A Russiaphile writes about the war in Ukraine
Here’s someone who’s not inclined to judge Russia harshly. And yet this war has caused him to rethink his former love of the country and its people.
It’s a very sad reflection on how it is that events can challenge and change even long-held and deeply-entrenched beliefs. I know the feeling well, although not regarding Russia. However, like the writer, I have loved Russian literature from the moment I first encountered it (which in my case was in high school), and took college-level courses in the subject as well as some Russian history. As a young child, I saw this wonderful movie in a Manhattan movie theater, and it opened my eyes early on to the fact that the Russian people were not our enemies and how deeply they had suffered during World War II. But I never lost sight of the tyranny of the Soviet government towards the Russian people and to the inhabitants of the countries of Eastern Europe, and rejoiced when they gained their autonomy.
Here are some excerpts from the article:
I have been a Russophile for as long as I can remember. Or, to put it more exactly, since I was eight years old, when I attended a school play performance of Gogol’s The Government Inspector…
At the age of 26, I moved to the Baltic State of Estonia, and I was seeing Cyrillic signs on the building and hearing Russian spoken around me. I was meeting real Russian people who were angry about the loss of their Empire, and bitter to find themselves suddenly a minority in a country which had abruptly seceded from the USSR. But I also found that such people were invariably generous and happy to discuss literature and answer my questions over a cup of black tea.
That was 25 years ago, and in the intervening years, Russia and its culture consumed my adult life. I became interested in other post-Soviet countries—Hungary, Romania, Estonia—but as they say in Hungary, “When it rains in Moscow, the umbrellas go up in Budapest.” Everything in this region, like it or not, begins and ends with Russia. Not a week has gone by when I haven’t tried to understand it better. I can speak Russian now, I converted to Russia’s Orthodox church, and I have a half-Russian daughter who knows barely a word of English. What was once so distant and unfamiliar has become a part of my daily life and, in my child, a part of my family too. I often said while I was living there that the Russians did not feel like a foreign people to me, and that in my Southern Russian city I felt, to a great extent, that I was among my own. I continued to feel that way until the early morning of February 24th, 2022, when a chasm suddenly opened up, perhaps permanently.
Please read the whole thing. It really cannot be summarized.
This essay, while very interesting, is also “problematic”, to use the term beloved by leftists. Although one may decry the invasion and the suffering which has resulted, it is also true that Ukraine, the human-trafficking and money-laundering capital of Europe, is quite possibly even more corrupt than Russia, with its corruption directly tied to the DNC and various anti-Trumpian forces in DC’s swamp (Chalupa, Vindman, as well as Danchenko, the principal source of the infamous “Steele dossier”), leaving entirely aside the issue of the ties binding the Biden clan to Ukrainian corruption and the connections of Zelensky (whose favorite politician is Trudeau) to the unspeakably awful and larcenous oligarch Kolomoisky, currently banned from entering this country. In addition, irrational Russophobia is now rampant, extending from Russian cats to Russian musicians to Russian athletes (Wimbledon) and even to Russian books. The terrible business in Ukraine turns out to be more complicated than many care to admit.
j e:
I’ve heard that argument many times and it doesn’t work, in my opinion. Ukraine has been corrupt for a long time, but that’s endemic in that part of the world and Russia is far more corrupt. In fact, Ukraine corruption is in part a result of Russian corruption, and was connected to it when the two countries were more connected.
I couldn’t care less about Russiaphobia, which I do not share but which is not irrational. It’s expression can be absurd, however – the boycott of the cats and the books are completely ridiculous – but understandable and is often part of revulsion when a country has behaved badly by invading a neighbor and slaughtering innocent people, which is what Russia has done.
Even a corrupt country has a right to exist with its people unmolested, and has a right to autonomy. Hunter Biden was in the pay of Ukraine long before Zelenskyy was ever elected, and Zelenskyy had nothing to do with it.
Zelenskyy’s favorite politician is not Trudeau. When Zelenskyy was starting out, he made a remark indicating that Trudeau had been one of his inspirations to run for public office – meaning that Trudeau, like Zelenskyy, was young and somewhat untested and yet he won. Zelenskyy said it during a visit to Canada right after he was first elected, in which Canada was offering aid and support to Ukraine. It was the typical praise one leader gives another when asking for money and help.
I agree that, while I am sympathetic to the writer’s distress, I do not think Ukraine is a totally innocent party. They flirted with corrupt westerners like the Bidens and Romney. Western Ukraine was close to a client of the CIA. Had Trump been in office, with the energy independence and his skepticism of NATO, I doubt Putin would have made his mistake. Weakness and frivolity, like the US military flirtation with BLM and leftist cultural diversions, has shown us to be a nonserious nation. Prior to January 21, 2021, we behaved as a serious nation. Now we look the fool.
Mike K:
“Ukraine is not a totally innocent country.” I fail to understand the point being made, because I’m not aware of anyone claiming that Ukraine – or any other country on earth, for that matter – is “totally innocent.” Is that some sort of requirement – and for what? For assistance against a violent aggressor, in developments that could end up mattering to us if Russia is allowed to swallow Ukraine because of threatening nuclear retaliation, and thereby hamstringing the West?
I’m not sure we’re a nonserious nation at this point, either. I think our current administration is very serious indeed about destroying everything we have always stood for, and undermining our power.
Yea, Ukraine is corrupt but… Russia used the trick of issuing Ukranian citizens Russian passports and then used that as an excuse to seize two Ukranian provinces. They then moved troops into the Crimea and seized it as well. The most recent invasion, which has gone off the rails, was in Putin’s own words an attempt to seize all of Ukraine.
By any measurement, invasion tops corruption as a heinous act.
ambisinistral:
Indeed, “invasion tops corruption as a heinous act.” That is the case, but it is even more the case when the invader is even more corrupt than the invadee.
I agree that, while I am sympathetic to the writer’s distress, I do not think Ukraine is a totally innocent party.
I’m recalling Wm. F. Buckley’s remark that if you find the perfect Church, join it. Once you do, it will no longer be perfect. The Ukraine is not Switzerland. Neither is any place else in the world; however, the overwhelming majority of countries live their lives without disagreeable neighbors attempting to conquer and subjugate them. No reason to make an exception for the Ukraine. (Putin offered a set of preposterous excuses for this because even he is too embarrassed to state his actual objects unadorned).
here’s the thing, this wouldn’t have happened under the previous administration, who spoke softly but smashed a wagner corps company, the current one did not provide offensive weapons the first year, this was putin’s signal to start massing troops, and we know the stitches from the last enterprises this crew that has seized the commanding heights of this country, it is that point that colonel macgregor has grave reservations about, and past is clearly prologue,
one can admire Russian culture and literature, and take an adverse view of this invasion, which seems a misjudgement of objectives and means, to secure the Donbass, expend 15,000-20,000 troops, otoh,if the world had regarded my home country worthy of intervention, 61 years ago, se le guerre as the French say,
I was meeting real Russian people who were angry about the loss of their Empire, and bitter to find themselves suddenly a minority in a country which had abruptly seceded from the USSR.
Spain, Turkey, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Britain, and Portugal all got over it. So did Germany, Italy, and Japan when they were given a bloody good hiding. You got 144 million people and 6 million sq miles of territory, so you might try being satisfied with that and skip the hiding. If you’re sensible.
Interesting that his early story cites Estonia, where Russians are angry that basically Estonia is no longer a Russian province or colony and maybe that they don’t consider themselves “Estonian.” No longer the top dogs or superior to the native Estonians? Baltic crocodile tears flow copiously?
“Spain, Turkey, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Britain, and Portugal all got over it. So did Germany, Italy, and Japan when they were given a bloody good hiding. You got 144 million people and 6 million sq miles of territory, so you might try being satisfied with that and skip the hiding. If you’re sensible.”
None of those countries experienced decades of communism which was then topped off by an absolute reaming from Western experts “helping” with the transition to capitalism. The Nazis ran Germany for 12 years. The Soviet Union lasted roughly three generations.
And I’m not entirely impressed with a “Russophile” who appears almost completely ignorant of what has been going on for the past 20 years in the country he supposedly loves and in which he supposedly lives. If he is what he claims, he must be kind of a dullard.
Mike
Perhaps more ominous om (apologies), that passage about the author “Ginzburg” ‘s experience in Estonia induced in me the encroaching thought or question whether possibly that minority of Russians in Estonia is a minority yet too large for Estonia’s future health as a nation? And if in Estonia, then what of Latvia and Lithuania?
Revanchists gonna revanche, eh mebbe.
None of those countries experienced decades of communism which was then topped off by an absolute reaming from Western experts “helping” with the transition to capitalism.
What’s your alternative to Jeffrey Sachs program?
A different, American point of view:
“Mainly we hate the Russian president for doing what he said he would do, acting like a man, literally having to set boundaries for the unruly children, like Daddy used to do. America hates daddies. To America, all daddies are monsters (rapists!). That’s why America wants to turn all daddies into mommies. Anyway, we barely remember what daddies used to do. The context for daddies — the family — has been obliterated in America by every agency and institution in the land. The only role available these days is the chimerical creature known as a “baby daddy,” which is as much a baby as a daddy, developmentally speaking. Real daddies are men, which is to say: not babies. Mr. Putin acts like a man, especially having to do a dirty job that needs doing, without complaint. America can’t stand that.
