US, NATO, Russia, and the Ukraine - the missing pieces, lessons

It is important to begin by denouncing the current Russian military action in Ukraine, and clearly state the fact that it is a major war crime. A crime with many innocent victims. These people must be the main focus of our immediate actions. They should be helped in all the ways possible. With particular focus on cessation of hostilities as soon as possible and the pursuit of a diplomatic solution.

Though the Ukraine crisis is new, urgent, and potentially catastrophic for the entire species, we must not forget other victims of great concentration of power. We cannot forget Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, Venezuela, overpriced drugs victims, opioid peddling victims, murderous patent laws victims, toxic pollution victims, climate-crisis fueled starvation and immigration, and all the other locations and ways the 99% unnecessarily suffer and die under the yoke of the “inordinate desire for more power and money” of the 1%.

While helping with the needs of those afflicted by the war, we must seek to understand the roots of the current situation in order to better shape the response to it and avoid similar developments in the future, if - and it is a serious question - there is to be one.

Let’s begin.

Two brotherly nations with deep historic and economic ties are at war.

Why?

A brief overview of what binds Russia and Ukraine, as well as people’s attitudes towards each other is in order.

Both Ukraine and Russia (Belarus as well) derive the roots of their nationhood from the Kievan Rus Federation, a state that existed from IX to the XIII century when Mongols destroyed it, causing the Rus to flee north and form the Grand Duchy of Moscovy which later became the Russian Empire and then USSR.

Founding leader of the Kievan Rus was Rurik, a Viking, not a Slav (as most Russians and Ukrainians are), though Slavs were a majority of the population. Today’s Ukraine has then been dominated by many different nations: Vikings, Mongols, Lithuanians, Russians, Poles, Austrians and others.

An independent Ukrainian state wasn’t formed until the fall of USSR in 1991, following the creation of the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic (as a part of the USSR) by Lenin in 1917. Borders of modern-day Ukraine are a consequence of a series of additions by Russian Tsars and USSR leaders over the centuries, and as recently as 1954 when Crimea was “transferred” from Russia to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev.

As for the ethnic makeup of the population, 78% identify as ethnic Ukrainians, and around 18% as ethnic Russians. Almost everyone speaks both languages.

Given such brief history of statehood, and Putin’s passing comment to GW Bush that “Ukraine is not a country”, it is important to see how the people themselves actually feel about it.

Though great majority identifies as Ukrainians, there isn’t a firm, shared meaning of a national identity. Rough geographic split is between the Ukrainian speaking Catholic/Orthodox west that favors closer relations with the EU (with whom they identify more), Russian speaking Orthodox east and south favoring ties with Russia (with whom they identify), and a more-less divided middle of the country (All this is pre-February 23 attack).

Social Psychologist, Karina Korostelina (Korostelina 2014), highlights the absence of a unified national identity and discerns five distinct versions – 2 among the Russia leaning population, and 3 among the Europe leaning portion. They are: 1) Dual Identity, 2) Pro-Soviet attitudes; and, 3) The fight for Ukrainian identity, 4) Recognition of Ukrainian identity, and 5) Multicultural-civic identity.

I’ve included some of the details so we can fully appreciate the complexity of how Ukrainians perceive their own history and national identity.

Among those who identify more as a part of Europe, prevailing narratives were:

Fight for Ukrainian Ethnic Identity Narrative – “The representatives of this narrative believe that Ukraine has survived as a nation, escaping and recovering from past slavery, and emerged like a Phoenix rising from the ashes. As one respondent states, “For a thousand years our nation was colonized, discriminated, threatened, Russified, but it survived. Its success is due to liberal cultural nationalism. This narrative states that the Ukrainian nation should be formed with a distinctly Ukrainian core.”, “democracy should be developed explicitly based on Ukrainian ethnic history and identity; Russian identity should be repudiated as it rests on violence by the state…”

Recognition of Ukrainian Ethnic Identity Narrative – “Ukraine… a peaceful, free society not dependent on power, patronage, or totalitarian ideology, all of which highlights the importance of preserving its difference from Russia. National identity should be based on Ukrainian traditions and the unity of Ukrainian history, language, and culture; it should integrate minorities into its national identity… Some acknowledge that the opposition between the West and the East of Ukraine is induced and financed by Russia and its imperial ambitions… Ukraine is not inferior to Europe.” However, “as one respondent states: ‘We cannot deny that Ukraine became a modern state as the Ukrainian SSR’.”

[Western state-corporate (statecor) media serves us almost exclusively a combination of these two narratives, and applies them to whole of Ukraine. We should also remind ourselves that statecor media in the US represents the views of the 1%. Just like what we here call ‘state media’ represents the ruling echelon in say, China, Russia or Iran. The two should therefore be viewed as indistinguishable.]

Multicultural Civic Narrative – “According to these respondents, Ukraine is a multicultural society without a common national identity that unites all ethnic groups as coequal members of the nation… The narrative does not emphasize the divide… They believe that all people who lived in the territory… have contributed to Ukrainian identity.”

Among those who identify more with Russia:

Dual Identity Narrative – “According to this narrative, the major source of pride for Ukraine is the prominent spirituality of the people and their orientation toward higher values. As one respondent emphasized, “At the center of Ukraine is a historic core of Rus’ identity, considered to be a sacred center of Eastern Slavic civilization; thus, Ukraine is the modern successor of the Rus’.”…  This narrative notes that it is important to preserve Russian culture in Ukraine because it embodies Ukrainian culture uniquely and is different from Russian culture in Russia… “Both ethnic groups are equal, we are a common nation with two ethnic groups, neither better or worse.”

Pro-Soviet Narrative – “the sources of pride are rooted in the cultural values and history of Ukraine, including Kievan Rus’… the allied victory in the Great Patriotic War {WWII}, and the technological achievements of Soviet Ukraine (e.g., airplanes, rockets, science). Respondents stress that Ukrainian society represents a unity of different social realities: Soviet, European, Russian, Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar, Hungarian, Jewish, etc.”

The latter three identities are almost entirely absent from the 1%-statecor media as a description of Ukrainians.

Fragmented national identity is a consequence of the failure of post-independence governments in establishing a strong one, as well as the incessant struggle for power among Ukraine’s oligarchs with their shifting alliances and narratives of what it means to be Ukrainian (Zhurzhenko 2014). Motivated by personal gain, they started intensely exploiting these and similar social fissures among Ukrainians at the turn of the century. Adding to the fragmentation, in the background of it all, was the struggle between two super-powers, Russia and the US, who each supported their own set of economic and political players in the country.

