The End of the West

Ukraine: just the tip of the iceberg

Annexation by any other name…

When Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation, the West called it "annexation" as they did later when Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia also exercised their democratic right under international to return to Mother Russia.

But Russia has no intention to incorporate Ukraine in the Russian Federation or even the Russian Union as, say, Ukraine did the Republic of Crimea in the 1990s –by force--without consulting the people. That’s not Russia kind of a thing. Ukrainians must vote for it. The Russians don't want people in the Russian Federation who don't want to be there.

Still, it is clear that as Russia enters the final stage of demilitarization, denazification must follow, and that will create conditions which will likely result in most of Ukraine opting either for independent status as a member of the Russian union like Belarus or as members of the Russian Federation, as southern Ukraine has already done.

Recently, the two Alex's – Christoforous and Mercouris--had an online discussion entitled "Russia's tough terms may shock the West" in which this was also their ultimate conclusion. 

As long as they maintain a power base in Ukraine, the West and the neo-Nazis would never allow anything like a democratic referendum, whose results they could not control.

So, after the Russians have defeated Western Ukraine on the battlefield, they must occupy it and denatizify the country. The best thing would be for the Western Ukrainians to purge the neo-Nazis themselves and return to some form of authentic democracy. A military coup is possible, but that would likely be replacing one set of Nazis with another.

The situation is very similar to Japan in 1945. There has to be a benevolent occupation—aimed at reestablishing democratic government – but also tribunals and war crimes trials.

American horror show

An independent Ukraine is not what the US and Europe want.

The Neo-Nazis came into power with funding from the US and Europe.  They swayed the public with promises—ultimately that the American dream they saw on TV would become the Ukrainian dream. It was a well-crafted media package wrapped up with cleverly crafted slogans and nationalist hype.

Zelensky and his crew – which of course includes Zaluzhny—built on that— educating the young to hate Russians and Russian culture and religion and speak only Ukrainian—even though Zelensky himself doesn’t speak it.  

So, the Russians have their work cut out for them in restoring vestiges of political awareness and rational agency.  They need to worry about racist children and also about those children’s brainwashed parents.

Fortunately, the Neo Nazi dream has become a nightmare.  

The population of Ukraine is less than half now. It has become a country of pensioners and old women—with the able-bodied fleeing lest they end up in the graveyards that have been filling up everywhere.

Nobody knows how many have died—but it is certainly many more than the Nazis will admit. A state secret. What the country needs most of all is truth and when that comes out people will get angry.

In the meantime, Ukrainian attitudes are evolving—fast.

Ukrainians tell MP they would give up citizenship to avoid conscription (RT)

Some 74% of men and 65% of women said they would opt to hand over their passports in Facebook surveys

These numbers indicate a trend among the young.  But also, among all Ukrainians. After all, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier is now 42.

Despite the fog of war, it is clear that the Russians are methodically destroying Western Ukraine’s military abilities.  And if the Ukrainians are not denatizifying themselves, they are very, very stupid. Who wants to die for a cause that was lost months and months ago? And really never was a cause at all!

More and more Ukrainian units are either refusing to fight or surrendering.  Some are even volunteering to fight for the Russians.

The tipping point, however, will not come, until the Nazis have clearly lost.

The Russians are conducting what they have quite rightly refused to call a “war” – since it is quite unlike any other military conflict in the past—and therefore a “special military operation”. Very special.

“War” for the West is what the Israelis are doing in Gaza – total destruction – with the majority of casualties, civilian.  Which is no doubt why the West finds it so difficult to condemn the Israelis for murdering children—they’ve done a lot more of that than their Israelis thugs.  

Obama boasted about it. “I’m really good at killing people. 85% of the people he killed were women and children.  In Gaza, the percentage for the IDF is just 70%. Registered Democrats love Obama nonetheless.

Russia's civilized war

We usually forget our dreams when we wake up. Except for nightmares— which force to wake up and are remembered. That is what has happened to the American dream in Ukraine. It turned into a nightmare and people have awakened to its horrors.

The Russians are not offering a dream—just a better life.

Putin talks a lot about civilization and matters of principle and aims to protect civilian life where possible.

Russia has been rebuilding the territories it has retaken-- new residential buildings, new schools, new hospitals, new roads—with tolerance for all ethnicities and religions—including Ukrainian.

Although nobody wants to return to Western Ukraine, 3 million Ukrainians have already returned to what the Banderites call “occupied” territories in southern and eastern Ukraine.

Still, Ukrainians continue their terror attacks on the Donbass and the border regions of Russia, as well as Lugansk and Crimea. And NATO and the US are supporting them.

Government in Exile?

So it is, as Christoforous and Mercouris point out—referring to the comments by Polyansky that I cited in my previous article—that the Russians are unlikely now to accept anything but total and unconditional surrender by the government in Kiev.

As a result, the two Alex’s think that the US and the UK might try to set up a government in exile—evacuating the current leadership to London, where there are a lot of posh apartments empty. nightclubs, bars, and expensive whores, also known as journalists.