“America’s president, “Joe Biden,” suits the current national script perfectly. He’s a mere prop for the drama queens. No one mistakes him for “Daddy.” He’s the old, impotent, intemperate, often confused “Grampy,” a figure of bathos and derision, a shell of a man who, in his prime, lived just to work his official positions for millions in grift. How, otherwise, do you account for his fortune? The Ukraine money laundromat was one of his favorite stops, managed carefully by cheerleaders Victoria Nuland, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and NSC official Fiona Hill, America’s foreign policy establishment there back in the day.
“But who, exactly, is managing Grampy now backstage in the White House? My guess would be Susan Rice because you never hear anything about Susan Rice or her role there: Director of the Domestic Policy Council of the United States. Wow! Sounds weighty. When was the last time you saw her name in The New York Times or cable TV news? You’d think they’d be interested in her doings. Yet I doubt that one-in-a-hundred US citizens could tell you who Susan Rice is and what she does. (Was that her the other day in a bunny suit at the White House Easter Egg Roll, assisting a confused Grampy offstage?)
“Somewhere in the White House there must be phone logs that record how many times a day Ms. Rice makes and receives phone calls across town to and from the Kalorama neighborhood of DC. Does that make Barack Obama America’s secret daddy? Or is he playing a somewhat different role… like, head of a cartel?”
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/daddies-in-mommie-land
Daddies in Mommie-land | Kunstler
Everything is very true in this story. In addition to the analysis of events in the Donbass. Russia has been preparing for the capture of Crimea, Donbass and Odessa for many years. It handed out passports, recruited mercenaries, created intelligence networks and secretly fanned hatred for Ukrainian love of freedom. In 2014, Moscow provoked separatist clashes in the Donbass, seized part of the territory, and appointed its proteges as leaders there. And it was going to make such provocations in all regions of Ukraine and sow chaos throughout the country. This process was stopped only thanks to the tough rebuff of the Ukrainian authorities. Separatism is always an evil that brings misfortune to all countries. If you want to destroy a country, sow separatism there, which is what Russia is doing in all post-Soviet countries. I live in the South Caucasus, and here Moscow is pursuing the same policy. I, and my friends, and all my people, we all strongly support Ukraine and its quick victory over the evil empire.
Before the war in 2022, the Russian service of the BBC published a very interesting article about the Ukrainian, who had been in captivity in the Donbass for several years. Easily read on Google Translate. The narrator reveals some moments of interaction between separatists and patriots of Ukraine. Good addition to today’s article shared by Neo.
https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-60323448
P.S. I`m not a Russiaphile and never will be
Yep American longs for Daddy Corleone, a true godfather. Now Vlad, he is a manly man, not above murder, assassination, or invasions. That’s what we need. Not a Washington, Adams, Lincoln, Grant, T. Roosevelt, Cooledige, Eisenhower. Not one of those types. A true, strong, “dear” leader.
Gerard vanderleun:
Russian President Putin is not a Daddy, he`s a robber who wants to steal neighboring children, and rape them and kill them
Zara A:
So it seems to me. Good point.
too much is made of Putin, too little of Xi, the one who killed 4-5 million people through negligence or malfeasance, take your pick, who sterilizes whole ethnic grouping, who’s laogai network is vast, yet the nba stands upon the broken bodies, why is china nigh untouchable, btw who benefits from this dustup the most,
Putin isn’t “acting like a man.” He’s acting like a monster. Good fathers don’t poison opponents, throw them in gulags, foster violent uprisings in neighboring countries, and then invade neighboring countries with large loss of life.
he was encouraged by the performance of this rickety cigar store indian, who dutifully shut our pipelines down, antagonized some of the more prominent regional allies, india, brazil, even the saudis, surrendered to the Taliban, and is the frontman for wretched apparatchiks like this brinton character, who is in charge of our nuclear stockpile,
what was that saccharine line by gordon sumner, ‘the Russians love their children too,’ well they have made it clear we are at war with every Russian, so why would they stop,
“Ukraine is not a totally innocent country.” I fail to understand the point being made, because I’m not aware of anyone claiming that Ukraine – or any other country on earth, for that matter – is “totally innocent.”
I sat and watched NBC News in a tire store for several hours this morning. Maybe you should sample it.
miguel cervantes:
There is no question that Biden’s weakness and actions encouraged Putin. Even some of Biden’s words, when he said a little “incursion” into Ukraine wouldn’t necessarily draw much of a reaction from the west.
As far as Xi goes, it’s not either/or. Putin and Xi are different in the threats they represent, and Xi certainly is a huge one too, in the longer run almost certainly a larger one.
Gerard vanderleun:
What utter garbage.
When last I checked, most daddies don’t murder their children or even their neighbors’ children, nor do they poison those who challenge them. Nor do most “real men.”
There is excellent reason to detest Putin, and it’s not fear or hatred of “daddies” or men.
Mike K:
Every now and then I watch CNN or network news and/or read the MSM on the subject. They support helping Ukraine and they see Putin as the aggressor. But I’ve not seen anyone say that Ukraine is a “totally innocent country,” and certainly not that it’s totally devoid of corruption. If someone is explicitly saying that, I haven’t heard it or read it in my excursions there.
Maybe you could post a link to someone saying that?
“[Ukraine] is quite possibly even more corrupt than Russia”
Honestly I have no idea. What I do know is that Ukraine did not invade Russia, Russia invaded Ukraine.
“corruption” The sudden interest in it as a very, very Mortal, Mortalist sin is…interesting. See Hunter’s laptop, if you can find anybody commenting on its meaning(s).
Nope. This corruption is different. Is it because it provides an excuse for not doing the right thing…out of fear?
A version of the Stockholm Syndrome.
I find the writer’s infatuation–his writing makes it seem like that, perhaps it’s something else–with Russia, its culture, its people over the top.
Stalin didn’t kill all those people. Far as anybody knows, he never laid a hand on anybody. Russian culture provided him all the murderous manpower he could use.
But, literature, sonorous prayers in echoing cathedrals, satisfying interchanges with friends, great music……you can get the music on youtube, the friends on facebook and the literature from the library. How on earth did the history of post-revolutionary Russia end up in his mental back pocket, to the extent that…..this one got his attention?
Estonia was a nation, once, and wanted to be free again and the writer sympathizes with those who oppose the idea…?
So, yes, he’s a Russiaphile, but…..kind of a lesson for what being any kind of a “phile” is.
I am sick to death of those who talk tough realpolitik without understanding realpolitik, who project their own resentments with our atrocious elites to situations such as Ukraine, when they have little or no understanding of the facts on the ground in Ukraine and Russia. They project their own agendas and our factional politics without considering that perhaps the world contains multiples and not everything happening revolves only around our corrupt elites and our struggles against them.
Since 24 February I have devoured Twitter, Substacks, published articles, videos, and histories. Sources include Russophiles and Russophobes, idealists and realpolitik, military bloggers and grand strategic thinkers, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Austrian, Russian regime supporters, Russian dissidents and scholars, Orthodox and Jews familiar with the region and events. Figure out their respective biases and expertise, judge their reliability over time, ponder and cross-check and question.
It’s clear Putin invaded both for a long term project of expanding Russian speaking world further into Eastern Europe, and attempting to split and neuter NATO while positioning Russia as an alternative power center versus the West. He largely has the Russian people behind him, as several deep analyses of long Russian history of which the Soviet period was just a short interval, prove Russia’s global role to be a disruptor and aggressor, rather than a creative and civilizing culture. Hulk smash, and all that.
Timing was undoubtedly affected by his assessment that the West is weak and declining, as the doubts introduced by Trump were removed. France, Germany and the US all contributed to the projection of weakness.
The fact that Ukraine was governmentally corrupt and a playground for our own corrupt elites was incidental. The people of Ukraine were imperfectly moving toward a productive and peaceful national culture, and did not deserve the Russian aggression.
I wish some here would get over themselves and realize that something bigger is going on in history and that part of the world, far beyond our own political quarrels.
Dan D:
I agree with you 100%
From the linked article; “But, while it is true that Western newspapers have their biases and particular forms of dishonesty, they are independently owned and free of government editorial control.”
Does anyone here think that to be a realistic assessment of the Western media?
“I’ve not seen anyone say that Ukraine is a “totally innocent country,” and certainly not that it’s totally devoid of corruption.”
The coverage in the Western press and media has been nearly universally positive of all things Ukraine. They don’t proclaim Ukraine to be totally innocent or devoid of corruption, they just act like it.
In particular, the adulation of Zelensky in the press and media exceeds even the “light giver’s” in that even FOX (with the exception of Tucker) has not a word of hesitance in their support.
Reportedly, Zelensky is claiming that billions per month need to be sent to the Ukraine. Does anyone here imagine that much of the money sent will not be ‘appropriated’? That a substantial percentage of the billions in weaponry sent will not end up on the black market?
The unintended consequences of the West’s unquestioning support for Zelensky’s government are going to be one of the casualties of this war. Among many others, Soros, Neuland and Schwab are no doubt quite content with events. Above all else, delenda est Putin!
PS: that in no way is intended to excuse or minimize Putin’s actions. It simply asserts that based on their expressed intentions, some in the West will be judged by history to be far more monstrous. As Putin does not want our minds and souls, whereas the Schwabs in the West do.
Dan D,
You imply a personal understanding of realpolitik and an understanding of the facts on the ground in Ukraine and Russia.
You state, “It’s clear Putin invaded both for a long term project of expanding Russian speaking world further into Eastern Europe, and attempting to split and neuter NATO while positioning Russia as an alternative power center versus the West.”
In your devouring of Twitter, Substacks, published articles, videos, and histories with sources including Russophiles and Russophobes, idealists and realpolitik, military bloggers and grand strategic thinkers, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Austrian, Russian regime supporters, Russian dissidents and scholars, Orthodox and Jews familiar with the region and events… that you’ve concluded that the West essentially bears no responsibility whatsoever in the events leading up to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine?
