My family is Russian, my wife’s Ukrainian. I am disgusted by my Russian relatives. They have a lot in common with my cousins from South Africa - deeply racist, nasty fuckers who have not a shred of empathy or compassion for any but their own, and believe they should rule over the inferiors. The last visit I made “back” to Russia was enough for me. Listening to those assholes justify Russian interference in Uraine, the theft of Crimea, the black invasion of Donbas and the corruption of Yanukovytch — all leading up to the claim that Ukrainians have been “mesmerized” by the “Jew Nazi cocaine addict” Zelenskyy. Ugh.
These revisionist histories are nauseating. NO, Matt. The US did not cause the war. And Putin was not offering peace. He was offering surrender so his invasion would be met with NO resistance. No NATO. No arms. Demilitarized and neutral. Yup. A country that could be taken in a week. THAT was his plan — are you actually that stupid or do you just pretend you greasy fuck?
I guess your in laws must be reasonably affluent - a dacha with running water and indoor plumbing.
Please spare us Part II. Apologias for genocidal mass murdering tyrants don’t interest intelligent people.,
In fairness, those four and five-year-old kindergarten kids could grow up to resent Russians and create problems due to the lack of re-education and military training the 20,000 children abducted to Russia are getting. The ICC thinks it's wrong but Russia needs fresh blood if it is to survive its current demographic and economic downward spiral.
Matt didn’t write this. I also wasn’t enamored with the writer, but he has the right to voice his views. It’s okay to state your feelings about what was written, just adjust your aim.
Matt did write this article, just not Matt Taibbi. Well written and very interesting to a uniformed reader such as myself. I would be fascinated to see Russia some day.
Outside of affluent Moscow and St Pete, Russia is mostly a dirt-poor shithole filled with racist, ignorant “rednecks”. Imagine a whole country of 1930s Appalachian inbred, violent morons. AND I AM RUSSIAN. I have been there many times, but swore off it after 2017. It’s God’s shitstain on the Earth, that brings nothng but subjugation, paranoia, misery and death to the planet.
One of my cousins there studied in the US - has a medical degree from Tulane. His parents live in a ramshackle house with no indoor plumbing. He tried to emigrate to get out of that pismire, but was arrested. No one has heard from him since, and if they ask, they get a good beating.
Please, go!!! It’s a WONDERFUL LAND OF MILK AND HONEY!!!!
Heidi -You are right. I am aware things change, but we were in those "shit hole" towns in Russia. The population seemed to be thriving, the markets well-stocked with local produce and meats, the buildings in good repair. I actually live in a shit hole town in New Mexico. Google Espanola, New Mexico. If I weren't nearly 84, a widow, and didn't have a bunch of stuff, I would be looking at moving. Not to Russia, of course, but out of a true US shit hole town.
Thriving?? Inflation has been running at almost 20% across the board in Russia. It has become a net food importer and now has to import refined petroleum products thanks to Ukrainian sanctions. 35% of ALL Russian houses have no indoor bathrooms and still use outhouses. Markets may seem full - no one can afford beef or chicken any more. Local produce is plentiful in summer but dont try winter or spring. Smaller towns are getting utterly detonated - some 4 million people are likely to have their townships dissolved in the next 6 months as their economies have been crushed by the war effort.
Whole regions have seen their municipal services - never great - stopped entirely. No road repairs, no trash collections, road signage gos unrepaired or replaced. Gas lines are getting unmanageable and people can’t get to market or work. Ultilities are leaving cables unrepaired and copper wires get cut down and sold for scrap.
Russia has reversed its climb up and is now fully regressing down the development ladder,
The worst US town is a freakin ShangriLa compared to Russian small towns.
My husband and I went in 2011. The trip was incredible and fascinating. One of the best trips we ever took. Putin was just about to replace Medvedev. We were not ushered around but we had come on a tour. Advisable because our ability to translate Cyrillic was too slow for subway stops lol. Though we did ride the subway on our own.
We had some guides on the ship plying the Volga river from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Moscow was booming (not with drones or bombs). It actually reminded me of Paris. That is, Paris before the more recent woke attitudes rendered it as unseemly as San Francisco or Portland. We had lunch with some Russians in their Stalin-built apartment. They did not speak English. That was difficult. But they had a dacha even though they were probably middle class. There were dachas of all different classes along the Volga. Some almost shacks, others like US cabins in the woods, still others like royal hunting lodges.
When one of the US tourists asked the guide if Putin would be elected, she said casually that "he will if he wants to be". That at least is honesty, unlike what has been dished out to us here in the land of free speech.
The Devil is in the details…. Like the darkness of Dostoevsky to Solzhenitsyn I believe one can still paint Russia in the dark tones of Mother Earth as in Van Gogh’s early works like ‘ The Potato Eaters’. May the light shine on it brightly in our lifetimes and end this death quest.
The author’s name is also Matt. He’s a typical Russian apologist.
Oh, look how nice Russian life is… while the men are off trying to exterminate Ukrainian men, women and children in their homes and gardens, bombing their kindergartens and hospitals. But— OH! -_ the West said that Putin didnt have the right to tell another country how to surrender to them!!! So it’s THEIR fault!!
Matt B.M.D. writes: "I don’t know whether to laugh or cry... [Trump]'s got no idea what we’re doing there. Do any of us?"
Yes, I know exactly what "we're" doing there. Billions are being made, stolen, and skimmed in the hope of making, stealing, and skimming trillions more, first from Ukraine, and then from a "decolonized" former Soviet Union, while massive disinformation campaigns re: Nordstream, Storm Shadows, and French, British, and US ops against Russia are taking place.
All this is happening out in the open much as Fred Anderson outlined in his seminal text Crucible of War. The US colonies wanted Indian land. The Brits wouldn't sanction the violation of existing treaties, so Washington et al went ahead and set out to grab the land anyway. The British Empire, the Japanese Empire, the German Empire etc. did exactly the same across the globe.
Ukraine has 13 trillion in natural resource assets, the former Soviet Union has 75 trillion more, all of which actually belong to US corporate speculators. The US means to get them, Trump or no Trump, no matter how many Ukrainians and Russians have to die to achieve that "goal."
For the future of Ukrainians in this US victory - look to native Americans. Their blood and that of victims of corporate exploitation by the US and others is written on every page of our history right up to the present.
Such a long essay and so blind to what's really happening in Ukraine. It's not about land or minerals, it's about the punishment, subjugation, and erasure of a people who refuse to be reabsorbed into a cruel dream of empire regained.
Crucible of War was a very revealing book, glad to see it referred to.
The rest of what you say is pretty accurate- I get tired of people saying we’re obligated to bring freedom and democracy to the world, when so often it’s nothing like it.
We have a few commenters here who seem anxious to send people off to die for this “cause”, although I bet none of those same commenters are ready to volunteer for it.
One of my American colonial history profs declared that if we understand Anderson, we understand the American Revolution. Ken Burn decades after Anderson is now reviving the same analysis in his new series "The American Revolution" because Burns observes so few today recognize the foundational roles greed, avarice, and disregard for the law and the rights of others play in stealing other people's stuff. Hear Burns repeat Anderson's analysis himself with Theo - all dressed up in American exceptionalist bunting. New White House Ballroom - Winning! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VpBgRubnV8
So barbarism is the natural state of Man, America would do the same, and we need to close our eyes and hope the ugly parts don't last too long. None of us has a responsibility to try to stand in the way of brutality with silly laws and "norms." Just relax, it's natural.
For what it's worth, a local husband/wife couple, one Ukrainian/one Russian, that runs a food import business are taking it in stride, no side picked. The husband's view seems to be that this is another round of human history.
