Tuesday 1 March 2022

Ukraine - lessons in courage and leadership

The last few days has been quite incredible for me. Each time I look at the TV or Twitter there is some new horror going on. Cluster bombs and rockets being used to attack a modern European city in my lifetime is just unbelievable. Thousands of innocent soldiers and civilians killed for the crazed ambitions of one despot. A country's central bank being effectively disconnected from the global financial system. Germany suddenly announcing defence spending above NATO's target. Half a million refugees fleeing a war in Europe.

I really weep for Ukraine, which is heroically resisting attacks by Russian armoured columns surrounding Kiev and Kharkiv and other cities, still amazingly in Ukrainian control after five days.  I also feel sorry for the Russian soldiers who are needlessly dying in a war which Putin started but will ultimately lose.

I noted last night that some former Soviet countries are giving 70 Russian jet fighters to Ukraine, Bulgaria (16 MiG-29 and 14 Su-25), Poland (28 MiG-29) and Slovakia (12 MiG-29) with the US promising to make up the numbers with F16s. Some of these were picked up last night. 

The MoD are giving updates on the situation and of 7 o'clock this morning Russia still does not have air superiority, which is incredible:

The Russians are being forced into night operations. Another 70 Ukrainian aircraft is not going to help that with a lot of convoys in exposed positions. It is also important to note which countries are making the donations - former Soviet bloc countries with knowledge of what it's like under Moscow's rule.

Update 16:30:  I now understand the story about the planes being donated to Ukraine isn't true. Poland and Slovakia have denied it.

Meanwhile, the sanctions are having a pretty well immediate impact with the rouble plunging to record lows yesterday, it's now worth about a third of what it was in 2015. Ordinary Russians are taking as much money as they can out of ATMs with worries about inflation, savings as interest rates were hurriedly jacked up to an unprecedented 20% on Monday morning. The Moscow stock exchange remains closed but banks and companies traded in London saw their value drop by 50-75% - these are absolutely massive falls.

I am not sure that Russia can survive the next few weeks, let alone hold on to Ukraine permanently. It is I think just a matter of time - and bloodshed. The more horrific things get (and they probably will I am sorry to say) the more pressure will ramp up on Putin. 

Ukraine, and president Zelensky in particular are certainly giving the world a big lesson in courage, leadership and solidarity. Yesterday, they formally applied for EU membership and MEPs will debate it today in the European parliament, the EU may declare it a candidate country immediately.

Finland are set to debate NATO membership also in their parliament today and Sweden and Kosovo may not be far behind.

Just how big a lesson we can learn from all this can be seen in an article on the Russian state-owned domestic news agency website RIA Novosti, scheduled to be published last Saturday. Somebody, accidentally or otherwise, did actually publish it but it was quickly deleted.  

It's clear why it was never put out. Russia assumed by last weekend it would be more or less in total control of all the major arms of government in Ukraine and it isn't and a long way from it.  The article was spotted by Thomas de Waal,  a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and author of a book about Russia: "The Caucasus."  He tweeted a thread about it below and you can read it in the original Russian (get Google to translate it) at the archive in the link.

The article reeks of triumphalism as if Russia had already taken Ukraine.. Here's the opener: 

“A new world is being born before our eyes. Russia's military operation in Ukraine has ushered in a new era - and in three dimensions at once. And of course, in the fourth, internal Russian. Here begins a new period both in ideology and in the very model of our socio-economic system - but this is worth talking about separately a little later.

“Russia is restoring its unity - the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a virtual civil war, because now brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other, but there will be no more Ukraine as anti-Russia."

It seems to acknowledge that some shooting is still continuing but note the air of finality – there will be 'no more Ukraine as anti-Russia.'  This is palpably wrong. From what we see on our TV screens and Twitter, Ukraine is more anti-Russia now than at any time in its history.

"Russia is restoring its historical fullness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together - in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we had abandoned this, if we had allowed the temporary division to take hold for centuries, then we would not only betray the memory of our ancestors, but would also be cursed by our descendants for allowing the disintegration of the Russian land.