In fact, a government in exile headed by someone like Zelensky might suit Russian interests.  The man —if you can call them a man– is a moron and a loser.  Zaluzhny is not much better.

A government in exile would be recognized by the collective West—especially the US’s European slave states—self destructively curtaining off “Russian occupied Ukraine”. No, not an iron curtain….

Too bad the Almighty Dollar is a counterfeit God.

No matter—it is clear that Europe is falling apart.  Just a little faster than the US.

Some European countries, such as Hungary, have already realized it is not in their best interest to support the colonialist policies of a collapsing empire.   

Referenda could lead to the Ukraine—perhaps most of it—joining the Russian Federation itself—with all the benefits thereof. That would be the simplest of the various solutions possible.

The “Vampire Class”

Ukraine is big and has immense resources. 

Western companies are corporate vampires who had hoped to suck the blood of the country and profit from Ukrainian acquisitions. Isolating Ukraine economically would be a stake through the heart of the neoliberal undead. Once the dollar curtain closed shutting off Ukraine from the West the Chinese, BRICS and West Asia would benefit.  The writing on the wall is in Cyrillic and Chinese and Arabic.  

Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Serbia are already opting out of Europe's grand plan to destroy itself. 

The winds of change are blowing East— not West, where there are no winds at all —just the miasma of media brain farts.

Geert Wilders has won in the Netherlands and La Pen’s party is ahead in the polls in France. The Right Wing AFD is now second in the polls in Germany.

Europe is paying twice as much for gas.  Along with the expenses of supporting NATO and its war on Russia, the continent is deindustrializing with the US contributing nothing —just exploiting Europe's decline. It is a national vampire sucking the economic life from Europe so it’s 1% can get even richer.

Call them what they are —the Vampire Class. Europeans are thralls and ghouls.

The Russians and the big picture

As usual, the Russians see the larger picture—including the impact that surrender will have on Europe as a whole—understanding both context and history.

The western lands of Ukraine? We know how Ukraine obtained them. Stalin gave them away after World War II. He gave part of Polish lands, Lvov, and so on including several large regions with a population of ten million. Not to offend the Poles, he compensated for their losses by giving them the eastern German lands, the Danzig Corridor, and Danzig itself. He took some from Romania and some from Hungary and gave it to Ukraine.

The people who live there – many of them, at least, I know this for sure, 100 percent – they want to return to their historical homeland. The countries that lost these territories, primarily Poland, dream of having them back. (Vladimir Putin)

The Kremlin will not give up historically Russian Ukraine.

… we will not give up what is ours. Everyone should be aware of this – those in Ukraine who are aggressive disposed towards Russia, and in Europe, and in the United States. (Vladimir Putin)

Who wants Galicia? Not even Galicians

What Putin is talking about as dispensable therefore is Galicia—for centuries an ethnically diverse area that first belonged to the Polish Commonwealth and then to Austria-Hungary, then to Poland after World War I, and was finally awarded to the Ukrainian Republic by Stalin.

Giving the Ukrainian borderlands to Poland would be a smart move—but would they take it—and would the peoples of this area want this?  

It’s not valuable territory, as Putin notes. There isn’t much there. 

The Russians don't really care about Galicia very much—although they were always much more tolerant of the Galicians than the Polish were— or are likely to be.

In addition, when Stalin took Galicia from Poland it compensated Poland with large chunks of prime land from Germany, including Danzig, which was given to Poland at the end of World War I.  Polish refusal to return these German lands led to Hitler’s invasion.

The Poles are much more positive about Germany and Europe than the Germans are about the Poles and Europe.

Another problem is that Galicia was once ethnically diverse. In 1910: 45.4% Polish, 42.9% Ruthenian, 10.9% Jewish, and 0.8% German.

Poles spoke Polish. Ruthenians spoke Ukrainian.  But the Ruthenians were serfs to the Polish nobility who used Jews to manage them and collect taxes—hence Ukrainian hatred for both Poles and Jews -- in addition to the Russians, and Roma, of course.  Stepan Bandera was a “Ruthenian”.  He hated pretty much everybody.

By the end of World War II, Ruthenian-Ukrainians had successfully slaughtered most of the Polish Galicians and the Jews. That was the model for their attempted ethnic cleansing of eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Expanding westward into Poland was never an option for the Galicians but extending their reach eastwards towards Kiev was quite another thing, since people east of Galicia towards the Dniepr (in the yellow area of the map above) spoke Ukrainian / Russian dialects which varied from locality to locality making Russian the common language of convenience.   

The Ruthenians wanted a Ukrainian identity that met their needs--a national identity defined in their own terms to replace the patchwork of local cultures—but to do that they had to erase Russian culture—starting with the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox Church. 