The west bears “no responsibility?” BS on stilts, IMO.
Is 10% responsible too much or is 0.000% responsibility acceptable?
A question that cannot be answered, because at it’s base it is intended to shift the responsibility for the attack on Ukraine from Vlad to a more convenient set of villians. Vlad, you see was forced to attack, because Zelensky is corrupt, and NATO, and the 13 minutes …..
GB. I suppose the west can be blamed, if that is the correct term, for short circuiting Putin’s plans for conquest. Had we not expanded NATO and moved as if more were coming, Putin could have invaded someplace and there’d be no “blame” accruing to us.
WE provoked the maniac who didn’t need provoking. But, in the process, put the west into a better position to oppose the invasion which was going to happen anyway.
There are three things that stand out to me in this.
First, Russian history is not a history of freedom, but of oppression of their own people.
Second, Eastern Europe, when given the chance after the fall of the Soviet Union, overwhelmingly moved politically to the West, and not back towards Russia. They had suffered under decades of Russian domination and knew who they did not want to align with. They voted with their collective political feet.
Third, as others have pointed out, Russia invaded Ukraine. Ukraine did not invade Russia.
Geoffrey Britains arguments sound a lot like it is your fault your car windows got broken out because you tried to secure it by locking the doors.
Richard,
So you don’t accept that the prospect of NATO on Russia’s Ukraine border is a legitimate issue of national security for Russia?
jon baker,
Using your analogy, if you decide to park an expensive car over night in South Central LA… do you bear any responsibility for its theft?
The battered spouse/partner provoked the attack. The raped child/girl/woman wore the wrong type of clothes. The “wealthy” stole that property from the poor, and thus deserves to have it taken by force.
Ukrainian Nazis deserve to be liquidated.
Responsibility is a curious thing to some.
Geoffrey Britain, Putin and Russia bear responsibility for how they conceive of their imperial ambitions, how they are absurdly paranoid about the intentions of the West, and how their national interests require them to brutally invade sovereign Ukraine while lying about Nazis everywhere and vast conspiracies seeking the ruin of the Russian people. Anything the West does is provocative, regardless of how it is intended.
Russia is the largest land area in the world, across eleven time zones, but that is not enough, it requires an empire extending through Central Asia and Eastern Europe. They openly threaten Poland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria.
Do you see the Russian television programs and the outlandish threats and propaganda? Readily available with English subtitles.
I don’t know what your priors are, and why you are so bound to hold onto them, but perhaps trying to discover reality might be more productive than trying to assign blame to the admittedly imperfect West. It would also be less delusional, the world is a serious place that demands we pay attention and think clearly for the survival of all that is good.
Good question
https://contra.substack.com/p/whose-war-is-this-anyway?s=w
Is this the home of the brave
https://mobile.twitter.com/AuronMacintyre/status/1517562869306507270
Where political commissars vet candidates for unreliability, the affrontery of not blindly supporting the regime
By Geoffrey logic Ukraine bears responsibility for the invasion by Vlad because it is not Great Britian or Papua New Guinea; geography entails responsibility. The only way Ukraine could be innocent is if it didn’t exist. That seems to be the plan Vlad is working on.
Once Vlad deals with those guilty Ukrainians Poland will be guilty of posing a threat to Vlad’s Roosia. He can never be too safe; strategic implications for Roosia, you see.
Geography truly and Shirley, sucks.
Geoffrey Britain wonders: “So you don’t accept that the prospect of NATO on Russia’s Ukraine border is a legitimate issue of national security for Russia?”
No, a country’s possible NATO membership does not justify an invasion. Ukraine has as many security concerns as Russia does and, as we have seen, the invasion explains why it, as a sovereign country, it might want to join a security pact like NATO.
By the way, Russia is now talking about needing to take Moldova as well. Is that a security concern for Moldova, or is their sovereignty trumped by Russia’s alleged security needs?
National security apparat deem what is acceptable to know about the client of a subject country that just so happens to be the battlefront of a war
The sanctions seem to have backfired in their stated goal, russian literature lermontov tolstoy pushkin is all about these landgrabs in the caucasus
Vlad has had some Little Green Men active in Moldavia already IIRC. Transnistria is the area and Roosian speaking minorities in Moldova are threatened, according to Vlad. Same old, same old story.
The Belorusian puppet spilled the beans on Vlad’s plan for Moldova way back in early March before Vlad’s strategy feinted.
I can’t help but wonder if having a TV makes one more susceptible to being whipped into a frenzy over Russia/Ukraine, “Russia, Russia, Russia”, “golden showers”, etc.
GB. No. There is “cause”, I suppose, which is not “blame” or “blameworthy”. Since Vlad was going to invade anyway, making defensive preparations is in no way the reason he invaded.
Now, we can say, Okay, this guy is nuts and we have to walk carefully when he’s around. And he doesn’t like the fact that you exist, either. So…. Or park in front of your home. So….. Eventually, the triggering event is not blameworthy, particularly if there really isn’t one.
Vlad would have preferred a more vulnerable west so he could invade it more easily. Okay, the west declined. So he invaded because he was mad he couldn’t invade on the cheap. The west’s fault. He wanted to invade before it became prohibitively expensive, thus working toward making it prohibitively expensive is a casus belli completely exonerating Vlad.
Not buying it, since the next logical step is that thwarting anybody’s vile intentions toward us makes his moves our fault.
The pseudonymous Robert Ginzburg’s essay reads like an entry in a diary. It’s that personal. Since I hate that American Marxists and feminists are forever demanding that the personal must be politicized, I should like it that Ginzburg has personalized the political, but it makes me uneasy.
Ginzburg speaks Russian, converted to the Russian Orthodox church, has a knowledge of Russian history and literature, has experience with Russian university colleagues and random people from his neighborhood. He claims to be a natural Russophile. More than that, he lived with his half-Russian daughter, but doesn’t mention a wife. After less than two months of soul-searching caused by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he left his daughter behind. How does this happen?
As I re-read Ginzburg’s essay, I find that he has a tendency to personalize almost everything. This can be just as bad as politicizing everything. Putin’s invasion isn’t about the pseudonymous Ginzburg. It’s a much greater issue. By personalizing the invasion, his daughter is diminished. Years from now, I’m afraid she’ll have to explain that to him. To make it personal, if I had a daughter in Russia, I wouldn’t have left her so I could make a self-serving political point. In the end, while I found the essay interesting, Ginzburg seems unbalanced to me, and somehow unappealing as both a writer and a man.
“perhaps trying to discover reality might be more productive than trying to assign blame to the admittedly imperfect West. It would also be less delusional…” Dan D
Dismissing Russia’s legitimate national security concerns as delusional is at best, counter-productive. When nukes are involved, its dangerous. That you do so indicates an unwillingness to accept facts on the ground that you apparently find distasteful.
From Russia’s perspective, the foremost fact on the ground is
the prospect of NATO on Russia’s Ukraine border. As it would create the existential reality of NATO then having the capability to place Moscow in an unprecedented degree of vunerability.
That NATO might never capitalize on that vulnerability is from a security perspective, irrelevant.
Nations cannot willingly allow potentially hostile nations to have the capability to place them in a highly vunerable position. It’s simply an unacceptable degree of risk. Reverse the parties and then ask whether we would find it acceptable.
ambisinistral,
I don’t dispute the legitimate concern that nations near Russia have concerning her territorial ambitions. You apparently deny the possibility that Russia could have comparable concerns regarding the U.S. and its proxy clients pushing NATO up against Russia’s Ukraine border.
Since I do see that as a legitimate potential security threat for Russia, you’re in effect suggesting that they trust that the West will never use the knife they would then have against Russia’s throat.
FWIW, I see no national security basis for Russia involving Moldova. I’m somewhat skeptical of that claim if only because I don’t see Russia currently having the capability to do so. But if Russia does move on Moldava that would lead me to reevalute my conclusion regarding Putin’s foremost motivation.
Russia has a history of many bad czars and occassionally one good one every couple of centuries
Richard,
I don’t share the commonly held view that Putin madly desires returning Russia to the former Soviet Union’s borders.
I know what he’s said, I just dont think he actually thinks that to be an achievable goal. I think him far too savvy to not realize that the eastern european nations would fiercely resist their reincorporation into Russia. I suspect he has no desire to repeat the Soviet’s experience in Afghanistan on an even wider scale. Which, if the media reports are to be believed, Russia is currently experiencing a taste of in the Ukraine.
Geoffrey seems to consider Ukraine not to be an Eastern European nation, and thus he and Vlad must be completely shocked by the fierce resistance to reunification with mama Bear. I wonder which other nations or parts of nations will become not Eastern European? Are the Baltics not Eastern European? Poland was once ruled by Russia. Is it therefore not a real Eastern European nation? Curious geography indeed.
@ miguel cervantes > “Good question”
There are lots of good questions about Ukraine, few good answers.
From your link to Pedro Gonzalez at Substack: Whose War is This Anyway?
Even if everything Gonzalez then asserts about Zelenskyy and Ukraine is true (and do you really trust “a top EU affairs newspaper based in Brussels” to give you the full story?) the facts on the ground still have this bottom line:
Russia invaded Ukraine; Ukraine did not invade Russia.
Whether or not “democracy” benefits from either side winning is fundamentally irrelevant.
The existential question is: should any country be allowed to invade another sovereign nation just because they want to, no matter how “justifiable” their reasons are, or do “we” (speaking of the US, the EU, NATO, the UN, or the world in general) have a vital interest in slapping them down when they do — regardless of any underlying political situations?
