealand/
Getting off the track a bit .I'm wondering where Res's 80 years of progress is
Womens rights,? an end to poverty?ecological wisdom?
Global poverty is down. Life expectancy is up. Literacy is up. Infant mortality is down. By every serious measure, we are in a materially better place than we were in the 1940s . And not just in the West, but everywhere.
And yes; women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, civil rights, workers’ rights, disability rights, indigenous rights… all dramatically better than they were eight decades ago.
Also: gay people have the right to exist, we don’t sterilise queer people, we don’t criminalise mixed-race relationships, and we don’t send Jewish people to concentration camps anymore.
Just because the work isn’t finished yet doesn’t mean nothing has changed.
Even in Russia (despite, what they euphemistically call "regional variations) life expectancy has markedly increased since 1950.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/rus/russia/life-expectancy
Of course, still substantially worse than in the EU. Mostly due to working age male mortality (alcohol, accidents, violence, etc.) – to which we can now add combat fatalities. It's not for the faint-hearted, living in a kleptocratic dictatorship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Russia
You mean the “creeping fascism” you’re perfectly willing to enable; just so long as it feels like a win against US hegemony?
Don’t talk to me about grandstanding. I’m not the one trying to pretend that invading sovereign countries and murdering civilians is some kind of morally coherent response to a world in crisis.
If you’re worried about fascism and annihilation, then maybe don’t line up behind the people actually doing the invading, the erasing, and the ethnic cleansing.
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/military-history-and-science/gorbachev-agrees-membership-united-germany-nato
It is difficult to take seriously anyone who professes a belief in socialist values and doesn't support Ukraine to the hilt. After all, If socialism is applied christianity, then it seems to me military support for Ukraine is a more muscular extension of that.
Michael Joseph Savage, the man who coined the phrase "socialism is applied christianity", said this to the people of NZ on the 5th of September 1939:
"…None of us has any hatred of the German people. For the old culture of the Germans, their songs, their poetry and their music, we have nothing but admiration and affection. We believe that there are many millions of German people who want to live in peace and quietness as we do, threatening no one and seeking to dominate no one.
But we know, alas, that such a way of life is despised and rejected by the men who have seized and hold power in Germany. We know that those who have done and are doing incalculable harm to the true interests of their country, and that they are wasting and destroying the intellectual, artistic, moral and spiritual resources that their people have built up throughout the centuries. In doing this, they have, for the time being, cowed the spirit of a vast number of their best people.
This work of destruction they have already carried into other countries and, despite denial, now intend to carry into Poland. If they succeed there, they will next attempt the overthrow of France and Britain. Let us make no mistake about that.
Of course they repudiate any such intention, but fortunately for the world we know now what it has taken us a long time to learn, that their promises are worthless, are made only to gain an advantage for the time being, and are broken as soon as that advantage has been secured. Not a moment too soon have Britain and France taken up arms against so faceless and unscrupulous an adversary. The fight on which we are now engaged is one whose issue concerns all nations of the world, whether as yet they realize it or not.
We are fighting a doctrine that springs from a contempt of human nature, a doctrine that government is the affair only of a self-selected elite who, without consulting the people, may irrevocably determine what the people shall do and shall not do. The masses are to be used as instruments of power in the hands of their masters. They are to be given slogans and directed towards this or that objective approved by their masters, but never are they to be treated as free men, as individual and responsible souls.
The individual man is submerged and forgotten, the intrinsic worthiness of his personality contemptuously ignored. Freedom of action and expression is denied to him. Dissent or criticism is brutally repressed.
These are a few of the incidents of the Nazi philosophy that is seeking to thrust itself everywhere over Europe today and the rest of the world tomorrow. Nazism is militant and insatiable paganism. In short but terrible history, it has caused incalculable suffering.
If permitted to continue, it will spread misery and desolation throughout the world. It cannot be appeased or conciliated. Either it or civilization must disappear. To destroy it, but not the great nation which it has so cruelly cheated, is the task of those who have taken up arms against Nazism…."
Replace Germany with Russia and Nazism with Putinism, and I think we all know where Savage would have stood on the Ukraine war.
Those countries supporting Ukraine to the hilt are also supporting Israel
The most vehement Russophobes , the Baltic yappers have even surpassed Germany in their fawning stance towards Israel's genocide
So how seriously is one to take the Baltics?
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/latvia-estonia-israel/
Ummm… extremely?
The Baltic states aren’t “yappers.” They’re countries that spent decades under the Russian (well, Soviet, and yes also German) boot: a boot that crushed their language, culture, political autonomy, and in many cases their people. Their modern foreign policy is shaped by lived historical trauma, not by whatever the fuck it is you're proposing.