All this is to say that the picture is much more complex than what the 1%-statecor is painting. Something to the tune “All of Ukraine hates Russia and just wants to be left alone in joining the EU”. Under the same narrative, residents of the Russian-leaning eastern region of Donbas don’t qualify as Ukrainian, but are simply “Russia-backed separatists”.

In reality, Ukraine is a split country engulfed in a tragic civil war in the ethnic-Russian majority, eastern separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk (collectively, Donbas) since 2014.

Be that as it may, there is one thing that does seem to unify Ukrainians – the desire for peace and cooperation in the region. High on the list of priorities are also the need to end corruption and the desire for economic prosperity. Picking sides between East and West constantly ranked very low. At least that was the case before February 23rd. Here’s what the people themselves told us about what they consider important and what they would like the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine to be (we can expect Donbas to be even more prominently positioned since residents of the separatist enclaves weren’t a part of the query). The polls also include Russian public opinion towards Ukraine.

Clearly, not much appetite for war among Ukrainians and Russians.

What about the leadership?

Vladimir Putin has recently written on the subject. On July 12, 2021 he wrote a lengthy piece titled “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians”.

“During the recent Direct Line, when I was asked about Russian-Ukrainian relations, I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole. These words were not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context. It is what I have said on numerous occasions and what I firmly believe”, “Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe.”, ”Bound together by one language (which we now refer to as Old Russian), economic ties, the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty, and – after the baptism of Rus – the Orthodox faith.”

Kiev does have a special place in Russian national identity, and is often called “the mother of all Russian cities”, a phrase used by Putin himself in a speech in front of Duma (Parliament) after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Whether honestly motivated by the belief that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people”, or because of Ukraine’s geopolitical significance for Russian security, or a combination, Putin did make significant overtures over the years, indicating at least a modicum of honesty. For example, In 2014, when Ukraine was facing imminent default on its national debt, both EU and Russia offered an economic package to Kiev. EU was willing to immediately commit $839 million, and the IMF $5 billion (potentially up to $19 billion in the long term), with the usual austerity strings attached, such as raising retirement age, freezing pensions and wages, privatization, etc. Putin offered $15 billion, and about a 30% reduction in what Russia charged Ukraine for gas. Given the massive disparity between EU’s and Russia’s GDPs, which is more than 10 times larger ($16 trillion vs $1.5 trillion), it is clear how important Ukraine is from Kremlin’s perspective (or not as much from EU/IMF’s).

Another poignant example was in 2021, after NATO’s (read US’) withdrawal from Afghanistan, when 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers were abandoned by allied forces. Ukrainian government appealed to Russia for help. Russians airlifted them to safety. This despite the fact that Russian and Ukrainian soldiers were, at the time, involved in a simmering conflict in the Donbas, in which 14,000 people lost their lives.

As for Putin’s counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian with no political experience who was elected as a major repudiation of the corrupt political class in Ukraine - Zelensky won in a landslide  (73.22%) in 2019 on an anti-corruption, economic stabilization, peace-seeking platform. Upon victory, Zelensky announced peace and eliminating corruption were the two primary goals: “Our main priorities - and I repeat this for every Ukrainian - are to end the war {in the Donbas}, return our prisoners and defeat the corruption that persists in Ukraine". There are reports he did initially move in that direction.

Therefore, it appears that at least until recently, the leaders also didn’t have much appetite for conflict but were looking for some sort of peaceful cooperation, or at least coexistence.

How, then, did we end up with a war that is clearly devastating for both sides? Understanding takes an in-depth look.

The story goes back to 1991 and the disintegration of USSR. Russia and Ukraine became independent states. Both looking out west for help with restructuring their economies following German and American models. At least they hoped so. However, that wasn’t to be. They were subjected to the neoliberal “shock therapy” privatization led by the “Harvard Boys”, led by Jeffrey Sachs and Larry Summers (Russians refer to it as “grabitization”). An intervention some view as more radical than the one implemented in Chile in 1975 by the infamous “Chicago Boys”. Similarly to Chile, the “therapy” wrecked the economy, created an astronomically wealthy elite (oligarchs), opened Russia and Ukraine to exploitation by western corporations and capital, and impoverished the population which become cheap labor to be employed in now-private enterprises.

Russia managed to stabilize the economy with the arrival of Putin in 1999, who compared the US-led shock therapy to WWII Nazi invasion. In the words of the economist, Michael Hudson: “What is responsible for the increasing death rates is neoliberal economic policy, neoliberal trade policy, and the polarization and impoverishment of a large part of society. After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, death rates soared, lifespans shortened, health standards decreased all throughout the Yeltsin administration, until finally President Putin came in and stabilized matters. Putin said that the destruction caused by neoliberal economic policies had killed more Russians than all of whom died in World War II, the 22 million people.”

Ukraine, on the other hand, continued its downfall and is now (before the war) the poorest country in Europe, with decreasing population and rampant corruption among the ruling class. It’s GDP is still lower than during Soviet times.

The main difference is that Russia managed to escape the grip of the West.

Nineties were both the peak of immiseration of the Russian population and the peak of friendly relations between the West and Russia. Boris Yeltsin was “our man”, whose election we bought in 1996 as a reward for a job well done in implementing grabitization. Putin’s reversal of the trend and the pursuit of an independent economic and political paths is his biggest sin in the eyes of the West. Just the same as it is for Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, China, and other official enemies.

While Russia wrestled away, US/EU influence in Ukraine has only grown stronger since the 90s. According to Victoria Nuland, the current Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, and one of the main architects of US’ Ukraine policy, US spent $5 billion since Ukrainian independence on “democracy promotion”.

Democracy promotion. Of course, nothing to do with actual democracy. What it practically means is heavy influence over the social, economic and political scenes of the target country via financing NGOs, grooming of new “leaders”, financing and collusion with pliant politicians and economic elites, control over the media, and the  promotion of “free market” ideology, with austerity prominently featured. Cuts in pensions, health care, education, subsidies for fuel, etc. All usually done via IMF/WB loans, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), US Agency for International Development (USAID), [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5], etc. - to name some of the most prominent mediums. Grabitization and hegemony, of course, being the ultimate goals.

As previously mentioned, Russia managed to largely rid itself of these devices [6, 7,] (Though it has its own indigenous kleptocracy).

To be sure, as it got stronger economically and militarily, there were increasing efforts by Russia itself to sway the economic/political/social scenes in Ukraine, but those have lost out to the West (read US) in recent years.