And yes, I recognize that the decision of when to intervene and when to let the invader wreak their havoc is a very, very flexible one among the decision-makers, but it’s the only one to which I’m willing to give some possible moral credence.
That the usual vultures are making hay while the corpses rot is only to be expected.
That’s what vultures do.
Whether or not they instigated the current war in order to reap that hay is another of those good questions that doesn’t have an immediately discernable answer.
I wouldn’t put it past some of them, but the interleaving motivations and interactions of all the factions (there are more than just “Ukraine” and “Russia”) are still complex enough that I have not yet concocted a satisfactory narrative.
And all we have from all the pundits and experts and essayists and governments are narratives, with some (not nearly enough) objectively verifiable facts at the base, and a lot of unvetted and possibly unvettable assertions and analyses as a superstructure.
Geofrey B., I wonder what you would think about two men, one much larger and stronger than the other, and the big guy attacks the smaller man because he feels threatened by the idea that the smaller man is taking boxing lessons. Forget about corruption, forget about who their friends are. Who is wrong? Objectively speaking, most would say the big guy. You’re arguing that the big guy was justified because he feared the little guy’s boxing lessons would make him more dangerous.
NATO is a defensive alliance. They have never threatened to invaded Russia. Putin’s dislike of NATO is mostly based on the fact that it is an obstacle to his dream of restoring the old Russian Empire. He has written and spoken about this. Should we ignore his words? Does he ever act like he is satisfied with ruling over the largest land mass on Earth with abundant natural resources, and wants only peace and good relations with all nations? Nope.
I appreciate the concern that many people have about nuclear war. We need to be careful. With that in mind, I ask, why is our State Department not leading the charge to get a cease fire and negotiated settlement? Why is the UN not trying to broker a deal? We can supply aid and do diplomacy at the same time. At least we used to be able to. The longer this drags on, the harder it will be to negotiate a deal. And the danger of a miscalculation grows.
As to the Russophile. Interesting, but I agree with Cornflour –
not much to admire
Putting NATO up against Russia’s borders isn’t a nuclear threat. Nukes can come from anywhere. See our boomers. Just for starters.
That we can use smaller vehicles….meaningless. Lame excuse. Nobody buys it.
And to think it’s a forward position for conventional invasion is even dumber. Or, to think that Putin thinks this insults the guy’s intelligence.
Or, if you want to think Putin is this deluded then…we are not doing ourselves any favors by presuming he’s rational in any way.
History is full of invasions. Never had third parties–presuming we are third parties–making such excuses for the invader. Or if we, as the west with no guarantee it stops there, maybe we’re the invaded making excuses for our invader.
Very good read Neo.
Said from the beginning I thought Putin had the goal of being Czar of all the Russias
Fwiw
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/04/22/the_endless_war_in_ukraine_828468.html
Geoffrey Britain, your argument about the unprecedented danger to Moscow of Ukraine being part of NATO is spurious nonsense. Moscow is already under more than adequate danger from submarine launched missiles, strategic bombers, and NATO nuclear weapons based in old NATO states behind the previous lines, not to mention naval surface ships. Russia is the party possessing hypersonic missile delivery systems, the West is acknowledged to be seriously deficient in developing serviceable capabilities.
Ukraine was never likely to be admitted to NATO in the first place, but if so was only for Article 5 defensive commitments, never as a forward offensive weapon base, and Putin and his regime know that. Please do seek out videos of Russian news media and Duma members speaking about Russia’s true intentions, they make clear that Ukraine is only the starting point, their objectives include upending the world order and further encroaching on other sovereign states.
As others have noted here, NATO is defensive in nature, and exists only because of the Russian threat to European peace and freedom. Germany is basically pacifist and accommodationist, posing no conceivable military threat due to depleted equipment and mercantilist mentality with no imperial interests. In the absence of Russian aggression NATO would continue to wither away into irrelevancy.
It would be academic if it wasnt for the relentless push for military intervention, macgregor knows that song in kosovo and iraq, as the planner in the former and a consulting figure in the last
It’s easy to hate something when you’re being manipulated by corporate media to do so. Sadly you’re proof of that Neo.
#BuchaWasAnAzovMassacre
#WhiteArmbands
@Richard Aubrey Well said on the whole, but point of order:
Stalin actually rose to power in the party by acting as a terrorist and triggerman for surgical bank heists, killing tellers and especially guards in order to keep funding Lenin’s organization, and he was indeed personally acknowledged and praised by Lenin for it.
Of course he did not kill everyone he acted like himself (and that is one of the narratives- implicitly as it may be- behind the Good Lenin, Bad Stalin mythology that the Party Faithful like Khruschev pushed in the “Thaw”), but he had more than proved himself to be willing to kill people with his bare hands if need be. That was one reason he got as far as he did.
And he may have been an okrana asset, interestingly that organ had influence in the social revolutionary party, through their no 2 man azev
@j e
Perhaps, but I don’t think for the reason you claim.
There are several problems with this approach, conceptually and on its merits.
First and foremost though: The that corruption- even corruption on a vast or disgusting scale- can justify the attempts to dismember an independent nation in violation of international law and possibly to commit cultural/national genocide AT LEAST on par with what the US briefly did in Hawaii (such as de-empahsizing Hawaiian language and culture through education) and given Russian history probably much more than that is a non-starter.
To anybody who is a student of history, I dare you to tell me that China during the “Nanjing Decade” was not corrupt. Indeed, it was vastly more corrupt and despotic than even the most exaggerated and bleak pictures of Ukrainian politics and society painted by Russian propaganda, with brutal warlords on the fringes fighting each other in massive wars for power, conscripts, drug money, and others while the Yangtze Delta was controlled by Jiang Jieshi/Chiang Kai-Shek, a man who for whatever his revolutionary credentials or vestigial democratic beliefs was a brutal tyrant who happily consorted with outright fascists like the Third Reich and his own “Chinese Himmler/Beria” Dai Li, a man for whom torture, rape, and mass murder were routine in building the new “Chinese Republic.”
But I challenge anybody here to argue that this justified what the Soviets and then the Japanese did in trying to violently rip parts of the country apart through calculated terror and mass murder – such as at Chainor, Mukden, and Nanjing- that managed to make those people look like the lesser evil.
Now to be sure, Putin is far from being as bad as the WWII Japanese leadership, at least for the moment. But that does not mean that he is by far the worse side in this picture.
Secondly: As Neo Pointed out, Ukrainian corruption is at least to a vast extend a product and co-habiting issue with Russian corruption, especially given the deep historic ties between the countries and their leaderships that have only started to hollow out now. On the off chance that Russia is less corrupt than Ukraine (and I frankly find that dubious at best as a man who worked in Russia for a while and traveled briefly through Ukraine), it probably says as much about Russian Siloviki hopping the border to do particularly disagreeable business in a more convenient venue that is at arm’s length from their place of permanent residence than anything else.
And thirdly: Which outcome is more likely to result in a less corrupt Ukraine?
This is true, but I note that Putin is ALSO tied in to said Leftist corruption. While he has suffered as the Left’s go to whipping man, he happily consorted with the likes of Steele and the Clintons to help frame Trump in the Hoax. More systematically, he funds the Red-Green Alliance in the West and our Eco-Loonies in order to devastate energy independence.
He is not the kind of white knight patriot or pragmatic statesman or defender of Western Christendom that he likes posturing as to members on the Right. Sometimes that does not matter because his help might be useful or the points he makes are salient in their own right, but now it doesn’t matter because his actions are illegitimate and indefensible as-is.
All of which are fair points, and none of which really can even out or justify this sort of conduct by the Russian regime. My stance has never been based on Ukraine being a “blameless” country (to the extent that any nation on Earth is), but that such sins are far from that.
And I readily condemn that and have registered my disgust. But I also note that the Kremlin happily gets away with similar retaliations when it really hits, such as the villification of entire nationalities like Estonians, Latvians, and Ukrainians as “Nazis” or “Nazi Collaborators” in spite of the merits of that charge, or whether such “collaboration” was inspired partially or completely by the Soviet Union *violently conquering and oppressing those countries.* And in the case of the Baltics and Western Ukraine (among others) doing so with the connivance of the Third Reich as per the Molotov-RIbbentrop Agreement, whose full nature is something Putin STILL persecutes people over discussing because it shows the Soviet Union to have been a co-conspirator in starting WWII.
Sure, but I do not think it is really THAT complicated. One does not need to love the Ukrainian government or trust Zelenskyy or approve of whatever organ harvesting Svoboda does in its side business in order to recognize that Putin’s invasion is about none of those things (in contrast to say the US invasion of Panama in 1982- which was a Military-enforced arrest warrant against the country’s tyrant and drug kingpin that left Panama the nation intact and did not even prejudice its claims to the Canal Zone- or the Triple Intervention in the Suez in 1956 about overthrowing Nasser’s dictatorship). Moreover, none of those things can justify this.
@Mike K
Which brings us back to how relevant that is, if there are any “totally innocent parties” involved or even in existence on this Earth, and how that cannot justify this. I’m honestly rather cagey about the Ukrainian government and Zelenskyy, particularly after their role in the Steele Dossier. But the Kremlin’s connivance with the Steele Dossier and the Russia Collusion Hoax gave me absolutely no reasons to be more favorably disposed to it either and in any case it is the Russian Regime’s claims that are a violation of international law and American interests on their face.
I don’t know about you but I don’t want to imagine what the La Raza and MEChA crowd I once stared down will do with the example of Putin seizing “traditional lands”, let alone with possible Kremlin, Chinese, or Islamist funding.
