#and I only ever see eastern Europeans talking about Ukraine

[medicinemane]

Never think that I've stopped talking about Ukraine or that I've forgotten

I follow things every day, every day hoping for some kind of miracle that means the fighting is over, russia will leave every inch of Ukrainian soil, no more bombings... but... I know it's probably some time off... I'm not stupid, I just hope people can stop dying

I follow it every day, hear all the horrible news, keep up to date with things like the Kursk counteroffensive where Ukraine has taken a great deal of russian territory (which shows russia has no red lines)

I just don't share most of what I see on here because I don't want people to get fatigued... there's so many horrible things going on in the world, I don't want to burn people out

I'd rather someone be active and able to do a little than having to just turn off and disengage with everything to avoid losing it

All I ask is that you support Ukraine, they're just trying to exist. Just trying to live normal lives. I just hope you can support the "no civilians deserve to be bombed" platform, and say they don't deserve to be bombed by russia

If you've ever got any questions, it's not like I'm an expert, it's not like I'm living it, but I do follow things every day and it often seems like I know stuff other westerners haven't hear about... so ask away

Anyway, just never think that just cause it's been a bit since I mentioned Ukraine that they're not still on my mind

You hear less for your sake, but I keep coming back every day, and even I don't remotely see the true scale and horror of it, only snippets of... photos, videos, stories people share online

[therealvinelle]

What does Norway think of the us

Far too many things for me to begin to cover in a tumblr post.

Suffice to say: we arguably owe our welfare and current standing in the world and inarguably our liberty as a nation to the US. This has shaped our domestic and foreign policies for the past 80 years, and we are currently breathing into a paper bag about the fact that Uncle Sam is talking about breaking up with us.

Also beware, there are matters in this post which are a matter of political opinion (rare for this blog, I know), and there are nightmareishly long paragraphs in here, so read at own risk and sorry about the long paragraphs.

Readmore for length and in case I need to make edits.

Norway, the war, and the Marshall Help

Imagine: your country is invaded by Nazis in 1940, and remains occupied for five years. When you are liberated, your country's gold reserve is depleted, many places bombed, and the entirety of Northern Norway is so badly ravaged that the population is evacuated and the region deemed uninhabitable (you'll notice, today, the architecture up north is new. All of it.). To say nothing of the human toll: one third of our Jewish population was slaughtered in Auschwitz, the country is littered in war memorials and tombstones of men shot or otherwise killed by Germans, and every family has at least one wartime story.

(I will take a note to say that it's our own occupation that comes to mind when I see the war and genocide happening in Ukraine. The differences are many, but the shared horror of an invasion, the fact that this happens on European mainland and is perpetrated by a country we share a border with, makes it feel extremely close. More, if Ukraine loses... I'll get into that further below, but suffice to say "Norway's defense budget" these days is labelled "Ukraine aid")

What are you going to do when peace comes, and the time to rebuild is upon you? Well, it so happens the rest of Europe is asking itself that same question, and the United States meanwhile sees an opportunity to both help its allies, strengthen our bonds so that we'll be on the same side for the foreseeable future, and weaken the communist sympathies in Europe. It's a win-win type of deal, and so the Marshall aid is launched: billions of dollars ($13 billion then, $178 adjusted for inflation) are poured into Europe, bolstering the post-war economy and allowing the countries which accepted (all of Western Europe, save Spain and Finland. Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union declined as well.) to get back to their feet much sooner.

It's in this context that Norway's government's plans of a welfare society were possible to realize. Perhaps we would have managed it anyway, but the historically recorded fact is we did it with the help of the USA.

Then there's NATO, that beautiful response to not only the Eastern threat, but to the naivety that had reigned prior to World War II. Hitler had... helped himself... to increasing chunks of Europe, and country leaders kept saying "Well I don't want war, and I'm sure he'll be satisfied after that. Oh no, he invaded Poland?! Oh well I'm sure he'll be satisfied with- oh no, he's entered France!"

NATO means "Invade one, you fight us all", and while it may have come to mean "one invades Afghanistan, so now I guess we're all going" and even "boy Ukraine is having it rough huh. But we can't do anything without getting NATO involved, and that'll launch a new world war :/", and de facto "if NATO ever acts against Russia that will be world war three. Hang on, what's NATO for then?", NATO at its core still means "I am in NATO, so Uncle Sam will protect me. :)"

Which makes countries like Norway feel very safe. And, I cannot overemphasize, is why we've felt safe for the past 70+ years.

Which brings us to the next section.

That border. That border!!

If you look at a map of Norway, you'll see a long and happy border to Sweden. There has been much discourse (and war, war, war) over that border, I for one still think it would be nice if they gave us back Bohuslän, but overall we are very close and good allies.

Look a little further up, however. Yes, past the border to Finland.

Is that...

(photo credit)

Oh no, it's Russia!

This hasn't always been an oh no. We lived peacefully side by side frankly always, and the Soviets liberated Finnmark from the Nazis which was wonderful of them. Then Norway accepted the Marshall Aid, however, and while our governing party had had strong communist sympathies prior to the war (and after...) this cemented our ties to the United States. Our side in the Cold War had been chosen.

Border relations with Russia have been good, they have had to be good, but NATO was our safety and security during a very tense period of time. (This comedy skit is very funny but... kind of true... as does the entire Whaledimir debacle (adorable whale charmed the country, but was Whaledimir a Russian spy? Somehow, the answer appears to be yes.) The Russo-Ukrainian war has made relations historically bad, however. (Norwegian news article on the topic, if you feel like translating.)

Where am I going with this?

Norway has a shared border with Russia. Norway would not be capable of defending Finnmark if Russia invaded from the shared border, and having Sweden and Finland join NATO makes us feel better but the defense strategy has still been (and remains) "we defend what we can until US reinforcements arrive". One of the sexiest things the US has done this year was send a massive war ship sailing into our waters, just to say hello and show off their presence. MUCH APPRECIATED.

And, again, this might seem very remote and like the plot of a bad political thriller to the cursory anon and even to many Norwegians, but we were invaded in the last century, we have a shared border, a strategically important coastline and a lot of natural resources (oil!), and should Ukraine (god forbid) lose the war, the question will be this: what does Russia do next? What, specifically, does NATO and the US do if Putin for instance decides to take Svalbard? Is anyone risking nuclear war over Svalbard? What about Finmark? What about cyber attacks, underwater cable att- oh wait there were two underwater cables cut open yesterday.

Gee, that's not worrying at all.

In summation

America is a very important trade partner, and the cultural and political influence you have on us (on all of Europe, really) is immense. I imagine most asked would focus on that, especially on Norway's thoughts on the election, but you asked me and so you get my answer. Your election was a sports match to us (or at least covered by media and social media like one).

I will say this: Trump's first victory had us worried, and we have spent more on defense since then, but his second victory proves the first was not a fluke and the United States is shifting away from us. This is not something we can influence, as it is the will of the American people (or at the very least what they voted for), what we must do is adapt. I, a lifelong opponent to Norway joining the European Union, now see no other way if Norway is to prosper (though the EU also needs a major makeover to survive now, on our own without the US we are all shaking in our knees here in Europe). Likewise, to paraphrase a very good op-ed, Norway's national security neither can depend on a few undecided voters in Wisconsin who aren't thinking about Europe or Norway at all, nor should it.

We have been too dependent on the United States, this has been mutually beneficial and if it was up to us, this wouldn't change (I am now ignoring a faction on the far left which has been saying "Guys, I have a great idea: we should leave NATO :)" and another faction on the far right which is so eager to please Trump-senpai they think Norway is supporting Ukraine's effort because we're stupid), sadly it seems the US wants it to change.

We shall see what happens.

[qqueenofhades]

Congrats on your new journal article! Can you talk a little about your research? What’s your area of focus, what research plans do you have coming up? I have an insatiable interest in other peoples’ research!

I am a medievalist by training, though my focus has also expanded into early modernism and modernism, and one of my main research interests is how medievalism or medievally-themed ideas (for better and often uh, very much worse) operate in modern politics, culture, and media. My latest journal article is examining the premodern history and the culture of crusading in the current Russia-Ukraine war; the one that came out earlier in the year was premodern queer history and the crusades. I generally work on premodern (broadly defined) gender/queerness, law and society, war, crusades, religion, and politics, based in but by no means confined to Western Europe, with ancillary interests in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. As noted, I also have a strong comparative-historiography interest in demonstrating how medieval history is used to inform modern society and why this is often very misleading.

My current research focuses on premodern queer history, which has been the theme and/or co-theme of most of my more recent stuff. I am developing a mini-book project based on my UK conference paper from this summer focused on reconsidering queer legal, textual, narrative, and physical space within the premodern/medieval context. The general disclaimer is often that this material is marginalized, individualized, ignored, irrelevant, or existing unremarked on the fringes of medieval society, far from the centers of power, which frankly I don't think is correct. If you look at the places in which the theme and substance of "queerness" (in the modern definition; this is not the same at all in the medieval world) exists, it in fact directly informs and creates some of the most central institutions (and anxieties) of European-medieval society, including the king, the church, the literature, and other areas of traditionally-defined "power." So while the study of queer silence, gaps, omissions, and other places where the heteronormative record has prevailed is useful in some amount of retrieving unsignified queer experience, this also gives rise to the notion that premodern queerness is only ever silent or subtextual, and places where it very explicitly appears or speaks have to be argued over or discredited or somehow created to say something other than what they say. So yes.

Because my current university role is primarily administrative rather than teaching-focused, I don't have nearly as much time for actual research as I would like. I am in the process of developing the written prospectus for the above project; it will go to the editorial board at a medieval and renaissance studies center and university press when I am done. We don't know when that will be, but we certainly hope something like a timely fashion (I also have another full-length research project/monograph on premodern queer history that will probably have to wait for a faculty post with dedicated research time, assuming I ever get one. We will see.)

[irithnova]

Seeing as this myrddin blocked me and is now spreading baseless accusations about me being a Russian agent.

This is in reference to my post in which I explain using historical detail why it is incorrect to say that Mongols are ancestors/direct ancestors to Russians. I explain why it is not only incorrect to say this, but it also has the potential to harbour harmful rhetoric about Mongolians, Russians, and Eastern Europeans as a whole, as this pseudo-history is rooted in racial science and is used to spread slavophobia and anti Mongolian sentiment.

Here is my original post, please go and read it for yourself:

I explained that yes, the Mongols/Golden horde did have a lasting impact impact on Russian history, culture and identity, and it is important to acknowledge their contributions. But I also explained how the Mongol invasions did not include mass migration and assimilation of Mongol populations into Eastern European (compared to the other Khanates) and the Mongols were essentially a ruling elite - an outside force coming in.

I explained how people often exaggerate Mongol influence on Russia/Eastern Europe for more sinister reasons. I said how the core of Russian culture is Slavic, and how many different cultures have had an impact on the course of Russian history. I explained why it is important not to exaggerate Mongol influence on Russia/Eastern Europe to the extent that people run around saying how Mongols are ancestors to them, as it is not historically sound and is rooted in racial science/slavophobia.

The idea that Eastern Europeans in general are not "true Europeans" and are really just "Mongol mongrels" is not exactly a new concept. However there has been a surge of popularity in hurling the term "Mongol", "Mongol Hordes" as an insult towards Russians. Do you... Not see how this is a problem? Not only is it incredibly, incredibly racist towards the Mongolian people, to use their ethnic term to denote "barbaric", "backwards" or "savage", as I want to reiterate, this rhetoric has its origins in Nazi racial science, and is also slavophobic.

I said that the core of Russian culture is Slavic. Nowhere, in my post, did I ever dabble in debating on whether Russia is the direct heir or descendant to Kievan Rus', nor did I use this as a justification to label, Ukrainians as Nazis for wanting to defend their country from the Russian invasion, nor did I then go onto use this to justify a "denazification" of Ukraine.

If you take a look at my account, you can see that I am extremely critical of the Russian state.

Also I just think it's so... Typically American to accuse people you don't like of being a Russian agent lol.

In my post, I added this screenshot of someone tweeting anti-Mongolian sentiment in order to give an example of how pseudo-history and racial science gives way for anti-Mongolian sentiment to rear it's ugly head :

I was not calling a Ukrainian a Nazi for criticising Russia - this person is not even Ukrainian judging by his Irish name.

Even if this person was a Ukrainian, does that give them a right to throw around anti-Mongolian sentiment?? Do Ukrainians have free reign to hurl around the word "Mongol" like it's an insult and perpetuate harmful racial science??

I love how myrddin suddenly started Mongolia posting - pretending like they give a fuck about Mongolian culture, history and people, but then goes ahead and derails a post talking about anti-Mongolian sentiment and racial science and turns it into some fucking debate about Russia being or not being the heir of Kievan Rus when I NEVER EVEN SAID SHIT ABOUT THAT IN MY ORIGINAL POST. I EVEN SAID THAT MANY DIFFERENT CULTURES HAD A LASTING IMPACT ON THE COURSE OF RUSSIA'S HISTORY, IDENTITY AND CULTURE, AND I WASN'T TRYING TO SQUEEZE RUSSIA INTO A BOX OF "WHITE, SLAVIC" FOR THE SAKE OF MY ARGUMENT.