The fact that, even under constant Russian intimidation, they still refuse to drift back into Putin’s supposed “security umbrella” and have chosen NATO, should probably tell us something about how they view that past.
You don’t have to agree with every position they take. Whether that is on Israel or anything else. You do know there's more than two sides to every foreign policy decision, right? Not everything has to be filtered through some narrow, ignorant, and ultimately stupid black and white moralism.
But dismissing them outright ignores the very real experience that drives their worldview.
These are liberal, functioning democracies, in many respects better than New Zealand, facing a very real threat from a brutal superpower that treats their existence as an insult and their identities as disposable.
Why don't you try Finland – as a example of a Baltic state?
The Finns have a long history of intimidation and occupation by Russia, the Soviet Union and then Russia again. They understand, perfectly well, that changing the name doesn't change the imperial ambitions. And they see the writing on the wall, with Putin's wars of conquest. They have no desire to be forcibly occupied.
But, they are also opposed to Israel's actions in Gaza – and have joined a call for a two state solution.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/finland-says-israel-must-end-its-occupation-of-palestinian-territories/3698172
They are also, by the way, along with the other Nordic states, the social system which is most frequently cited as the one the West should aspire to.
Finland is a Nordic state.On the Baltic sea , yes, but not commonly known as a Baltic State.That moniker goes to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, who collaborated with Nazi Germany rather enthusiastically in its war against Russia.They also showed a lot of their own initiative committing atrocities against Jews during the holocaust.
I admire Finland a great deal, and although they also collaborated, they didn't share Germany's anti semitic zeal to quite the same extent
So, if the treatment of Jews and war crimes during WWII is your yardstick for whether not a state has the right to exist, then I've got some bad news for you.
Russia, whose Soviet predecessor murdered plenty of its own Jewish citizens when it wasn’t deporting them to Siberia, wouldn’t make the cut either.
I can't believe that you would be so callous to simply write of whole countries because they happened to have done some sketchy stuff in the past. Especially when most of that history was the result of them trying to claw their way out from under Russian imperialism in the first place.
you're reaching a bit there
Sketchy stuff??
Its not a matter of shoplifting or going over the speed limit
The Latvian Legion attached to the Waffen SS and according to the European Parliament guilty of murdering 70,000 Jews are still allowed to march through Riga every March .They're now joined by young skin heads
Time Latvia put a stop to it
And the Russian/Soviet Jewish pogroms? Is that history just erased.
How about the Holdomor? The systematic attempt to destroy the Ukranian culture. Does Russia get a free pass on that?
TBH. If wholesale, systematic mayhem against civilian populations is your yardstick, then Russia is right up there with one of the worst historical records.
Soviet Union surely
Russia inherited all the debts and all the hate
Get over it , The soviet union is no longer.
Same lot of criminals in charge. Or did you forget that your beloved Putin was KGB.
Of course, the “Baltic States” are also not the same countries as during WW2. They’ve only been in existence since 1991.
Same lot of criminals in charge. Or did you forget that your beloved Putin was KGB.
Holodomir happened before Putin was even born.
Glad to know you admire Finland. What's your opinion of the Winter War?
I don't have an opinion .But I do know Ukrainians fought against the Finns.
It was a Soviet/Finland war., and Stalin of course was
Georgian
Ukrainians made up quite a large part of the Red Army, with Georgians being a significant minority
Goodness. You don't have an opinion.
Given that you have an opinion on everything else connected to Russia, and by connection every other issue about Russian relations with eastern Europe – I find this difficult to believe.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Very. They support Israel because they know what it's like to have neighbours who don't accept your country has a right to exist, and they know they're next on the block once Putin's finished with Ukraine.
I dunno
Aren't the Russians down to shovels and washing machine parts, on the brink of economic disaster, running out of armed vehicles and having to use donkeys, getting smashed and annihilated at every turn.Isn't their army poorly trained, disorganised ,backward and stupid.Isn't the war a stalemate?
Wake me up when they get to the Polish border.
Sure. At their current rate of advance they’ll be in Kyiv sometime around 2060.
And I’m not convinced the Russians would want to be stooging too close to the Polish border.
(a) Poland’s military is larger, meaner, and a couple of generations more modern than what Ukraine started with in 2022. They have a lot of modern tanks and self propelled artillery.
(b) And historically speaking, Poland doesn’t exactly have a track record of rolling out a welcome mat for Russian troops.
Well there you go ,Europe can rest easy
Odd though it may seem to you, the governments of the Baltic states have to take the threat Russia poses to their countries a lot more seriously than you do.