Although ethnic cleansing was successful during World War II for the Ukrainians, the Nazis lost that war and they and their Ruthenian supporters mostly moved to Canada and the US—which were the go-to places for war criminals wanting to slip through the cracks and where their “expertise” was welcomed by governmental agencies such as the CIA. Without the help of the Ukrainian diaspora and the CIA, the Maidan coup would never have got off the ground.

It is likely that the Russians will hold referenda on an oblast-by-oblast basis.  The options would be joining the Russian Federation; autonomy, but part of the Russian union like Belarus; simple independence, but with a mandated democratic neutral constitution subject to Russian approval; and incorporation into Poland-- which the Polish might accept or reject.

If Poland takes back Western Ukraine--or the Lvov oblast becomes autonomous that would still provide Russia with a large buffer area offering military security west of the Dnieper including Kiev.

Russian endgame strategy

There are lots of reasons why Poland might not want Galicia back.

If the Polish accepted Galicia back, despite Galician genocides of Poles and Ukraine's refusal to apologize or repudiate the leaders who organized the massacres, Poland would have to do its own version of denazification if the Russians hadn't already done it. They already have enough trouble with the Polish right wing.

In addition, taking back Galicia could open other wounds—namely the question of the lands that they received from Germany in compensation for losing Galicia. It’s natural that the (East) Germans (at least) want those lands back. 

And, as mentioned, the Germans don’t like the Poles that much.

“You're either with us or against us.”

Even in the case of an independent but neutral Western Ukraine a.k.a. Galicia, the Americans and the British would still probably support a government in exile and double down on sanctions designed to inhibit the development of Ukraine as well as Russia. Ultimately, they don't care about Ukraine. They just want to destroy Russia.

Whatever happens, whatever decisions are made, Europe will lose as long as it remains in thrall with its masters.

The current weak-willed, spineless generation of politicians in Europe cannot oppose it, considering the enormous dependence of their media, their economy and politics. Pick any large media outlet in Europe, and you will find that the ultimate beneficiary is some American foundation, after you sift through three of four layers. Vladimir Putin

At the end of his presser, Putin made it clear he was no longer the naïve and trusting person he was in the year 2000 when he entered office, hoping the West would honor its promises, agreements and pronouncements.

More recently, in his address to the Defense Ministry, he characterized the West as “lawless”—without honor, seeking only to enrich its elites—in other words, psychopathic—not that he used that word. His characterization wasn't anger, as some analysts (Mercouris) have suggested—but rather an accurate and objective assessment—and a warning to the world.

The Japanese example

From my vantage point here in Japan, I see similarities between the Western world today and Japan in the Edo period—also, differences of course.

The Japanese Shogun ruled from the city of Edo.

But the country itself was divided into feudal estates, governed by daimyo, who drew income from the peasantry who worked the land. Technically, there were only four classes in Edo Japan—the samurai, peasants., artisans and merchants. The samurai code was very simple – obey –and be prepared to kill yourself if you could not do what your master wanted or disagreed.

Seppuku

As it happened, the daimyo often lived beyond their means —and when they needed money—they just raised taxes. The farmers sold their daughters to brothels or starved to death. If they didn't pay, the daimyo’s samurai could slaughter them for their insolence. In most cases, however they would just lose their land and their livelihood and starve and their families with them.

That of course led to the occasional rebellion. Each was put down, the leaders executed.

“Rules-based order.” Same as today.

Now, the Shogun is in Washington. The Daimyo are Western politicians and billionaires and others. Journalists, military officers and academics and others in the upper-middle-class are like Edo samurai warriors – just without swords. They flaunt their BMWs instead.

Unlike the Edo samurai, this modern samurai class has no sense of honor or duty. Just greed. And they are “weak willed and spineless” indeed.

Ordinary people just suffer as Japanese peasants did, so those above them can live well.

In Edo Japan, rebellions began to occur more and more often, along with popular discontent, which eventually led to the realization that there was a world outside of Japan which Japan had fallen behind and that something had to change. That was very clear when the Black Ships came.

The Japanese elites looked at what was happening in China and the Meiji Revolution followed.

Putin’s” black ships” were also American. He has been learning from the West as the Japanese learned from Americans and Europeans. Unlike the Japanese who were for a long time fêted in the West, war and sanctions have given him better awareness of what to keep and what to discard. For example, the Japanese tried to emulate the US and Britain in creating a colonialist empire in Asia; Putin on the contrary aims at a multipolar world, a Democratic community of nations—rather than American style hegemony.

Changes are taking place in the political consciousness of many European nations as well. They understand that the United States is shamelessly and ruthlessly exploiting Europe in its own interests …. Vladimir Putin

Russia, he says, will not interfere—but it will protect its own interests.

Right now, Europe is committing seppuku. It has slit its belly and is waiting for the US to cut off its head. It is not an honorable death.

Nor will be the death of the United States of America when its time comes. One shudders to think how it will kill itself.

Note:

Apologies.

This was supposed to be an article on Putin's presser—but I got sidetracked by events—with things moving very rapidly.

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