ALL I DID WAS EXPLAIN WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT EXAGGERATING MONGOL INFLUENCE TO THE POINT WHERE Y'ALL CALL MONGOLS ANCESTORS TO RUSSIANS WHEN ITS BOTH HISTORICALLY INACCURATE AND USED FOR OFFENSIVE RHETORIC

Myrddin - can you even read? 🤭

@myrddin-wylt

[rametarin]

As an American, it is an utter embarrassment that our republicans are throwing gutterballs on this. And it shows how far fallen the US right wing has become.

In years past, there would have been enough stabilizing voices and forces of college educated, pragmatic warhawks that understood the threat posed by Russia, through way of seeing how the Russians fanned the flames of international socialism and communism. But that characteristic of the culture seems to have sadly bled away, leaving behind just the evangelicals, some milquetoast counter-culturals being pissbabies about how the wrong kind of leftists are beating them with Woke like they were baby seals, and the guys that believe it's their constitutional right to exploit employees' existence for a few extra cents saved per hour.

I'm very critical of the left, just because there's very little that needs to be said about how the American right fucks up and is wrong. It's the usual patterns of religious bigotry, gradients of white supremacism ranging from "English should be the only language allowed spoken in the USA" to, "Whites should be the only ones allowed in the USA." and in a bit too close to the Charles Montgomery Burns.

And we won't even talk about how the Libertarian party range from Bored Ape NFT afficianados to the utter embarrassment that was John McAfee.

The republicans of yesteryear would have absolutely flipped their shit at the opportunity to part Russian hair with American lead and steel saibots. Help a struggling plucky Eastern European nation come westward? Oh fuck yeah. Help them defend their sovereignty? Oh FUCK yeah. Help them defend it in the face of ethnic cleansing and an ethnosupremacist, genocidal ambition? Oh FUCK yeah!!! Help them against Russia!?!? FUCK YES.

By all rights this opportunity in Ukraine ticks ALL the boxes that SHOULD be making sovereign state loving, ethnographic respecting, home and hearth advocates for capitalist liberal democratic republics cream themselves with bullets and eagles. It has absolutely everything a cold war republican, the kind that buttslammed Saddam Housein harder than Mario ass crashes turtles and mushrooms, could ever want.

It's supposed to be the democrats that are so infiltrated by pinko scum that they'd rather uproot our own domestic nuclear power plants and movement than even risk the tangential attachment to nuclear bombs. It's supposed to be the left-wing so brainfucked that it's paralyzed and not thinking clearly about war, so trying to save Russia's efforts in annexing territory by pretending to give a shit about peace and non-involvement. It's supposed to be our tankies pretending they're "liberal" so the tankie position becomes the defacto "liberal" position.

Instead we have a bunch of old impotent fucks moaning about isolationism and how intervening in a land grab that is clearly not going to be satisfied just eating Ukraine, would be "provoking Russia to escalate."

The escalation is here, gentlemen. Putin's Russia has decided, "the world is ours or it won't be." This is not a question of mollifying or pacifying until they stop, this is, "they will ethnically cleanse and bulldoze everybody but Moscovian Russians, if left unchecked."

I'm choosing the side that isn't absolutely abhorrent on an absolutely crucial and pressing global conflict of our times. Unless the republicans pull out an absolutely amazing candidate that understands the scope of how important this really is, whether you like Biden or see him as you would a lipstick wearing pig, I'm afraid he or a pro-Ukraine Aid democrat are the only candidates worth supporting.

The one thing I expect the right wing to do right, the absolute single subject where I can sympathize and genuinely support, and they're gibbering backhanded apologia for Russia.

[galina]

These are weird times we live in. I find myself grieving for Ukraine, feel guilty when I see myself enjoying something, but getting depressed doesn't help either, then I start thinking that it's not about me, it's about the people who are suffering there. I wonder how I can help or if it's even in my power to do so. How do you cope with such events?

I don't feel like I'm qualified to write anything, the thought of giving advice on how to deal with this makes me feel honestly physically sick – what can I write? Of course, be frustrated, be angry, be sad. Don't beat yourself up for having a moment of peace if you can. Cliché after cliché. 

I’m frustrated, both with talking heads saying this is ‘different’ [from other wars, from Afghanistan, from Palestine, Libya, Syria] because Ukraine is so called ‘civilised’ and other racist bs, and with people pretending Eastern Europeans are some kind of privileged elite completely devoid of any historical understanding of the countries involved. I’m channeling my frustration at the moment into trying to mobilise my audience at my work to help Black folk in Ukraine get out safely. 

Honestly, personally, I’m scared for what will happen next if this goes on. I’m worried for the treatment of my family here if this escalates, or that I could have my citizenship rights altered because the tories are still in power which is the worst outcome possible for our safety. So it’s hard for me to think straight about it. 

The only thing I've read that gives me any solace is the idea that all of the problems of the world are connected, so if you pull on any thread you're pulling on the whole cloth this horrible world is held by. Pull at the thread that unravels the value of oil, for example, and you pull at the climate crisis, at the extorting effect of capitalism, and so on. Does that make any sense, I don’t know. There are lots of ways to get involved and help from your own back yard on any of those issues. So if you feel like you could do something find out what you can do and do it, but not just for Ukraine, for anything that makes change.

No writing can really sum up what I’m thinking so that’s just a garbled mess. Time to continue to read one of the worst headlines I’ve ever read then immediately go back to answering work emails I guess

[communist-ojou-sama]

the whole us + europe has worked so hard to establish the main narrative of "wow, really aggressive of putin to invade ukraine. literally nothing of political interest has EVER happened there before, especially not in the last couple of years! he just got up and suddenly started a war with no provocation from nato whatsoever! :'-( anyway now since peace talks are finally on the way we are letting putin (and xi as his evil chinese accomplice) get away "too easy", so keep that russo- and sinophobia alive in ur brains till we attack china next ;-) dont worry guys it'll be totally justified!"

genuinely chilling to see this kind of historical "revisionism" happen live, and all the people who just started caring about the conflict all of a sudden, while ignoring the whole euromaidan thing for the past 8 years, and still ignoring other currently happening bombings not being extensively reported on (precisely because they arent being extensively reported on, maybe theres a reason for that...? can't think of one :/)

anyway sorry for the long ask, but i cant help but wonder how this whole situation will be treated in hindsight after 10 years or so, and what fun kind of declassified documents we'll get etc.

Sorry I took so long to get to this but absolutely, it really is an utter decontextualization of events as they've occurred and an erasing of all the suffering caused by NATO as a genuinely fascist military force. I think in hindsight we will remember the economic ramifications of this war more than what actually happened on the ground in Ukraine, but this whole conflict has exposed more than anything else the complete disconnect between the western conversation and and the one that's going on with academics and thinkers in the third world, no better embodied than by the concept of "westsplaining", invented by Eastern European leftists because they only communicate with each other and people to the west of them, else they'd recognize the many victims of imperialism generally and NATO specifically to the east of them, most notably and visibly in India, but also of course in China and the Middle East who are not sympathetic to the idea that NATO deserves to exist and who have seen this conflict from the beginning in geopolitical realist rather than liberal moralistic terms.

[echoesoftheeast]

Why I No Longer Support the Russian Annexation of Crimea

A few years ago, when I first began learning the Russian language and the histories of Eastern Europe, I was unabashedly pro-Russian in my geopolitical convictions. I still remember watching a documentary about the Maiden Revolution in Kyiv and how it was presented as being orchestrated by the West, how it resulted in the safety of Russian speakers in Ukraine being compromised, and how it ushered in the rise of a fascist government with Nazi sympathies that espoused a type of ultra-Ukrainian nationalism that left no place for anything Russian in Ukraine anymore. Due to this analysis of the Maidan and post-Maidan currents in Ukraine, I came to the conclusion that the annexation of the Crimea was a truly democratic action and that the war in Donetsk and Luhansk represented almost a motherly care from Moscow for the Russian speakers of Eastern Ukraine. For years this served as the basis of my understanding of the post-Maidan conflicts, particularly the annexation of the Crimea. I continued to read a multitude of pro-Russian articles that justified the annexation. According to the standard positions given, the initial transfer of the Crimea from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR by Khrushchev was nothing more than a whimsical decision from the former party head of the Ukrainian SSR. Since the Crimea had been thoroughly under Russian administration prior, this means that the actual transfer was an historical injustice in the first place; Crimea is thoroughly Russian land and is deeply connected with Russian history. Secondly, the annexation can be justified since NATO had allegedly promised the newly formed Russian Federation following the collapse of the USSR that they would not expand into either former Eastern Block or Soviet territory. Since a multitude of former Eastern Bloc and Soviet countries have in fact been integrated into NATO, the West broke their promise so then what sort of moral high ground do they have to declare the annexation of the Crimea as illegal? Thirdly, considering that the majority of the population considered themselves ethnically Russian, since there was a referendum that resulted in an overwhelming majority of voters supporting being received into the Russian Federation, how should this act of democracy be considered any differently than say the will of the Albanian Kosovars to cede from Serbia. If an autonomous province of one country can have the legal right to cede, why can’t another? Finally (not to say that there are only four justifications for the annexation of Crimea, rather these were the biggest reasons for my previous support behind it), there was the strategic considerations of the naval base at Sevastopol. Considering that following the collapse of the Soviet Union that more and more former Soviet republics and Eastern Bloc countries have been joining the European Union and NATO (or lining up to do so), this presents a threat to Russia. Considering that the geopolitical relations between Russia and the West are at an all time low since the Cold War, it would be a strategic blunder for Russia if Ukraine was allowed to achieve its goals of EU and NATO integration. Considering the close proximity of Sevastopol to Russian territory, if Ukraine would become a part of NATO and allow for NATO to establish itself in Sevastopol, this would poise a huge military threat to Russia. Therefore, in a sort of pre-emptive move, the annexation of the Crimea was necessary to prevent any further potential NATO bases being so close to Russian territory. However, over the years as I have opened myself to more and more information from across the geopolitical spectrums, the justifications for the annexation began to slowly dismantle themselves until I came to the conclusion that the annexation of the Crimea was not only an illegal action taken by Russia but a geopolitical blunder of the highest level. I will leave why I think this was the biggest mistake they could make until the end and I will address why I no longer consider the justifications that I mentioned as valid. Before we proceed, I would like to just mention an event that was fundamental in helping me reconsider my convictions and to abandon what I can only call the Russian-Chauvinistic mentality that I previously held. A few years ago when I was on one of my trips to Chisinau, my wife and I decided to visit the Museum of Soviet Occupation (also known as the Museum of Victims of Communism). Now, I was definitely not pro-Soviet (being an Orthodox Christian, I know enough history about the persecutions against the religious in the Soviet Union and the overall atheistic ideology to keep me at arms length from having any real sense of Soviet sympathy) so I was very eager to check this museum out. Having read various books and articles that talk about some of the horrors that happened (especially during the Stalinist era), I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the tragedies that befell different people within the Soviet Union. However, it was a completely different experience to walk through the museum and see real letters from prisoners, confiscated passports, and photos of the real people who experienced the repressions; simply because they were land owners, priests, or suspected of being pro-Romanians. What struck me most was the collection of propaganda posters in one of the exhibits. Whether they were attacking religion or bolstering the benefits of the Soviet system, the propaganda seemed to address everything. It was this moment of looking at the seemingly endless collection of Soviet propaganda posters where something struck me, “If there was this much propaganda going on back then, who’s to say that there’s not just as much now but through contemporary mediums?” So, what got me to reconsider my positions wasn’t an article, or a book, or a conversation; it was the feeling of being overwhelmed by an endless supply of propaganda. After this moment, I began to be more critical of what I would read and try to expand my reading to include sources that present both sides of a situation, as well as material from non-partisan sources. One of the most important examples was with the annexation of Crimea. I began to look a little deeper at the arguments put forward to justify the annexation. Over time, as I read more sources or would occasionally stumble upon some information, each point began to have less weight to me that they used to have, until the point where I came to the conclusion that I no longer can buy into the arguments: Crimea is Ukraine.