Savage's view was probably short sighted. Why would Adolph have wanted to go to war with Britain and France, which forced him to have to fight on two fronts; until, that is, Chamberlain forced his hand by declaring war. In fact Rudolph Hess's ill fated entry into Britain would seem to have been to persuade the British that they and Germany should be allies.
I think the Germans were seeking to acquire a source of oil either in the area around the Caspian (Barbarossa), or in the Middle East (Rommel). I think the British were trying to prevent that. I think the war was all about oil, and that that has been the case ever since.
Or am I just an old cynic.
the war was all about oil
That was largely true for Japan – the US and others had imposed an oil embargo.
Because checks notes they'd invaded China and were busy committing war crimes. Including murdering literally millions of civilians.
That's right Res.The US absolutely deplores war crimes and would never commit them themselves , since 9/11 checks notes no extra judicial murders have been committed and the Cost of War Project's 4.5 million people killed during the war on terror is just knee jerk anti Americanism
Economic interests have no part in US foreign policy, it is based purely on moral grounds
Cool….. So, we've learned three things about you:
If you can’t understand that 1940 and 2024 are eighty years apart and not even close to being in the same moral or geopolitical universe then your ‘analysis’ isn’t really analysis. It’s three bad ideas in a trench coat.
ok 80 years is our stopping point .History starts in the last 20, 10 , 5 years?
Phew , now we can stop blaming Russia for the Holodomor etc.
I think its the selective moralising and hypocrisy that gets up my nose more than anything .The outright chauvinism .West is best jingoism
I recognize your reflex desire to blame the US for all of the evils of the world – but, please do try to stick to the topic of the debate. Waddaboutism fails to convince.
Sauce for the goose….whataboutFinland, the Winter War, the Holodomor,
Russia’s climate policies? to pick a few of your own whataboutisms
Get my drift
All whataboutisms in defense of western chauvinism and deflections
We have faults but our adversaries’ ones are are always morally more heinous than ours;ours are mistakes,teres are evidence of evil, which means we never have to entertain doubts about our own shenanigans
The mote in someone else’s eye and never our own
That’s what I can’t stand
However, you are apparently unable to see anything wrong with any action that Russia/Putin sees fit to make. That's a log in your eye which can't be excused.
One can understand and explain reasoning for actions, without condoning the actions, themselves.
The opinion that Mike expresses above, that Putin felt threatened by NATO – which caused him to attack Ukraine – doesn't excuse the fact that Putin launched the attack.
Putin's actions as a morally-bankrupt dictator launching an imperialist war – are not excused because 'America does it too'.
You will find plenty of allies on TS in critiquing America's foreign policy (and that of the rest of the 'west') – which makes your allegation of western chauvinism ridiculous.
And, since you brought up historical examples of the Baltic states, you can't complain when others bring up countering ones in the same region. Whereas your deflection to the US war on terror – has nothing to do with the situation in eastern Europe.
Here's a few
I can't stand the ridiculous law against "advertising homosexuality"
I don't like the shady nature of Russia's approach to Israel whereby it gets a free pass….ok 15% of Israelis are dual Russian citizens but thats not quite sufficient an explanation .There are deals going on
I have a queasy feeling about the power of the Orthodox church
There is undoubted corruption…..which may be a Slav thing given the recent revelations in Ukraine
There are plenty others
And as far as my "deflection " to the war on terror goes, the conversation, which unfortunately you can't control, had veered on to Japan , and China, and Germany , and the US embargo on Japan , Pearl Harbour etc
You had better scold whoever introduced those tangents
But its such a consistent pattern. Every time you feel boxed into a corner, with actual evidence against your beloved Russia – you deflect to waddabout America.
Glad to know that there are some things about Russian society that you dislike (although concerns over the power of the Orthodox church in Russia is a joke). I note that there are no political issues on your list. And you dismiss the blatant corruption of Putin's Russia, by claiming that all Slavs do it.
Just what is it about Russia that is so praiseworthy?
How about: violent suppression of political dissent; routine murder of people who criticize the regime; rule by a blatantly corrupt dictator; subversion of democracy to support an autocratic rule; as well as a recent history of aggressive wars against neighbours.
Yes, of course Russia isn't alone in this. Every point on that list is shared by other countries. But that doesn't make Russia some kind of underdog, to be championed by the left. Whatever the reality of soviet socialism may have been – it'd dead and gone. Why are you still loyal to it?
Just what is it about Russia that is so praiseworthy?
Economist Richard Wolff considers Russia and China the twentieth century's two most successful economies: both started out as backward peasant societies and pulled themselves up "by their bootstraps" to become modern industrial economies.
