A Sceptical Take On the Ukraine Crisis
In a recent post for the Daily Sceptic, Toby claims the received wisdom on the Ukraine crisis is basically right, noting that he’s “experienced the unusual sensation of feeling more in step with the mainstream media than I have with my sceptical friends”. While he makes some good points, I don’t think he really steelmans the sceptical position.
Toby concludes by saying that “when a strongman leader uses his country’s superior military force to subjugate an independent sovereign state to his will my natural inclination is to side with the underdog”. But this isn’t the right way to frame the issue. I’m certainly not on Putin’s “side”.
Incidentally, Toby says he supported the war in Iraq, even though that involved a leader (whom some people consider a kind of strongman) using “his country’s superior military force” to invade and occupy “an independent sovereign state”.
The fundamental issue is how to resolve this crisis. The mainstream position – so far as I can tell – is that the West should pour arms into Ukraine while simultaneously crushing the Russian economy with sanctions (or that it should even go to war by declaring a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine).
The hope is that, by adopting this confrontational strategy, either one of three things will happen: the Russians will be defeated or forced to withdraw; Putin will be overthrown in a palace coup or popular uprising; or he’ll be brought to the negotiating table and made to accept terms highly unfavourable to Russia.
While this strategy may work, it seems to me highly risky and potentially counter-productive.
Rather than being forced to withdraw, the Russians may simply fight more aggressively, taking even less care to avoid civilian casualties. This could result in a prolonged insurgency where large numbers of Ukrainians die. And if Putin is overthrown, there could be chaos in Russia – something we don’t want in a state armed with thousands of nukes.
A better strategy, arguably, would be something along these lines: agree to recognise Crimea and the two breakaway regions in the East; and rule out NATO membership for Ukraine. In exchange, Russia must immediately withdraw its forces, and help pay to rebuild the country.
But why shouldn’t Ukraine get to join NATO, if that’s what it wants? The reason is that Russia is a major power, and major powers get to make demands of their neighbours when it comes to matters of national security.
Can Cuba host Russian missile sites if it wants? After all, Cuba is an independent sovereign state. Basically everyone recognises that, no, Cuba cannot do this. In fact, the US would probably threaten nuclear war before the first brick had been laid. (This is more or less what it did during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.)
Can Venezuela host Chinese air bases, within striking distance of the US? Again, the US would simply not allow this to happen. It has long followed the Monroe Doctrine, which holds that foreign powers must not intervene in the political affairs of countries in the Western hemisphere.
Ukraine is a core strategic interest for Russia, as that country’s leaders have explained repeatedly over the last three decades. There are already US missile sites and air bases throughout Europe. But for Russia, Ukraine is an absolute red line. Attempting to bring it into the Western sphere of influence was always likely to have disastrous consequences.
This point has been made by numerous well-informed commentators on both the left and the right, including: Robert McNamara, Bill Bradley, Gary Hart, George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, John Mearsheimer, Jack Matlock, William Perry, Noam Chomsky, Stephen Cohen, Vladimir Pozner, Jeffrey Sachs, and many others.
But wasn’t Ukrainian membership of NATO “purely theoretical”, in the words of Francis Fukuyama? Not at all. Its intention to join NATO was enshrined in the constitution in 2019. And NATO members consistently refused to rule it out, having agreed in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO”.
What’s more, Ukraine’s government is considered illegitimate by Russia. In 2014, the country had a democratically elected pro-Russian president, but he was toppled in a Western-backed coup. Since then, the country has taken a distinctly anti-Russian course, banning pro-Russian media and abolishing minority language rights.
Again, none of this is to say I support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s about acknowledging geopolitical realities, and minimising the risk of catastrophic outcomes like nuclear war.
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Well said
Good article. It says what I have been saying for the past two weeks but in a better way.You take a position of strength but do not belittle the bully by greater provocation but find common ground in his arguments first and then negotiate as Rogerburg puts its so well below.
Quote about Toby “. . steelmans the sceptical position.”
Call me old -fashioned but what does that mean?
The opposite of “straw man”, rendered into a verb, apparently.
Steelpersons?
Eco friendly Zero carbon equivalent of steel person?
Alternatively: he doesn’t counter the argument, his argument is weak, he parrots the US/EU narrative alarmingly.