The first point that is often brought up is that Khrushchev simply gave Crimea to Ukraine either because he had a soft spot for the country, or that it was a gift to celebrate the 1654 Pereyaslav Treaty, or because he wanted to reward Ukraine for their loyalty to the whole Soviet system (among other reasons that are given). Now, it is definitely true that the Crimea was previously an autonomous oblast within the Russian SFSR and that Nikita Khrushchev played a major role it the transfer of the Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR. However, no matter what the reason (or most likely, reasons) behind the transfer, ultimately it was transferred and became an administrative unit of the Ukrainian SSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the declaration of the new entities of Ukraine and the Russian Federation, the Crimea was legally recognized as part of Ukraine. Most importantly, in 1994 both the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine (along with the President of the USA and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) signed the Budapest Memorandums on Security Assurances. Along with this document came the accession of Ukraine to the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In return for Ukraine agreeing to eliminate all nuclear weapons from their territory within a specified period of time, they were given certain national security assurances. Some of the assurances are worth quoting in full, “1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine;

2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nation.” The first two points that were noted on the memorandum, signed by the Russian President, concerned respecting the territorial integrity of the existing borders of Ukraine at the time, which included Crimea, and the affirmation that they would not use force against Ukraine and threaten their sovereignty. I came across this memorandum while reading an excellent book written by the Ukrainian-Canadian historian Serhy Yekelchyk, “The Conflict in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know”. This information completing undermines any king of argument that posits the initial transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR as being some sort of geopolitical injustice, and thereby justifying the annexation of it to the Russian Federation. Russia signed a memorandum to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, to abstain from using force against Ukraine, and to refrain from threatening the current borders of Ukraine. This leads nicely into the next point that the Western powers allegedly promised Russia that they had no intentions of expanding NATO into former Eastern Bloc and Soviet territories. As time went by, history has shown us that a number of former Eastern Bloc and Soviet republics have in fact been accepted in NATO. From the standard Russian narrative, since the West went back on their promise, then how can they oppose the annexation of Crimea? The logic seems to go that since the West reneged on their side of the deal, Russia is therefore free to disregard whatever security guarantees they provided to ensure the territorial integrity of Ukraine. However, we need to ask the question: did the Western powers ever promise this? This answer was given by Mikhail Gorbachev himself: no. The agreement that did happen was in regards to non-German NATO forces being employed in the former GDR (German Democratic Republic). When Gorbachev was interviewed and asked about the supposed promises made to Russia that NATO wouldn’t expand eastwards, he had this to say,

“The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”

It becomes evidently clear that no such promise regarding the refraining of NATO from expanding eastwards was every actually given, so Russia has no ground to try to justify their breaking of an international memorandum on the alleged failure of the West from refraining to expand NATO. Another point is that Crimea is historically Russian land with great historical significance for Russia. While its true that some very significant historical events in Russian history have taken place in the Crimea (including the baptism of St. Volodymyr in Kherson, the Crimean War, and the siege of Sevastopol) and that from 1783-1917 it was part of the Russian Empire and then from 1921-1954 it was part of the Russian SFSR, if we want to talk about the earlier inhabitants of the Crimea, it’s impossible to overlook the Crimean Tatars. Turkic peoples had been inhabiting the Crimean Peninsula since the 6th century and the Crimean Khanate was established in the 15th century. The Tatars were there prior to the movement of Slavs into the peninsula and were the majority until a number of historical factors began to decrease the Tatar population in the Crimea (such as Tatars fleeing or being deported to the Ottoman Empire after the initial conquest by the Russian Empire, more Tatars fleeing or being deported after the Russian loss of the Crimean War, and when practically the entire Crimean Tatar population was deported to Central Asia following World War 2 by Joseph Stalin). Only since 1989 has the Tatar population been growing again when the Supreme Soviet condemned the removal of the Tatars from their lands as unlawful, and thereby allowing larger numbers of them to return. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Crimean Tatars have largely been in favor of the Ukrainian government and have a more complicated relationship with Russian rule. When the annexation was in process, the Tatar population in Crimea boycotted the referendum and have been vocal in their desire to remain within Ukraine. While the history of Crimea is a part of Slavic history (not simply Russian), the Crimea has more historical rights with the Crimean Tatars, and the voice of the Crimean Tatars has spoken and sides with Ukraine. Now, to address the so-called democratic process of the referendum held in the Crimea that led to the request to be accepted into the Russian Federation. This was probably the strongest argument in favor of the annexation since it appeared the represent the concept of democracy and self-determination. It seemed to me that when the Soviet Union was collapsing and the various republics were declaring their own independence, then why should Ukraine’s desire to cede from the Soviet Union be respected while the Crimea’s desire should be treated as separatism? Is not Kyiv becoming to Crimea what Moscow was to Ukraine? On top of that, why is it that the referendum in the Crimea is treated as illegal while the referendum in Kosovo was accepted by the West? Let’s first look at the legitimacy of the referendum first. The whole tension between the political concepts of territorial integrity and self-determination is difficult to say the least. However, in the situation following the Maidan Revolution, it’s abundantly clear that the situation in Crimea was escalated following the arrival of the little green men. Even in my most pro-Russian days I had no doubts that these were “unofficial” Russian soldiers coming to the Crimea. What this presents itself as is nothing other than a military invasion and occupation. Since the referendum took place within a context of military occupation, it fundamentally cannot be accepted as valid on an international level. While it may be true that a large percentage of the population living in Crimea may in fact have supported a move towards Russia (I have friends and acquaintances with family members in Crimea and I have been told from them that the general opinion was indeed to become a part of Russia), the context and procedures were far from happening within what is accepted on a legal basis and can be legitimized on an international level. In regard to the comparison with Kosovo, we have to recognize that their situations are completely different. While both Kosovo and the Crimea were autonomous regions within their respective countries, the Russian population in the Crimea never underwent the same atrocities that the Kosovar Albanians underwent during the Kosovo War. The context for the independence of Kosovo was largely based on the genocidal afflictions they experienced during the war from Serbia, thus giving a moral precedence to pursue a path of independence. The only population within Crimea that can claim to have any kind of similar experience are the Crimean Tatars, who have been the victims of repression and deportation numerous times throughout history. So, we can see that neither the fact that a referendum was held or the comparison with Kosovo can have any legitimacy in regards to the annexation of Crimea. Now I’d like to look at the claim that it was necessary to annex the Crimea as a pre-emptive strike to protect Russian borders from the expansion of NATO. Since there’s a significant naval port in Sevastopol, it would be a geopolitical disaster for Russia if the ports of Sevastopol became NATO bases. This argument is completely dismantled once one considers the point that Sevastopol isn’t the only port in Ukraine. This point was driven home to me during a discussion with a Ukrainian acquaintance of mine about the whole situation in Crimea. We were discussing the various justifications given by Russia and I brought up this point about self-defence against NATO. My acquaintance simply replied, “So what if Sevastopol doesn’t become a NATO base? If Ukraine would be accepted into NATO, there are ports in Odessa which could easily be used as well. Is the distance from Sevastopol to Odessa really going to be that big of a difference?” The weakness of this argument became immediately apparent to me. If we even put aside the question of naval bases, there’s still the reality of regular military bases that could be set up in Ukraine. NATO could simply set up bases in cities like Kharkiv, Chernihiv, or even Kyiv and these would all be very close to the Russian border. To pursue this line of argument would necessitate that Russia simply annex all of Ukraine to prevent NATO from establishing any closer bases to their borders. As each argument began to collapse for me, I came to the ultimate conclusion that the annexation of Crimea was nothing more than an illegal military occupation, taking advantage of the unfavorable situation that arose for Russia in the aftermath of the Maidan Revolution. In an attempt to keep Ukraine divided to at least prevent her from moving closer to the West, the annexation and the war in Donbass is nothing more than a destabilizing effort by Moscow to try and force Ukraine to stay within their sphere of influence and to prevent the West from getting to close to Ukraine. However, the actions taken by Moscow were the biggest geopolitical blunder that they could have made. If Moscow genuinely wants to keep Ukraine within their sphere of influence, the worst thing that they could have done was to annex territory and become involved in a separatist war. By trying to force Ukraine to stay, they have only pushed her farther away. While it’s unlikely that Russia will ever accept that the annexation of the Crimea was unlawful and actually return it to the control of the Ukrainian government, it’s also just as unlikely the Ukraine will return to a place where closer ties with Russia is a popular opinion. While there are small measures of truth in the propaganda employed by Moscow in regards to the situation in Ukraine (there are definitely ultra-Ukrainian nationalists as well as those who have sympathies for the Galician division of the SS who fought against the Soviets with the Germans in World War 2), it is grossly inaccurate to portray the situation as if every Ukrainian is a fascist, ultra-nationalist, who’s looking to persecute Russian speakers. While the Russian language may have less acceptance in certain parts of Ukraine, it’s still spoken across the country. At the end of the day, I realized that my thoughts in the museum in Chisinau were right: Moscow is simply continuing the propaganda tradition through new mediums. To sum everything up simply, we can say this much: not all Ukrainians are fascists, not all Ukrainian are Nazi sympathizers, not all Ukrainians are out for Russian blood. Russia signed a memorandum to respective the territorial integrity of Ukraine and to abstain from threatening it with force. There was never any promise from NATO that they wouldn’t expand eastwards. While Crimea plays a role in Slavic history, the Crimean Tatars have a greater claim through history than the Russians do. The referendum took place in an atmosphere of military occupation and therefore has no chance of legitimacy. The situations of Kosovo and Crimea are completely different and therefore are not a viable comparison. And finally, if Ukraine was to join NATO, bases could still be set up close to the Russian border even without the naval bases in Sevastopol. Crimea is Ukraine.

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

JINJER'S TATIANA SHMAYLUK: "I WILL GET REVENGE"

Go inside the Ukrainian metal group's new album 'Wallflowers'

Jinjer has teamed up with Revolver for a limited-edition bundle that includes the band's Summer cover story and a Wallflowers vinyl variant on 180g white wax. It's limited to only 300 copies — pick up yours now.

Tatiana Shmayluk wants revenge from beyond the grave.

As a woman fronting Ukraine's biggest metal band, she deals with endless bullshit. Comments. Snide remarks. Trolls. These dudes — and they are all dudes — might doubt her motivations. They might have something to say about her looks. Her clothes. Her uncompromising attitude. They might even attempt to throw shade on her high-flying vocal acrobatics or ferocious performances. But attempt is the key word here — in any and all cases.

Shmayluk is having none of it. If she can survive an upbringing in war-torn Ukraine, she can survive the haters. If she busted out of Eastern European obscurity to become an international star, the shit-talkers cannot touch her. If she can be held up as a role model by young women around the world, the power clowns cannot clown her.

Besides, there is post-mortem retribution to consider: "When I die, I will get their asses."

She says this with a laugh, perhaps because she understands that most of the people reading this won't believe it. But make no mistake: She means it.

Then again, undead reprisals won't be necessary. As it turns out, revenge is a dish best served with a heaping side of unmitigated success. Shmayluk fronts Jinjer, one of the premiere djent-prog bands on the planet. As of this writing, they have over 250 million cross-platform streams and views. They have nearly half a million monthly listeners on Spotify. Their 2017 live studio performance of "Pisces" — arguably their biggest song — has over 51 million views on YouTube.

Shmayluk and her bandmates — guitarist Roman Ibramkhalilov, bassist Eugene Abdukhanov and drummer Vladislav "Vladi" Ulasevich — somehow manage to combine metalcore, djent, prog, nu-metal and even R&B and reggae into a musical style all their own. Not bad for a group of young musicians from a conflict-ridden corner of the world that most Americans can't even point to on a map.

On the day Shmayluk and Abdukhanov speak with Revolver, Jinjer are in France recording their set for Hellfest's "Hellfest at Home" streaming event, which will replace the beloved annual metal festival — usually held in the sleepy French village of Clisson — with pre-recorded and contact-free sets from some of metal's heaviest and most popular bands. Such is life in what we hope are the waning days of the pandemic.

"Things with the pandemic are way worse in Ukraine than in the United States," Abdukhanov tells us. "Very few people have managed to get vaccinated. We are in line and waiting our turn. And because we haven't had the vaccine, we had to stay in quarantine here in France for seven days. We had to pay for this extra task just to be able to come here. It's a deep pain in the ass."

"In Ukraine, the shops will be open today but closed tomorrow," Shmayluk adds. "It's constantly on and off. But I didn't go sit in restaurants and things like this, anyway. I want to just be at home."

Both Shmayluk and Abdukhanov spent the early days of the COVID outbreak in Los Angeles. Jinjer were in Mexico when the remainder of their Latin American tour was cancelled, so Abdukhanov went to see his pregnant wife. Shmayluk went to visit her boyfriend, Alex Lopez of deathcore troupe Suicide Silence. She stayed for the remainder of her visa. "I was addicted to Amazon," she says. "Every day I ordered something. I got my first DSLR camera and some other photography equipment. Me and Alex got a huge fish tank — the Rolls-Royce of fish tanks. And then another tank. And another tank ..."

"Our American tour was supposed to start in April 2020, and it had not been cancelled yet," Abdukhanov explains. "We didn't know the situation fully, so we thought it might still happen — or part of it, maybe. So, it seemed reasonable to just stay in America. Of course, by the beginning of April the tour was cancelled, and it was clear that this thing would last very long."