He attributes their success to the fact that they were two countries that managed to avoid being plundered by European states, unlike many third world countries.
https://michael-hudson.com/2025/11/cowboy-capitalism-in-central-asia
. The opinion that Mike expresses above, that Putin felt threatened by NATO – which caused him to attack Ukraine – doesn't excuse the fact that Putin launched the attack.
This would be true only if Putin's feelings did not coincide with reality. I think that what he knew about the goings on in Ukraine would be the reason he attacked. It is said that "attack is the best form of defence", and Putin does not strike me as the sort man who would be ruled by his heart rather than his head.
Putin's feelings coincide with reality, only in your mind. You haven't been able to convince a single TS commentator of your version of 'reality'
I absolutely agree that Putin is entirely ruled by his head – which is why the nonsense about NATO is just that, nonsense. Putin wanted Ukraine. Full stop.
Why you feel the need to justify the actions of an aggressivley militant imperialist dictator- only you can know.
I absolutely agree that Putin is entirely ruled by his head – which is why the nonsense about NATO is just that, nonsense. Putin wanted Ukraine. Full stop.
Well, not all of it. I don't think he would relish having to rule a hostile western Ukraine
I think you have the cart before the horse, here.
Japan had launched a war of conquest from 1937 – the oil embargo was an attempt to constrain their ability to continue this.
War came before embargo.
No, just historically illiterate. Or terminally ignorant. Can't make up my mind which.
Hitler chose to fight a war on two fronts by invading Russia in 1941. He also gambled (wrongly) in 1939 when invading Poland that the French and British he'd thoroughly pantsed at Munich wouldn't have the guts to follow through on their guarantees.
I don't think he actually chose that, though he obviously would have had to acknowledge the possibility.
Oh, I think that Hitler did, indeed, want an alliance with Britain – to stand aside while he swallowed up as much of Europe as he could get away with. Not to mention wholesale murdering swathes of citizens who he regarded as enemies of the State.
The fact that you appear to think this would have been a desirable outcome, speaks volumes about your ethics. Cynic isn't the word I'd have chosen.
Your comprehension abilities leave much to be desired. At no point did I say, or imply, that I considered any of what I said would have been a "desirable outcome". However, I don't think Hitler would have wanted to fight on two fronts, so Europe would have been safe, at least for a while. Also, I think he was mainly after oil and I don't think Europe had much of that to give him.
Your comprehension skills, as well as knowledge of history, leave even more to be desired.
"Europe would have been safe, at least for a while". Apart from those sections of occupied society which would have been marched off to concentration camps, that is. How safe were the 'undesirables' following the Anschlus, or Munich.
Which, BTW, had absolutely nothing to do with oil.
Giving Hitler what he wanted, was a very, very poor outcome – which was evident to the meanest intelligence by 1939.
[Europe would have been safe, at least for a while". Apart from those sections of occupied society which would have been marched off to concentration camps, that is. How safe were the 'undesirables' following the Anschlus, or Munich]
Apart from the annexations of the Sudatenland and Austria, most of the stuff you are referring to took place after Britain declared war.
And yes, Hitler probably thought that Chamberlain would have no stomach for war, but he eventually found himself up against the warmongering Winston Churchill.
How would not declaring war have prevented it from happening?
Hitler had already amply demonstrated how he would treat occupied territories. I flat out guarantee that none of them loved him (not even the Germans) by the time he was done. Much like none of the ex-Soviet occupied states are keen to have Putin in charge. Ever thought about why that is?
Hitler’s oppression of undesirables came from his eugenic philosophy, not because he was at war with Britain.
Yes, Hitler thought that Chamberlain was a patsy. Although, even Chamberlain couldn't be fooled twice.
But to describe Churchill as a 'warmonger' in comparison to Hitler…. really words fail at your cockeyed view of history.
At what point do you think that WW2 should have started? Only when Hitler attacked Stalin?
IMO, WW2 would have been a lot shorter, and considerably less destructive if Munich had never happened.
But to describe Churchill as a 'warmonger' in comparison to Hitler…. really words fail at your cockeyed view of history.
If you want to compare Churchill's warmongering qualities with those of Hitler, that's up to you I suppose, though I don't know why you would want to. Perhaps you would like to set up a scale of warmongeringness. We could the then have Churchill, Hitler, Tamerlaine, Attila, Caesar, Napoleon, Zelensky etc. on it in their appropriate places along the scale .
I was never very interested in such comparisons.
How would not declaring war have prevented it from happening?
Search me. How would I know.