The two opposing forces came to a head for the first time in 2004 and the Orange Revolution, when a Russian backed presidential candidate, Victor Yanukovych, got his electoral victory denied by a US orchestrated uprising. A typical “color revolution” enacted in Serbia and Georgia just a few years prior. “The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections” evaluated Ian Traynor of The Guardian in November of 2004. The latest version of a well-known US practice of overthrowing disobedient governments.

The back-and-forth struggle continued more-less along the same lines.

Then came 2013 and, as mentioned previously, the possibility of Ukraine defaulting on its national debt and the competing economic packages of Russia and the EU designed to avoid the default and establish themselves as the dominant influence in the country. With the Russian package palpably more attractive in itself, though both had strings attached. Isolation threats were coming from both sides in case their offer was rejected.

Majority of Ukrainians wanted EU integration. Though, importantly, not absolute majority. A tough choice for the leadership. As Ukraine’s permanent representative to NATO, Roman Oliynyk explained commenting on the small EU/IMF offer: “We could not contain our emotions, it was unacceptable”. As for the much-wanted EU membership: “Many citizens have got it wrong on European integration. It is not about membership, we are apparently not Poland, apparently we are not on a level with Poland ... they are not letting us in really, we will be standing at the doors. We’re nice but we’re not Poles,”. Then he poignantly explained options in front of the Ukrainian leadership, “Ukraine is at a crossroads and there’s a huge boulder there. We go one way to Russia and we get hit. We go the other way, to Europe, and we get hit. We stand still, and we get hit”.

After initially appearing to side with the West, oligarch president Yanukovych made a U-turn and decided to sign the deal with Russia. Spontaneous popular protest erupted on November 21, 2013 at Kiev’s Maidan square, and then spread to other parts of the country.

These events mark a turning point in the shift of balance of influence in Ukrainian politics between Russia and the US, and have particularly irked Kremlin. Thus, they deserve a detailed analysis.

Protests were about to peter out when the president sent the Berkut (brutal riot police, much disliked among Ukrainians) to attack the peaceful crowd. This only re-ignited the uprising (Ritter 2017). Taking advantage of the situation, Neo-Nazi groups, in collusion with the CIA took things to a new level by escalating violence. Increasing evidence points to the far-right/CIA nexus being responsible for the sniper shootings which killed over 100 protesters and police. As Branko Marcetic puts it, “What was meant to be a revolution for democracy and liberal values ended up featuring ultranationalist chants from the 1930s and prominent displays of fascist and white supremacist symbols, including the American Confederate flag. The far right, of course, cared nothing for democracy, nor did it have any love for the EU. Instead, the popular uprising was an opportunity.”

An opportunity they took advantage of. For example, “Andriy Parubiy, the unofficial “commander of Maidan,” founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine — a barely even winking allusion to Nazism — that later became Svoboda.” Parubiy became a member of the parliament, and in 2016 it’s speaker. More on the increasing far-right influence after Maidan to follow.

A subsequent EU inquiry discovered that the same shooter was indeed responsible for the deaths of both the police and protesters; it also concluded that the events constituted an opposition orchestrated coup. However, at the time, the government was quickly blamed for the killings and Yanukovych was forced to agree to new elections. Not satisfied with the outcome, a day later, Neo-Nazi led mob stormed the presidential palace, forcing him and the members of his party to flee to Moscow. What remained of the parliament then voted in an interim government. Figures hand-picked by the US entered leadership – such as Arseniy Yatseniuk, who became the prime minister -  as an intercepted call between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador, revealed.

As an immediate response to the ouster of their political allies in Ukraine and the takeover by a US-backed government, Russian forces stationed in their only warm water naval base in the Russian-majority Crimea, took control of the peninsula. What followed was a referendum in which 95% of Crimeans voted to join Russia. Though No victims, no uprising. Eastern Ukrainian provinces with majority ethnic Russians, Donetsk and Luhansk (Donbas) declared independence.

The government soon sent in the army, led by the newly formed National Guard, which incorporated and legitimated Neo-Nazi groups, such as the infamous Aidar and Azov Battalions, to fight the secessionists. Quietly and with unmarked uniforms, Russia sent in its own troops on the side of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR/LPR). There’s been a simmering armed conflict in the Donbas ever since (with roughly 14,000 casualties).

Since 2014, the new US/EU backed government in Kiev has passed a series of anti-Russia laws. It banned Russian as an official language, removed statues of heroes of WWII, and raised monuments to Nazi collaborators, who assisted in killing 1.2-1.6 million Jews during the war, led by the infamous Stepan Bandera. Torch-lit rallies with “Jews out!” chants are a regular occurrence, and are ignored or even supported by state security. Their attitudes in the open. Azov Battalion’s founder, Andriy Biletsky, sees Ukraine’s purpose as: “[to] lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior races]”.

Western 1%-statecor media’s answer to the obvious Neo-Nazi presence and increasing influence in Ukraine is that it isn’t possible since president Zelensky is Jewish. As if that is an iron-clad, self-explanatory argument.

Zelensky himself explained how it is possible: “To some Ukrainians, [Nazi collaborator] Bandera is a hero, and that’s cool!”. After all, discarding some principles is ok in order to retain power and privilege. And we know Zelensky appreciates those. He was prominently featured in the Pandora Papers revelations on tax-haven shielded money (so, too, was Putin in Panama Papers). As for his election promises of fighting corruption, fixing the economy, and settling the Donbas issue peacefully, his approval rating dropped to 28%, from the landslide electoral victory (though it surged again after the Russian attack on February 23rd).

While indeed a minority, Neo-Nazis do occupy some high positions in government, and are especially influential in security forces and the military. For example, as Consortium News reports “In 2015, Dmytro Yarosh, then leader of the far-right Right Sector party, was appointed a military adviser to Colonel General Viktor Muzhenko, then Ukraine’s chief of general staff. Yarosh is commander of Right Sector’s paramilitary branch, the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, which never came under government control… Yarosh calls himself a follower of Stepan Bandera”. Andriy Parubiy, an outspoken Neo-Nazi, became speaker of the parliament in 2016, as already noted.

Their influence is substantial on the streets and on the frontlines, particularly in the Donbas. A serious threat. In 2014, for example, they set on fire a trade union building in which pro-federation (between Donbas and Ukraine) activists gathered, killing 42.

What else of US’ reaction towards “nazification” of Ukraine? Is it possible the US doesn’t know?

US and Ukraine are the only two nations to repeatedly vote against a UN resolution that condemns “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism”.