It appears to be a mis-use of the term.
Steelmanning is where you take a position that you disagree with, and make the strongest possible good-faith argument for it.
The reason that you’d do this is that you’ll never actually persuade an opponent by mis-characterising their position by straw-manning it. You do that to score a cheap win in the court of public opinion.
Instead, you give your opponent nothing to argue against by accepting their language and their position, and even helping them out with more arguments in favour of it.
The idea is that if you can then point out remaining problems with it, they will be inherent in their position, and you stand an outside chance of getting them to acknowledge them.
So, instead of calling mostly-peaceful-religionists deplorable terrorists, you’d go into a dialogue with them calling them holy warriors, and accepting the tenets of their instruction manual. You’d then pick holes in their actions with reference to their own beliefs, not to yours.
It’s a tough row to hoe, but you can be absolutely guaranteed that straw-manning will never persuade anyone, ever.
I do this to UK journalists all the time. They really don’t like it, but they absolutely deserve it. The levels of lying in the UK media the past 10 years has been off the scale.
Do they all know they are lying or are they simply copying each other without realising it as the same untruth flies in at them from different directs but from the same base ?
Mixture like anywhere. Some are thick, some are careerists above all, some are worried about the mortgage and the baby on the way and a few know what’s happening and like it.
@rtj1211 – Does the tactic work?
“It appears to be a mis-use of the term.
Steelmanning is where you take a position that you disagree with, and make the strongest possible good-faith argument for it.”
In fairness to Noah Carl, he uses the term precisely correctly, doesn’t he?
Carl wrote, of Toby Young’s piece here the other day:
“I don’t think he really steelmans the sceptical position.“
By which he meant, as I interpreted it, that Young fails in his piece to strongly argue the sceptical (of the mainstream jingoist position) case that he disagrees with.
Indeed, I went further in my own reply to Young’s piece, implying that he actually “strawmanned” it.
Exactly
Fair point. To be honest, I don’t read much of Young’s diatribe any more since it became clear that he’s essentially an establishment Party animal whose “scepticism” only ever really extended to finding reasons to not wear a muzzle.
Everyday is a ‘Skool’ day!
Thanks. I used to do that a lot as a young man especially with faux Communists who only take up that position because they think it an easy option.
They get really annoyed when it is explained that the only time and place where true Commumism has prevailed is Israel with their collective farms and all that. Not actually true but, in their wish to conform, my interlocutor frequently know no better while I can make a better case for Comnunism than they can.
Great deal of fun to he had there.
And once you’ve taken over the case you’re opposing, making your opponent feel good about you and about himself, as you pay homage to his case and present it even more strongly than he was presenting it, you can tweak it ever so slightly here and there without the sucker knowing.
Opposition’s great if you control it, even opposition that thinks it’s outsider or “damn you all”. Just so long as you do control it. A bit of blowback down the line? Who cares? The battle is here and now.
There are a couple of courses on it in the 77th.
The Jesuits have been doing this for centuries.
Known as “pacing and leading” in political circles now.
Once you’ve established yourself as the leader, and got people following you, you can change the direction of the march.
Bate and switch.
One example of “steelmanning” would be to argue “the” critical case with respect to Covid lies by presenting graphs, graphs, graphs, graphs, enough graphs until everyone who isn’t an obsessive graph-head (which is at least 99% of the population) has completely zoned out.
Strawmanning person A won’t persuade person A but it can often convince crowd B.
Many believe, for example, that the particular character of regimes in say the USSR or China came about “because of ideology”, unlike in the oh-so realistic and pragmatic parliamentary-democratic pluralism-using regimes of the other three UN Security Council permanent members.
Powerful interests in Britain would never had said rubbish like that to powerful figures at the Soviet embassy, because it would have been strawmanning them and insulting them by coming out with a characterisation that is obviously untrue and that only an ignoramus would believe. But they convinced a whole lot of other people.
Yes, acknowledged and covered. Strawmanning – or simply, propaganda – is a very useful tool for persuading the ill informed that your opponent is Literally Hitler (or Literally Stalin).
However, when you need to actually persuade an opponent of their own wrongness, you have to understand their position, profess to accept it, and then work from there.