The pandemic's enforced downtime did have a creative upside: Jinjer wrote and recorded their new album, Wallflowers. "For the first time in our whole career, we finally had time to write songs, practice them and go to the studio very well prepared," Abdukhanov says. This time around, drummer Ulasevich wrote the bulk of the material. Before he got started, the band collectively decided that they had to branch out from their last album, 2019's Macro.

"We knew for sure that we had to change the sound because we couldn't allow our album to sound the same," Abdukhanov offers. "All of us wanted some-thing new, and we had a very clear picture: We wanted the bass and guitars to be very aggressively distorted. Vlad, as always, had a very clear idea of how to change his drum sound and drum parts. As for the music, we never try to expect something from our new material. We just write music and let it flow. I think this will never change for us."

The result is somehow Jinjer's most aggressive and melancholy album to date. From the anguished, woozy groove of opener "Call Me a Symbol" and the dizzying, caustic metalcore of "Copycat" to the moody seesaw of "Vortex" and the airy, ominous dreamscape of the title track, Wallflowers is next-level Jinjer. "A lot of new elements are on this album," Abdukhanov confirms. "For people who are not familiar with our music, it can be complicated listening. But I think our fans are prepared for it. They got used to expecting what they don't expect."

At first, Shmayluk wanted to call the album As I Boil Ice, after Jinjer's new song of the same name. But the title didn't fit with the floral cover art they had already selected. They added an icicle to the image, but that didn't seem to help the situation. They ultimately decided on Wallflowers, which relates to both the artwork and Shmayluk's lyrics. "When I started writing lyrics, it was January 2021 and I was back in Kiev," she says. "Alex had come to visit, but it was time for him to fly back home to L.A. We had spent a lot of time together and now I had to learn to be alone. I didn't want to do anything socially oriented. I was just walking in circles in my apartment, making a huge hole in the floor."

Shmayluk's self-imposed isolation, underscored by the pandemic, set the stage for a more personal approach to her lyrics. At first, she started writing in Russian. Then she switched to English. "Vortex" was the first song she finished. "It's about a person who overthinks a lot," she explains. "Have you ever experienced that thing where you just cannot escape your thoughts? Your head becomes so heavy, like a ball of lead. It's about to explode. It can lead to depression, basically: You cannot stop, and you fall into it. That's the vortex."

As of this writing, "Vortex" is set to be the album's first single. The band has already filmed a video for the track. Shmayluk hopes the song can provide a kind of temporary support system for those who might need it. "Sometimes songs help me to overcome my emotional issues," she says. "Even with sad songs, they can make you feel you are not the only one who feels this way. It really eases your pain if you can find compassion to heal a sad heart."

Album closer "Mediator" is the result of an online personality test that Shmayluk took at the suggestion of a friend. "I'm always ready to do some psychology and self-analysis," she enthuses. "The result I got was 'mediator,' which has to do with compassionate, sensitive people. I feel this is basically another word for 'introvert' or 'wallflower' — it's all connected."

"But the song is about when I was younger," she adds. "I was an idealist. I wanted to see things as perfect and people as kind. But the reality is harsh. You grow up and you realize you still have a lot to learn — a lot of lessons that can't be taught in school. Life lessons."

The title track directly addresses the album's over-riding theme: Shmayluk's struggles as an introvert. "I've met a lot of people who have no idea what extraversion or introversion is," she says. "I explain it in this song so that hopefully people can relate. Introversion can be a problem for people who think that there's something wrong with them. If you are a wallflower in school, for example, people will mock you and bully you. When you grow up, you will realize you were just born this way."

"Society rejects people like her," Abdukhanov adds. "Society rejects people who stay inside. They think there's something wrong with these people because they are not part of a herd."

"That's true," Shmayluk says. "It's been hard for me to fit in with most people."

Which is probably why she feels so close to her bandmates in Jinjer. "They are my best friends and almost my only friends," she says. "It's really hard for me, as an introvert, to find new friends. Most people want an open book. They want you to just blah-blah-blah all the time. That's how they get information about you. But you have to read me if you want to know me, and most people are too lazy to do that."

"They want everything fast," Abdukhanov adds. "We live in a consumer society, and people are consumers even in relationships. In a way, you could say this album is like a manual for dealing with introverts."

"If you are patient with an introvert, you will discover the treasure," Shmayluk says. "You will have a friend for life. I think it takes a year or two to get to know me, and then dude ... you cannot shut me up!"

Abdukhanov knows Shmayluk better than most. They've been in Jinjer together for a decade. "Over the last 10 years, I think I saw her and talked to her more than anyone else," he says. "Because we're constantly on tour. We went through the nine circles of hell together. We played small clubs with only 10 people in front of us, and now we play huge stages for thousands of people around the world. This journey made us a family."

Of course, the haters are still out there. Lurking. Judging. Commenting. "I try not to read comments, but sometimes it is impossible not to see anything," Abdukhanov says. "I helped to manage some of our social media, and I cannot help but see some exchanges. But it doesn't hurt me much, fortunately."

"We are strong," Shmayluk says. "And I will get revenge."

[yobaba30]

A thread by Seth Abramson (Attorney. Newsweek columnist. Professor.

This thread summarizes the major-media investigative reporting on the TRUMP-CHINA SCANDAL, a bribery scandal involving Trump's hunt for dirt on Joe Biden in China, his debts to the Chinese government, and his decision to ignore life-saving COVID-19 intel.

We begin with the context: Trump's history of viewing his endeavors as entwined and mutually reinforcing. For instance, despite contest-rigging being a felony, Trump has been accused of picking Miss Universe finalists based on where his businesses are.

Just so, the Trump-Russia scandal was at its heart a *bribery* scandal: Trump's pre-election establishment of a pro-Russia foreign policy in conjunction with secretly pursuing the most lucrative deal of his professional life: a Kremlin-blessed deal for a "Trump Tower Moscow."

The Trump-Ukraine scandal was another bribery scandal—Trump receiving illegal foreign donations and false statements on Biden from corrupt Ukrainians in exchange for military aid, a White House visit, and help toppling the anti-Kremlin CEO of Ukraine's state-owned energy firm.

Trump's hasty retreat from Syria—the Trump-Turkey scandal—was likewise underwritten by bribery: Trump's major business interests in Turkey interfering first in the federal prosecution of the Turkish Halkbank and then in his capitulation to an illegal Turkish invasion of Syria.

The Trump-Saudi, Trump-UAE, and Trump-Israel scandals—which all saw Trump receive illegal aid from these nations pre-election in exchange for favorable policy post-election —were *likewise* accompanied by Trump pursuing business deals in these nations.

It's important to underscore that Trump has confessed to almost all of this. For instance, he confessed pre-election that if he ever had to set policy with respect to Turkey post-election—which of course he would—he would have a "conflict of interest."

trump has called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act—which prevents businessmen like him from participating in bribery schemes with foreign nations—a "horrible" and "unfair" law that he wants repealed by Congress. And he's made efforts to orchestrate it:  his own officials—even ones loyal to him—talk openly about his conflicts of interest, which see him commingling his business interests and U.S. policy and (with persistence and impunity) acting to advance his interests. Bolton and Barr both agree on it.  trump no longer even pretends to deny that he was seeking a major tower deal in Moscow while running for president—co-mingling his business interests with foreign policy decisions he'd have to make as POTUS. It's key context for the Trump-China scandal.

Presented by ABC News with a hypothetical in which he participates in a bribery scheme—a foreign government offering him a personal political benefit even as he is setting U.S. foreign policy with respect to that country—Trump said he would go for it. (Stephanopoulos interview … “I think I’d take it”.  https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/story/id-exclusive-interview-trump-listen-foreigners-offered-dirt-63669304 )

In the Ukraine scandal, Trump simply drew *no distinction* between official acts he'd taken to benefit himself personally and the idea that a president must work on the nation's behalf—a novel claim his trial attorney then explicitly and publicly made.

COVID-19 has stopped none of this. During the pandemic, even as Europe—per reporting by the NYT—was the actual source of the new February infections in NYC, Trump issued a European travel "ban" in March that excluded any country he had golf courses in.

No one disagrees that—per endless major-media reporting—in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel, other nations like Egypt, his pageants and more, Trump cross-pollinates his operations so that everything works hand-in-glove with everything else to make him money.

Trump told Cohen—per Michael Cohen's congressional testimony, un-contradicted on this—that Trump's POTUS run was intended as an "infomercial" for his "brand" (i.e., domestic/foreign actors would later pay him based on what he included—like policy—in the brand).

The Steele dossier was not the first—or the *twentieth*—document to claim Trump's business dealings in *China* significantly *supersede* in size and scope his many failed dealings in Russia, his many failed dealings in Ukraine in the 2000s, or his Middle Eastern golf courses.

You can read all about Trump's conflicts of interest in China here—mind you, just a *few* of the ones we know about, as most are hidden within Trump's tax returns. The most obvious piece is scores of valuable trademarks timed to Trump policy decisions.  https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2017/06/14/433915/trumps-conflicts-interest-china/

That's right: Trump—and Ivanka—get valuable Chinese trademarks in a way that appears timed to coincide with Trump's decisions on issues in which the Chinese government is invested. In this we see the *same trend* as with his pro-Kremlin foreign policy.

But it's more than just trademarks: Trump *owes the Chinese government hundreds of millions of dollars*. And the Trump-China scandal coincides with some of those debts coming due and some of Trump's income *from* China entering a period of uncertainty.

It was in this context—in the middle of a trade war with China *Trump started*—that Trump spoke with Chinese president Xi Jinping in June 2019 and did something a U.S. president never does: discussed *both* U.S. policy and his political rival (Biden).

Two notes about this CNN report: Trump's call with Xi came not long after his hand-picked AG "exculpated" him of wrongdoing in Russia—meaning he felt free to exchange in such conduct again. Trump's team *hid the transcript of the Trump-Xi call*.

If you track the calls we know Trump improperly used the NSC ("NICE") archive to hide from even his own administration—calls with Putin, MBS and Xi, plus the call with Zelensky that got him impeached—you can see that Trump *knows* when he's done wrong.

So in June 2019, Trump had a call with Chinese president Xi Jinping in which he talked about a trade war he (Trump) had started—a war which gave him leverage over China—and Biden's political prospects. And then Trump's team worked feverishly to hide what Trump had said to Xi.

We don't have to *wonder* what the connection is between Trump's trade war and Biden—Trump told us in October 2019. In that month, he discussed—in the same 30 seconds—his *leverage* with China and his request for Biden dirt from China. Watch the video: https://c-span.org/video/?464931-

So the question is not whether Trump commingled the trade war and Biden; or whether he wanted to hide that fact; or whether what he wanted from his "leverage" with China was dirt on Biden. All that is clear—and public. The question is: did Trump get the deal that he demanded?

The answer is *yes*. One of Trump's top men on trade negotiations in China, Michael Pillsbury, said he received *dirt on Biden* from *the Chinese government* the *very same week* Trump tied his "leverage" with the Chinese to his demand for Biden dirt.

Pillsbury: "I got quite a bit of background on Hunter Biden from the Chinese." The FINANCIAL TIMES reports "[it] relate[ed] to a $1.5bn payment from the Bank of China"—which "matches the amount Trump last week claimed Hunter Biden received from China."

In Trump's public statements, he has said that the money Hunter Biden received in China somehow implicates Joe Biden in corruption involving the Chinese government—an accusation that follows Trump's career-long pattern of accusing others of whatever he himself has been doing.

As the summary of Trump's conflicts of interest by the Center for American Progress details, when Trump made his demand of the Chinese not only did he have "leverage" from the trade war he started to consider—a war which has hurt Americans—but also his rent at NYC properties.

Trump makes tens of millions of dollars renting to the Chinese—and one of his biggest payments was up for renegotiation in October '19, the month he talked about leverage over the Chinese and demanded dirt on his top political rival. But there's some context to consider here.

Remember that Trump and his family had long ago learned from major-media reporting that the Chinese were actively looking for clandestine ways to shift Trump's China policy using the business/personal interests of him and his family. All D.C. knew it.

Consider, then, that the $200+ million Trump owes the Chinese government is due "soon," per POLITICO, meaning Trump knows he has China's support for his re-election—as it has leverage over him it wants to keep—*and* that now is his time to cut a deal.

It is in this context—(1) Trump owing the Chinese $200+ million; (2) having them as a major renter bringing him tens of millions; (3) he and his family knowing they want to cut a clandestine deal; (4) him having coupled personal and U.S. policy and tried to hide it... (5) Pillsbury getting Biden dirt from the Chinese during the same 7-day period Trump demands it; and (6) Trump warning the Chinese that he has "leverage" to get what he wants because of the trade war *he* started—at the moment coronavirus appears in China in November 2019.

In November 2019, just a few weeks after Trump gets the Biden dirt he demanded from China, U.S. intelligence tells Trump that there is a virus emerging in China that could be dangerous. The intelligence is urgent and comes from multiple U.S. agencies.