For what it's worth, Russians have been cowed into saying they "aren't political" under Putin's long reign. Now that Putin has broken the social contract, exchanging stability for being apolitical, Russians wake up to gas lines and global enmity. Just another round of failed military conquest.
The flip side of nationalist chauvinism often sounds like this. Basically the same stuff, only self directed. Auto-chauvinism. (Although it’s still really Other-directed, because it’s meant to distinguish oneself from the rest of one’s “own” people.) We are the worst people, a bunch of genocidal ignorant racist a**holes, throw in lots of f-bombs to signal righteous fury. As tiresome as the usual kind of chauvinism.
Re the war, no one has clean hands, except maybe Trump.
The average American probably has a lot more in common with the average Russian person, than we have with the average person from most other countries. The evil that exists within our government helped create and spur on that which exists in the Russian government. I think the US .Gov (and the West, in general) made a lot of mistakes after the Berlin wall came down - and most importantly, we showed that we couldn’t be trusted to keep our word.
Also, about 20,000,000 Russians / Soviets died in WW-2 - let that sink in.
Yeah, me too. And 20m is very much on the low side of estimates. I'm not sure whether it includes the 4m Ukrainians killed during the Holodomor (two periods, actually). Might have something to do with their current truculence.
As for WWII, I rarely hear it mentioned that the U.S. provided vital food and military aid to keep the Soviet Union afloat vs. Nazi Germany. Russians don't like to acknowledge that, and most Americans don't even know about it.
Russia has so much potential, great people. Unlike countries like Sweden, Britain, Portugal and Spain, they just can't seem to get past their imperial history.
It was a complicated alliance, one where the Russians always seemed to cut the better deal. The “alliance “ with Russia was not comparable to that with Britain.
Stalin's desperate alliance with the West began after Hitler broke the Molotov Ribbentrop alliance to divide Poland and began Operation Barbarossa to take all of the USSR. "Did you really want to talk about history, or were you just making chitchat?" - Not Phil Conners in Groundhog Day
Ah yes the mystical “ Holdomor” which has been challenged and debunked. Watch movies by Oliver Stone on Ukraine and read the Famine history that occurred both in Russia and in Ukraine( then part of Russia). Nazi and UK spread narratives- works when your goal is to vilify and break up Russia for its resources - heh just like today (right Cookies Nuland?)
Well, sure if Iranian or Russian secret police set up a coup in Canada or Mexico of a similar nature, how long do you think it would take us to invade? And your point is right--the US has built a track record of invading countries whose government it doesn't approve of. I am no fan of Putin, but just in terms of geopolitics, what else could Russia do? Sign over its sovereignty to Apple or Google?
That's not how open forums work, Heidi. Make your case. Be sure to throw in how the USSR, UK and USA guaranteed Ukraine's geographic boundaries in the Budapest Accords.
So, NATO is a defensive alliance to protect “liberal democracies” in Europe from Russian aggression. It’s charter does not include offensive activities.
“The Alliance is purely defensive in purpose: none of its weapons will ever be used except in self-defence, and it does not consider itself … the instrument of aggression. “
Sweden and Finland did not join NATO before the invasion of Ukraine. They chose to believe Russia would not unilaterally attack its neighbors and preferred to be free of alliances that would oblige them to defend a neighbor, along with other liabilities and obligations. They both judged those would
“CIA activities?” WHat does that mean? WHat was the FSB doing???
The definition of “listening” is non-aggressive. LOL
NATO’s 1999 Kosovo air campaign halted Milošević’s ethnic cleansing of Albanians, averting a Rwanda-scale genocide under the emerging “Responsibility to Protect” norm—defensive action against a non-NATO aggressor, not unprovoked offense. Amazingly enough sometimes defense involves violence.
CIA listening posts along Russia’s borders? Standard great-power intel gathering—Russia runs its own spy networks near NATO states, from Arctic cables to Baltic outposts. It’s deterrence, not invasion prep, idiot.
Maidan? A mass Ukrainian uprising against Yanukovych’s corruption and EU reversal at the tip of Putin’s dick, , not a “CIA coup”—no evidence of orchestration, just U.S. support for democracy amid Russian meddling.
Realpolitik: NATO checks Russian revanchism to safeguard Europe; every hegemon plays hardball. Ignoring that invites weakness. As we learned with Biden’s jelly belly appeasement.
I don't think that any war is moral in the modern era, if at any time? I view war as about power, money, land mass, safety, preservation of civilizations, and on and on. I get your point, though.
War is always fought by the hoi polloi on behalf of entities seeking money and power....this has always been the case, IMO.
The current conflict in Ukraine features scores of dead Ukrainian Slavs who are sacrificed on the alter of Western political interests.....same for the Russian Slavs being sacrificed.
One context to consider is from a historical perspective....Russia was always considered the red headed stepchild of Europe....the extreme anti Russian attitude has always served as a mechanism of desire by European powers that wanted to destroy Russia and rob its natural resources.....this is still the case, but unfortunately for the Europeans, their "leaders" have gutted their productive industrial bases and stolen their wealth...Europe has no means to destroy Russia, barring nuclear conflagration. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia suffered through the last decade of the 20th century and have now rebuilt....during that period the "West" destroyed their productive bases and implemented a culture destroying bureaucracy (the EU) and drowned the member countries in debt. I don't see the West getting out of this scenario unscathed....it would make a lot more sense to just trade freely with Russia and the global South.....lets face it, war is a horrible waste of precious, limited resources both natural and human.
Afghanistan is another interesting history lesson. Russia invades. We champion the Taliban. Rambo III sings their praises to the public. Russian leaves. We invade, changing our mind 180 degrees about the Taliban.
Tedious and repetitive. Trump has been significantly more willing to negotiate with Putin than Biden, but that's apparently gotten him exactly nowhere. Despite Bivens' claim that Trump won't give in to Putin's demand that NATO stop expanding towards Russia, what actually appears to be true is that Putin won't seriously negotiate because he expects to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield. And maybe Putin is right, but that's not Trump or the West's fault.
Consider the lies from the West to Russia and I suspect that after Minsk 1 and Minsk 2, the Russians are a bit skeptical of what the West is trying to sell them......also, Russia has been consistent in their conditions for suspending the SMO. The real victims here are the Ukrainian population whose interests are ill served by the corrupt state installed after Maiden. If you have any interest in the backstory I recommend Provoked by Scott Horton.
I'm not even going to bother contesting the view that America, and the expansion of a purely defensive alliance that only came into existence in response to Russian threats of aggression and has never taken any territory from anybody, somehow make Putin's invasion of Ukraine rational and defensible, or bear any responsibility for it. My real reaction to the article is relief that I live in a country where I can talk about anything I like at the dinner table.
Of course, I didn't need the article to remind me or confirm just how lucky we all are in comparison with the literally billions of people who, because of their oppressive leaders, don't feel comfortable doing this.
In the 1980s, ethnic cleansing in Europe was no more acceptable to the west than apartheid had been in South Africa. NATO sent no troops but used its air power in a limited way to protect the victims of Serbia's ethnic cleansing program, not to acquire Serbian territory or threaten the existence of the Serbian state or its government. The aggressors were the Serbs, not their victims and defenders, and this was NATO's first-ever military action, the only other one in its seventy-plus year history being the role it played in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks on the USA (according to Wikipedia, NATO's other roles have included “relief efforts, counter-piracy, enforcing no-fly zones and naval blockades”). It's a defensive alliance all right.
So, if we strip away the propaganda from your post, what's left is the following: despite being a "purely defensive alliance", NATO chose to attack a country that wasn't threatening any of its members in any way.