Hmm, I wonder how long it will be before we hear people being Strawmanned as ‘Literally Putin’? I mean aside from Putin, who is incontestably and literally Putin.
Ah, well, I’m a little chuffed to say that that’s exactly how I’ve always conducted myself in discussions. In my case it’s an argument from lack of self-confidence; by agreeing with your ‘opponent’, you mollify him; he to some degree let’s his guard down and is flattered that you appear to agree with him; he begins to ‘like’ you – and it’s always easier to influence another person’s opinion if they like you. It’s a selling technique. I also use it unconsciously with my autistic son, with whom straightforward confrontation just doesn’t work. Steelmanning. Hmm.
Something to do with Stalin (man of steel)?
Interesting answer but needs some work on it.
Yes, not sure myself.
A few words were used. However the entire meaning of this article is lost if one places all one’s effort on four words.
With current events in Ukraine this 2016 Oliver Stone film “Ukraine on Fire” is always worth watching to see how we got to where we are today.
It includes the truth behind the Maidan revolution and interviews with Putin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHH10jIRJmQ
Ukraine elected a democratic government in 2010 with a 49% to 45% victory for the pro Russian Victor Yanukovych and the election was declared to be above board and totally legal. He had huge support in the east of the country. Foreign interference since 2010 from the USA and the EU led to a very dangerous situation and Russia had every right to back it’s democratically elected neighbour. Ordinary protestors were not shot by the police as the police themselves received many casualties from snipers. May 2, 2014 Ukrainian nationalists murdered at least 42 Russians, most burnt alive in the Odessa Trades Union Building. Others were shot trying to escape the fascist and nationalist thugs. This was an armed insurrection. The US used the same modus operandi in Syria and elsewhere. Foment rebellion, fund and arm rebels, shoot innocent protestors and blame it on Government forces, then use lies and propaganda in a compliant main stream media to demonize the legitimate Government of Yanukovych. Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea (by military personnel already stationed there for their Black Sea fleet) was more of a “reunification” and was with a 96% approval rating by the… Read more »
At last someone who actually knows something about US policy in the Ukraine!
Cheers.
Unfortunately the vast majority of the western population have been brainwashed for many years by their politicians and msm to regard Russia as our enemy.
It was shown how easy it was to hoodwink people about Covid.
Russia, and a few other countries, are a bulwark against US imperialism which aims to subjugate people under the yoke of so-called liberal democracy which favours a global elite at the expense of everyone else.
Russia, like many countries, just wants to be left alone without US interference.
The vast majority of the western population know nothing and care less about Russia or its policies.
But, as with Covid and Big Pharma propaganda, this ignorant majority is still quick to jump on aboard with the MSM narrative. More worryingly even self-proclaimed sceptics, including TY, are falling in line to condemn Russian actions. It’s as if everything that sceptics have stood up against over the last 2 years has been thrown away overnight.
Just think he wants a break from being sceptical.
remember flight mh 17?
shot down over ukraine by russian regular military posing as ukrainian insurrectionists?
but of course that was a false flag…
If only the last bit were true… Russia, along with China, are up to their proverbials in the ‘reset’ and the global technocracy. Its partly this that makes me very sceptical about the narrative around this ‘war’. For instance, most of the shelling into the eastern Ukrainian cities is not coming from Russian troops as we are told in the MSM but by certain elements of the Ukrainian forces. As the map above shows, the majority of the citizens in these cities are of Russian stock. This is an extension of the shelling that has been going on for the last 8 years, its just that its moved westwards and southwards as cities previously controlled by Ukraine are now being taken by Russian troops. Its a fallacy that all Ukrainians are fighting the invader, many see them as liberators, especially in the east and south. Economically we are told Russia is being tortured by the West with the removal of SWIFT facilities etc. But the reality is that Germany continues to pay for the gas that continues to flow across Ukraine without hinderence, and the coal for its power stations etc etc. Seemingly certain banks have escaped the sanctions noose… Read more »
Interesting post! But judging from the body language of the Russian diplomats, I think they are in earnest.
Though I have wondered about the “Reset” and Russia.
I think it is more likely that Russia is being used as a pawn and victim in the financial reset than an instigator.
We have to be careful of that map as that was the situation in 2011.