Trump inexplicably rejects the intelligence. Indeed, his administration has so little interest in hearing the intelligence that *U.S. intelligence agencies* must focus on sharing the intelligence with NATO and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), instead.

But here's the rub: Trump receives intelligence on the novel coronavirus *as he's in the middle of trade negotiations* with the Chinese. And weeks after Trump learns of the virus, he makes the most stunning decision imaginable with respect to those negotiations—and the virus.

At a time Trump knew of the virus, per the senior White House correspondent at HUFFPOST China inserted in its trade negotiation with him an exceedingly rare trade-deal clause that excused China from compliance in the event of—for instance—a pandemic.

So at a time the Trump administration had received *and rejected* urgent U.S. intelligence on the coronavirus, it received from *China* a request for an exceptional, entirely unexplained "out" clause that would cover a pandemic. And what did Trump do? Nothing—he permitted it.

But he didn't just permit it—though he knew from the DHHS Crimson Contagion simulation, the NSC pandemic playbook, and papers submitted by White House economists that the virus he'd learned of in November could devastate the US, he sent China our PPEs.

WP: "US manufacturers shipped millions of dollars of face masks and other PPEs to China in January and February with encouragement from the federal government—a move that underscores the Trump administration’s failure to recognize and prepare for the growing pandemic threat."

It was *after* that WASHINGTON POST report, of course, that we learned from ABC and THE TIMES OF ISRAEL that in fact Trump's team *did* recognize the growing pandemic threat—in November 2019—it's just that it did nothing about it (nor China's pandemic-oriented trade demands).

But it's more than this: Trump was being told by a cadre of Americans at the World Health Organization in December that there was a virus in China that could come to the U.S. and be devastating—further confirming the intel reports from 2 U.S. agencies.

It's with all of this in mind that we must consider the *80-day lapse* from Trump receiving intelligence about the virus in November 2019 from multiple agencies and the February 2 execution of Trump's China travel "ban"—which 40,000 got through no problem after it was issued.

Why did Trump reject—for *80 days*—bad news involving a nation he was involved in clandestine dealings with, despite having been told that the toll for his decision could be millions of US lives? What could've been worth so much to him? The same thing as ever—money and power.

There are so many details I've not included here. For instance, Pillsbury knew his revelation to FT that he secretly received Biden dirt from China was such a screwup, he *lied publicly* and said he'd never told FT *any* such thing. Then FT revealed they'd kept his emails

The pattern of conduct here is of course *identical* to every *other* Trump bribery scandal: secret communications; destruction/hiding of evidence; public lies about meetings or exchanges; inexplicable official acts; public and private demands for illegal election assistance.

But there's a difference this time: 52,000 Americans (and counting) are *dead*. Many of them because Trump's response to the COVID-19 threat began in earnest in *mid-March 2020* rather than *mid-November 2019*. A fact that appears attributable to his deals with the Chinese.

For years, criminal attorneys online and off have been warning America that when the most powerful man in the world can be bribed with money, land deals, and promises of illegal election assistance, the result will be stolen elections, policies that harm America... and *war*.

We already hit Stage 1: as detailed in my books PROOF OF COLLUSION and PROOF OF CONSPIRACY (which combined have 7,500 in-text major-media citations), Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel aided Trump in 2016. The Ukraine scandal was—and is—about getting such aid for 2020.

Stage 2 of the threat America was warned about: a bribery scandal that costs us dearly on domestic policy. We're here now: a pandemic Trump didn't fight because he wanted a deal with China. Trump *thanked* Xi on COVID-19 in January/February even as US intel said Xi was lying.

CONCLUSION/ A significant percentage of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak is attributable to a federal response hobbled by Trump's secret side communications with China. That changed only in March—after it was too late. And the next time Trump is bribed, America is likely to go to war.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to The Spin Cycle, a semi-regular look at how the impeachment inquiry is being sold to the American public by Washington-types — both those who are looking to oust the president and those looking to save him.

The most marked quality of the last three years of American political life is the sheer number of news-making events that have occurred. Those events and their aftermath can be near-impossible to keep track of.

Impeachment has only complicated things, which is impressive, since the facts of the Democrats’ inquiry into President Trump’s pressuring of Ukraine seem relatively straightforward. But of course, impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one — the founding fathers were vague about what “high crimes and misdemeanors” meant, perhaps so that generations of lawyers could earn their nut figuring it all out.

Impeachment, as it turns out, is really about politicians selling the public on the facts as they’d like them interpreted; it’s a public relations operation as much as a constitutionally-allotted power. We decided it makes sense not just to keep track of the inquiry’s pile of evidence, but to also track how politicians are interpreting that evidence and how the public responds to their spin. We are interested, in other words, in how the facts get laundered.

The facts are themselves crucially important, of course. But finding the truth in politics often means wading through ankle-deep, barnyard-sweet bullshit. The spin. The grandstanding. The press conferences in front of helicopters and flags.

So let’s be organized about this and lay things out as they are on October 11, from facts to spin to public opinion.

The inquiry’s central facts

If the Ukraine impeachment scandal was a dish of Chicken Kiev, think of these facts as the chicken breast, pounded thin under the pressure of high-wattage political scandal: On July 25, President Trump had a call with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. During the call, Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Text message exchanges between Trump officials and advisors to Zelensky later revealed that the Trump administration was in negotiations to secure the investigation — the Americans dangled a visit to the White House as bait. Around the same time, the White House blocked $400 million in aid to Ukraine, suggesting that the Ukrainians may have faced additional pressure to comply with Trump’s request.

An ever-expanding cast of characters animates those central facts. There’s the CIA whistleblower whose formal complaint about Trump’s call with Zelensky allowed all of these facts to be spilled out into public view — he’s the herbed butter of the Chicken Kiev, bursting with flavorful information. (Ok, I’ll stop.) He has been followed in recent days by a new whistleblower, who reportedly has first-hand knowledge of Trump’s Ukraine interactions.

And just this week, two associates of the president’s lawyer and America’s (former) mayor, Rudy Giuliani, were arrested and indicted for violating campaign finance law. The indictment says they helped funnel foreign money to candidates for office. The men, American citizens born in eastern Europe, appeared to be part of a pressure campaign to remove the American ambassador to Ukraine — reportedly at the behest of Giuliani — from her post.

The political spin

The Democrats

The Democrats are waging a two-front war of sorts: one in the hearing rooms of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the other on the 2020 campaign trail.

On the Congressional front: In her September 24 speech opening up the impeachment inquiry, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “The president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically. The actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable facts of betrayal of his oath of office and betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.” She was saying the president has already committed an impeachable offense and that we already have the evidence of him doing so. No spin needed.

Of course, “no spin needed, just the facts” is a spin of its own. “Every new piece of information has corroborated the basic facts, which are devastating for the president,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney told the Times, in a perfect demonstration of the restrained (for now) party line.

To reinforce their fact-gathering mode, on October 4, Democrats sent a subpoena notice to the White House for documents relating to the Ukraine dealings. Failure to comply, the letter said, “shall constitute evidence of obstruction.” Other administration officials have since received subpoenas, as well.

On the campaign front: Democrats running for president have caught onto the idea that the de rigueur line on impeachment is “the facts speak for themselves.” Speaking at a campaign event on October 5, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has run a campaign based on what she’d have you believe is a core Midwestern ethos of not rocking the boat, said, “I think that all of us believe that the evidence is there.”

Joe Biden has been slow to stir up big news when it comes to the impeachment drama, perhaps because it’s his family’s name being dragged through the scandal. But on October 9, Biden called clearly for the president to be impeached, not just to be investigated, which was further than he’d gone in his previous comments on the matter.

The Republicans

There’s a lot going on here. It started out a little messy but a couple of weeks in, the party line on the impeachment inquiry seems to have coalesced into, “It’s a partisan witch hunt!” and stall, stall, stall.

On October 8, the White House counsel wrote back to congressional Democrats’ document subpoenas with an elaborate, eight-page long “hell no.”

Calling the inquiry “constitutionally illegitimate,” the White House is refusing to cooperate. On the substance of the call with the Ukrainian president, the letter concludes, “The record clearly established that the call was completely appropriate and that there is no basis for your inquiry.” The State Department also prevented Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and a key player in the text message exchanges, from testifying before congress.

Trump, for his part, has spent the past few days trying to normalize the call with Ukraine and his requests to a foreign government to interfere in a U.S, election by investigating one of his political rivals. Trump’s 2020 campaign has released an ad that spins the phone call as innocent and the impeachment inquiry as an effort to overturn the results of the 2016 election. His Twitter timeline is a litany of tweets about the supposedly partisan nature of the whistleblower’s complaint, making liberal use of the phrase, the “Do Nothing Democrats,” and calling for Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to be impeached.

Perhaps the most interesting twist, though, is the mixed response of Fox News. Tucker Carlson, a fanatical Trump supporter, co-wrote a column in which he said, “Donald Trump should not have been on the phone with a foreign head of state encouraging another country to investigate his political opponent … there’s no way to spin this as a good idea.” On Oct. 10, the New York Times reported that Attorney General Bill Barr had a private meeting on October 9 with Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox’s parent company. (“Succession” writers, take note.) The morning after the meeting, Trump tweeted angrily in a response to a Fox poll that found 51 percent of Americans think he should be impeached and removed from office. So, all is not well in the right’s political-media nexis; the inquiry is setting teeth on edge, not least the president’s.

How’s it all playing?

All in all, there’s more noise coming from the Republican side of things. For now, though, they’re not winning the public opinion battle. According to our impeachment tracker, support for impeachment has only strengthened over the past couple of weeks. At this writing, 49.3 percent of Americans support it and 43.5 percent oppose.

So for now, the Democrats’ arguments are convincing more voters than Republicans’. But I’ll be interested to see whether the White House efforts to stall and delay will create the impression that Democrats are unfairly persecuting the president. Even Republicans’ and independents’ support of impeachment has increased in recent days, though, according to the polls.

Given a Democratic debate coming up next week, it’s unlikely that Trump will have any reprieve from the talk of his impeachment. We’ll be keeping our eyes glued to his Twitter, and our ears perked for the emerging talking points.

[xtruss]

Sergey Karaganov: It’s Not Really About Ukraine

Russia has learned the lesson of its past weaknesses when it comes to dealing with NATO (North Atlantic Terrorist Organization)

— By Professor Sergey Karaganov, honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and academic supervisor at the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow | RT | Tuesday February 08, 2022

A fighter loyal to the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic mans a checkpoint in the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine. © Sputnik / Sergey Averin

Russian troops near the border of Ukraine are not going to move into the country. To do so would be simply senseless. Grabbing land already devastated by its anti-national and corrupt ruling class is one of the worst options available to Moscow.

Instead, it is likely that troops are there to prevent another assault on the self-proclaimed Donbass republics. If that were to happen, Kiev’s army would be destroyed and what is left of the already failed state will probably collapse. These troops and other military-technical means, as Russia generals nicely put it, are there to increase pressure on puppeteers rather than on puppets.

Russia could count on its greatly bolstered military capability, probably giving it what Western experts call “escalation dominance” in Europe and in other areas of vital interest. We also know that NATO’s Article Five, committing the bloc to mutual defense, is absolutely hollow – read it – in spite of an avalanche of assurances. And the US under no circumstances would fight in Europe against a nuclear nation, risking a devastating response back home. In addition, Russia stands back-to-back with China, which greatly enhances the military-political capabilities of both.

The US and NATO are still rejecting Russia’s justifiable proposals – putting an end to further NATO expansion, which is seen as absolutely unpalatable in Moscow and liable to risk a big war, deployment of offensive arms in the eastern part of Central Europe, and a return to the status quo ante of 1997 when the Russia-NATO Act was signed. The US counter-proposals about talks on confidence-building measures and arms control sound pleasant, but they are largely pointless. We have seen it all before. Confidence can only start to be restored when basic Russian interests are met.

We are also complicit for creation of the current prewar situation – by being weak and trusting our Western partners. Not anymore.

We also know that, if NATO used to be a defensive bloc, it has degenerated into an aggressive one after bombing what was left of Yugoslavia, the aggression of most of its members against Iraq, aggression against Libya, leaving behind hundreds of thousands dead and entire areas devastated.

NATO is not an immediate threat. We observed its fighting capabilities in Afghanistan (Poor Weaponless Taliban beat the shit out of NATO, US, UK, France, Germany, Australia and their puppet Allies. They were all well equipped with Modern War Machineries). But we see it as a dangerous virus spreading bellicosity and thriving on it. Also, it is obvious that the closer it comes to our borders, the more dangerous it could become. Russia has historically crushed all European coalitions that tried to defeat it – the last two led by Napoleon and Hitler. But we do not want another war. Even if it wouldn’t play out on our own territory.

The security system in Europe, built largely by the West after the 1990s, without a peace treaty having been signed after the end of the previous Cold War, is dangerously unsustainable.