So like Vladimir Putin’s Russia did, including using Ukraine as a middleman?
Or am I supposed to believe that Soros was the only financier for things like the shills for the Green New Deal?
Just about every nation and society has corruption, and former Soviet Space has that endemically. Which I might add Putin has been a major beneficiary and sponsor of. The KMT in the Nanjing Decade made just about every Russian and Ukrainian Oligarch (Putin included) look like a piker but that does not justify the Japanese trying to “fix” the problem with things like the Rape of Nanjing and the dismemberment of the country.
Honestly I don’t see it. The CIA, Foggy Bottom, and plenty of others were happily involved in Ukraine- including in Western Ukraine- but the closest I’ve seen to “Western Ukraine” being a client or close to it in history was during the late fourties and early fifties, when we supported the Ukrainian Insurgent Army originally formed around the likes of Bandera and Melnyk’s Fascist Parties but which moved out to a broader tent policy. But considering they were fighting literally Stalin and the Soviets I do not have too much problem with that.
On this I agree absolutely. Weakness is provocative and Biden and his handlers and puppeteers have an affinity for a weak West.
I would have beem firmly on chiangs side for all his faults, can you not see that those most fervently pushing zelensky would be on mao and stalins side
JJ,
Were the analogy of the big man / small man complete I’d agree with it. Unfortunately it’s not, the reality is much more complex than that simple analogy. The big guy is not afraid of what the small guy might do in the future. The big guy is convinced that the small guy’s backers intend to do him because that is necessary to the backer’s agenda.
A clue to what is actually going on is indicated by your question; “why is our State Department not leading the charge to get a cease fire and negotiated settlement? Why is the UN not trying to broker a deal? We can supply aid and do diplomacy at the same time. At least we used to be able to. The longer this drags on, the harder it will be to negotiate a deal.”
The answer to your question is that removal of Putin is necessary to the global elite’s agenda, which by their own pronouncements requires a global elite dominated world.
BTW, NATO is a defensive alliance. The political leadership, supported by the global elite are using it as a tool to further its agenda.
@JJ Well said on the whole. Though in response to what you’ve said:
On some level I think we know why. First and most directly, the West’s diplomatic track record under Biden’s puppeteers (and Biden himself) is most likely to be utterly dismal and humiliating, as it was under Obama himself. I frankly do not think the West has the diplomatic clout or maturity to manage this kind of deal on the whole, in much the same way that Biden cannot even keep tolerable relations with our Sunni Arab Frenemies or Israeli Ally.
But as absolutely terrible and jaw dropping as that is, I think that is actually NOT the most important thing preventing such a deal or ceasefire.
And the most important part?
Well, ask yourself: WHAT WOULD a “Deal” or Ceasefire look like if it was brokered? What could satisfy both sides?
That is the issue, and I think it lies at the heart of the issue. There really is none. Zelenskyy’s lobbying for a free vote for the occupied areas of the Donbas (in which both Russian and Ukrainian forces would withdraw and maybe some international peacekeepers would be done to do it) around the time he was running for election is probably the closest to such a deal I can think of, and it was utterly ignored by the Kremlin who apparently thought they had more to gain from continuing the war without a clean vote (as is borne out by the revised talks about a Novorossiya and conquering more areas). But it was also criticized and flamed by other Ukrainians who saw it (frankly, correctly) as giving in partially to the invasion.
Let us be blunt. Russia’s goal is to sew permanent instability in Ukraine by dismembering it and erecting client regimes in all or part of it by bayonets, not unlike it did in Georgia and Moldova. They will then use these to consolidate their power over the region in the hopes of permanently keeping Ukraine under Russia’s thumb.
Ukraine’s goal is to retain its political independence and regain its territorial integrity.
These are two goals that cannot be compromised on on a fairly fundamental level. There is no Win-Win here, nor is there some kind of “60% of one way, 40% of another.” And it is telling that even the words of many of those claiming to argue the case of “Russian Lawyers” such as Geoffrey Britain presuppose that the way to have avoided war was for Ukraine to have given in, accepted the loss of much of its territory (territory lost I might add by perfidy and state terrorism), and signing away its rights to independent alignment by a declaration of neutrality.
But what makes this WORSE is the fact that even with these premises as accepted, if worst came to worst one side or the other could give in and say “Ok, You Win”, perhaps not completely but 90% or so.
The issue is, what credibility is there for that?
The Russian Government under Putin has proven to be a manifestly untrustworthy “Partner for Peace” whose signed word is worth nothing to those it views as a target, as I detailed by its honeyed words in the Astana Accords. There is no guarantee it would stick to any agreement signed unless violently prevented from moving beyond it.
And moreover, even if such a deal were signed we KNOW what it would look like. Take a gander at Georgia and Moldova, dysfunctional nations wracked by painful ethnic and sectarian conflicts that can never be fully ended in part due to the terms of their ceasefires written under the shadow of Russian artillery tubes and bayonets.
Under these circumstances and the lack of respect, I cannot see either leadership at now viewing such a deal as anything more than something like the Truce of Taggu or indeed the Minsk Accords. A bitter truce desired by neither and trusted by nobody, as a pause for reorientation and rearming.
Unfortunately, I think this only ends in a couple different ways and that goes down to one side loses or the other does.
Unfortunately this has already been going on for 8 years. Not at this level of intensity sure, but I do think there is not much hope for some kind of compromise now. Not until more blood is shed and one side or the other is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to make it stop.
God help us all.
Richard,
“Putting NATO up against Russia’s borders isn’t a nuclear threat. Nukes can come from anywhere. See our boomers. Just for starters.”
Time to target. I presume you understand the strategic relevance of that term. MAD relies on having the time to react, ensuring that a first strike by either side would be a suicidal act. When the Soviet Union placed nuclear ICBMs in Cuba, the problem for America was time to target.
IF Putin were able to install nuclear cruise missiles 13 minutes flight time away from DC… and flying nap of the earth possibly be undetectable until mere moments before detonation, the fact that our military would still be able to respond would not cut it with Washington.
Geoffrey Britain:
Again with the Cuban missile argument, which has been responded to time and again very effectively in the comments of this blog.
Another Russophile, an actual Russian, with a revealed name, who fled to Georgia.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/russians-reflections-exile-georgia
Dan D,
“Moscow is already under more than adequate danger from submarine launched missiles, strategic bombers, and NATO nuclear weapons based in old NATO states behind the previous lines, not to mention naval surface ships.”
See my response to Richard immediately above.
“Russia is the party possessing hypersonic missile delivery systems, the West is acknowledged to be seriously deficient in developing serviceable capabilities.”
Hypersonic missiles cannot be launched mere minutes away from DC. Plenty of time to react to their launch. So while concerning, they do not provide a paradigm change in nuclear war.
“Ukraine was never likely to be admitted to NATO in the first place,”
NATO in 2008, 2010 and 2020 announced that the Ukraine would at a yet undetermined date, be admitted into NATO.
“but if so was only for Article 5 defensive commitments, never as a forward offensive weapon base, and Putin and his regime know that. “
What Putin and his regime ‘know’ is that what may be true today may not be true down the road. Again, from a strategic security perspective, the prospect of NATO having just the potential of a indefensible first strike capability is an intolerable vulnerability for Russia.
“Please do seek out videos of Russian news media and Duma members speaking about Russia’s true intentions, they make clear that Ukraine is only the starting point, their objectives include upending the world order and further encroaching on other sovereign states.”
I’ll take your word for the Russian news media and Duma members speaking about Russia’s ‘true’ intentions. I’m skeptical of those reports because Russia attempting to enlarge its borders westward would draw NATO into war with Russia. That would almost certainly result in nuclear war and while Putin is many things, he is not IMO suicidal.
I do agree that Putin and his regime are intent upon upending the West’s global leadership’s New World Order agenda of global dominance in a Uni-Polar world.
“NATO is defensive in nature, and exists only because of the Russian threat to European peace and freedom. Germany is basically pacifist and accommodationist, posing no conceivable military threat due to depleted equipment and mercantilist mentality with no imperial interests.”
Germany poses no threat. It’s the US acting through NATO which concerns Russia.
“In the absence of Russian aggression NATO would continue to wither away into irrelevancy.”
“In 1996, US President Bill Clinton called for former Warsaw Pact countries and post-Soviet republics to join NATO, and made NATO enlargement a crucial part of his foreign-policy.[2]”
There was no “Russian aggression” in 1996. Nor in 1999 when Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined NATO. No Russian aggression in 2004 when seven Central and Eastern European countries joined NATO.
In addition, joining NATO has long been a topic of debate in several other countries outside the alliance, including Finland, Ireland, Moldova, Serbia and Sweden.
NATO’s announcement in 2008 that the Ukraine would at a yet undetermined date, be admitted into NATO is the start date and causal factor in Russia’s aggression in Georgia, the Crimea and now the Ukraine.
When examining NATO’s expansion from a strategic perspective,
given all of the above, just what do you think that the Russians are supposed to think? Try looking at the issue through their eyes, instead of assuming that they have no basis for suspicion. No basis for alarm, solely based upon the leadership of the West’s assurances that their intentions are solely ‘defensive’. That the West’s leadership has no intention of gaining Russia’s full ‘compliance’ in advancing the West’s agenda of global dominance.
Hey, they can trust Biden, Congress, Macron, Merkel, Johnson, Schwab and Soros… right? And just to be clear, it’s not the West’s ordinary citizens the Russians don’t trust, it’s the “Empire of Lies” that the West’s current global leadership has created whose intentions they don’t trust.