US officials have been seen in public with neo-Nazis. For example, Biden met publicly with Oleg Tyahnybok, head of the Freedom Party, “a man who had previously called for a war on the ‘Muscovite-Jewish mafia’ and on the ‘Jewish oligarchs’ who control Ukraine.’’ Late senator John McCain and Victorian Nuland, were seen on stage in 2014, during the Maidan protests, next to Tyhnybok. Perhaps not surprising given his and US’ history of collaborating with far-right forces who are ideal for population control. Throughout his life McCain vocally supported the mujahedeen, Central American death-squads, and was a member of at least one Neo-Nazi organization. As Max Blumenthal explained: “…in the mid-1980s he had joined the advisory board of the United States Council for World Freedom, the American affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Geoffrey Stewart-Smith, a former leader of WACL’s British chapter who had turned against the group in 1974, described the organization as “a collection of Nazis, fascists, anti-Semites, sellers of forgeries, vicious racialists, and corrupt self-seekers. It has evolved into an anti-Semitic international.” Joining McCain in the organization were notables such as Jaroslav Stetsko, the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator who helped oversee the extermination of 7,000 Jews in 1941; the brutal Argentinian former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla; and Guatemalan death squad leader Mario Sandoval Alarcon.”

Implicitly recognizing the issue, the US has technically banned its military aid to Ukraine from getting into Neo-Nazi hands, but without an enforcement mechanism. Top ranked senators don’t seem to care. After, Bob Menendez (D-NJ), introduced a $500 million military aid legislation that doesn’t have a way of ensuring Neo-Nazis don’t get the weapons, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Europe and regional security cooperation vocalized the prevailing sentiment: “I’m not considering any of that right now”. In other words, we know they’re there, however, Nazis are fine, as long as they serve our goals.

Apparently the same attitude as when the CIA financed, trained, and armed the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the 80s to fight USSR. Whose ranks joined one Osama Bin Laden.

Again, not surprising if we remind ourselves that the US government had been supporting Ukrainian Nazi collaborators within USSR since the 50s. Or if we remember that American corporations have been working with Hitler’s Germany right up to WWII (some even till 1942). With, for example, IBM’s “pivotal role in the Holocaust -- all six phases: identification, expulsion from society, confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and even extermination.”

US government resumed collaboration with the extreme far right immediately after the war by recruiting Nazis for its own purposes. Chiefly for advancing science for its own military improvement and the defeat of popular-led mass movements in Europe, as well as the restoration of the conservative order [8, 9, 10, 11, ].

Cease-fire negotiations

Therefore, with the Ukrainian government under heavy western influence, notable far-right influence, Crimea annexed by Russia, and a simmering conflict in the Donbas, cease-fire negotiations began in Minsk, the Belarusian capital.

The result was, first the Minsk Protocols, then the 2015 Minsk II Agreement, signed by Russia, Ukraine, the separatist republics of Luhansk and Donetsk (LPR and DPR), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, mediated by Germany, and France. Main points were:

–         an immediate bilateral ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic forces;

–         the withdrawal of heavy weapons from a 30-kilometer-wide buffer zone along the line of control between government and separatist forces;

–         elections in the secessionist Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People’s Republics, to be monitored by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe); and

–         constitutional reforms to grant greater autonomy to the separatist-held areas within a reunified but less centralized Ukraine

After years of back and forth on how to interpret and enact Minsk II, and violations of cease-fire on both sides (with US supporting such state of things), the plan failed to materialize. In the meantime, the US kept supplying Ukraine with weapons (including Minsk II-banned heavy artillery which they then used in the Donbas) which added up to $2.5 billion for the period from 2014 up to February 23rd Russian attack. (Since February 23rd, US/EU pledged a lot more lethal aid. US alone recently approved a $13.6 billion aid package for Ukraine, that includes weapons, and a separate $800 million purely military package).

All that lethal aid lacking, as previously mentioned, a mechanism to prevent it from falling into neo-Nazi hands. And, to remind ourselves, it is exactly such groups that dominated the frontlines in the Donbas (and still do as of this writing).

Not only a non-issue in Washington and London, moreover, US (CIA) [1, 2] and UK, have been training Ukrainian armed forces that include Neo-Nazis. The same is true for Eric Prince’s Academi (formerly Blackwater), and other mercenaries who also joined their trainees on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine, shooting at ethnic Russians. There are reports that white supremacists from other countries, including the US, freely join the training and fighting; as well as of thriving “human safari” tourism in the Donbas.

The conflict so festered until 2021.

With the flow of weapons continuing from the West, cease-fire violations multiplying, accompanied by an increasingly belligerent rhetoric on both sides (Zelensky even said Ukraine plans to take Crimea back, with the Kremlin immediately condemning the comment as a “direct threat”) - Moscow escalated things by amassing around 80,000 troops near Ukrainian borders in the spring of 2021, sent some home, and then re-amassed roughly 150,000 in December. This time accompanied by a list of demands via proposed treaty directed at the west, primarily the US. The message was – enough is enough.

Russians wanted “legal guarantees” for their security.

Proposed treaty’s main items were: NATO removing troops and weapons from countries that entered the alliance after May 27, 1997 (Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Balkan countries), no further NATO expansion, no military drills near each other’s borders without previous agreement in: Ukraine, eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia; as well as the removal of all short and mid-range nuclear capable missiles on both sides.

Russian demands got refused out of hand as non-starters and “unacceptable”.

However, Intense diplomatic efforts ensued. Most experts agreed that Putin hadn’t made up his mind on military action. Then suddenly and to the surprise of many (some claim likely due to Zelensky announcing at the Munich Security Conference that Ukraine would pursue obtaining nuclear weapons) Putin first recognized DPR and LPR as independent states, and then ordered the “special military operation”, to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine. The war begun.

Western 1%-statecor media, led by the White House, are full of sharp denunciations of Russian sudden, criminal, and “unprovoked” attack. Sudden and criminal it certainly is. What of unprovoked?

Let’s recap a bit.

Ouster of the main Russia-oriented force from Ukrainian politics, de-Russification under western-backed governments since 2014, unresolved, intensifying conflict in majority-Russian Donbas where its army is involved, and increasing Neo-Nazi influence, especially on the frontline in Donbas, hardly qualifies as unprovocative from Moscow’s stand point. It would be so for any government.

Threatening, but worth a devastating war? What do we make of “security issues” claimed by the Kremlin?

A good place to start would be by listening.

Due to the fact that 1%-statecor allows it little space or is simply discounts it as propaganda, and because of its importance for understanding the conflict, I’ve included a lengthy quote from Putin’s address as he ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on February 23rd, listing the security threats and explaining some of his reasoning for military action.