There are a few ways to solve the narrow Ukrainian problem, such as its return to permanent neutrality, or legal guarantees from several key NATO countries not to ever vote for further expansion of the bloc. Diplomats, I assume, have a few others up their sleeves. We do not want to humiliate Brussels by insisting on repudiating its erroneous plea for the open-ended expansion of NATO. We all know the end of the Versailles humiliation. And, of course, the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

But the task is wider: to build a viable system on the ruins of the present. And without resorting to arms, of course. Probably in the wider Greater Eurasian framework. Russia needs a safe and friendly Western flank in the competition of the future. Europe without Russia or even against it has been rapidly losing its international clout. That was predicted by many people in the 1990s, when Russia offered to integrate with, not in, the continent’s systems. We are too big and proud to be absorbed. Our pitch was rejected then, but there is always a chance it won’t be this time.

This article was first published online by the Russia in Global Affairs journal.

[autodidact-adventures]

World War I (Part 75): After the War

About 9.5 million soldiers were killed during WW1 (4 million of them from the Central Powers).  There were 1.8 million Russians killed, nearly 1.4 million French, 800,000 Turks, 723,000 British, 578,000 Italians, and 114,000 Americans.  Romania & Serbia each lost over twice as many men as America.

2 million Germans had been killed, and a million Austro-Hungarians. Germany had lost, on average, 55 men every hour – 130 every day.  1/50 of Austria-Hungary's citizens had been killed.

And that didn't even include the millions of civilians who died. There were also over 15 million men wounded, and nearly 9 million taken POW.

There was no peace in Russia – a massive civil war lasted for years, killing more of its people than WW1 did.  It would even draw in troops from Western Europe and America, and it would end with the Bolsheviks firmly in control.

Weeks after the armistice, there was an uprising in Berlin that wanted to establish something like a Bolshevik regim.  It was bloodily suppressed by rough paramilitary “Free Corps” made up of demobilized soldiers who were unwilling to lay down their arms.

In Budapest & Munich, Communist governments briefly seized power. There was fighting over territory in the new nations of Poland & Czechoslovakia; in Transylvania, Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the disputed borderland between Turkey & Greece.  The American Secretary of State Robert Lansing wrote in April 1919, “Central Europe is aflame with anarchy.  The people see no hope.”

The Allied soldiers did not want to get involved in all of this.  Troops based near Folkestone (Britain) mutinied when they learned of plans to send them to Russia.  French crews in the Black Sea did the same thing for the same reason.

The Paris Peace Conference (January 18th, 1919 – January 21st, 1920)

Dozens of nations were invited to the conference, but it was clear that the decisions would be made by a very small number of them.  A Council of Ten dominated the proceedings at first – it was made up of the heads of government & foreign ministers of Britain, France, Italy, America and Japan.  But the group was too large for secrecy to be maintained, so the foreign ministers were excluded.

Japan was only interested in issues related to Asia and the Pacific. Italy eventually walked out because it didn't get everything it wanted.  In the end, the conference was dominated by Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson.

Lenin's Moscow government didn't attend – the Allies refused to recognize it and supported its White Russian enemies.  Germany was excluded as an outlaw nation, which was a major break from tradition – for example, France had been given an important part in the Treaty of Vienna after Napoléon's final defeat.

The Austro-Hungarian & Ottoman Empires no longer existed, and Austria & Turkey hardly seemed even to matter.  New countries were emerging – Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, and Yugoslavia (forming around Serbia).  They would soon be joined by Estonia & Latvia in the Balkans, and Lebanon & Syria in the Middle East.  All of them had to wait on the sidelines (often while still fighting with their neighbours) while the great powers decided their fates.

Meanwhile, the great powers had their own agendas.  Britain had already achieved its primary goals – Belgium was saved, Germany's naval threat was eliminated, and they'd made impressive gains in the Middle East, where Russia's collapse had got rid of their longtime rival.  Lloyd George's coalition government had returned to office after the December election, and it had few major goals apart from protecting the British Empire's gains, restoring some kind of balance of power on the continent, and punishing Germany enough to satisfy popular demand.  This last objective, however, couldn't be taken too far – Britain also wanted to keep Germany as a buffer against Communist Russia and as a future trading partner.

In France, though, the situation was different.  Germany was still larger than France and had more people; and France no longer had Russia as an ally to balance things out.  Clemenceau (and France in general) wanted to make sure that Germany was incapable of being a threat, maybe even by dismantling the country.

Woodrow Wilson saw himself as a neutral mediator free of the cynical & selfish calculations of Europe.  He wanted to not only end WW1, but to set up a League of Nations to end war entirely; also to implement his Fourteen Points to make the world “safe for democracy” (although he would gradually lose interest in them).

It is rather ironic that the first of his Fourteen Points demanded “open covenants of peace, openly arrived at.”  The Allies redrew the map of the world in great secrecy.  The Fourteen Points talked about the right to national self-determination, but Britain, France, Italy & Japan were taking whole regions all around the world. Wilson refused to support Ireland's demands for separation from Britain, which outraged Irish-Americans.  Other ethnic groups felt betrayed as well.

Wilson eventually abandoned his Fourteen Points (even the pretence of championing them), probably to keep ahold of some degree of influence with Lloyd George & Clemenceau.  He became as vengeful towards Germany as Clemenceau, and accused Americans who questioned his ideas for the League of Nations of being “pro-German”.

Neither Italy nor Japan had contributed much towards Germany's defeat (Japan had contributed essentially nothing).  But both gained more than any other country at the conference, and left feeling alienated and dissatisfied.

Italy was given more territory than they'd been promised by the 1915 Treaty of London (Wilson complained that America hadn't signed that agreement & was not bound by it, but he did agree to it).  They absorbed Alpine regions in which 100,000's of ethnically German Austrians lived.  But the Allies wouldn't give them Fiume (Croatia), so the delegates left in indignation.

Italy had been dominated by Vienna for centuries, but now the empire was gone, and Austria was merely a small, landlocked, poor country of 7 million people (and they petitioned to be absorbed into Germany). So Italy was the strongest it had ever been since the fall of the Roman Empire, with no neighbours to be feared, and saw no need to remain on friendly terms with Britain or France.  Struggles for power in Rome had greatly compromised Italy's young democracy, and the way was cleared for the emergence of Mussolini.

Japan had sold industrial products and raw materials to the West during the war, greatly prospering in doing so.  Now it gained Germany's North Pacific colonies; it had control of China's Shantung Province (China's protests were ignored); and had great ambitions on the Asian mainland.

With their conquests ratified, Japan now asked for the League's covenant to include an “equality clause” that would declare racial discrimination to be unacceptable.  They didn't even ask for enforcement provisions – it was just symbolic, to show that they were accepted as equals by Europe & America.

But Wilson offered no support (America didn't allow Asian immigration, and the western states were determined not to change that).  Australia objected for similar reasons.  So Japan, like Italy, gave up on the West – they were dominant in East Asia and didn't need their former allies anymore.

Up until now, Turkey had quietly accepted the loss of its empire. But the French government wanted to strengthen their position in the Balkans, so they insisted that Turkey give the Aegean port city of Smyrna to Greece.  Anger rose up in Constantinople, leading to the rise of a nationalist movement under Mustafa Kemal.  The Greco-Turkish war broke out on May 15th, 1919, and would continue until October 1922, when they recaptured Smyrna.

In the south, Britain & France disagreed on how to divide up their Middle Eastern conquests.  Britain took Palestine and opened it up to European Jewish immigration, under the Balfour Declaration. They suppressed a revolt in Mesopotamia, and then created the new puppet kingdom of Iraq, with Kurdish, Shia and Sunni populations thrown together.  France was allowed to have Lebanon and Syria (the latter despite Britain's reluctance).

As for Germany, Clemenceau suggested breaking it up: he was eager to exploit the separatist movements that had sprung up in Bavaria and the Rhineland.  Lloyd George refused, so Clemenceau's next suggestion was to turn Germany's Rhineland regions into an independent ministrate that would really be a French dependency.  This was also refused.

While all this was going on, the Allied naval blockade was still in place.  Perhaps 250,000 German civilians died because of this. Herbert Hoover (who would be president from 1929-33) was in charge of European relief operations.  He begged for permission to send food to Germany, but even Wilson rebuffed him.

The Allies refused to be bound by the terms of the November armistice.  Clemenceau & Lloyd George disliked Wilson and didn't respect him, and happily joined him in forgetting the Fourteen Points.  Reparations now became the central issue.

Britain & France had both borrowed great sums of money from America, and they'd hoped that the loans would be forgiven after the war.  Wilson refused, so both turned to German reparations to solve the problem.  Huge amounts of money were suggested – enough to cover all the damage to French & Belgian property, the costs incurred by the Allies in fighting the war, and their veteran pensions.  The question of how much money it should be, and when it should be paid, became incredibly complicated.

Lloyd George didn't want to push Germany too hard, in case it fell to the Communists.  Clemenceau, though, wanted to drain Germany to prevent a military resurgence.  Both wanted to put Wilhelm on trial for war crimes, but Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands refused to hand him over.

Wilson had once been an advocate for peace without victory, but had greatly changed his tune.  He now believed Germany was undeserving of even the slightest consideration.  None of the three men realized that accepting the new Weimar Republic into the family of nations might have been a good step to take, now that the imperial regime was gone.

In May, the Weimar government was ordered to send a delegation to Paris.  The delegation was confined behind barbed wire, and not allowed any contact with anyone.  They were summoned to appear before the Allies on June 7th, and presented with what would eventually be called the Treaty of Versailles.  The terms were draconian.

Germany had to acknowledge that it was solely & entirely responsible for the war.  They were excluded from the League of Nations.

They were to return Alsace & Lorraine to France (without a plebiscite), and give small amounts of German territory to Belgium. France would occupy Germany's coal-rich Saar region for 15yrs, and after that a plebiscite would be held to determine where it went.

The Allies would occupy all German territory west of the Rhine for the next 15yrs.  Austria was forbidden from uniting with Germany.

The Sudetenland (a region whose population was mostly German) was given to the new Czechoslovakia.  The new Poland would be given German port cities on the Baltic, creating a “Polish corridor” that would actually cut East Prussia off from the rest of Germany.

Upper Silesia (which had long been a part of Germany) was given to Poland, and northern Schleswig was given to Denmark.

The German army was limited to 100,000 volunteers.  The general staff & air force were to be dissolved, and all U-boats were to be destroyed, as well as all but 6 of her battleships.

Germany was to pay reparations, but the exact amount & time of payment were left unspecified, which Clemenceau was pleased with.  He hoped that Germany would be either unwilling or unable to pay, and then France could stay on the Rhine indefinitely, and the occupied territories might eventually choose to become part of France.

The head of the German delegation summed up his interpretation of the treaty in four words: “Germany renounces its existence.”

The treaty actually caused the warring factions of German society to unite.  Weimar officials complained that Germany had been deceived and betrayed, and that the Allies were ignoring the armistice terms and Wilson's Fourteen Points.  But the Allies threatened to invade, and Germany had to give in and sign.

Another problem was that the Allies had decided to deal only with the Weimar government, not with the military.  This led to claims that the army had been “stabbed in the back” by cowardly and traitorous liberal politicians.  (At the time of the armistice, the army hadn't actually surrendered, and still held vast amounts of captured territory.)  The Germans were given an excuse to hate the new government.

The People

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28th, 1919. By then, many of the important figures of the war were dead.  Tsar Nicholas, Tsarina Alexandra and their five children had been executed by their Bolshevik captors in Siberia.  Istvá Tisza (the Hungarian Prime Minister from 1903-05 and 1913-17) was assassinated by Communists on October 31st, 1918.  Gavrilo Princip died of tuberculosis in jail in April 1918, regretting only that he'd also killed the archduke's innocent wife.

Others died not long afterwards.  Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (Germany Chancellor from 1909-17) died in retirement in 1921.  Henry Wilson, who left the British army to become an Ulster MP, was shot dead on the doorstep of his home by an IRA gunman.

The Austrian Emperor Karl I had been deposed but refused to abdicate; he died of pneumonia in exile on April 1st, 1922, at the age of 35yrs old.  Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations was rejected by the Senate; he left the White House in poor health in 1921, and died in 1924.  Lenin was disabled by cerebral haemorrhages and died in 1924.

Many of the old soldiers & generals slowly faded away.  Nivelle finished his career in North Africa, and was heard of no more. William Robertson commanded the British occupation troops in the Rhineland from 1919-20, was made a Field Marshal and a Baronet, and retured.  Alexei Brusilov served the Bolsheviks until 1924.

Foch was made a Marshal of France, and received many honours; he then withdrew from the world stage.  Luigi Cadorna was in disgrace after the terrible failure at Caporetto, but Mussolini rehabilitated him, and he was made a Field Marshal in 1924.  Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf moved to Germany and spent the rest of his life writing self-serving memoirs of little historical value.