“Vladimir Putin has assumed, without a drop of exaggeration, a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations. After all, the need to solve it would always remain the main problem for Russia - for two key reasons. And the issue of national security, that is, the creation of anti-Russia from Ukraine and an outpost for the West to put pressure on us, is only the second most important among them.”

The issue of NATO was apparently of secondary importance, the main goal is simply to grab Ukraine and restore soviet control from Moscow.

“The first would always be the complex of a divided people, the complex of national humiliation - when the Russian house first lost part of its foundation (Kiev), and then was forced to come to terms with the existence of two states, not one, but two peoples. That is, either to abandon their history, agreeing with the insane versions that 'only Ukraine is the real Russia,' or to gnash one's teeth helplessly, remembering the times when 'we lost Ukraine.' Returning Ukraine, that is, turning it back to Russia, would be more and more difficult with every decade - recoding, de-Russification of Russians and inciting Ukrainian Little Russians against Russians would gain momentum.” 

So now we know, it was all about recapturing that which was lost in 1989 and forcing Ukraine back under the Soviet hammer.

“Now this problem is gone - Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be reorganized, re-established and returned to its natural state of part of the Russian world. In what borders, in what form will the alliance with Russia be fixed (through the CSTO and the Eurasian Union or the Union State of Russia and Belarus)?  his will be decided after the end is put in the history of Ukraine as anti-Russia. In any case, the period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end.” 

And later with what now seems astonishing hubris (my emphasis):

“Now the West is trying to punish Russia for the fact that it returned, for not justifying its plans to profit at its expense, for not allowing the expansion of the western space to the east. Seeking to punish us, the West thinks that relations with it are of vital importance to us. But this has not been the case for a long time - the world has changed, and this is well understood not only by Europeans, but also by the Anglo-Saxons who rule the West.” 

The west has more or less destroyed Russia's economy in a weekend barely lifting a finger. So much for thinking the relationship is not of 'vital importance'.

“No amount of Western pressure on Russia will lead to anything. There will be losses from the sublimation of confrontation on both sides, but Russia is ready for them morally and geopolitically. But for the West itself, an increase in the degree of confrontation incurs huge costs - and the main ones are not at all economic.”

Putin calculated he would be negotiating the break up of Ukraine at a very minimum and from a position of strength. In fact he is much weaker, having suffered severe losses and with little real progress, beyond capturing soft, strategically unimportant areas around the edges of Ukraine. We shall see in a matter of days how ready Russia is for what is to come and how long the queues are at Russian ATMs.

Putin is virtually friendless in an isolated Russia. The article's author talked of independent-minded Europeans being “completely uninterested in building a new iron curtain on their eastern borders” but that is precisely what has already come to pass. 

And you begin to see where Brexit fits into Russia's grand plan, now trashed on the streets of Kharkiv:-

“Europe, as part of the West, wanted autonomy - the German project of European integration does not make strategic sense while maintaining the Anglo-Saxon ideological, military and geopolitical control over the Old World. Yes, and it cannot be successful, because the Anglo-Saxons need a controlled Europe. But Europe needs autonomy for another reason as well — in case the States go into self-isolation (as a result of growing internal conflicts and contradictions) or focus on the Pacific region, where the geopolitical center of gravity is moving.”

On and on it goes with a lot of anti-west rhetoric and it finishes with this:

“China and India, Latin America and Africa, the Islamic world and Southeast Asia- no one believes that the West leads the world order, much less sets the rules of the game. Russia has not only challenged the West, it has shown that the era of Western global domination can be considered completely and finally over. The new world will be built by all civilizations and centers of power, naturally, together with the West (united or not) - but not on its terms and not according to its rules.” 

It is quite chilling isn't it and reveals Ukraine's invasion was more about damaging the west.

And you can begin to see how Brexit fitted in with Putin's plan raising questions again about who funded it and why. I think it also shows how stupid Brexit was. We need to stick together in alliances - as many as we can against the one party rules of Russia and China.

Democracy is messy but look where dictatorship is now taking Moscow. International pariahdom for decades to come awaits.

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