A lot of the ethnic Russians were forced out of central Ukraine since 2014 into the Donbass region which as you say is and has been shelled by the Ukraine army for the past 8 years.
forced out of central ukraine?
really?
now how did the government do that?
put them in rail cattle carriages?
or force march them?
or maybe the russians felt they would feel better at home amongst their own kind and they moved because of that?
remember when all of ukraine was inhabited by ukrainians?
and when russia starved them to death and replaced them with russians?
remember holodomor?
The fascist Ukrainian government and military started to expel by force the ethnic Russians from Ukraine into The Donbass in 2014.
13,000 had died.
It’s an historical fact.
Russia, along with China, are up to their proverbials in the ‘reset’ and the global technocracy.
Both Russia and China had Covid “vaccines” to sell to the world so in that respect they appeared to embrace the hysteria around Covid.
However, although they both join in with these and other capitalist ventures there is too much animosity between them and the US for me to agree that they are part of the “reset”.
Would it surprise you that its a Russian bank, under the auspices of the BIS that is leading the global banking regulation reset? You can’t get more central than that.
Russia has been buying up physical gold for decades so they can drop the dollar.
An oligarch owned bank doesn’t represent Russia.
Rightly or wrongly, I have more empathy towards Russia than I do China. In fact I feel more empathy with Russia than I do most other countries who aren’t exactly paragons of virtue – never have been or will be – including the U.K.
Regarding the Russian and Chinese vaccines, IIRC, their covid vaccines were not, unsurprisingly, on the ‘approved’ lists of the EU and other such bullies.
However, irrespective of whoever made any convid vaccines, they are not on my approved list and never will be.
remember flight mh 17?
shot down over ukraine by russian regular military posing as ukrainian insurrectionists?
but of course that was a false flag…
Bang on.
you made a slight mistake. to regard us as your enemy.
i corrected it for you.
Yup…The Azov Battalion.
Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea (by military personnel already stationed there for their Black Sea fleet) was more of a “reunification” and was with a 96% approval rating by the people of Crimea in a referendum.
What you don’t tell your readers is that the referendum didn’t allow Crimeans to support the status quo within Ukraine, i.e. the 1998 constitution approved by the Crimean Supreme Council, which came into effect in 1999.
The choice was between joining the Russian Federation or adopting a long superseded 1992 constitution. This was a false choice. Just imagine if the Irish Republic invaded Northern Ireland and imposed a referendum, and the two choices were annexation by the Irish Republic or some other defunct arrangement such as an Irish Free State, or an independent Northern Ireland, with no option to remain part of the UK.
Let’s stop pretending that the 2014 referendum under Russian military occupation was a genuine referendum. It was not.
Referendums tend to be more decorative than otherwise, but the most relevant point in this case is that there can be no real doubt that most Crimeans were perfectly happy with the change.
Crimea being part of Russia rather than the new Ukrainian state makes more sense culturally, historically and geostrategically.
That said, the Russians made it very clear that they were perfectly wiling to accept the new situation, until the US and its EU proxies intervened to back the worst, most extreme nationalist voices in the Ukraine, and to encourage them to seek maximalist objectives and to refuse compromise.
That’s the reality of what drove events there..
Referendums tend to be more decorative than otherwise, but the most relevant point in this case is that there can be no real doubt that most Crimeans were perfectly happy with the change.
That’s a different point. I was picking up on the comment that suggested that this was agreed in a referendum. The referendum was rigged by not permitting voters to choose the existing constitutional arrangement that had been agreed by the legislatures (including the Crimean).
I have picked out a single half-truth in the lengthy post, and no one knows my views on the rest, though because I have highlighted a less than entirely truthful comment some commenters appear to think (wrongly) that I support the ‘consensus’ western position.
Anyone who know me knows that I have been very critical of EU and US meddling in Ukraine for many, many years. However, trying to build a case against meddling that includes a phoney referendum doesn’t help, hence my comment.
Fair enough. Equally fairly, I did not myself make any assertions about your wider views, there…
It is your opinion that it was a “phoney” referendum and you are allying yourself with the corrupt western politicians and their presstitutes in the msm.
The people of Crimea didn’t see it as such.