Geoffrey, ever so wise and humble, has to explain (in his mind) flight times of ICBMs (and the manifest importance of 13 minutes) because no one else in this forum can understand the magnificence of his special strawmen.
His strawmen get blown apart over and over but he always props them back up and pushes them out again. Strawmen do really need brains. Geoffrey, unlike Dorothy, can’t supply them it seems.
Neo,
No amount of argument can erase that ‘the time to target’ was the central factor in our objection to ICBMs placed in Cuba. That is an existential fact. In that regard, the potential for NATO’s nuclear cruise missiles to be mere minutes away from Moscow is exactly the same issue for the Russians.
om,
Only in your imagination have my points been ‘blown apart’.
Arguing against existential facts is playing the fool.
Geoffrey modifies the ‘walk a kilometer in Vlad’s boots,’ to look at Ukraine and at Eastern Europe, Europe, and the world (?) through ‘Vlad’s eyes.’ Those eyes that see “Nazis” in Ukraine to be liquidated in a final solution. Those eyes that lust after the Baltics, and the elimination of “Nazis” there as well.
Carrying water for Vlad is a thankless job, eh Geoffrey? Useless and pathetic.
Here you go Geoffrey. Vlad may or may not be long for this world? Will you mourn the passing of that warrior who has been fighting against the evil west and the WEF / Davos? (sarc)
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/04/23/watch-video-calls-into-serious-question-the-state-of-putins-health-n1592110
Existential doesn’t mean what you think.
Funny that you hold your “arguments” to be strong and unsoiled, and not proven false (Turtler has written long point by point dismemberments of your falsities, but those were mere flesh wounds, to Geoffrey the Black Knight). But you bring them back, over and over, the Gospel of Geoffrey.
Now it is “mere minutes” from Moscow. Not 13 minutes. Mere is existential dialed to 11.
How many “mere” minutes from Kaliningrad to Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki, London, or Paris, water boy?
Geoffrey Britain, Russia is the one with hypersonic weapons, not NATO, who has none to base in Ukraine even were Ukraine to become a member, which it never will, over Germany’s veto, or Hungary’s. So Putin has no reason to be under any greater threat from expansion than he already is threatened. Whereas Kaliningrad is a direct threat to three Baltic countries, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Czechia, Denmark, and the long-neutral Finland and Sweden, who are now urgently completing their NATO membership applications. All on their own volition in response to Russia, and not as a USA conspiracy.
Much of the world no longer gives a hoot about Putin’s alleged fears of being surrounded, because only one country is the aggressor, Russia.
@Miguel Cervantes
As would I. That was my point, albeit in reference to the Japanese Empire’s invasion (which managed to make the atrocities of the KMT and Nanjing Decade pale in comparison and which are a tossup in terms of competition with Mao since it killed fewer people but over a shorter period of time) and led to Mao and Chiang to form a temporary truce/alliance thing (for which Jiang gets nowhere near as much credit as he deserves).
Again, Putin isn’t as bad as the Japanese Warlords are, but Zelenskyy isn’t as bad as Chiang even if we take the most hostile interpretations and propaganda about him.
Not sure that’s true, but certainly a lot of Far Leftist nutjobs are. I’ve never denied that or the pervasive sleaze and corruption and worse around Ukrainian politics and our current Western leadership, and moreover I don’t particularly trust Zelenskyy. But I do think it is fairly tangential to the relevant issue.
Anybody who wants to claim that Putin invaded Ukraine to try and investigate Hunter Biden’s corruption at Burmisa or to stop human trafficking has never listened to the man or his usual mouthpieces. So on matters of principle and foreign relations practicality, I honestly do not care if Zelenskyy really were half the things he is accused of being (on matters of domestic relations that is a different matter, but at present I see no major downsides and a number of upsides to supporting the Ukrainian Defense, starting with deflating the Russian Bogeyman the Left loves).
I honestly don’t believe Stalin was an Okhrana asset. We have never found any documentation to the contrary even when the Bolsheviks pillaged it, and Stalin’s career record (and multiple imprisonments) does not fit the usual career trajectory of a Tsarist Mole. That and his ideological fervor (which rivals like Trotsky tried to deny) make me doubt it.
But yes, Yevno Azev is a terrifying and fascinating figure. Certainly one of the best double agents of all time and a great rogue. Well worth studying.
@ambisinistral Well said indeed, with a small caveat.
I’d say that is true USUALLY, though I do think there are a few times when invasion is less heinous than corruption (albeit extreme corruption). For instance, the US invasion of Panama (to overthrow a corrupt, illegitimate drug lord cum mafia boss who had repeatedly couped his own nation’s government and murdered a bunch of people) and the Russian invasions of Chechnya (brutal as they were).
But that doesn’t fit here. And I’ve been happy to play Devil’s Advocate on ways that the Russian Military COULD have temporarily occupied parts of Ukraine if they really, sincerely were concerned about “Ukrainian Nazis” or radical Maidanites threatening minorities without being monsters.
But the key word is TEMPORARILY. The USMC responding to assorted Hispanic American riots and rebellions didn’t annex parts of the countries they were landed in just because.
@Gerard vanderleun
Thanks, but I’ve already seen photographs of a cloaca.
This is a remarkably fucking deranged statement and a stupid one at that, though I will admit that the comparison of Vladimir Putin to a “Daddy” is apt, but not for the reason the author wants it to be.
However, first and foremost let us make things clear. For all the Machismo, for all the attempts by the Putin Regime to inculcate himself as a masculine role model (which sadly in comparison to some disgraceful exhibitions in Current Year he comes close to), Putin is not a “Daddy” dealing with “unruly children.”
He is the head of a Nation-State dealing with other political actors, including other Nation-States (who he has sworn to at least officially deal with as equals) and NGOs.
To forget this is not only immature and wrong, it is the first step down a deep slope of psychodrama and pseudo-psychology that is as wrong as it is immoral.
And indeed, if Putin wishes to conduct his foreign affairs and actions as head of state as a “Daddy”- like countless autocrats (and some non-autocrats) positioning themselves as the benevolent Father guiding their children or the Shepherd with his Sheep- THAT IS A SIGN THERE IS SOMETHING DEEPLY WRONG. And indeed it is why to the extent that Putin deserves the “Daddy” comparison it is as an abusive, controlling Father who obsesses about his own power and image and the lives of his (adult) children.
Moreover, “we” (by which I mean Putin’s neighbors and the West in general) hate Putin, at worst, because he is a competitor for turf, power, or property and an obstacle to The One World Globohomo Goverment/Biden Family Paychecks from Burmisa/Etc, who we will occasionally deal with but who cannot be trusted.
At best, we hate Putin for what he is. Not just a tyrannical monster but also an untrustworthy and corrupt one.
It is also at this point that I’ll note that if you study Putin’s personal life as an actual “Daddy” or Husband, it’s really quite Dire given how he is a rather absentee parent and faithless husband. Sadly common flaws among people.
But unlike some such as David or Solomon or (for more modern purview) Reynaud or even FDR, he does not offset his personal vices by virtues in governance. Especially if you’ve ever seen what he has allowed Kadyrov to get away with in Chechnya, a land Russian troops fought and bled for, which now persecutes the “children” of the Holy Mother Church and Russian Motherland. This is mirrored by his lack of concern for things such as runaway HIV/AIDS, Demographic Decay, and so forth.
Even if this were true (and it is not), it is utterly irrelevant to the point in question
The shrill shrieks of a Misandrist “Feminist” who unironically screeches “Kill All Men” and claims that all “Daddies” are abusers, rapists, and violators in no way invalidates the fact that some- perhaps even sadly man- Daddies Are.
This is why our court system when it functions (which is sadly not as safe a state of affairs as it SHOULD be) does not merely pick out deranged accusations from one extreme or the other and conclude that since one idiot said the obvious falsehood that all Daddies are Rapist Exploiters, This Particular Daddy is Not.
It also amuses me that this is a retreat into post-modernist archtypes (while ironically giving a superficial veneer of opposition to post-modernism) as an excuse to avoid dealing with the basic facts and examining the person and conduct of Vova Putin on its own merits (or lack thereof).
Real daddies are men, but not all men are Real Daddies.
Real Daddies are neither babies nor abusers and predators. Putin is very much both of the latter.
And frankly he’s much less of a “real man” than his propaganda press wishes to portray.
This is fucking hysterical on multiple levels.
Firstly: The idea that Putin does much “without complaining” is laughable, even if somewhat lost in translation from his cold fish demeanor or rage. But if you pay attention, you see he very rarely stops complaining. Complaining about the Fall of the Soviet Union. Complaining about dissenters. Complaining about the Tsarist Empire. Complaining about Georgians being angry about being ethnically cleansed decades back. Complaining about the Civil War Reds, complaining about the Civil War Whites, complaining about why the Ukrainians do not view themselves as “Fraternal Peoples”, complaining about “Dirty Money” Energy Oligarchs, and complaining about his own underlings.
The man is a whiner. And I wouldn’t object as much were it not for idiots trying to claim he is something he is not.
Secondly: As I’ve mentioned before, Putin has actually been VERY LAX in doing “dirty job(s) that need(s) doing.” Even back when I was briefly working in Russia as a monolingual fat American schlubb doing Charity it was obvious to me how badly the country needed some kind of revival. Social, Moral, Demographic. It needed to get clean needles into the hands of junkies so that they wouldn’t kill themselves with bad ones in custody, and then get the drugs out of those junkies systems so that you can hope they become productive citizens.
It needed to get booze and vodka out of the mouths of its citizenry more so that they don’t drink themselves to death.
It needed to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic (and by the way: Russian policy on the matter is AT LEAST comparable to St. Fauxi’s conduct on it).