Douglas Haig was made an Earl, and Parliament voted to gift him £100,000 at the end of the war.  But he was too controversial, and too hated by Lloyd George, to be appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff.  He raised money for needy veterans until he died in 1928.

John Monash stayed in Europe long enough to oversee the return of his troops, and establish educational programs to help prepare them for civilian careers.  He became an Australian national hero, and the Monash University was founded in 1958 and named after him.

Arthur Currie was given a cold welcome by Canadian political leaders. When a journalist accused him, in print, of squandering the lives of his troops at Passchendaele, he filed a suit and won it; he was then put in a carriage and paraded through the streets by crowds of cheering veterans.  He became the Vice Chancellor of McGill University, but faded into obscurity.

Mustafa Kemal was the only WW1 general who played a major role in the post-war world.  He took the name Atatürk (meaning “father of the people”), became president of Turkey in 1924, and began turning it into a secular, westernized state.

King George V died on January 20th, 1936.  His last years were troubled by his eldest son's scandal with Wallis Simpson.

Kaiser Wilhelm lived quietly on a small Dutch estate until he died on June 4th, 1941.  During the first two years of WW2, he followed Germany's progress by putting pins in maps.

Georges Clemenceau was already in his late seventies.  He was resented by many French politicians for how he'd managed the war in its last year, and the negotiations that followed.  He ran for president in 1920 but lost, and resigned as premier.  After that, he travelled the world, hunting tigers in India; he wrote books, and toured America to warn of the dangers of their indifference to European politics.  He never lost his hatred of Germany, and died in Paris in 1929.

In 1922, the Conservative Party left Lloyd George's coalition and took power independently, and Lloyd George lost the position of Prime Minister.  His Liberal Party had declined by then, and Labour was now the most important opposition party.  He stayed in Parliament for more than 20yrs, but was a marginal figure without a power base, and never held office again.  He died on March 26th, 1945.

When Ludendorff returned from exile in Sweden, he became involved in the darkest elements in German poolitics.  He was involved in attempts to overthrow the Weimar Republic in 1920 & 1923 (the second time with Hitler).  He ran (unsuccessfully) for president of the republic in 1925, and divorced his wife Margarethe.

His second wife encouraged him in a very strange campaign to rid Germany of Christians, Jews and Freemasons.  He ended up isolated from everything progressive, and even from the Nazis & the Junker officer corps.  He died in 1937, and in the months before his death, he finally began to see sense and tried to raise the alarm about the dangers of Hitler's dictatorship, but no-one was listening to him.

Leon Trotsky lost out in a power struggle with Stalin after Lenin's death.  He was expelled from the Russian Communist Party in 1927, exiled to Central Asia in 1928, and finally expelled from the USSR in 1929.  Stalin's agents followed him, though, and he moved to Turkey, France, Norway, and finally in 1936 to Mexico.  He was assassinated on August 21st, 1940, by an axe blow to the back of the skull.

Hindenburg was in his seventies, and he retired from the German army after the war.  He was a strong monarchist with no respect for the new republic, but agreed to run for President in 1925, and was elected (he was still an national hero).  In 1932, he was an even more passive figurehead than he'd been in the war, but he agreed to run for re-election because there seemed to be no alternative to Hitler.  He was again successful.

In 1933 he was persuaded to appoint Hitler as Chancellor – his associates assured him that once Hitler was in office, he'd be easily contained.  This, of course, turned out to be completely untrue.  He died on August 2nd, 1934.

Pétain was made a Marshal of France, and Commander-in-Chief of the French armies.  He remained on active duty even though he was in his sixties, and moved from one important position to another.  When Germany invaded France in 1940, he was 84yrs old, and asked to form a government.  When the Germans conquered 2/3 of France, he arranged an armistice, and the Vichy government named him chief of state, with nearly unlimited powers.

Pétain remained in office during the occupation out of fear that leaving would leave to worse Nazi outrages.  He tried in many ways to obstruct the Nazis.  After liberation, the new government put him on trial and condemned him to death.  However, his former protégé Charles de Gaulle reduced his sentence to life imprisonment, and he died in confinement on an island off the Atlantic Coast in 1951.

Churchill did well in the decade following the Treaty of Versailles. He was Secretary of State for War (1919-21), Colonial Secretary (1921-22), and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924-29).

He'd originally been a member of the Conservative Party, but switched to the Liberals in 1904.  In 1924, he switched back again, but the Conservatives never forgave him for it.  From 1929 onwards, he was consigned to the “political wilderness”, warning about Germany's rearmament with few people taking him seriously.

[qqueenofhades]

there definitely is the lack sympathy and solidarity between the oppressed groups of people around the world.

ethnic russians have been colonizing the central asia, the western asia, the caucasus, the eastern europe and oppressing the natives of these lands for CENTURIES!

russia has established the hegemony of the ethnic russians and hierarchy where the people of the caucasus and central asia are not considered as white thus are discriminated against. even other slavs like ukrainians and poles (who are indeed seen as white in the russian power sphere) are percieved as lesser disposables.

if the westerner leftists understood that the social constructs and power dynamics around the world are constantly changing, have changed throughout history and are different depending on the region and depending on which country/people are the global powerhouses in said region, the discourse would be much easier and more productive.

i'm west asian myself who used to be naively optimistic about the us anti-imperialist leftists, but ever since the war in ukraine, my delusions have shattered beyond repair... the us americans live in their own bubble and want to see the world through that usa-centric bubble's lenses. you see someone try to educate them about the situation and realities of other place and people and said usa americans will accuse those people of horrible stuff bc usa americans hate it when their simplistic worldview ideologically rooted in puritanism is being challenged.

a good example is how the middle easterners are either talked about as "white" or "poc" depending on whether or not the us americans want to sympathize with them and admit that the middle easterners are the victims of oppression/imperialism.

i can't blame the people of africa, latin americans and other people who suffered bc of europe and the us for falling for russian propaganda, but seeing ourselves as the only katniss everdeens of the world won't solve anything.

I mean... yeah. As I've written about a lot, the perspectives of so-called "anti-imperialist" American leftists, both in regard to the Russia-Ukraine war and overall, are generally absolutely fucking dismal. Both because they lack any sense of historicity, nuance, or attempt to deal with complex issues, and also because they are, as you note here, still myopically fixated on the US as the center of the world, the only agent of actual change, and the cause of everything bad ever. They are good at weaponizing the language of social justice and accusing everyone and everything of racism, but they rarely seem to have a sense of what that actually means outside the American context, and frankly for that matter, inside it.

A lot of "anti-imperialist" leftists are only opposed to American empire, which they think is the only empire to ever exist (as if European colonialism and empire didn't create America; as if the Roman Empire didn't create Europe, etc. etc.) Because the Republican right opposed the Soviets during the Cold War, plenty of modern leftists have now decided that that means the USSR/Putinist Russia is actually good after all!!! It's a meme ideology with absolutely no substance or internal coherence, because it's completely based on shallow and distorted mirror-images that they adopted solely out of contrarianism. They borrow the language and symbols of Marxism-Leninism in their fantasy online lives, they decide that this makes them Communist Visionaries, and they trade purposefully-misinterpreted jargon in their Twitter echo chambers without ever attempting to consider either what it really means or how these extremely fraught symbols were interpreted and used in the real world. They want to proclaim that Communism Good!!!, so they do that, and any and all nuance or actual example to the contrary is just Neoliberal Corporate Bootlicking. Or something like that.

What's funny, of course, is that the "anti-imperialist" leftists are still relying completely on a sense of Western exceptionalism and intellectual imperialism, wherein their own interpretations are always to be preferred over anything that the Savages might be saying; the Misguided Natives just need the Wise Western Man to correct them and show them why Tankie Communism is Good! Which, of course, is the exact vernacular of European Christian white-supremacist colonialism from the 16th to 19th centuries, and seriously calls into question any remotely accurate claim to being "anti-imperialist." Like, do you know what those words even MEAN? Or like, ANY words?

As I have said in earlier posts: yes, it's understandable, if disappointing, that people from Africa/India/Latin America, all of which HAVE suffered extensively from actual Western imperialism, have proven susceptible to Russian propaganda about how the current conflict is all the Evil West's Fault. But it's even more disappointing that presumably educated and "enlightened" Western leftists who trumpet their anti-imperialism have become such cheerleaders for a genocidal fascist imperial regime, simply because they think that anything America opposes is morally and/or structurally good. Which is just so facile and stupid on so many levels, not to mention ignores the reality of the Ukrainian war and its root causes on pretty much every front, but for them, that's basically par for the course.

[thisdaynews]

Oksana Masters: Paralympic champion on Chernobyl, Tokyo 2020 and upbringing in Ukraine

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/oksana-masters-paralympic-champion-on-chernobyl-tokyo-2020-and-upbringing-in-ukraine/

Oksana Masters: Paralympic champion on Chernobyl, Tokyo 2020 and upbringing in Ukraine

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Oksana Masters

Standing on a podium by Russia’s Black Sea coast, Oksana Masters felt a surge of pride as the anthems played. It wasn’t her first Paralympic medal, but this one was extra special.

She had just won cross country skiing silver at the Sochi Winter Games of 2014. As she held her prize, the flag of neighbouring Ukraine was raised for the winner, Lyudmila Pavlenko. Masters was herself born in Ukraine in 1989, three years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. She was born with severe physical defects caused by exposure to radiation.

In Sochi she was competing for the USA, the country where she grew up, an adopted child raised by a single mother. Returning to somewhere so close to the country of her birth had been a big motivation for qualifying to compete in Russia.

“It was kind of coming full circle,” she says. “It wasn’t my gold-medal moment, but it sure felt like it.”

Oksana’s moment would come. Four years later, two of the five medals she won at Pyeongchang 2018 were gold. And this year she will be competing on the Paralympic stage for a fifth time – at the summer Games of Tokyo 2020.

It will be another chapter in the remarkable life story Oksana shared with BBC World Service. A story that begins in the Ukrainian orphanage that was her home until the age of seven.

Masters says she and her mother “faced many unknowns together”

I have good and bad memories. I remember fields of sunflowers. I don’t know if it was because I was tiny but they seemed massive. There was also a plum tree and we didn’t get a lot of food so we would steal plums and pick seeds off the sunflowers.

Whenever I see sunflowers now, it’s a good memory because what you read about eastern European orphanages is pretty accurate. I definitely remember the really, really sharp pain in your stomach from being hungry all the time.

Right from birth I was put up for adoption. I was born with six toes, I was missing the main weight-bearing bones in my legs, my knees were floating – they weren’t supported by anything. My hands were webbed; I was born with five fingers, without thumbs. I don’t have a right bicep, I’m missing some organs. I have one kidney and don’t have any enamel on my teeth. When I came to America I found out that the only thing that can strip enamel before birth is radiation.

They linked it to Chernobyl because I was really not that far from there, and the fact that radiation levels continued to rise years after the explosion. It definitely lingered on years later to when I was born. There was also a power plant in the village of the orphanage that would go off frequently. Whenever the radiation was high there was this one cop who would drive round and tell us to board up the windows and doors, not to go out.

I’ve just finished watching the TV series Chernobyl. I knew parts of it. I knew that things went on behind the scenes to cover up the magnitude of it. It’s sad that it took away so many lives and homes. That part of the country will never be the same.

I don’t want to say I was a product of it but, out of something horrific, it’s about how you can see the potential and possibilities – like becoming an athlete – instead of dwelling on it.

Masters has grown up to compete at four Paralympics – with Tokyo 2020 set to be her fifth

When I was five I was called into the director’s office and they said: “We have a picture to show you – this is going to be your new mum.” When I saw her face, she had the warmest eyes and warmest smile.

She’d never met me. She made her adoption choice on a picture of me. Every day until she came to the orphanage I would ask the director: “Can I look at my mum?”

Sometimes, if I wasn’t good – because I was a troublemaker – then the director would use it against me and be like: “You can’t look at the picture today. You’re a bad girl. This is why she’s not coming, because you don’t listen.” Because the process took two years I started to believe that. But her picture kept me going.

She fought for me for two years, and then she came and saw the situation I was living in. When she walked in the hallway there were people chipping away at the ice on the floor because the radiators had frozen.

Masters’ adoptive mother, a professor at the University at Buffalo in New York state, knew that her daughter’s left leg would have to be amputated. She had the operation at the age of nine, after moving to the US. In 2001, Masters’ mother moved the family after taking a new position at the University of Louisville, Kentucky. A year later Masters became a double amputee.

In an Instagram caption to this picture, Masters wrote: “Mom, no words will ever come close to describe how much I love you and how amazing you are. I cherish this picture of us so much and your smile is all I need to feel complete and loved.”

I didn’t know I was different until I came to America. It was only then I realised that everything I had experienced was not normal.

I was diagnosed with ‘failure to thrive’ – basically starving to death. When I turned eight, I was 34 inches tall and weighed 36 pounds – that’s a pretty healthy three-year-old here in the US! I had to wear toddler-sized clothes for my first couple of years.