“I spoke about our biggest concerns and worries, and about the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year. I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.”, “It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns.”,” Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It {Ukraine} merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy.”,” For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.”, ”This brings me to the situation in Donbass. We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014 have seized power, are keeping it with the help of ornamental election procedures and have abandoned the path of a peaceful conflict settlement. For eight years, for eight endless years we have been doing everything possible to settle the situation by peaceful political means. Everything was in vain.”, “Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine, those who will never forgive the people of Crimea and Sevastopol for freely making a choice to reunite with Russia. They will undoubtedly try to bring war to Crimea just as they have done in Donbass”, “If we look at the sequence of events and the incoming reports, the showdown between Russia and these forces cannot be avoided. It is only a matter of time. They are getting ready and waiting for the right moment. Moreover, they went as far as aspire to acquire nuclear weapons. We will not let this happen.”. “The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine”, “It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory.”, “In this context I would like to address the citizens of Ukraine. In 2014, Russia was obliged to protect the people of Crimea and Sevastopol from those who you yourself call “nats.”, “ The current events have nothing to do with a desire to infringe on the interests of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. They are connected with the defending Russia from those who have taken Ukraine hostage and are trying to use it against our country and our people.”, “Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people.”

Though some of the claims are surely inflated for the purpose of justifying the invasion, such as the influence of the “nats” who “seiz[ed] power”, however, these are not words of a raving lunatic, as Putin has been presented in the West. Nothing like, for example, GW Bush’s reference to the bible in his phone call to then France’s president Chirac in which he invoked an obscure passage about “Gog and Magog” as justification for the Iraq invasion, while trying to enlist France to join. Or, as he a few years later explained his continuous divine instructions in a conversation with a Palestinian diplomat: “‘I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did."… “And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it.".

Back to Russia’s claimed security threats.

What about the “fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia”, namely “the eastward expansion of NATO”? Is madman Putin looking for a pretext in order to justify engaging in some sort of imperial project to revive USSR, as the 1%-statecor is telling us?

It is a fact that US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM, in 2001) and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces  Treaty (INF, in 2019) which were the backbone of the European security architecture. Additionally, NATO placed Aegis Ashore, and Mk 41 launchers compatible with nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles in Poland and Romania. A move particularly threatening to Moscow, and in violation of the now-defunct INF.

That being so, let’s see what other Russian and Soviet politicians, some of whom highly regarded in the west, had to say on the subject of NATO’s eastward expansion.

Last USSR leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, was certainly concerned about it when he agreed to allow German reunification in 1990. He was promised by then US Secretary of State, James Baker, that there wouldn’t be “one inch to the east” of such a thing. In 1992, Russian foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev, warned the west about ignoring Russian vital interests. In the words of Russia expert, Anatol Lieven: “Andrei Kozyrev was the most liberal and pro-Western foreign minister Russia has ever had. As he stated in his speech, his anxiety about Western behavior was rooted in fear that the resulting backlash would destroy liberalism in Russia and Russian co-operation with the West. He was proved right as we see today.” Lieven also explains that our man Boris Yeltsin’s government, also strongly protested against NATO expansion in the 90s.

Once taking over, Putin continued the trend. To remove the danger, he offered Bill Clinton for Russia to join NATO in 2000, but was rebuffed. Things then gradually deteriorated with the alliance accepting more eastern European countries and moving offensive weapons ever closer to Moscow’s door. Putin’s Munich Security Conference speech in 2007 is especially noteworthy because for the first time he explicitly, in public, warned of the danger of further NATO expansion and how Russia perceives it. He has repeated the message on numerous occasions since.

“This universal, indivisible character of security is expressed as the basic principle that “security for one is security for all”, “I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world… Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems.”, “One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way.”, “It turns out that NATO has put its frontline forces on our borders, and we continue to strictly fulfil the treaty obligations and do not react to these actions at all. I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? {my italics} And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.”

As an immediate response to Putin’s warning, US backed the membership of Ukraine and Georgia in 2008.

So much for the Russians. Perhaps they’re overreacting? What are our experts saying?

Beginning with the foremost Russia expert, the former ambassador to USSR, George Kennan, chief architect of the strategy of “containment” of USSR which resulted in the Cold War. When asked in 1998 about the expansion of NATO he said: “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are—but this is just wrong.”.

Jack Matlock another former US USSR ambassador recently wrote a piece in which he reminded us: “In 1997, when the question of adding more members to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization arose, I was asked to testify before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In my introductory remarks, I made the following statement: “I consider the Administration’s recommendation to take new members into NATO at this time misguided. If it should be approved by the United States Senate, it may well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. ‘Far from improving the security of the United States, its Allies, and the nations that wish to enter the Alliance, it could well encourage a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat to this nation since the Soviet Union collapsed.’” , “’No one is threatening to re-divide Europe. It is therefore absurd to claim, as some have, that it is necessary to take new members into NATO to avoid a future division of Europe; if NATO is to be the principal instrument for unifying the continent, then logically the only way it can do so is by expanding to include all European countries {as Putin proposed to Clinton}. ‘But that does not appear to be the aim of the Administration…’”.

Famous political scientist, John Mearsheimer is quite straightforward: “I think the evidence is clear that we did not think he {Putin} was an aggressor before February 22, 2014. This is a story that we invented so that we could blame him. My argument is that the West, especially the United States, is principally responsible for this disaster. {war in Ukraine}”

Henry Kissinger, voiced similar concerns in 2014: “’Ukraine should not join NATO.’, ’Treating Ukraine as part of an East-West confrontation would negate any prospect of bringing Russia and the West — particularly Russia and Europe — into a cooperative international system for decades to come.’”

Highly regarded Russia scholar, Stephen Cohen warned: “If we move NATO troops to Russia’s borders, that will obviously militarize the situation, but Russia will not back down. The issue is existential”.

In 2008, the then ambassador to Moscow, William Burns, now the CIA director, cautioned at the time when Bush II administration backed Ukraine’s and Georgia’s NATO membership: “Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.”

Similar warnings came over the years from: Defense Secretaries William Perry, Robert McNamara, and Bob Gates, journalist Vladimir Pozner, Australian PMs, Malcolm Fraser and Paul Keating, Dmitriy Trenin, and scores of other hardly radical figures.

We should also point out that though Ukraine hasn’t been officially admitted to NATO, since 2014, it has gradually become a de-facto alliance member, as John Mearsheimer explains. NATO has been arming and training the Ukrainian army, and participated in joint military exercises continually; right on Russia’s borders - including flying nuclear-capable B52Hs. All of which Moscow sees as very provocative and even an existential threat.

Thus, Putin is as mad in his reasoning about the security danger NATO expansion presents to Russia as the most esteemed Western experts. A fact conveniently skipped by the 1%-statecor.