Using the guise of protecting the victims of the Serbia's ethnic cleansing program doesn't change the fact that NATO acted as an aggressor. Especially since this particular ethnic cleansing program was neither the first, nor the only in the former Yugoslavia. Recall Franjo Tudjman's ethnic cleansing program, which was perfectly acceptable to NATO and even encouraged by some NATO members.
Likewise, NATO choosing a bombing campaign over boots-on-the ground operation has nothing to do with the fact that it was acting as an aggressor against Serbia.
As for this being "the first-ever military action", doesn't it sound like a hooker describing her first day on the job?
I’m not informed enough on all the details & background of this conflict to judge. However, I do know our LEADERS have lied to us too many times to accept anything they’re telling us in general or this war in particular.
Remember, Comrade: the war started because the mad imperialist Putin woke up bored one morning in February 2022 and thought, "You know what is problem with Mother Russia? Not big enough! Dmitri, send in the tanks!"
War propaganda has (yet again) rotted people's minds.
Europe is clearly the most violent, domineering continent on the planet. The two world wars proved that, as did hundreds of years of colonial conquest around the world. Why the United States continues to involve itself in European affairs is a question all Americans should be asking. If the Europeans aren't civilized enough to keep themselves from one another's throats, why should we be constantly rushing to their "rescue"?
You mean they are not just a bunch of "greasy" hicks? ... Not just Appalachia with a Russian accent? Get outta here! How are we supposed to hate if we persist in humanizing our "enemy"?
1. If I could "Like" this article thousands of times, I would! 2. I wish I could have visited Russia with you and your family; as I've always wished to visit. But other places, other wars, came and went on their own (and my) time. 3. As a now-senior American military and combat veteran, I've met and known some interesting Russians, and ironically a few Ukrainians - when it, too, was Russia. I liked them all - for their droll humor, their cynical worldview, their beautiful women, and their friendship. I look forward to reading your remaining notes. My biggest fear is, as Le Carré wrote, "... in the fight for peace not a stone will be left standing." (... в борьбе за мир не останется камня на камне.) Бог с тобой.
Interesting point of view but NATO expansion is a poor excuse for an illegal annexation of the Crimea and a brutal attack on a neighbor. Putin has imperial ambitions but a reach that barely extends past his borders. You argue that US defense contractors are responsible for prolonging the war. Putin is solely responsible for that. I suppose you believe that Ukraine should simply surrender or that the West should repeat the Munich mistake and simply hand Czechoslo-Ukraine over to Putin.
You are the sort of Massachusetts neighbor that makes it such an odd state to live in. Belief is more important than reality. The military industrial complex is the root of all evil. As a doctor you would be better qualified to comment on why Beth Israel is driving patients to its wholly-owned subsidiaries and making it difficult for patients to keep their PCPs.
He has repeatedly said in public that the breakup was ""The greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century." for Russia. He thinks the invasion points into his country need to be held by his army. Is that "imperial" depends on your point of view.
If you look at the context of this and similar statements, it has nothing to do with the loss of territory. Putin is talking about how much suffering the breakup caused.
More than 2 million people were forcibly uprooted from the Central Asian republics and had to relocate, mostly to Russia. Oftentimes with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Older people lost their hard-earned pensions because they couldn't document employment in the former Soviet republics. Families ended up split between countries. And so on.
I know that, but that doesn't mean "imperial" or at least any more imperial than many other big countries, say USA, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia... I hate to be defending the likes of Putin, but geopolitics, especially the ever present desire by the West to take everything that's not nailed down kind of leads Russia to act the way it does. I remember in Moscow they had this big snow machine that had two horizontal arms that gathered up snow, which went up into a conveyor, to an end dump truck to be carted off. You know what people called this thing? Capitalist, because it gathers everything up! So that might be an informal indication of what it looks like from a Russian point of view.
I believe that he followed that up with something to the effect of "but only a fool would seek to recreate it." This oft-repeated quote is very much taken out of context.
Don’t read the Times because it is so woke and pretentious. Restoring the USSR is equivalent to restoring the Russian empire and by definition Imperial. Putin is clearly trying to return to a greater Russia larger than ethnic Russia. You can quibble about words but the intent has been clearly stated. For example:
“Both Russians, and Ukrainians, and Belarusians are heirs of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe. Slavonic and other tribes across a vast territory — from Ladoga, Novgorod and Pskov to Kyiv and Chernihiv — were united by one language (which today we call Old Russian), by economic ties, by the rule of princes of the Rurik dynasty, and after the baptism of Rus — by one Orthodox faith.”
TeeJae's got it right. It used to be the Russian Empire, so in the sense of trying to restore it, maybe. But it's historical. Ukraine actually means "borderland" and was where the Rus originated (Kyiv) so the two are tied together. I'm not really in favor of big countries--sometimes I think the US itself would be better off breaking into smaller ones, especially with the current polarized situation, so I don't think Russia has some divine or historical right to be big, but it is, anyway.
So, is it our mission to make sure Russia is not restored to its previous empire? Is it worth fighting a war over? I think it's more about the West having unobstructed access to their mineral wealth, and nothing about freedom, democracy, etc. I also think the idea that Russia wants to take over Europe or something like that is far-fetched.
No one in the US really cared much about Ukraine, except maybe the Bidens before Putin invaded. If we cared about mineral wealth we would invade the Congo. The whole mineral deal came from Trump wanting to get something in return for all the support given. After WW2 Britain and France owed huge sums “borrowed” from the US. The loans magically turned into gifts because of the Soviet threat. Same with a lot of other countries. The “evil US” is a stereotype that has been wrong more times than not. Russia’s stereotype is Stalin, who Putin admires.
The West was after Russia’s resources all the way back to the Russian Empire and the Tsars. I don’t know what you’re talking about with “Russia’s stereotype”— do you mean from the West’s point of view, or from Russia’s point of view?
No. Putin and Russia could end it tomorrow. Stop and go home. What are they fighting for?? What is their goal??
IT ALWAYS MATTERS who started it Suzie. No one is FORCING Ukraine to fight on, my dear. They want to save their country. Ukrainians dont get shot by their commander if they retreat from the front. Russians do.
That being said, the behavior and actions of Zelensky, the EU and the Biden administration from the run up to this war, (including the Maiden revolution), and after Russia invaded, cannot go unmentioned. It has been odd, to say the VERY least and they have far from the purest motives in both their prosecution of it and their total lack of interest the last three years, in any meaningful way, of finding a way for it to end .
Im confused. The Maidan was a protest uprising against the continued infiltration of Ukrainian politics and society by Russian operatives and propagandists. The people had ENOUGH of the corruption and oppression of Russian revanchists, like Putin. This has NOTHING to do with the US or anyone else. The only input the US had was to support the Western-leaning pols to give them some resources to combat Russian influence. Trying to paint its as the US “engineered” ANYTHING is ludicrous. It’s not up to the West to end the war — that’s up to the combatants. If Ukraine does not want to surrender 20% - or ANY - of their country to Russian invaders, well, we are OBLIGED to help them - we signed an agreement to do precisely that when they gave up 1,300 nuclear warheads. I bet they regret not keeping a few to remind Russia that MAD is more than a phrase.
The travesty the Biden group crated was not giving Ukraine what it needed to finish the 2023 counteroffensive. They had Russia in chaotic retreat, but ran out of munitions and had no air support to cut Russian logistics behind the lines. 20 F-16s, 100 ATACMS and a bunch more HIMARS likely saw Russia pushed back to the border. THAT was our mistake — too little, not too much.
Ukraine is starting to completely lay waste to Russia’s energy complex. Oil refining, oil storage, gas transmission, and thermal electric generation. All are getting SLAMMED. A couple more months. Be strong,
You are Russian. Do you think there is any scenario you could possibly conceive of where Putin would actually hold up a white flag and surrender? I don’t.