It needed to build infrastructure- particularly quality roads and railway branches- so that less of the country is an underdeveloped wasteland dotted by subsistence life and the wreckage of Soviet economic “policy.”
It needed some basic rule of law so that people could trust their neighbors a little bit more and so that people would not keep thinking that the best way to play the Prisoner’s Dillemma was to screw over the other.
Putin proceeded to do NONE or VERY FEW of these things.
And unlike in nations that are or at least were free, he CAN NOT claim that it is not the point of a Head of State to act as a National Daddy fixing all the problems in the world, since Russian Political Culture (and PARTICULARLY Muscovite Political Culture since the fall of Kyivan Rus) has always emphasized a strong government, preferably answering to a Strong Man who can act as Shepherd for his Sheep.
Well, Putin’s proved to be a really fucking poor Shepherd, even in comparison to such legendary villains as Ivan Kalita, the man who started making Moscow, since while Ivan Coinpurse was a brutal tyrant and opportunistic predator against his neighbors and collaborator with a ruthless foreign occupier, he recognized the needs of his people and worked to make those in his realm safe and prosperous.
And this is before I talk about other things, such as how I could see with my eyes closed how Kadyrov and his Chechens needed to be reined in, if not removed altogether, as an over-mighty and brutal but untrustworthy vassal. Especially one insistent on retaining the worst features of the Chechen governments Russia fought against, complete with regional Islamism.
Nor is this some kind of sign of democratic or liberal or “feminine” manner. The Han had to deal with the Liu Clan and their Principalities, the Qing with their Feudatories, Ivan Gorznoi with the Boyars and Novgorod, and so forth. Because lawless, proud States-within-a-State are bad for business and stability.
But Putin has not done so. In spite of prompting from some of his circle.
I imagine a big part of this is because the “victory” in the Second Chechen War was supposedly his foundational achievement. That he won where Yeltsin could not and brought order back.
Doing what is necessary to kneecap the Kadyrov Clan would rip that away and open the question of whether he actually won, and possibly even start another Chechen War.
So instead Putin lets “his people”, supposedly “his children” get tortured, persecuted, and murdered for their faith and political preferences by his Foremost Vassal.
But sure Brah, Putin acts like a Real Father Figure, a Daddy. Because what Daddy doesn’t allow his favorite employee to periodically go into his house and rape his daughter in their bed as a reward for such a good job?
On the whole agreed, but note: Change the name to Putin, and how similar would it really be?
Honestly, Putin and “The Big Guy” are far more similar than the author of this drek wishes to position, with the exception being that Putin was and is generally more competent and still in control of his faculties. Which is both good and bad for him. Good in the sense that he hasn’t become puppeteer by anybody except maybe Xi, bad in the sense that he does not have the prospect of a soft landing if and when “he” leaves power.
But beyond that? Corrupt, cranky old men whinging about their stuff and starting drama, who made their fortunes on corruption on a biblical scale and now rule with little respect for the law? People who are shells of what they once were (with Putin in particular being more of one since there was more to him than there was of Biden)?
Yeah. The comparison fits.
Point of order: Biden was already rich and corrupt BEFORE he got into the Ukrainian Money Laundromat in a significant way. So ironically this also fits Putin.
I’d guess a mixture of Susan Rice as overall manager and Obama as Grey Eminence Behind the Throne, accentuated by a power struggle between different camps, particularly those around his wife “Dr” Jill Biden and Vice-President Cu-err, Kamala Harris.
But frankly I don’t know and it isn’t particularly relevant to this discussion, so I’ll skip past this.
Though with a final note. While the POTUS is not meant to be MANAGED per se (which is why the usurpations of Mrs. Wilson was so scandalous- and rightfully so- and FDR clinging to power was sick and pathetic in its own way), at least Biden can be. Putin cannot be, and if you’ve seen the staff turnover in the Russian leadership over the last few months and his increasing temper tantrums you can see how that might be an issue.
Now having dealt with this excerpt, let’s address some of the specific claims in this drek.
This is fucking absurd and infantile projection.
Putin has consistently played a destabilizing role in Ukrainian politics for decades, and his role is far more destabilizing than that of the West by just about any honest measure, going back to support for Yanukovych’s fraudulent victory in 2004 and at least tacit acceptance of the primary suspect of Yuschenko’s attempted murder (with Dioxin).
Because nothing sounds like “correcting” “mischief” than (at a minimum) supporting the poisoning of someone with a WMD and stymying investigation, eh?
Moreover, the entire “Dumpster Fire” in 2014 occurred from a few key points.
Firstly: Putin’s confrontation of Yanukovych (his own man I might add who had delivered much for him), browbeating him into dropping the EU Association Agreement that Yanukovych had won election on in exchange for laughably token concessions. This was the ham-handed thuggery that led to Euromaidan and also robbed Yanukovych of much of the previously enthusiastic support he had from his own party and his Eastern, “Blue” political base.
Secondly: As Euromaidan accelerated and widened, Putin consistently advocated for radical and violent measures against not just the actual rioters but also all protestors, giving diplomatic support for Yanu as he gradually gutted the Ukrainian Constitution. While the thugs he helped train- such as Berkut and other “special Units”- ran riot.
Which did nothing to calm matters and in fact made many of Yanu’s supporters abandon him.
Thirdly: When this confrontation reached a peak and Yanukovych received a summons to appear for his own Rada to answer for his conduct, resulting in some serial thefts and fleeing to Russia followed by the Rada removing him from office, Putin reacted by invading Crimea and the Donbas. And we know he had no legitimate reason for this because he initially lied about doing so.
I have almost nothing good to say about the likes of Biden, Obama, Nuland, or co. But blaming them for starting the :Dumpster Fire” in Ukraine is a fine example of the abuser and abuser enabler projection of the responsibility onto either the victim or third parties.
This is evil shit, and it’s not even convincing evil shit.
Firstly: Ukraine’s suffering a rust belt but it is steadily re-industrializing, especially in the West and Center of the Country. And the war has certainly done nothing to disincentivize it.
Secondly: Why couldn’t Russia show how much it cares for Ukraine by allowing it to do the same? Not retracing all influence or involvement of course, but taking a backseat? After all, if Putin really is a “Daddy” and these are “children”, then a natural part of what a Real Daddy must do at some point- and perhaps the hardest in a hard vocation- is letting go of power. Of taking a backseat to see how your children behave.
But Putin is not a good father, and nation-states are not parents and children as humans are. And above all, Putin had no intention of relinquishing influence or power and indeed does not entirely recognize Ukraine’s independent existence.
Which is why a conflict like this was inevitable.
Ah, do you see the projection again?!?
Firstly: “if we wanted to prevent widespread devastation…we would have promoted peace talks”?
WE DID promote Peace Talks, as shown by the MINSK Accords. And to lesser degrees we still are.
However, I also was conscious during the Minsk Accords and so I saw what a farce they turned out to be, respected and abided by by neither side, particularly Putin’s Russia (which couldn’t even be bothered making sure its military artillery crossed the border before firing on some occasions).
Which brings us to the Second Point: if Minsk failed to end the conflict and devastation, why would we assume that more talks would?
Where is the onus on Putin as the “Daddy” to man up and pursue peace to limit devastation on its own terms, and on terms that the Ukrainians can live by? Zelenskyy certainly agitated for such a settlement. Putin ignored.
And you can see the outline of the abusive parent’s behavior. “Look at what you did AGAIN. You made me angry. You didn’t listen. So I’m going to have to get my belt and whip you again, and it’s your fault. Because I don’t like doing this, but I love you.”
Does that sounds like a “Real Daddy” to you? Does that sound like a “Real Man” to you? There MIGHT be some times when those words are exchanged where it is not abuse but normal discipline, but this is not one of them. Especially not towards an adult child as Putin tacitly accepted Ukraine was when he had his stooges sign things like the Astana Accords recognizing the need for equality in foreign relations.
Once again, one way causation. As if Putin had not tried to do the same in Ukraine and is not using Belarus for much the same reasons?
Just ask the Polacks about that.
This is fucking absurd projection on another level. Because some of us have memories longer than three months, so we KNOW how Putin usually handles his relations, both personal and political.
You think American Soap Opera Drama is bad?
Vladimir Putin’s Government has been engaging in economic and diplomatic conflicts for LONGER THAN MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ALIVE over petty nonsense like oil rates, pipeline access, and so on with Russia’s neighbors. And I’m not just talking about the likes of NATO or longterm rivals like Georgia, but with his own clients like Lukashenko’s Belarusian Government (perhaps the most Pro-Russian Government ON EARTH) and assorted Ukrainian ones, including that of Yanukovych.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-says-any-belarusian-move-cut-gas-flows-risks-hitting-ties-2021-11-13/
Does this sound like the antithesis of the Drama Queen? Does this sound like an adult action, to keep these festering wounds in diplomatic relations open, ready to burst up in yet another comment?
Because that sounds a hell of a lot like Actual Soap Opera Plots and Drama Queens, whether we’re talking about the Honeymooners or Desperate Housewives. On some level it is outright Pitiful, but that is where the situation stands now.
This is fucking delusional on a monumental level, and even the official Kremlin Rhetoric has changed to show it.
The expectations that this would be a quick and overwhelming victory were shattered outside Kyiv at places like Hostomel, where not only did “Daddy Putin” not “cleaning out the place like Gary Cooper” but in fact had his troops clear out all the way to Belarus, losing a massive amount of face in the process. The fact that such a clear-out was probably the mature and correct decision to make in that situation does nothing to mitigate the fact that it was a situation that was caused by an utterly immature plan.
