Finally some decent analysis of the current outburst
of war - "What does Putin want?" His long term intent is to
rebuild the Russian Empire with Stalinist totalitarianism and some kind of
foggy Eurasionist ideology, heavy on conservative Orthodoxy and ethnic Russian
nationalism. But his short term intent with Ukraine is explained this
way:
In Putin's world view there are no independent
nations, only empires. Countries do not act independently, only when
directed to by the Empire which pulls the strings. The CIA was
responsible for the overthrow of the Kremlin friendly criminal president of
Ukraine, Yanukovych. None of Ukraine's actions are self-directed, in fact,
Ukraine doesn't even count. It is the land based Russian Empire against
the Ocean based American Empire (which is the successor of the ocean based
British Empire).
The Brits did their best to contain Russia's southern
movement in "The Great Game" mostly to keep them out of India, which
was by far their most valuable colony. According to Putin, America, which
controls the EU, want to keep Russia down, with an economy based on natural
resources. (Never mind that Russian government and oligarchs have never made
any attempt to diversify, and simply concentrated on stealing as much as they
could from resource revenue; they are thieves, not business men.)
And LilliPutin's nose is totally out of joint because
others do not treat him as an equal. Short man syndrome. So the current
offensive in Ukraine is to force Merkel and Obama (the only two he considers
worthy of him) to negotiate directly with him the fate of not only Ukraine but
all of Eastern Europe. The violence in Ukraine will continue to ratchet
up until it forces Ukraine's surrender and the West to the table. Lavrov
essentially admitted that the deaths of civilians in the bus at Volnovakha,
at the bus stop in Donetsk and in Mariupol were in retaliation for Ukraine's
refusal to surrender to Putin's "peace plan" of Jan 15th.
Russian troops continue to take
territory to the north of Donetsk and Luhansk cities and Ukrainian casualties
are high. One cannot depend on official announcements of casualties from
the Ukrainian side as they are consistently under reported. There is
a good chance that they will cut off and surround a large number of Ukrainian
military in the Debaltsev salient. Part of the problem is that Ukraine is
fighting according to old Soviet doctrine - do not surrender territory.
Consequently the Russians are in control of the program as they are
mobile and can hit where they please.
The DNR rebel leader has said that in
response to the shelling of the bus stop in Donetsk, which of course they blame
on Ukrainian provocateurs, they will no longer take prisoners.
In other news, food prices in
Kaliningrad have risen 50% though the official report is 22%. They have
risen by a third since the new year and the officials reported 6.5%.
Kaliningrad, (formerly Königsberg) is isolated from the rest of
Russia, hence has a food problem, now that they cannot import from Europe (Putin's
"counter sanctions"). In another part of Russia, one official
(governor?) told the people they will just have to eat less if they cannot
afford food. At least Marie Antoinette offered then cake.
I think that Putin took the offensive at the
remains of Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Ukraine is not the ultimate goal for
him but rather space for trading with the West. Actually, his message is as
follows, "You can consider me a moral monster, but it is only me who can solve
the question of war and peace in the territory of Ukraine and, consequently, in
the territory of Europe." The death toll makes no difference to him. Let's
not forget that Russian citizens also die in this war, but it does not
embarrass him. He is advancing.
One should not have
expected real progress from this meeting. Russia will not make any actual
concessions until some of the world leaders start speaking with Putin directly
and he will regain the feeling that he is one of the key players in the world politics. He only considers Obama and Merkel to be
equal negotiators; however, they refuse to talk to him because they do not
trust him and do not regard him as a person with whom they can negotiate the
destinies of the world. As soon as the
summit in Astana was cancelled at the initiative of Germany and Putin was not
invited to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz,
a new war broke out in Donbass.
"Today's shelling in Mariupol is
additional evidence that official Russia in the person of Vladimir Putin is
prepared to escalate the military conflict if the West does not embark on
direct negotiations with the Kremlin regarding the future of Ukraine,"
Belkovsky considers.
"The war will only get fiercer because
Putin is sure now more than ever: Ukraine is just about to collapse. And it
will not collapse because of the influence of the Kremlin but rather because of
contradictions within the Ukrainian political and oligarchic elite when Petro
Poroshenko deceives its own people (for example, he denied existence of
confidential Minsk protocols, though it became clear that they exist), and the
Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk cannot conceal his dependence on oligarchic
clans. The Russian President is convinced that Ukraine is bound to collapse in
2015, and the West will be compelled to address Putin directly in order to save
it," the political scientist believes.
Bill
Browder: the Kremlin threatened to kill me. The former banker claims
Vladimir Putin runs Russia like a crime syndicate. He should know: corrupt
officials seized his assets and stole $230m. His lawyer was beaten to death in
jail. And now sinister text messages warn he might be next
 |
| 1877 "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." |
It sounds a lot like the return of the USSR. Do the Russians really think Putin is a great leader or just a KGB agent with a Napoleon complex? Either way it is not good.
ReplyDeleteRussians do support Putin. The more he can persuade them that everyone hates Russia, that Russia is "surrounded", that America wants him gone, the more they will support him. The relative prosperity that the new middle class have enjoyed these past 25 years is an aberration in Russia's long history. The good life of the top 1% has always been.
DeleteEven paranoiacs can have real enemies. There are significant factions in U.S. politics who do want to keep Russia down. If they didn't, no one in the U.S. Congress would give a rat's patoot about what happens in Ukraine, i.e., there would be no debating whether or not to send military aid and what type. The U.S. also would never have bothered folding former Soviet bloc nations like Estonia and Lithuania into NATO. I mean, what does Estonia really have that would interest Americans other than a border with Russia? The major powers are still playing the Great Game, and Ukraine is unlucky enough to be stuck in the middle.
ReplyDeleteWhat is "down"? If Russia with 9 time zones, 140 million people and seemingly limitless resources, had been able to make the transition to a rule-of-law, liberal democracy (with all its faults), concentrated on cleaning up and diversifying its economy and improving the lot of its people instead of worrying about being a great power, it would in fact today BE a great power. America may not care about the Baltics or about Ukraine, but the Baltics and Ukraine care. Any country that was ever a colony of Russia will do what it takes not to become one again.
DeleteI feel sick. Where will it end? And when/if it does, what will be left?
ReplyDeleteIt will end in war or in Russia controlling much of eastern and central Europe as in the days of the USSR.
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