And as this war now only continues to escalate things can go all sorts of wrong in all sorts of unimaginable ways.
Bringing the two together - now - with no clear victor - is, to my mind, the only way to avoid far graver and unthinkable consequences for the wider world for not having done all in our power toward that end.
It may seem distasteful, even repugnant for you to think of doing that, but the alternative is simply far too great a risk to take IF a way out can be forged now.
Just a tiny pointer, the Maidan happened under Obama...though genocide Joe was vice president....John Kerry was secretary of state. Read Provoked by Scott Horton for more details.
The Russian people have never experienced decent leadership in their entire history. From monarchy to communist dictatorship. A visit to St. Petersburg was eye-opening. Dour, withdrawn people in the streets. Ugly buildings-prison like. Our tour bus picked up two young military looking males likely KGB, so conversations were duly truncated. I marveled at the artwork, but could not wait to get the hell out.
I’ve been reading a Substack author named Andrew Korybko who is Russian and has been excellent with his reporting on the “Special operation” as he calls it. Lately though he has slipped and called it a war. If anyone wishes to become more informed on the region I’d say give him a read. The CIA was the reason this whole thing started. They had like 20 “secret bases” in Ukraine and one was even dug underground into Russia. These assholes made it so Putin had enough. Instead of him coming out and blaming the US he went in to force them out leading to this shit show. You also cannot leave out the Brits in this. Boris Johnson and his buddy who have large stakes in defense contractor who is selling them arms to defend themselves. Ukraine isn’t above board here either with the corruption as oligarchs there are snapping up mansions in Switzerland. There’s fuckery going on all around and now it’s just a money making endeavor even for Zelensky. Look up his Wife’s spending habits as shopping sprees. This needs to end.
He might be but he doesn’t only write about Russia and I’ve had discussions and debates with him where he had his mind changed. I’ve called him out on his bias sometimes and he’s always been nice to me and trust me I’m no pro Russia guy. I’m as Right as they come but I’m not blind either.
I get what you’re saying and I can see it and I’m guessing it’s possible he is a sanctioned writer for them because I’ve seen people really go at him for it but as far as that part of Europe he gives news you ain’t seeing anywhere. It was only $60. He has been nice to me and he was just real sick and didn’t elaborate what happened so maybe he got out of line and they poisoned him. The Ukraine is a fucked up situation with plenty of fault to go around.
I believe Toria Nuland (who helped engineer the CIA coup in 2014 overthrowing Yanukovych, the democratically elected leader of Ukraine in UN-proctored elections) was quite excited when Russians took some of those "non-existent" biolabs:
You seem to advocate Biden's eradication of Russian language, culture and ethnic Russian Ukrainians from Ukraine. Is Stepan Bandera (or Hitler) your Hero, as he was named "Hero of Ukraine" by Yushchenko (after he lost the election with less than 7% of the vote)? I believe Zelensky was elected with >70% of the vote running on a "Peace with Russia" platform? But elections are for democracies...
Oh, yeah, RIGHT. Nuland got 1.5 MILLION Ukrainians out in the street to protest Yanukovych who took Putin’s cash and flipped from pro-EU to Russian Nazi. PLEASE STOP. You make my head hurt. Eradication of Russian..BLAHBLAHBLAH. Bandera is a minor figure, please stop the Russian garbage. Yanukovich fled Ukraine. Where did he go? Brussels? London? New York?? NO HE WENT TO RUSSIA.
This endless repetition of Putin’s talking points is so boring, friend. No one was radicating “ethnic Russians.” Everyone there has the same DNA freak.
Victoria Nuland did not deny the presence of Ukrainian biolabs:
"Nuland did not deny this: at all. She instead — with palpable pen-twirling discomfort and in halting speech, a glaring contrast to her normally cocky style of speaking in obfuscatory State Department officialese — acknowledged: 'uh, Ukraine has, uh, biological research facilities.'”
Thank you Racket for this interesting piece. I am so effin’ tired of Trump doing the “ This war would never have happened . . .” Who cares! It’s not about you!
That being said, I totally disagree with commenters who think the US of A had nothing to do with What Putin Did. Or what Ukraine did, for that matter.
If Neville Chamberlain had a family . . . The Biden Family, and its enablers (including the Russiagate creators) have a lot to answer for. Also, Putin is evil.
Honestly,fuck you Dr Matt.
My family is Russian, my wife’s Ukrainian. I am disgusted by my Russian relatives. They have a lot in common with my cousins from South Africa - deeply racist, nasty fuckers who have not a shred of empathy or compassion for any but their own, and believe they should rule over the inferiors. The last visit I made “back” to Russia was enough for me. Listening to those assholes justify Russian interference in Uraine, the theft of Crimea, the black invasion of Donbas and the corruption of Yanukovytch — all leading up to the claim that Ukrainians have been “mesmerized” by the “Jew Nazi cocaine addict” Zelenskyy. Ugh.
These revisionist histories are nauseating. NO, Matt. The US did not cause the war. And Putin was not offering peace. He was offering surrender so his invasion would be met with NO resistance. No NATO. No arms. Demilitarized and neutral. Yup. A country that could be taken in a week. THAT was his plan — are you actually that stupid or do you just pretend you greasy fuck?
I guess your in laws must be reasonably affluent - a dacha with running water and indoor plumbing.
Please spare us Part II. Apologias for genocidal mass murdering tyrants don’t interest intelligent people.,
Jesus Christ - take a pill. The “greasy fuck” comment just destroyed any persuasive value in your comment.
Too harsh for an apologist for people glide bombing kindergartens and hypersonic missil-ing hospitals? Doing double taps to be sure and get the EMTs?
In fairness, those four and five-year-old kindergarten kids could grow up to resent Russians and create problems due to the lack of re-education and military training the 20,000 children abducted to Russia are getting. The ICC thinks it's wrong but Russia needs fresh blood if it is to survive its current demographic and economic downward spiral.
Matt didn’t write this. I also wasn’t enamored with the writer, but he has the right to voice his views. It’s okay to state your feelings about what was written, just adjust your aim.
Matt did write this article, just not Matt Taibbi. Well written and very interesting to a uniformed reader such as myself. I would be fascinated to see Russia some day.
Oh, Tommy, please go!!
Don’t wait!!!
It’s a WONDERFUL place!!
Uninformed?? You mean IGNORANT??
Outside of affluent Moscow and St Pete, Russia is mostly a dirt-poor shithole filled with racist, ignorant “rednecks”. Imagine a whole country of 1930s Appalachian inbred, violent morons. AND I AM RUSSIAN. I have been there many times, but swore off it after 2017. It’s God’s shitstain on the Earth, that brings nothng but subjugation, paranoia, misery and death to the planet.
One of my cousins there studied in the US - has a medical degree from Tulane. His parents live in a ramshackle house with no indoor plumbing. He tried to emigrate to get out of that pismire, but was arrested. No one has heard from him since, and if they ask, they get a good beating.
Please, go!!! It’s a WONDERFUL LAND OF MILK AND HONEY!!!!
Here you go again..... this tirade is getting old.
Heidi -You are right. I am aware things change, but we were in those "shit hole" towns in Russia. The population seemed to be thriving, the markets well-stocked with local produce and meats, the buildings in good repair. I actually live in a shit hole town in New Mexico. Google Espanola, New Mexico. If I weren't nearly 84, a widow, and didn't have a bunch of stuff, I would be looking at moving. Not to Russia, of course, but out of a true US shit hole town.
Thriving?? Inflation has been running at almost 20% across the board in Russia. It has become a net food importer and now has to import refined petroleum products thanks to Ukrainian sanctions. 35% of ALL Russian houses have no indoor bathrooms and still use outhouses. Markets may seem full - no one can afford beef or chicken any more. Local produce is plentiful in summer but dont try winter or spring. Smaller towns are getting utterly detonated - some 4 million people are likely to have their townships dissolved in the next 6 months as their economies have been crushed by the war effort.