Likewise, progress on the other fronts has been best described as “Glacial” except for a brief eruption in the South that claimed Kherson. The only real victory the Russians have achieved thus far has been the siege of Mariupol and even that isn’t clear it is entirely secured while being behind schedule. Couple that will the pull away from Kharkhiv and it’s clear this is entirely beyond what Putin expected.
Especially after the Ukrainians or someone destroyed the crown jewel of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Funny how that works?
What’s worse, it was a corrupt and bullying one. If even a fraction of the reports that Russian troops did not know they were being sent into Ukraine are true, it’s clear that Putin did not make sure to tell the people he expected to fight and die for Mother Rossiya, Anti-Fascism (awkward given who Medvedev and the Wagner Group are, but ey), the Donbas, or whatever ACTUALLY KNEW they were going to fight for those things. The fact that many of the Russians apparently thought nothing of trying to ENTRENCH IN THE RED FOREST OF CHERNOBYL’S ZONE makes it worse.
Oh, and now we learn that apparently some Russian conscripts were sent into Ukraine illegally, causing a stir? Daddy Putin claims he didn’t know that. But he will find out how that happened. Right away.
Here’s what actually happened.
After a fruitless prior thrashing in which Mother Russia’s Prodigal Son punched the abuser back, “Daddy Putin” came swaggering back in with his belt, happily parading past the Global Village (for lack of a better term even if I have to appropriate some of the She-Beast of Arkansas’s rhetoric) on the way to teach Ukraine a “lesson.” Along with friends like Dimitry Utkin (complete with his Nazi Tattoos), Lukashenko, and so on.
Everyone had seen something like this happen before, and most expected it to end one way. Most looked on in horror, some with encouragement at Daddy’s “discipline” and “strong rule”, some with apathy. While some while also looking did something.
And then as Daddy Putin bashed at the door, he suddenly had it thrown on him, followed by a couple cheap shots.
So suddenly the “disciplinary” process looks like it will be far longer and more painful than “Daddy Putin” expected. What a shock. What a shame.
This is rich considering the battles. It’s also rich considering how it’s about a coin flip whether any given nation sanctioned Russia or if Russia sanctioned it.
Also, it ignores the misery he is inflicting on the Russian people in pursuit of this, given the sanctions. But do they really matter? After all, Daddy Putin must set limits. He must reassert his authority over the “Children”, and damn any social worker or Good Samaritan or the village police trying to stop him.
Superficial. Pathetic. Deluded. Monstrously Evil.
If you want to understand the kind of man Putin is, observe his reaction to the aftermath of the Beslan School Crisis, where he and the government made so few bones about what happened and gave little in the way of apology or atonement for their brutality towards their own people as well as their incompetence in botching what should have been a Hostage Rescue Mission.
I don’t know who James Howard Kunstler is, or if I did I forgot about him. I haven’t read anything else he has written that I can remember, and after this trash I have no desire to. As much as I hate the left, Modern Feminism, and Misandrists, this is a spectacular example of-for lack of a better word- Toxic Masculinity, and so is Putin.
Stuff like this and Beslan show that Putin and the author confuse brutality and cruelty with strength. They also do not recognize that inability to admit things are wrong or take responsibility or acknowledge how things are going (such as the repulses the Russians have suffered around Kyiv and Kharkhiv) are signs of profound Weakness.
But then, most bullies are on some level quite weak. Because they are bullies, they alienate those around them. Those who are often much stronger than the bully realizes, and who might one day join together. And when the bullying is this violent and this lethal, it is the act of a monster.
Turtler: “But yes, Yevno Azev is a terrifying and fascinating figure. Certainly one of the best double agents of all time and a great rogue. Well worth studying.”
Azev reputedly was the model for the agent provocateur Lippanchenko in Andrei Bely’s 1913 novel “Petersburg” and the revolutionary terrorist Necator in Joseph Conrad’s 1912 novel “Under Western Eyes”. Both novels provide insight into the Russian penchant for paranoid conspiracy-mongering, grandiose theorizing, ruthless violence, and betrayal.
A fascinating example of a revolutionary who worked for the Okhrana was Sergei Zubatov, the inventor of “police socialism”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Zubatov
Zubatov began his career with the Russian secret police as an informant but soon became an administrator. As a former revolutionary, he was a skilled and persuasive interrogator who favored persuasion and co-optation over coercion. A committed monarchist, he committed suicide after the February 1917 revolution. Some of his innovations anticipated the CIA’s cultivation of left-wing trade unions in Europe in the early years of the Cold War.
Hubert:
OT. A girlfriend read Paustovsky’s “Story of a Life” when we lived together and recommended it to me highly. It was long and I didn’t get to to it.
Did I miss a good book?
Huxley:
Sorry, haven’t read that book. It sounds interesting. One more thing for the retirement reading list.
If you’re looking for something shorter in a similar vein, I can recommend Mikhail Zoshchenko’s “Before Sunrise” (1943). It’s a psychological autobiography.
In my view, the best Russian-language novel of the 20th century is Vladimir Nabokov’s “The Gift” (originally published in serial form in Paris in 1938; re-issued in a complete edition by the Chekhov Press in NYC in 1952):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_(Nabokov_novel)
Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” (completed in 1940, but not published until 1967) is also a great read. Very popular in Russia.
Hubert:
Thanks for the response.
I just purchased Nabokov’s “The Gift” from Audible on your say-so and listened enough to wonder if it were Nabokov speaking straight or from a metafiction narrative device!
I would like to get into Nabokov, but “Lolita” blew me so far out of the water I wasn’t sure where to start again.
Geoffrey Britain:
Plenty of argument has refuted nearly everything you’ve written on the subject of Russia vs. Ukraine, as well as analogies to the Cuban missile crisis, and you either haven’t read that argument or haven’t understood it.
“… and after this trash I have no desire to.”
One may well sympathize….
In which case, better not read this either:
“The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power”—
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/vladimir-putin-1999-russian-apartment-house-bombings-was-putin-responsible/
Related:
“After fending off Russian troops in Kyiv, these Ukrainian special forces members are processing horrors and appealing for weapons”—
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/04/23/after-fending-off-russian-troops-in-kyiv-these-ukrainian-special-forces-members-are-processing-horrors-and-appealing-for-weapons/
Key phrase:
“…as if they expected there would be no resistance at all…”
File under: “…Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood…”
Huxley:
“The Gift” is kind of a heavy lift. If you want to give Nabokov another try, go with “Pnin” (1957). It’s a portrait of a Russian emigre professor at a large American university that resembles Cornell, where Nabokov was teaching at the time. Brief, accessible, and surprisingly serious, with the tragedies in Pnin’s life surfacing from beneath the narrator’s layer of condescending humor. No nymphets.
On the topic of this thread: I guess I qualify as a russophile, at least as far as Russian literature is concerned. I never considered living there, however. To put it bluntly, I’d had enough of Russia and Russians when I got out of the Russia business thirty years ago. Furthermore, I very much hope Ukraine prevails in the current conflict. Which is why it concerns me that the Globe and Mail article that Barry linked to above (via Blazing Cat Fur) suggests that the fighting in the Donbas is taking place on Russia’s terms. Not good. I recall local commenter MKent sounding some prescient warnings about Russia’s military resilience back in late February-early March. Some commenters have compared the Russian invasion of Ukraine with the Soviet Union’s invasion of Finland in 1939-1940. Indeed, I was one of them. What I neglected to say was that the Soviet Union eventually succeeded in grabbing a chunk of Finnish territory despite a disastrous series of very costly early defeats. The same thing could happen in Ukraine. It is true that Col. MacGregor has been wrong about the course of the war so far. Let’s hope he continues to be wrong.
Hubert.
Two items: I have a relation who lived and studied in Russia within the last decade. He liked his immediate circle of friends and such of their families as he got to know. But of Russian society in general, the idea these people have nukes is nuts.
The Sovs had a very hard time beating the Finns. The analogy today would be spending a substantial amount of military capital–and social and international–to grab chunks of Ukraine without Lend Lease coming in the back door. And other potential victims are not doing the appeasement thing. See Sowell on Intellectuals and War. They’re out there but nobody’s listening this time.
They grabbed a sizable chunk of Eastern Finland (Karelia).
They grabbed a chunk of Eastern Estonia (not as large a chunk but then Estonia’s not that big).
More recently they grabbed a chunk of Georgia (or two chunks if you count Abkhazia… though from what I understand, the Abkhazis are currently not all that thrilled about the way THAT’s been turning out….while “South Ossetia” keeps getting bigger, a few meters at a time…)
Even more recently, we see what’s happened to the Russian appetite vis-a-vis Ukraine (even if one MIGHT make the claim that with regard to the Crimea, the Russians are “only” reclaiming what Khrushchev gifted the Ukrainian SSR in 1954.
Hmmm. Seems to be a pattern here….
(The Japanese also have their “issues” with Russia’s appetite…but somehow I’m a lot less sympathetic about that one even if at this point I’d like to see it resolved in Japan’s favor…. Of course that’ll NEVER happen…though “never” IS a long time….)
Ian McCollum of Forgottenweapons.com (aka gunJesus) had very recent YouTube episode about the Winter War (Finland vs USSR) and the current Roosian war against Ukraine. He usually doesn’t do history, but it was very good IMO. Finland lost territory but a truce resulted with the USSR. The Continuation War followed. Post 1945 was a period of Finlandization, where Finland, although a soveriegn nation, had to be particularly careful about the feelings of USSR IIRC. Finland considering joining NATO is quite the rebuke to Vlad. That bloody murderous bastard.