I’m not allying myself with anyone, least of all corrupt western politicians. I was pointing out a factual inaccuracy in your post. I incline to the general thrust of your post, but you go too far in suggesting that the referendum was pukka. Now you are attacking me and telling me who my allies are when you haven’t the foggiest idea. This now weakens your case. Stand up for the truth and don’t go round attacking people who can help improve the argument. There are times when we should simply admit that it wasn’t so clever to have a referendum that is illegitimate in the eyes of the world. If the strength of feeling in Crimea is as you claim then the referendum could have been held fairly, with fair questions and options, and the result would have been a majority for ‘re-unification’ as you put it. Maybe not 96% on a flawed referendum: perhaps 80%, and more than enough to overcome a supermajority threshold of two thirds or three fourths. Had it been so conducted then there would be far less to criticize about it. It would have removed a lot of cavils. Justice should be done and seen… Read more »
What was my “factual inaccuracy”?
96.7% of the referendum vote in Crimea favoured closer ties to Russia regardless of what the questions were about obscure constitutional matters whilst the ethnic Russians were being slaughtered by Ukrainian fascists.
There was no time to consult the UN for an agreed wording for the referendum because the US would have vetoed it anyway.
Whether you like it or not you are allying yourself with all those other people who say that the vote was illegitimate because the Crimeans had a gun pointed at their heads.
That was not the case.
I’m not allying myself with anyone. To point out a factual inaccuracy in your post doesn’t cast me into an opposite camp. You are making your case worse all the time: “96.7% of the referendum vote in Crimea favoured closer ties to Russia regardless of what the questions were.” Oh, so the questions put in a referendum don’t matter? Can’t be biassed? How do you know that 96.7% would have voted as they did if the questions had been different? You are now descending to the absurd, constructing a narrative that can’t be questioned. If the questions had been less biased then I’m not saying that a majority would have voted the other way. The point is, the referendum was flawed. It had been better had it not been. I’m not questioning that a majority would have voted for Russian ‘re-unification’ with fair questions, it’s just that it should have been done fairly and squarely, with one of the option being to continue the constitutional arrangement that was agreed and in force for years by the Ukrainian and Crimean legislatures before the Russians got involved in sending in troops. That’s my point: it should have been done better. But you… Read more »
“Those who voted against ‘re-unification’ will forever feel cheated by biased questions”
All 3.3% of them.
and that justifies the russians to start an all out war.
sudetenland all over again.
do you still respond with “hitler”as soon as anybody shouts”heil”
Don’t be ridiculous.
The people of Crimea saw what was happening to ethnic Russians in other parts of Ukraine by the fascist thugs and they couldn’t wait to rejoin Russia.
Nationalistic violence and murder of the ethnic Russians meant there was no status quo.
Wrong. There was a constitutional status quo. The referendum was about a constitutional issue. There was no option in the referendum for Crimea to stay as it was constitutionally.
That’s a trick frequently used by pollsters and referenda conductors, 3 local examples immediately.
20 years ago the UK Met Office offered their staff a choice for its own relocation from shabby, insignificant Bracknel in Berkshire to (You decide !) see below.There were additional criteria that I can’t recall but all supported The Managements wishes. Options 2 & 3 further supported by ‘relocation expenses’.
1. More or less stay were they were.
2. Move 100 miles in the wrong* direction and to the wrong* side of London.
3.The desired relocation location 🤣 where they went and still are.
4. Just down the road from #3 but fewer shops,no culture and few facilities.
*’wrong’ for staying in touch with non-relocating friends and family.
With the exception of N. Ireland I find discussion of other people’s constitutions very dull having grown up with a torrent of such discussions in the wake of the loss of Empire. Who cares about the Constitution of Crostangazania?
Sadly this part of the story is being ignored, quite deliberately, by many
Offguardian have a good piece with a timeline mention all this
Far too many and I include Toby in this have just rattled the same old tire propaganda
All the West had to do was keep its promises
It really is that simple
Using the label ‘facist’ to describe anyone you disagree with is the same as centre-right people calling anyone to their left ‘communists’ or ‘commies’ just to close down the discussion so is not useful.
I’m not a facist or a commie btw, not my downtick either.
If it talks like a fascist, walks like a fascist and acts like a fascist then it’s a fascist.