Whole regions have seen their municipal services - never great - stopped entirely. No road repairs, no trash collections, road signage gos unrepaired or replaced. Gas lines are getting unmanageable and people can’t get to market or work. Ultilities are leaving cables unrepaired and copper wires get cut down and sold for scrap.
Russia has reversed its climb up and is now fully regressing down the development ladder,
The worst US town is a freakin ShangriLa compared to Russian small towns.
I was referring to NKYIndepents comments, I fully agree with you.
Word
How much are you getting paid?
Paid by whom?
I’m a retired banker trying to scrape by on seven figures in retirement income. I don’t need money from anyone for anything.
My husband and I went in 2011. The trip was incredible and fascinating. One of the best trips we ever took. Putin was just about to replace Medvedev. We were not ushered around but we had come on a tour. Advisable because our ability to translate Cyrillic was too slow for subway stops lol. Though we did ride the subway on our own.
We had some guides on the ship plying the Volga river from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Moscow was booming (not with drones or bombs). It actually reminded me of Paris. That is, Paris before the more recent woke attitudes rendered it as unseemly as San Francisco or Portland. We had lunch with some Russians in their Stalin-built apartment. They did not speak English. That was difficult. But they had a dacha even though they were probably middle class. There were dachas of all different classes along the Volga. Some almost shacks, others like US cabins in the woods, still others like royal hunting lodges.
When one of the US tourists asked the guide if Putin would be elected, she said casually that "he will if he wants to be". That at least is honesty, unlike what has been dished out to us here in the land of free speech.
The Devil is in the details…. Like the darkness of Dostoevsky to Solzhenitsyn I believe one can still paint Russia in the dark tones of Mother Earth as in Van Gogh’s early works like ‘ The Potato Eaters’. May the light shine on it brightly in our lifetimes and end this death quest.
The author’s name is also Matt. He’s a typical Russian apologist.
Oh, look how nice Russian life is… while the men are off trying to exterminate Ukrainian men, women and children in their homes and gardens, bombing their kindergartens and hospitals. But— OH! -_ the West said that Putin didnt have the right to tell another country how to surrender to them!!! So it’s THEIR fault!!
Honestly it makes my fuckin blood boil.
You're so full of CIA and NATO propaganda, you can't think straight.
Matt B.M.D. writes: "I don’t know whether to laugh or cry... [Trump]'s got no idea what we’re doing there. Do any of us?"
Yes, I know exactly what "we're" doing there. Billions are being made, stolen, and skimmed in the hope of making, stealing, and skimming trillions more, first from Ukraine, and then from a "decolonized" former Soviet Union, while massive disinformation campaigns re: Nordstream, Storm Shadows, and French, British, and US ops against Russia are taking place.
All this is happening out in the open much as Fred Anderson outlined in his seminal text Crucible of War. The US colonies wanted Indian land. The Brits wouldn't sanction the violation of existing treaties, so Washington et al went ahead and set out to grab the land anyway. The British Empire, the Japanese Empire, the German Empire etc. did exactly the same across the globe.
Ukraine has 13 trillion in natural resource assets, the former Soviet Union has 75 trillion more, all of which actually belong to US corporate speculators. The US means to get them, Trump or no Trump, no matter how many Ukrainians and Russians have to die to achieve that "goal."
For the future of Ukrainians in this US victory - look to native Americans. Their blood and that of victims of corporate exploitation by the US and others is written on every page of our history right up to the present.
Such a long essay and so blind to what's really happening in Ukraine. It's not about land or minerals, it's about the punishment, subjugation, and erasure of a people who refuse to be reabsorbed into a cruel dream of empire regained.
Crucible of War was a very revealing book, glad to see it referred to.
The rest of what you say is pretty accurate- I get tired of people saying we’re obligated to bring freedom and democracy to the world, when so often it’s nothing like it.
We have a few commenters here who seem anxious to send people off to die for this “cause”, although I bet none of those same commenters are ready to volunteer for it.
One of my American colonial history profs declared that if we understand Anderson, we understand the American Revolution. Ken Burn decades after Anderson is now reviving the same analysis in his new series "The American Revolution" because Burns observes so few today recognize the foundational roles greed, avarice, and disregard for the law and the rights of others play in stealing other people's stuff. Hear Burns repeat Anderson's analysis himself with Theo - all dressed up in American exceptionalist bunting. New White House Ballroom - Winning! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VpBgRubnV8
Yay Davel
Sure. That’s what I was fed 25 minutes outside of St Pete. CIA and NATO propaganda. I didn’t realize rabochiye were all CIA operatives.
Youre so full of shit it leaks out your fingers.
You don't know what you're talking about, asshole.
I'm guessing you're voting for Zohran Mamdani ... lol
Your blood, like your mind and soul, is foul and contaminated.
So the thing I find the author correct about is that America would do the same if it felt the need... or at least the american war machine.
The world is brutal and ruled by the vicious
So barbarism is the natural state of Man, America would do the same, and we need to close our eyes and hope the ugly parts don't last too long. None of us has a responsibility to try to stand in the way of brutality with silly laws and "norms." Just relax, it's natural.
A sick, profane, hysterical tissue of stupid, uninformed bullshit from a braindead cretin.
Kinda hard to discern to whom you refer...
Let me make it clear: to whoever the raging coward NYKIndependent.
Got it. And he has truly met his match...
For what it’s worth a friend of mine whose Russian (grew up there) his views of the war and what precluded it mirrors Matt’s guest’s views
For what it's worth, a local husband/wife couple, one Ukrainian/one Russian, that runs a food import business are taking it in stride, no side picked. The husband's view seems to be that this is another round of human history.
For what it's worth, Russians have been cowed into saying they "aren't political" under Putin's long reign. Now that Putin has broken the social contract, exchanging stability for being apolitical, Russians wake up to gas lines and global enmity. Just another round of failed military conquest.
Snap out of it.
Gee, don't hold back - tell us how you really feel.
Cry harder. It’s funny.
You're entitled to your opinion about the war and about you speaking on behalf of "intelligent people" not wanting a critique of positions they hold.
Speaking for myself, I thought Matt's piece informative and based on his own openly subjective experiences. I look forward to more.
Takes two to tango. Put it back in your pants, this is obviously nasty all round or it wouldn’t b happening
The flip side of nationalist chauvinism often sounds like this. Basically the same stuff, only self directed. Auto-chauvinism. (Although it’s still really Other-directed, because it’s meant to distinguish oneself from the rest of one’s “own” people.) We are the worst people, a bunch of genocidal ignorant racist a**holes, throw in lots of f-bombs to signal righteous fury. As tiresome as the usual kind of chauvinism.
Wow, another point of view on the Russian-Ukraine War.. I mean, different from the one we are fed more or less continually...
The late Stephen F Cohen's War with Russia? remains a valuable guide to the origins of this conflict. Highly recommended.
Re the war, no one has clean hands, except maybe Trump.
The average American probably has a lot more in common with the average Russian person, than we have with the average person from most other countries. The evil that exists within our government helped create and spur on that which exists in the Russian government. I think the US .Gov (and the West, in general) made a lot of mistakes after the Berlin wall came down - and most importantly, we showed that we couldn’t be trusted to keep our word.
Also, about 20,000,000 Russians / Soviets died in WW-2 - let that sink in.
The Soviets murdered between (depending on the historian - few records) between 20 and 50 million of its own citizens. Let that sink in.
20M killed in a war, and 20M killed by a communist dictator / regime . . . Pardon me , but I see a big difference.