Well, you so confidently declared that it would have brought "peace to Europe" – I wondered if you had some special knowledge. Or were just happy to sacrifice thousands of 'undesirable' civilians for an ephemeral peace (for others, not for them)
Still wondering when you're going to declare when you think WW2 should have 'begun' for the West.
I was assuming that Hitler would not wish to find himself fighting on two fronts simultaneously. But if Europe wished not to participate in the war Hitler would instead have to attack Europe himself to bring them in.
Hitler probably relied too much on the Munich agreement, just as Putin seems to have relied too much on the Minsk agreements (he should probably have invaded a lot earlier, before Ukraine had got its act together).
Giving Hitler what he wanted, was a very, very poor outcome – which was evident to the meanest intelligence by 1939.
The interlude that the Munich agreement provided gave Britain a chance to prepare themselves for a possible war. The Minsk agreements served the same purpose with respect to Ukraine. Putin perhaps should have launched his invasion a lot earlier, but it's possible he held back in reliance on those agreements.
Spare me the post-hoc fairy tale about “buying time.” Munich wasn’t a defensive pause. It was a strategic gift to an expansionist dictator, and the bill came due exactly as anyone paying attention said it would. Even Chamberlain knew he’d been ratfucked; he just didn’t have the heart, or the political backing at home, to say so plainly.
William Shirer’s Berlin Diary catches the mood perfectly: contempt for the Western climb-down, grim clarity about what it meant for Czechoslovakia, and a sense in Berlin that Hitler had just been handed both a triumph and a license for the next step. Shirer was furious about the betrayal and treats Munich not as prudence but as a green light to aggression.
Munich didn’t “buy Britain time” in some noble chess move. It bought Hitler time, legitimacy, and the Sudetenland without a fight, plus a huge industrial and strategic windfall from dismantling Czechoslovakia. Appeasement didn’t delay war; it lubricated the next conquest.
An early war absolutely terrified the German general staff. They were so convinced Hitler was about to drag them into a conflict Germany couldn’t win that senior officers started plotting a coup to stop him if he pushed into Czechoslovakia. That’s not mythology: the Oster/Beck/Halder circle was real, and Munich is what defused it by making Hitler look like an infallible genius.
And the fear wasn’t abstract. In 1938 the Wehrmacht was still scaling up, short on supplies, and not ready for a general European war. Their whole strategic bet was “we have to win fast or we die.” That’s why Blitzkrieg emerges as necessity, not wizardry.
Munich also screamed to Stalin that Britain and France would sell out smaller states rather than confront Hitler. They underlined it with an absolute clown-car mission to Moscow to negotiate an alliance. So he hedged by cutting his own deal. No Munich, no guarantee Molotov–Ribbentrop happens on those terms, and no guarantee Hitler thinks he can carve up Poland without risking a two-front war.
Maybe Poland gets invaded later, maybe slower, maybe under worse conditions for Germany. But Munich was part of the runway.
Some Germans and others are slow learners …
Britain had given a guarantee to Belgium, Germany thought it could go through neutral Belgium.
"Wilt" once, but not twice, Neville Chamberlain, gave assurances to nations that felt betrayed by the Munich deal.
Empires, even fading ones, have their reputations.
Very apt, hold up the mirror
Top paper in the German-speaking world gets it.
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ukraine/kommentar-zum-friedensplan-der-trump-putin-pakt-110788973.html (translated)
Easy lesson, without the Sudetenland Prague was at risk. And without Czechoslovakia, Poland would not hold.
With a limited military Kiev is at risk … .
But NATO ..
No one in Europe believes the USA is a current member, it now just extracts money from weapons sales and would threaten them with tariffs if they say anything.
Check out the November 21 episode.
https://substack.com/@heathercoxrichardson
Paul Manafort was running Trump's election campaign in the summer of 2016 and had this plan for an autonomous Donbas (the Mariupol Plan) which Trump could sell as part of making a peace (ending sanctions on Russia).
This is what that the whole Russia and the 2016 election story was really about.
I seem to remember all of that coming up in the Mueller report
There have been many players and many plans
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-peace-plans-fighting-yanukovych-artemenko-kilimnik/28327624.html
from 8 years ago
Well written and starkly accurate.
It should be noted by our Western comrades that there is sound reason why Eastern Europeans have a deep distrust/hatred of Russia.
It is similar to why Latin Americans distrusts/hates the United States.
It is similar to why the Middle East distrusts/hates the United States/West.
In fact, it boils down to nations distrusting/hating any current or former colonial powers. Especially those that have suffered at the hands of the West.
Sadly, imperialism is not the sole preserve of just a few.