Further, we KNOW that we would do the same. Namely, engage in a military action to neutralize a similar threat. History offers ample examples. (This is far from an endorsement of such actions)

For example, US entered WWI after Germany approached Mexico with an offer to enter into an alliance hostile to Washington. Exactly how Russia perceives NATO.

In 1962, when an independent nation, Cuba, voluntarily choose to host on its soil Soviet nuclear weapons. Its powerful neighbor found the threat intolerable, and John Kennedy almost blew the planet up.

Yet when Russia finds similar threats just as unacceptable, we hail the right of sovereign states to enter military alliances as they please, and decide on their own what kind of weapons to host on their territories. We must uphold the sacred principles of sovereignty, after all. Just like we did when US and NATO led by the US, crushed weaker nations simply because of their pursuit of independent development and lack of subservience. Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Lybia, Syria, etc., etc. Again, this is not to justify what Russia is doing, far from it.

Now that brings us to a crucial question, if the US clearly knew what the response of Russia, no matter the leader, would be, why do it?

A confluence of reasons.

Firstly, after the fall of USSR, US weapons manufacturers got terrified at the prospect of peace. To make up for the loss of revenue in the west, they saw former Warsaw Pact countries as potential new source of profit. They aggressively pushed for NATO expansion, and managed to get it. Alliance members have a “guideline” to spend 2% of their GDP on weaponry. In 2021 they spent an amazing $ 363 billion excluding the US whose total real military budget exceeds $1 trillion. For comparison, Russia’s military budget was $41.6 billion in 2021. War is clearly big business (profit), which means it matters a lot in the halls of power in Washington.

After the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, another threat of peace worried these “merchants of death”. While they consume roughly half of US’ almost $800 billion official Pentagon budget, it is never good when numbers start falling. Wall Street doesn’t react well to that.

But then the prospect of a conflict in Ukraine got their hopes up. Sarah Lazare reports:

“As the United States weighs more involvement in the growing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, some of the largest weapons companies in the world — Raytheon and Lockheed Martin — are openly telling their investors that tensions between the countries are good for business.”, “The statements come as the U.S. government escalates arms shipments to Ukraine, among them the Javelin missiles that are a joint venture between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. House Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to quickly push through a bill that would significantly increase U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, and impose new sanctions on Russia… On a January 25 earnings call… Hayes included “tensions in Eastern Europe” among the factors that Raytheon stands to benefit from. He said: “the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.””, “The statements come from leaders of an industry that exerts tremendous influence in Washington, employing an average of 700 lobbyists per year over the past five years, or more than one lobbyist per member of Congress, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project.”

Besides lobbying, we cannot forget another powerful device of government control in the US, prominently featured in the Biden administration – the revolving door. Here’s a snippet.

Secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, is a founder of WestExec Advisors, an influence peddling organization helping corporations, including weapons manufacturers, obtain government contracts and new markets. Other former members of WestExec in the Biden administration include (partial list): Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence, David S. Cohen, Deputy Director CIA, Lisa Monaco, Deputy Attorney General, Chris Inglis, National Cyber Director, Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary, Ely Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, Colin Thomas-Jensen, National Security Director USAID, Julianne Smith, Senior Adviser to Secretary of State Permanent Representative to NATO, (State Dpt. nominated), among others.

Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, cashed in, as most do, after retirement by sitting on boards of corporations whose pockets he’s now helping line. He was on the board of “weapons maker Raytheon and Nucor steel (supplier of raw material for weapons), and {had} a role in an investment firm that cashes in on the experience of recent government officials”. Same Raytheon that makes Javelin anti-tank missiles that make the bulk of US military aid to Ukraine. We can bet he’ll retire to some more board seats, and/or get paid millions for speeches in front of his former employers. Legal bribery and corruption.

This is by no means an exhaustive list.

It’s not only US that wants to sell weapons to Ukraine, France is doing to do the same. As Johnathan Ng reports: “In five years {since 2014}, major weapons exports from the United States increased 23 percent, while French exports alone registered a 72-percent leap, reaching their highest levels since the Cold War. Meanwhile, European military spending hit record heights.”

While weapons manufacturers’ need for profit may initially have been the main impetus for NATO expansion, today that role is joined by significant geopolitical concerns.

There was a very real threat to legitimacy and the need for NATO if Russia remained peaceful. French president, Emanuel Macron, famously pronounced NATO “brain dead” in 2019, and has made some moves towards strictly European security arrangement. NATO, lest we forget, is one of the main devices US uses to control Europe. Axiom that NATO’s purpose is to, in the words of its first Secretary General, Lord Ismay in 1952 – “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down” still rings true. Russia, moreover, is a perfect official enemy from US’ perspective. Small trade between the two, Russia-EU trade in goods that compete with America’s, independent policy, and a large army, thus a plausible scare story for a 1%-statecor propaganda aimed at domestic and EU audiences.

In the absence of a terrible threat, it is difficult to justify massive “defense” spending. Even the rich countries of Europe could use the extra $363 billion for something other than defense. Noam Chomsky explains how NATO survives by quoting the historian R. Sakwa: “Historian Richard Sakwa, a specialist on East Europe, observed that “NATO’s existence became justified by the need to manage threats provoked by its enlargement” — a plausible judgment”. 

Besides giving NATO the reason to exist, the economist Michael Hudson highlights the threatening economic integration between the EU and Russia and China. A serious afront to US hegemony.

He, points out that the sanctions Russia is being hit with, are actually directed the other way, towards the EU. He neatly sums up most economic aspects of why the US wanted Russia to attack, and his evaluation overlaps with many others’. It is getting enough room for us to understand it.

”Today’s sanctions regime is aimed inward, to prevent America’s NATO and other Western allies from opening up more trade and investment with Russia and China. The aim is not so much to isolate Russia and China as to hold these allies firmly within America’s own economic orbit. Allies are to forego the benefits of importing Russian gas and Chinese products, buying much higher-priced U.S. LNG and other exports, capped by more U.S. arms… What worries American diplomats is that Germany, other NATO nations and countries along the Belt and Road route understand the gains that can be made by opening up peaceful trade and investment. If there is no Russian or Chinese plan to invade or bomb them, what is the need for NATO? What is the need for such heavy purchases of U.S. military hardware by America’s affluent allies?... Instead of a real military threat from Russia and China, the problem for American strategists is the absence of such a threat… For over 75 years they had little practical alternative to U.S. hegemony. But that is now changing.”, “The most glaring example is the U.S. drive to block Germany from authorizing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to obtain Russian gas for the coming cold weather.”, “Ever since the closing years of World War II, U.S. diplomacy has aimed at locking Britain, France, and especially defeated Germany and Japan, into becoming U.S. economic and military dependencies.”, “As the United States has de-industrialized, its trade and balance-of-payments deficit is becoming more problematic. It needs arms export sales to help reduce its widening trade deficit and also to subsidize its commercial aircraft and related civilian sectors.”, “Today Russia is in the position of Iran in 1954 and again in 1979. Not only do its oil sales rival those of U.S. LNG, but Russia keeps its oil-export earnings at home to finance its re-industrialization, so as to rebuild the economy that was destroyed by the U.S.-sponsored shock “therapy” of the 1990s.”, “While America’s allies are told to bear the costs of U.S. sanctions, Russia and China are benefiting by being obliged to diversify and make their own economies independent of reliance on U.S. suppliers of food and other basic needs.”