Yeah, me too. And 20m is very much on the low side of estimates. I'm not sure whether it includes the 4m Ukrainians killed during the Holodomor (two periods, actually). Might have something to do with their current truculence.
As for WWII, I rarely hear it mentioned that the U.S. provided vital food and military aid to keep the Soviet Union afloat vs. Nazi Germany. Russians don't like to acknowledge that, and most Americans don't even know about it.
Russia has so much potential, great people. Unlike countries like Sweden, Britain, Portugal and Spain, they just can't seem to get past their imperial history.
Sea Sentry - you DO know that Russia was an ally during WWII along with Britain, et al.
It was a complicated alliance, one where the Russians always seemed to cut the better deal. The “alliance “ with Russia was not comparable to that with Britain.
Stalin's desperate alliance with the West began after Hitler broke the Molotov Ribbentrop alliance to divide Poland and began Operation Barbarossa to take all of the USSR. "Did you really want to talk about history, or were you just making chitchat?" - Not Phil Conners in Groundhog Day
Ah yes the mystical “ Holdomor” which has been challenged and debunked. Watch movies by Oliver Stone on Ukraine and read the Famine history that occurred both in Russia and in Ukraine( then part of Russia). Nazi and UK spread narratives- works when your goal is to vilify and break up Russia for its resources - heh just like today (right Cookies Nuland?)
And Soviet apologists ignore the fact that the US provided aid to the USSR during the war.
I repeat, Russia was an ally. For the love of Pete, do they not teach history, or do people just not pay attention.
How are Trump's hands clean?
He kept this war going, after he promised to end it on "Day 1."
All he had to do was stop sending weapons and money to Zelenskyy, & he couldn't even do that.
Seriously thats all you have guess you are blaming Trump for this war too right? FFS 🤦♂️
I agree with you about Professor Cohen's book, "War with Russia?".
I keep hearing how immoral Russia is over the Ukraine invasion. People have short term memories. It seems like yesterday that the US invaded Iraq.
Well, sure if Iranian or Russian secret police set up a coup in Canada or Mexico of a similar nature, how long do you think it would take us to invade? And your point is right--the US has built a track record of invading countries whose government it doesn't approve of. I am no fan of Putin, but just in terms of geopolitics, what else could Russia do? Sign over its sovereignty to Apple or Google?
Exactly what threat did Ukraine pose to Russian “sovereignity”?
If you need help answering that question you've got no business commenting.
That's not how open forums work, Heidi. Make your case. Be sure to throw in how the USSR, UK and USA guaranteed Ukraine's geographic boundaries in the Budapest Accords.
Thanks Dad for the rules!! Oh did you forget about Minsk???
God the UK and globalist aholes are out inforce!
👍👍🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
It wasn't Ukraine, as much as it was NATO, which was continually admitting new countries on Russia's borders to NATO.
I suspect the CIA activities within Ukraine may have been a factor as well.
So, NATO is a defensive alliance to protect “liberal democracies” in Europe from Russian aggression. It’s charter does not include offensive activities.
“The Alliance is purely defensive in purpose: none of its weapons will ever be used except in self-defence, and it does not consider itself … the instrument of aggression. “
Sweden and Finland did not join NATO before the invasion of Ukraine. They chose to believe Russia would not unilaterally attack its neighbors and preferred to be free of alliances that would oblige them to defend a neighbor, along with other liabilities and obligations. They both judged those would
“CIA activities?” WHat does that mean? WHat was the FSB doing???
If you seriously believe that NATO does not engage in offensive activities, then how do you explain its bombing of Serbia?
CIA activities like setting up listening posts on Russia’s borders, and fomenting the Maidan coup.
Have you really never heard of these things until now?
The definition of “listening” is non-aggressive. LOL
NATO’s 1999 Kosovo air campaign halted Milošević’s ethnic cleansing of Albanians, averting a Rwanda-scale genocide under the emerging “Responsibility to Protect” norm—defensive action against a non-NATO aggressor, not unprovoked offense. Amazingly enough sometimes defense involves violence.
CIA listening posts along Russia’s borders? Standard great-power intel gathering—Russia runs its own spy networks near NATO states, from Arctic cables to Baltic outposts. It’s deterrence, not invasion prep, idiot.
Maidan? A mass Ukrainian uprising against Yanukovych’s corruption and EU reversal at the tip of Putin’s dick, , not a “CIA coup”—no evidence of orchestration, just U.S. support for democracy amid Russian meddling.
Realpolitik: NATO checks Russian revanchism to safeguard Europe; every hegemon plays hardball. Ignoring that invites weakness. As we learned with Biden’s jelly belly appeasement.
Is this a joke? Just look at the European Eurasian map over the last 75 years . NATO is not only an offensive actor so aggressively so!
Christ all the globalist neo con war mongers are infiltrating this site- the stench!!!!!
I don't think that any war is moral in the modern era, if at any time? I view war as about power, money, land mass, safety, preservation of civilizations, and on and on. I get your point, though.
War is always fought by the hoi polloi on behalf of entities seeking money and power....this has always been the case, IMO.
The current conflict in Ukraine features scores of dead Ukrainian Slavs who are sacrificed on the alter of Western political interests.....same for the Russian Slavs being sacrificed.
One context to consider is from a historical perspective....Russia was always considered the red headed stepchild of Europe....the extreme anti Russian attitude has always served as a mechanism of desire by European powers that wanted to destroy Russia and rob its natural resources.....this is still the case, but unfortunately for the Europeans, their "leaders" have gutted their productive industrial bases and stolen their wealth...Europe has no means to destroy Russia, barring nuclear conflagration. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia suffered through the last decade of the 20th century and have now rebuilt....during that period the "West" destroyed their productive bases and implemented a culture destroying bureaucracy (the EU) and drowned the member countries in debt. I don't see the West getting out of this scenario unscathed....it would make a lot more sense to just trade freely with Russia and the global South.....lets face it, war is a horrible waste of precious, limited resources both natural and human.
Afghanistan is another interesting history lesson. Russia invades. We champion the Taliban. Rambo III sings their praises to the public. Russian leaves. We invade, changing our mind 180 degrees about the Taliban.
It's okay when we do it, because we're always the good guys.
(Allegedly.)
Amen
So that makes it OK? Whatabboutism.
... and for less reason. (Been there, done that.)
Tedious and repetitive. Trump has been significantly more willing to negotiate with Putin than Biden, but that's apparently gotten him exactly nowhere. Despite Bivens' claim that Trump won't give in to Putin's demand that NATO stop expanding towards Russia, what actually appears to be true is that Putin won't seriously negotiate because he expects to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield. And maybe Putin is right, but that's not Trump or the West's fault.
Yes, I wondered about that claim, too. (about NATO)
Consider the lies from the West to Russia and I suspect that after Minsk 1 and Minsk 2, the Russians are a bit skeptical of what the West is trying to sell them......also, Russia has been consistent in their conditions for suspending the SMO. The real victims here are the Ukrainian population whose interests are ill served by the corrupt state installed after Maiden. If you have any interest in the backstory I recommend Provoked by Scott Horton.
I'm not even going to bother contesting the view that America, and the expansion of a purely defensive alliance that only came into existence in response to Russian threats of aggression and has never taken any territory from anybody, somehow make Putin's invasion of Ukraine rational and defensible, or bear any responsibility for it. My real reaction to the article is relief that I live in a country where I can talk about anything I like at the dinner table.
Of course, I didn't need the article to remind me or confirm just how lucky we all are in comparison with the literally billions of people who, because of their oppressive leaders, don't feel comfortable doing this.
Hmm... Why would a "purely defensive alliance" bomb Serbia?