Now that we’re older and we can talk about her experience, I respect how hard it was for my mum. It was nearly impossible for a single parent to adopt. She had to do multiple psychiatric tests, with people asking ‘why are you single? What’s wrong with you? Where’s your husband?’

I didn’t realise all the struggles that go into adoption. I can’t imagine how she faced that before she came across and met me for the first time. It shows her strength and her pure heart. Any parent who adopts kids is a pure gift but my mum doing it on her own is on a whole new level.

She knew my left leg had to go – it was six or seven inches shorter – so it was amputated when I was nine. That was hard but it was harder when I was 13 and the doctors told me they couldn’t save my right leg.

For the longest time, I wasn’t ready, because I knew what I was missing after the first amputation. I knew how limited things became for me. But the pain in my right leg had become unbearable and I said ‘OK, I’m ready, under one condition – I can keep my knee’.

A lot of people don’t realise that amputees aren’t all the same. Your leg has an ankle and knee – two joints – so I didn’t want to be missing four joints.

They said that was OK but right before I went on the operating table they said ‘we’re going to amputate above the knee’. I was so sedated I didn’t know what was going on, but I will never forget that feeling of waking up in hospital. I tried to get up but didn’t have that leverage from my legs anymore and fell backwards. That was really hard. Honestly, I still have a bit of frustration and anger about that.

In the end, it was to avoid having more surgeries down the line but it was weird because I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to that leg because I didn’t know I’d be missing all of it.

Oksana also had multiple surgeries to both hands and began adaptive rowing in 2002. She would go on to win Paralympic bronze in 2012 – her first medal – partnering Rob Jones in the mixed double sculls. For Sochi 2014, she switched to cross country skiing.

Masters celebrates her first Paraylmpic gold medal at the 2018 Winter Games – she won both the 1.5km sprint classic sitting and 5km sitting events in cross country skiing

The first person that mentioned the Paralympics and racing internationally was Randy Mills [Louisville adaptive rowing club’s programme director]. I’m so competitive, I hate to lose, and he saw that. All I needed was that fitness guidance to get to the next level.

I looked up the Paralympics in 2008 and I was like: ‘Oh my gosh, this is so cool!’ I didn’t have a visual of someone that is like me, missing both legs, but racing for the USA at a high level. It took until London 2012 for me to realise: ‘I belong here.’ Then I dedicated everything to it.

Before those Games, Masters posed nude for ESPN’s Body Issue.

I struggled a lot with my self-confidence as a girl. It’s the end of the world if you’re having a bad hair day or you have a pimple on your face for school picture day, let alone if you have prosthetic legs and hands that are hard to cover up.

Masters will be completing in the cycling events at the Tokyo Paralympics this summer

Then society has put this label on you, even though you don’t see yourself as ‘disabled’. That’s something that’s put on you.

I don’t want the next generation of young girls and kids to grow up not having that person to look up to and want to aspire to. Every kid had a picture of Michael Jordan on their wall. Why can’t it be a normal thing for that to be someone who has had an accident or was born with a disability? I don’t want to say that because it’s not a ‘disability’. That’s just a term society as a whole has put over everybody that looks different.

I believe that seeing is believing and the more times you see the Paralympics or a Para-athlete, the more normal it’s going to become to the person that doesn’t know what it is. It’s really cool to watch that growth.

Masters won a bronze and silver medal at Sochi 2014 – both in cross country skiing. Four years later at Pyeongchang 2018 she won her first gold. At those Games, she and her partner Aaron Pike became four-time Paralympians. Now, Masters has reverted to cycling for Tokyo 2020, having just missed out on a medal at Rio 2016.

Aaron’s such a patient person. I don’t know how anyone can deal with my chaos. We started skiing together at the same time and spend the whole winter together so we push each other in training.

He’ll get me on the downhills but I’m like ‘haha, see ya’ on the uphills because I climb faster than him. We can’t switch off the competitive switch. If we play Monopoly and you’re winning, it’s not going to be a good experience for you!

But having someone like Aaron there is great on the training days when you’re finding every excuse to not want to be there. You look over and it’s your best friend, your partner, your team-mate. He’s not just a great boyfriend. He has the same amount of genuine want for other people to do well and shares it with the team.

At Tokyo, the main goal is to win both of my events in the road race and time trial. In Rio I had limited time to really prepare because I was still spending my season nordic skiing and I transitioned within a few months.

I definitely have unfinished business going into Tokyo.

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[alexsmitposts]

BC: Zakharchenko: A Hero Is Dead, And Bloody Flows the Don BC stands for NEO’s Banned Classic. This article was originally published by our journal on 04.09.18. For some reason, this article is missing from Google search results. Since this article remains pretty relevant to those geopolitical events that are taking place on the geopolitical stage today, we deem it possible to present it to our readers once again. Should it go missing again, you may be confident that you will see it republished by NEO once more, should it still remain relevant by that time. The cruel assassination of Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the Donetsk Republic, in Donetsk on August 31 by elements of the Kiev regime’s forces backed by NATO, and the wounding of many others in the bomb blast that took his life, confirms what I wrote three years ago, that the Minsk 2 agreement signed in February 2015 to try to establish peace in Ukraine was a rotting corpse. Russia, ever more hopeful than I that reason and the desire for peace would prevail stuck to it nevertheless and consistently called for adherence to its terms despite facing obstruction at every turn. The murder of the leader of the Donetsk Republic confirms that not only has the corpse been rotting on the battle fields of the Donbass all this time, it is now picked apart by the carrion birds of prey that want war with the Donbass and with Russia and only its skeleton remains. It’s time to bury it. Some NATO members such as Germany paid lip service to the Minsk agreement and insisted it be complied with but always complaining that it was Russia that was not pushing the Donbass Republics to bend to NATO’s will. But in fact the Donbass Republics tried as they could to comply with the terms under very difficult circumstances and constants provocations, attacks and assassinations of its leadership. Poroshenko and his fascist allies instead refused to change the constitution as stipulated to accommodate the concerns of the Donbas republics, have tried to suppress the Communist Party and other parties in opposition, have refused to withdraw heavy weaponry from the line of contact, have maintained increasingly heavy artillery attacks on the civilian populations and areas and cut off routes for essential foodstuffs, medical aid and technical equipment. Rather than enjoying a ceasefire, the peoples of the Donbas are under a constant state of siege. Poroshenko, the NATO puppet leader of the Kiev government in Ukraine openly calls for a military solution to the crisis and has increased the draft in and recently reorganized the Ukraine armed forces command structures to make them more effective in a coming offensive. The US and Canada and other NATO countries have been pouring in arms and ammunition and “advisers” and “mercenaries” in support of the fascist forces, putting additional pressure on Russia with multiple military exercises from the Baltic to Bulgaria, where more tanks have been recently dispatched to “send Russia a message.” The reality of the situation was stated on the 18th of August 2015, when President Putin stated, “It was the Donbas militias that suggested withdrawing all military equipment with calibre under 100mm. Unfortunately, the opposite side didn’t do that. On the contrary, according to the available data, it is concentrating its units there, including those reinforced with military hardware. As for the Minsk-2 agreement, I believe there is no alternative for resolving the situation and that peace will prevail in the long run… Our task is to minimize the losses with which we will come to this peace.” There can be no doubt that the Minsk-2 agreements do provide the framework for a peaceful settlement of the impasse but there is also no doubt that the Kiev and NATO forces have no intention of abiding by its terms and are preparing for another offensive. Putin also stated, “I hope that it will not come to direct large scale clashes.” Yet, the people of the Donbas would be surprised to be told that the thousands of shells raining down on them from the Kiev junta’s artillery in order to provoke those clashes do not count as large scale attacks. Bu what is the purpose of this state of siege? Since the Donbas forces have proved their strength and resilience the Kiev regime has little hope of achieving the total destruction of those forces and imposing its will on the Donbas. Kiev and NATO also know that Russia does not want to be drawn into a direct clash with NATO that could lead to a general war. In consequence the Kiev-NATO axis have decided to engage in operations that have direct political repercussions designed to disrupt the Russian-Donbas alliance or to paralyze it and try to enlist new allies and it is noted that the western media immediately blamed Russia for the assassination to try to stir up trouble. At the same time they have decided to make the war more costly for the Donbas and Russia both in military and economic terms, and to try to bring about a gradual exhaustion of their physical and moral resistance. We see this strategy being played out with the constant increase of economic warfare against Russia, which is clearly the ultimate target, the increasing use of propaganda including the planting in the media of the most absurd stories about Russia and its government, the use of the OSCE observes as intelligence agents for NATO as happened in the Yugoslav war, and, in the political sphere, attempts by the United States and Britain to humiliate Russia; from the Olympics to the downing of flight MH17, the Skripal affair, and the fantasies about Russian influence on western “democracies.” Clausewitz said that “war is a pulsation of violence, variable in strength and therefore, variable in the speed with which it explodes and discharges it energy’ and that, “If we keep in mind that war springs from some political purpose, it is natural that the prime cause of its existence will remain the supreme consideration in conducting it.” Indeed we see in Ukraine the expression of the Anglo-American-German political purpose: the desire to force Russia to submit to their will. They failed in World War I. The attempt failed again in World War II. The so–called Cold War succeeded in bankrupting the socialist state but the capitalist state that rose from that sad decline is gathering its strength once again and refuses to submit to any one’s diktats. And so the NATO coup in Kiev, in order to take Ukraine away from Russian influence as the Nazis tried to do in World War II. But the Kiev-NATO cabal cannot break the will of the peoples of the Donbas nor of Russia and so the constant attacks, the constant propaganda, the constant turning of the economic screws. These actions are all illegal under international law and the laws of war. They are violations of the principles and articles of the UN Charter. They are violations of several Geneva Conventions and other international treaties. The attacks on civilians are war crimes. The use of prohibited weaponry, in these attacks, is a war crime. The collective punishment of entire populations is a war crime. The use of economic warfare is a war crime. Yet nothing is done by any western government to stop it nor does the International Criminal Court lay any charges where it can. Instead it stands by and condones these crimes by its inaction. Article 6 of the Rome Statute that created the ICC states the actions of the NATO-Kiev axis constitute acts of genocide. It states, “For the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;” Article 7 states that, “crimes against humanity includes persecution of an identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic…grounds.” Article 7-2(b) states that, “the crime of extermination includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia, the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.” Article 8 defining war crimes, states that, “it includes willful killing, willfully causing great suffering, extensive destruction of property not justified by military necessity, and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population not taking part in hostilities, intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, attacking or bombarding by whatever means towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives, declaring that no quarter will be given, using weapons designed to inflict unnecessary suffering or are indiscriminate, and intentionally using starvation as a method of warfare.” The list goes on and is a compendium of the crimes being committed by the Kiev-NATO axis powers in Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Minister reacted to this act of NATO supported international terrorism, for one of the aims of the assassination is to terrorise the peoples of the Donbass, by stating, “It is a blatant provocation aimed at undermining the implementation of the Minsk Agreement in eastern Ukraine. Given the current situation, it’s impossible to talk about the nearest meetings in the Normandy format like many of our European partners would have wanted. It is a serious situation that must be analyzed. We are doing it right now.” But it is not just a “provocation” for in concert with the assassination the Kiev regime has begun troop movements near Donbass lines. It also seems to be a prelude to further military action. “After the terrorist act, we’ve registered the movements of troops along the Line of Contact,” said Eduard Basurin, a representative of the DPR Operations Command. “The Ukrainian forces were put on alert for combat training. “We think this is the eventual goal in terms of destabilizing the situation in the areas near the Line of Contact – something the Ukrainian and US secret services have hoped to gain. We don’t rule out an offensive at one of the sections of the line. They also hope to push the situation in the entire republic off the balance.” “This act of terror is aimed at destabilizing the situation in the republic and was carried out by Ukraine’s special services under the control of US special services. All military units have been put on the highest possible level of alert.” When the Minsk Agreements were signed in 2015 it was doubtful that the Kiev-NATO axis had any intention of using it except as a means of pausing their operations in order to reorganise and prepare for the next offensive and so it seems to be. The only way forward is to resolve the conflict at the political level on the basis of the recognition of the right to self-rule and autonomy for the Donbas republics, the creation of a federal state to assure ethnic stability, and the commitment by Ukraine that it will be a neutral state and not part of any plan to “contain” Russia, a plan that can only lead to world war. But the NATO puppets in charge of Ukraine do not act in the interests of Ukraine. They act in the interests of the masters of war who have no concern for humanity in general or Ukrainians in particular and if they continue their operations they will not succeed in uniting Ukraine but only in laying it waste. The assassination of Alexander Zakharchenko, a crime that should be condemned by the world, is a message from NATO to Russia, that instead of living in peace, as quietly flows the Don, to use the title of Sholokhov’s novel, the people of the Donbass can expect only more war, for a hero is dead, and bloody flows the Don.