As if to confirm his position, Germany just announced it plans to purchase the fancy F-35 from the US. The only problem is, it doesn’t work yet. But that was never a consideration, or the point of the transaction.

Hudson then argued that the US empire hastened its own demise by forcing others to develop an alternative to dollar’s dominance. Meaning the end of America’s “free lunch”, which allows for the global domination via its financial and military power.

“The recent escalation of U.S. sanctions… has imposed enormous opportunity costs… on U.S. allies. And the recent confiscation of the gold and foreign reserves of Venezuela, Afghanistan and now Russia, along with the targeted grabbing of bank accounts of wealthy foreigners … has ended the idea that dollar holdings – or now also assets in sterling and euro NATO satellites of the dollar – are a safe investment haven… U.S. diplomats themselves have chosen to end international dollarization… the U.S./NATO aggression against Russia has passed critical-mass level. It no longer is just about Ukraine. That is merely the trigger, a catalyst for driving much of the world away from the US/NATO orbit.”

Chen Feng, agrees, and estimates that the dollar’s primacy fall will take 3-5 years. Something otherwise expected to have taken about 20.

None of this can be too much of a concern for a country dominated by the corporate logic of maximizing profit in the next quarter. It is too far ahead to look.

Additionally, much of what we’re seeing today seems to align with RAND corporation’s recommendations from a 2019 brief titled “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia -Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options”. Though aware such moves could provoke WWIII the brief recommends “providing lethal aid to Ukraine”, in hopes to inflict additional military costs to Russia. Other suggestions include “diminishing faith in the Russian electoral system”, “creating the perception the regime is not pursuing the public interest”, “encouraging domestic protests and other nonviolent resistance”, “undermining Russia’s image abroad”, “deploying additional tactical nuclear weapons”, “goad Russia into a costly arms race”, and “increasing size and frequency of NATO exercises in Europe” among others.

RAND corporation is mostly government financed and acts as an unofficial and very influential Pentagon think-tank. One wonders what the reaction would be here if an influential Russian think-tank with close ties to the Kremlin recommended similar measures to be employed towards the US?

[A side comment. Think-tanks are places where much of US policy gets shaped. Created by the 1% and/or financed by them, they are often places from which US administrations get staffed. Their reports, briefs, research, etc. often becomes law without even the smallest changes.]

Finally, there’s Biden’s personal involvement in Ukraine and links to merchants of death.

Active role in the coup, his ties to NATO’s semi-official and another quite influential think-tank, the Atlantic Council, and of course the spoils that come with running an empire.

As we have seen, Vice-president Biden was called in to “midwife” the coup in 2014, by the chief architects Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt. Pyatt: “We want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing”, Nuland: “So on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [US vice-president's national security adviser Jake] Sullivan's come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need [US Vice-President Joe] Biden and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden's willing.”

Joe Biden, latter bragged that he personally made Yanukovych flee Ukraine. After midwifing the overthrow of the government, Biden’s son, Hunter, got a cushy $50,000/month seat on the board of Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian gas company, regardless of the fact he knew nothing about the trade. His dad even had the chief prosecutor in Ukraine fired, after threatening to withdraw release of IMF funds. The prosecutor that was looking into Burisma’s corruption. There’s more a vice-president dad brings: “Moreover, the vice president’s son reaped a board position at the National Democratic Institute, a U.S.-funded “democracy promotion” organization that was heavily involved in pushing regime change in Ukraine.” Let’s not forget the board seat at Amtrak for Hunter, because of his qualifications as a “frequent passenger”.

As for the Biden-Atlantic Council-Ukraine nexus, Max Blumenthal explained in 2019, before Biden became president, and while the Ukrainegate scandal was the story of the day:

“Behind the curtain, the Atlantic Council has initiated a lucrative relationship with a corruption-tainted Ukrainian gas company, the Burisma Group, that is worth as much as $250,000 a year… This alliance has remained stable even as official Washington goes to war over allegations by President Donald Trump and his allies that former Vice President Joseph Biden fired a Ukrainian prosecutor to defend his son’s handsomely compensated position on Burisma’s board.”, “some of the former vice president’s most ardent defenders are emerging from the halls of the Atlantic Council...  This case of obvious cronyism has not been overlooked because the Atlantic Council is a bit player, but because of its success in leveraging millions from foreign governments, the arms and energy industries, and Western-friendly oligarchs to bring its influence to bear in the nation’s capital.”, “President Biden delivered the keynote address at the Atlantic Council’s distinguished leadership awards. He returned to the think tank again in 2014 for another keynote at its “Toward A Europe Whole and Free” conference, which was dedicated to expanding NATO’s influence and countering “Russian aggression.” Throughout the event, speakers like Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. national security adviser, sniped at President Barack Obama for his insufficiently bellicose posture toward Russia, while former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright fretted over polls showing low public support for U.S. interventionism overseas. In his own comments, Biden emphasized the need to power Europe with non-Russian sources of natural gas. This provided a prime opportunity to Ukrainian suppliers like Burisma and U.S. energy titans.”, “In 2015, for instance, the think tank helped prepare a proposal for arming the Ukrainian military with offensive weaponry like Javelin anti-tank missiles. Given that the Atlantic Council has been funded by the two manufacturers of the Javelin system, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, this created at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.”, “Among the think tank’s top individual contributors is Victor Pinchuk, one of the wealthiest people in Ukraine and a prolific donor to the Clinton Foundation… “No one in the U.S. government has wielded more influence over Ukraine than Vice President Joe Biden,” Foreign Policy noted. The Atlantic Council also described Biden as “the point person on Ukraine in the Obama administration.”

As another one of the probable reasons for a need of a crisis we shouldn’t forget to mention Biden’s flagging approval rating, and the inability to push through any of his big-ticket items domestically.