In the 1980s, ethnic cleansing in Europe was no more acceptable to the west than apartheid had been in South Africa. NATO sent no troops but used its air power in a limited way to protect the victims of Serbia's ethnic cleansing program, not to acquire Serbian territory or threaten the existence of the Serbian state or its government. The aggressors were the Serbs, not their victims and defenders, and this was NATO's first-ever military action, the only other one in its seventy-plus year history being the role it played in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks on the USA (according to Wikipedia, NATO's other roles have included “relief efforts, counter-piracy, enforcing no-fly zones and naval blockades”). It's a defensive alliance all right.
So, if we strip away the propaganda from your post, what's left is the following: despite being a "purely defensive alliance", NATO chose to attack a country that wasn't threatening any of its members in any way.
Using the guise of protecting the victims of the Serbia's ethnic cleansing program doesn't change the fact that NATO acted as an aggressor. Especially since this particular ethnic cleansing program was neither the first, nor the only in the former Yugoslavia. Recall Franjo Tudjman's ethnic cleansing program, which was perfectly acceptable to NATO and even encouraged by some NATO members.
Likewise, NATO choosing a bombing campaign over boots-on-the ground operation has nothing to do with the fact that it was acting as an aggressor against Serbia.
As for this being "the first-ever military action", doesn't it sound like a hooker describing her first day on the job?
How did the US re
I’m not informed enough on all the details & background of this conflict to judge. However, I do know our LEADERS have lied to us too many times to accept anything they’re telling us in general or this war in particular.
The idea that there is plenty of blame to go around for the Russia-Ukraine War seems to be a hard concept for many on this comment page to grasp.
Remember, Comrade: the war started because the mad imperialist Putin woke up bored one morning in February 2022 and thought, "You know what is problem with Mother Russia? Not big enough! Dmitri, send in the tanks!"
War propaganda has (yet again) rotted people's minds.
Love the gaslighting “ comrade”
Europe is clearly the most violent, domineering continent on the planet. The two world wars proved that, as did hundreds of years of colonial conquest around the world. Why the United States continues to involve itself in European affairs is a question all Americans should be asking. If the Europeans aren't civilized enough to keep themselves from one another's throats, why should we be constantly rushing to their "rescue"?
One word - money. It's always and only ever about that.
Ditto
This article humanizes the Russian people. There is something very subversive about that.
You mean they are not just a bunch of "greasy" hicks? ... Not just Appalachia with a Russian accent? Get outta here! How are we supposed to hate if we persist in humanizing our "enemy"?
Best comment yet. lol
Huh? Humanizing people is somehow subversive??.
I think he means it in a good/sarcastic way.
Duh, went right over my head. Oops😉
1. If I could "Like" this article thousands of times, I would! 2. I wish I could have visited Russia with you and your family; as I've always wished to visit. But other places, other wars, came and went on their own (and my) time. 3. As a now-senior American military and combat veteran, I've met and known some interesting Russians, and ironically a few Ukrainians - when it, too, was Russia. I liked them all - for their droll humor, their cynical worldview, their beautiful women, and their friendship. I look forward to reading your remaining notes. My biggest fear is, as Le Carré wrote, "... in the fight for peace not a stone will be left standing." (... в борьбе за мир не останется камня на камне.) Бог с тобой.
Interesting point of view but NATO expansion is a poor excuse for an illegal annexation of the Crimea and a brutal attack on a neighbor. Putin has imperial ambitions but a reach that barely extends past his borders. You argue that US defense contractors are responsible for prolonging the war. Putin is solely responsible for that. I suppose you believe that Ukraine should simply surrender or that the West should repeat the Munich mistake and simply hand Czechoslo-Ukraine over to Putin.
You are the sort of Massachusetts neighbor that makes it such an odd state to live in. Belief is more important than reality. The military industrial complex is the root of all evil. As a doctor you would be better qualified to comment on why Beth Israel is driving patients to its wholly-owned subsidiaries and making it difficult for patients to keep their PCPs.
"Putin has imperial ambitions..." How do you know that, except what the NY Times prints?
He has repeatedly said in public that the breakup was ""The greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century." for Russia. He thinks the invasion points into his country need to be held by his army. Is that "imperial" depends on your point of view.
If you look at the context of this and similar statements, it has nothing to do with the loss of territory. Putin is talking about how much suffering the breakup caused.
More than 2 million people were forcibly uprooted from the Central Asian republics and had to relocate, mostly to Russia. Oftentimes with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Older people lost their hard-earned pensions because they couldn't document employment in the former Soviet republics. Families ended up split between countries. And so on.
Actually it does. Putin has claimed those land invasion routes are vital to the future of Russia.
Citation, please.
Yes, Russia's sovereignty and safety.
I know that, but that doesn't mean "imperial" or at least any more imperial than many other big countries, say USA, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia... I hate to be defending the likes of Putin, but geopolitics, especially the ever present desire by the West to take everything that's not nailed down kind of leads Russia to act the way it does. I remember in Moscow they had this big snow machine that had two horizontal arms that gathered up snow, which went up into a conveyor, to an end dump truck to be carted off. You know what people called this thing? Capitalist, because it gathers everything up! So that might be an informal indication of what it looks like from a Russian point of view.
I believe that he followed that up with something to the effect of "but only a fool would seek to recreate it." This oft-repeated quote is very much taken out of context.
Don’t read the Times because it is so woke and pretentious. Restoring the USSR is equivalent to restoring the Russian empire and by definition Imperial. Putin is clearly trying to return to a greater Russia larger than ethnic Russia. You can quibble about words but the intent has been clearly stated. For example:
“Both Russians, and Ukrainians, and Belarusians are heirs of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe. Slavonic and other tribes across a vast territory — from Ladoga, Novgorod and Pskov to Kyiv and Chernihiv — were united by one language (which today we call Old Russian), by economic ties, by the rule of princes of the Rurik dynasty, and after the baptism of Rus — by one Orthodox faith.”
That sounds like a description of Russia's history; not plans for Russia's future.
He says that they are now heirs of a common heritage. His actions toward Belarus as a vassal and Ukraine as a target show what his words mean.
TeeJae's got it right. It used to be the Russian Empire, so in the sense of trying to restore it, maybe. But it's historical. Ukraine actually means "borderland" and was where the Rus originated (Kyiv) so the two are tied together. I'm not really in favor of big countries--sometimes I think the US itself would be better off breaking into smaller ones, especially with the current polarized situation, so I don't think Russia has some divine or historical right to be big, but it is, anyway.
So, is it our mission to make sure Russia is not restored to its previous empire? Is it worth fighting a war over? I think it's more about the West having unobstructed access to their mineral wealth, and nothing about freedom, democracy, etc. I also think the idea that Russia wants to take over Europe or something like that is far-fetched.
No one in the US really cared much about Ukraine, except maybe the Bidens before Putin invaded. If we cared about mineral wealth we would invade the Congo. The whole mineral deal came from Trump wanting to get something in return for all the support given. After WW2 Britain and France owed huge sums “borrowed” from the US. The loans magically turned into gifts because of the Soviet threat. Same with a lot of other countries. The “evil US” is a stereotype that has been wrong more times than not. Russia’s stereotype is Stalin, who Putin admires.
The West was after Russia’s resources all the way back to the Russian Empire and the Tsars. I don’t know what you’re talking about with “Russia’s stereotype”— do you mean from the West’s point of view, or from Russia’s point of view?
Wow, Russians nice peace-loving people, and Putin a poor, terrified leader trying to stave off NATO invasion.
Funny, not my experience, they are overwhelmingly paranoid imperialists a couple of centuries too late.
And all this stuff blaming the US for everything is delusional.
But it is a pity that we’re going to have to kill so many of them to give Europe back peace.