To fully grasp why his relationship with the Atlantic Council is important, we need to understand what the think-tank represents and how influential and well-connected it is.

“The NATO military alliance’s de facto think tank, the Atlantic Council, promoted a notorious neo-Nazi militia in Ukraine, the Azov Battalion, in a 2014 article that depicted the fascist extremists as anti-Russian heroes. The Atlantic Council is one of the most powerful think tanks in Washington. With funding from the US State Department, numerous Western governments, NATO, and the weapons industry, it plays a key role in shaping US foreign policy, particularly toward Russia.”, explains journalist Ben Norton.

Sociologist Peter Phillips agrees and adds the explanation: “The Atlantic Council is a nonprofit organization established in 1961 as a voluntary alliance of countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)… Global capital protection and US/NATO military/security issues are a high priority for the AC. The AC lists 146 Global Power Elites from 28 countries on their board of directors. Among the listed directors are four former NATO commanders and thirteen representatives from several major defense contractors, including Boeing, Raytheon, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, SAIC, Carlyle Group, and Booz Allen Hamilton. Eleven directors are current or former military generals and admirals. Forty-one directors are active in government or private security organizations such as the US National Security Council, as well as various public and private security policy groups focusing on cyber security. G4S, an international security company and the second largest private employer in the world, is represented on the AC. Major corporate donors to the AC include Airbus, Chevron, Google, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Southern Company, Thomson Reuters, BP, ExxonMobil, General Electric, Northrop Grumman, Panasonic, SAIC, United Technologies, Barclays, Capital, Coca-Cola, ConocoPhillips, Eni, FedEx, McAfee, Microsoft, Target, Boeing, Bloomberg, Caterpillar, Daimler, Gallup, HSBC, Dow Chemical, Comcast, Rolls-Royce, and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. Included also on the Atlantic Council’s donor list is the US Airforce, US Marines, US state Department, US Army, Clinton Foundation, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.”

Phillips then continues “The AC, in distinction to the WEF and Bilderberg Group, publishes regular weekly reports and policy recommendation updates as a key part of their activities… Some of the AC’s reports from the first few months of 2017 include “Strategy of ‘Containment’” of Russia… and “Evaluating Western Sanctions on Russia”… The NATO-US military command structure and administrators in governments and their intelligence agencies all pay attention to the Atlantic Council’s reports.” (Phillips, 2018, pp 232-234, 253)

With revolving door alive and well, we can see how these “recommendations” easily become actual policy.

What, then, are we to make of all this?

First, we must call out the hypocrisy of the West. While the humanitarian situation in Ukraine is worsening by the day, and justly deserves attention, we cannot allow to be fooled that western establishments care the tiniest bit. To pick some of the most obvious of a plethora of examples, let’s look at Yemen.

After the overthrow of a Saudi-backed government, prince Mohammed Bin Salman ordered an attack on the Houthi rebels. Overcoming a massive disparity in military might, the rebels fought to a standstill. According to UN, the conflict produced the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world. Half of the country’s children under 5, some 2.3 million are at risk of acute malnutrition, while 400,000 are close to death. Roughly 230,000 have been killed in the fighting. Brutal Saudi-led alliance attack has intensified recently. The most recent UN statement warns of Yemen “teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe”, adding “Today, more than 17.4 million Yemenis are food insecure; an additional 1.6 million are expected to fall into emergency levels of hunger in coming months, taking the total of those with emergency needs to 7.3 million by the end of the year”. Saudis don’t make weapons, and have no intelligence and logistical capabilities to support the war. US provides all that.

Houthis didn’t place offensive weapons on the border with Saudi Arabia directed at Riyadh, nor did they attempt to join a military alliance with Iran. As for human rights violations inside the kingdom, any search will do. They recently executed 81 men, some charged with “deviant beliefs”. Imagine the reaction in the 1%-statecor media if this happened in Russia or China.

Recently, the Biden administration seized Afghanistan central bank’s $7 billion held in the US. Allowing up to $3.5 billion for disbursement towards alleviating the starving population, and planning to make the remaining $3.5 billion available for victims of 9/11 and other “terror victims” in the US. This is worth repeating. Biden took funds from a country in desperate need of the basics, decided to pay victims of terrorism in the US with their money, even though Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11, and has never attacked the Americans anywhere, much less on US soil, before being invaded in 2001. While 15 of 19 9/11 attackers were Saudi, the kingdom didn’t get invaded, rather it is getting all the materiel and support it needs to cause “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.

In 1996, Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, said that an estimated 500,000 children dead in Iraq due to US sanctions was “worth the price”.

US is currently sanctioning roughly a third of the global population.

So much for lofty principles and humanitarian concerns.

Next, we should point out that though international law does, rightly, condemn Russian attack on Ukraine as a major war crime, it says nothing about the actions of the US with EU in tow, which consciously provoked such a reaction. We must, at the very least, take this into consideration when meting out justice. In a perfect world, both parties would face consequences, in the real one, where power takes precedent, the only actual consequences will be felt by innocent victims.

While we’re with the perpetrators. It is important to define what the media means by “US”, “Russia”, the “EU” etc. In simplest terms, not the 99% but the representatives and/or members of the 1%. It is this tiny sliver of populations that protect their own interests via state policy and are responsible for so many crises the entire world is dealing with. Not only wars, but climate change, potential nuclear holocaust, hunger, extreme inequality, lack of healthcare, to name just a few. They are not the best, but the worst among us, consumed by the inordinate desire for more money and power. [As I have laid out in detail.]

And so, as usual, weakest suffer the most. First in Ukraine, but also in Russia. A club that is likely to spread to the most vulnerable across the world with the expected increase in food and fuel prices. Due to the large role Russia and Ukraine play in the agricultural and energy sectors.

As long as we have nation states, we will have large and small ones. More and less powerful ones. Those whose interests are more, less, or not at all important. And since international relations work on the principle “might makes right”, something the Mafia would easily relate to, we continually witness occasions where “the weak suffer what they must”, as the mighty Athenians explained to Melians after forcing them to a subservient role and to pay tributes to Athens, though they never wronged them. “You have never done us any wrong. But you and we should say what we really think, and aim only at what is possible, for we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice only enters where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact {take} what they can, and the weak suffer {grant} what they must.”

Global capitalist economy functions in the same way. Corporations have the power to make us die for lack of healthcare. They force us to get sick by polluting the food and water. They impoverish most of the world because they take their resources. They made us burn fossil fuels.

This simple truth has been the source of most of our suffering as a species – concentration of power. And unless overcome by the only thing that can achieve that goal – a mass movement for democratization - it’ll be the reason of our rapidly approaching end.