Let Europe sort it out this time, enough of our people getting killed.
Excellent and most enlightening article. Also heartbreaking and enraging.
Such a damnable war that never, ever should have happened, much less gone on this long. Tragic doesn’t come close to describing it. 💔
Heartbreaking?
For the brain dead monsters killing Ukrainians in their homes and schools??
Oh please, Fooooookoff
Yes. For them, as well as the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who’ve been forced to die in this senseless war.
At this point it almost doesn’t matter whose fault it was for starting it, but it is now clearly both sides fault for allowing it to go on as it does.
No. Putin and Russia could end it tomorrow. Stop and go home. What are they fighting for?? What is their goal??
IT ALWAYS MATTERS who started it Suzie. No one is FORCING Ukraine to fight on, my dear. They want to save their country. Ukrainians dont get shot by their commander if they retreat from the front. Russians do.
A recent Gallup poll indicates only 24% of Ukrainians favor continuing this war.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/693203/ukrainian-support-war-effort-collapses.aspx
I hear you and am inclined to agree with you.
That being said, the behavior and actions of Zelensky, the EU and the Biden administration from the run up to this war, (including the Maiden revolution), and after Russia invaded, cannot go unmentioned. It has been odd, to say the VERY least and they have far from the purest motives in both their prosecution of it and their total lack of interest the last three years, in any meaningful way, of finding a way for it to end .
Im confused. The Maidan was a protest uprising against the continued infiltration of Ukrainian politics and society by Russian operatives and propagandists. The people had ENOUGH of the corruption and oppression of Russian revanchists, like Putin. This has NOTHING to do with the US or anyone else. The only input the US had was to support the Western-leaning pols to give them some resources to combat Russian influence. Trying to paint its as the US “engineered” ANYTHING is ludicrous. It’s not up to the West to end the war — that’s up to the combatants. If Ukraine does not want to surrender 20% - or ANY - of their country to Russian invaders, well, we are OBLIGED to help them - we signed an agreement to do precisely that when they gave up 1,300 nuclear warheads. I bet they regret not keeping a few to remind Russia that MAD is more than a phrase.
The travesty the Biden group crated was not giving Ukraine what it needed to finish the 2023 counteroffensive. They had Russia in chaotic retreat, but ran out of munitions and had no air support to cut Russian logistics behind the lines. 20 F-16s, 100 ATACMS and a bunch more HIMARS likely saw Russia pushed back to the border. THAT was our mistake — too little, not too much.
Ukraine is starting to completely lay waste to Russia’s energy complex. Oil refining, oil storage, gas transmission, and thermal electric generation. All are getting SLAMMED. A couple more months. Be strong,
The CIA fomented the Maidan coup.
You are Russian. Do you think there is any scenario you could possibly conceive of where Putin would actually hold up a white flag and surrender? I don’t.
And as this war now only continues to escalate things can go all sorts of wrong in all sorts of unimaginable ways.
Bringing the two together - now - with no clear victor - is, to my mind, the only way to avoid far graver and unthinkable consequences for the wider world for not having done all in our power toward that end.
It may seem distasteful, even repugnant for you to think of doing that, but the alternative is simply far too great a risk to take IF a way out can be forged now.
Just a tiny pointer, the Maidan happened under Obama...though genocide Joe was vice president....John Kerry was secretary of state. Read Provoked by Scott Horton for more details.
The Russian people have never experienced decent leadership in their entire history. From monarchy to communist dictatorship. A visit to St. Petersburg was eye-opening. Dour, withdrawn people in the streets. Ugly buildings-prison like. Our tour bus picked up two young military looking males likely KGB, so conversations were duly truncated. I marveled at the artwork, but could not wait to get the hell out.
Thanks for regaling us with your expertise, doc
If you have better, post it. I can only relate what I experienced and it was not good and I would never go back. Consider that regalia.
I’ve been reading a Substack author named Andrew Korybko who is Russian and has been excellent with his reporting on the “Special operation” as he calls it. Lately though he has slipped and called it a war. If anyone wishes to become more informed on the region I’d say give him a read. The CIA was the reason this whole thing started. They had like 20 “secret bases” in Ukraine and one was even dug underground into Russia. These assholes made it so Putin had enough. Instead of him coming out and blaming the US he went in to force them out leading to this shit show. You also cannot leave out the Brits in this. Boris Johnson and his buddy who have large stakes in defense contractor who is selling them arms to defend themselves. Ukraine isn’t above board here either with the corruption as oligarchs there are snapping up mansions in Switzerland. There’s fuckery going on all around and now it’s just a money making endeavor even for Zelensky. Look up his Wife’s spending habits as shopping sprees. This needs to end.
Andrew is a paid Russian propagandist, often reprinted on Zero hedge.
There wer no “secret bases” or “biolanbs”.
NOT ONE has ever been found, even though Russia held almost half the country at one point.
STOP THE RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA, COMRADE
He might be but he doesn’t only write about Russia and I’ve had discussions and debates with him where he had his mind changed. I’ve called him out on his bias sometimes and he’s always been nice to me and trust me I’m no pro Russia guy. I’m as Right as they come but I’m not blind either.
I have never seen him write anything outside the FSB-approved narrative. But I did stop reading him a while ago, TBH
I get what you’re saying and I can see it and I’m guessing it’s possible he is a sanctioned writer for them because I’ve seen people really go at him for it but as far as that part of Europe he gives news you ain’t seeing anywhere. It was only $60. He has been nice to me and he was just real sick and didn’t elaborate what happened so maybe he got out of line and they poisoned him. The Ukraine is a fucked up situation with plenty of fault to go around.
I’m no Bivens fan either. I quit following a long time ago and I a little pissed Matt allowed him on Racket.
I believe Toria Nuland (who helped engineer the CIA coup in 2014 overthrowing Yanukovych, the democratically elected leader of Ukraine in UN-proctored elections) was quite excited when Russians took some of those "non-existent" biolabs:
youtube.com/watch?v=qRxi4QLQITY&t=2s
You seem to advocate Biden's eradication of Russian language, culture and ethnic Russian Ukrainians from Ukraine. Is Stepan Bandera (or Hitler) your Hero, as he was named "Hero of Ukraine" by Yushchenko (after he lost the election with less than 7% of the vote)? I believe Zelensky was elected with >70% of the vote running on a "Peace with Russia" platform? But elections are for democracies...
Oh, yeah, RIGHT. Nuland got 1.5 MILLION Ukrainians out in the street to protest Yanukovych who took Putin’s cash and flipped from pro-EU to Russian Nazi. PLEASE STOP. You make my head hurt. Eradication of Russian..BLAHBLAHBLAH. Bandera is a minor figure, please stop the Russian garbage. Yanukovich fled Ukraine. Where did he go? Brussels? London? New York?? NO HE WENT TO RUSSIA.
This endless repetition of Putin’s talking points is so boring, friend. No one was radicating “ethnic Russians.” Everyone there has the same DNA freak.
Victoria Nuland did not deny the presence of Ukrainian biolabs:
"Nuland did not deny this: at all. She instead — with palpable pen-twirling discomfort and in halting speech, a glaring contrast to her normally cocky style of speaking in obfuscatory State Department officialese — acknowledged: 'uh, Ukraine has, uh, biological research facilities.'”
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/victoria-nuland-ukraine-has-biological
Thank you Racket for this interesting piece. I am so effin’ tired of Trump doing the “ This war would never have happened . . .” Who cares! It’s not about you!
That being said, I totally disagree with commenters who think the US of A had nothing to do with What Putin Did. Or what Ukraine did, for that matter.
If Neville Chamberlain had a family . . . The Biden Family, and its enablers (including the Russiagate creators) have a lot to answer for. Also, Putin is evil.