I agree that the term is bandied about all too frequently but in the case of Ukraine nationalists and their history of joining the nazis in WW2 then it is accurate.
80,000 Ukrainians joined with the Germans in the first 24 hours.
Please watch the tagged film Ukraine on Fire for a modern historical and contemporary understanding of why they are in this situation.
Perhaps the word ‘some’ would be helpful; you say yourself that 80,000 Ukranians joined the “Germanst” in the first 24 hours; as opposed to the nazis ?
They (Ukranians?) are in this position because the Russian President (cannot remember his name because of ‘condition’) realises that he is nearing the end of his political life, perhaps his Real Life also and wants his name in the history books.
“They (Ukranians?) are in this position because the Russian President (cannot remember his name because of ‘condition’) realises that he is nearing the end of his political life, perhaps his Real Life also and wants his name in the history books.“
This is something just fabricated wholesale out of US sphere propaganda cloth. Implausible nonsense.
It’s comical how very single leader in recent history who has opposed US sphere interests has been explained as being “mad”, “megalomaniac”, “greedy”, “psychotic”, “desperate” etc etc ad nauseam.
Time to grow up.
If you actually bother to investigate, you’ll see that Putin’s actions make perfect sense without resorting to such speculative pseudo-analytical rubbish. The issue is only whether Putin’s assessment of the facts and capabilities on the ground is better or worse than that of those who think his policy will fail.
Harsh (IMHO).
I didn’t say his policies were greedy, desperate or likely to fail; just that he wanted everlasting fame like so many of his predecessors.
how about asking alexei navalny what he thinks of putin?
oh wait, we cannot ask him, he is in jail for opposing the not mad, not megalomaniac, not greedy, not psychotic, not desperate, not etc, but really sociopath mafia gangster that resides in the kremlin.
The Ukrainians suffered terribly under Stalin during the 1930s. In that situation even the Germans at first looked like liberators against the Russians.
Very many of the ethnic Russians in the Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts were settled in those areas during that period of oppression of Ukraine by Russia as ‘replacements’ for the Ukrainians who had starved to death, partly caused by Russian policies. In the grand sweep of Russian and European history they are relative newcomers brought in to work the fields, factories and mines that had hitherto been worked by Ukrainians.
History, and the decisions taken in history which posed huge ethical and moral difficulties, are much more complex than the simplistic narratives and propaganda I’m seeing bandied around by the pro-Russian and anti-Russian spokesmen.
WW2 they were rounding up the jews BEFORE the Nazis go there!
and that is why the last two presidents were jews….
wouldn’t those 80,000 all be dead by now?
so what bearing does that have on anything happening today?
for if you want to go that way i got one for you too.
remember the russians that starved millions of ukrainians during the holodomor?
what about them?
There are many nazi supporting fascists in Ukraine.
It has a lot to do with what is happening in Ukraine today.
Watch the film “Ukraine on Fire” or read a book.
The term fascist is not being used to ‘insult’ Ukrainians, indeed many Ukrainian Battalions (now embedded into the Ukrainian military structure) are proud to be fascist, and their uniforms have badges that echo those being used by the SS in Nazi Germany. Fascism as an ideology is a powerful force in Ukraine, and the MSM narrative completely omits it.
I could give hundreds of links to the infamous Azov Battalion etc, but for a start just drop Ukraine Galicia Fascism into a search engine and start to see what this is about. There are many documentaries and academic lectures online explaining the role of fascism in the modern Ukrainian state.
Thank you for that advice B.F.F., I do have some spare time this afternoon so will follow up on it.
I was in Odessa for a week in the late 70’s but the only indication that I was in two different countries simultaneously was that incomer Russian Odessians were immensely proud of their huge but ugly bronze WW2 Memorial Statue (see link in post).
Two of the oldest items in my domestic possession come from that journey; sturdy and long lasting with natural colours just as vibrant as 50+ years ago, sold by an old woman outside her bungalow for next to nothing (cliche I know but there you go).
How to tell where an Odessian originates? Just ask, ‘Russians’ are remarkably open and honest about such things.
There was a very informative article this lunchtime on UK Column by Alex Thomson (the show will be available later today from its home page when it’s updated around 16:00) detailing the complex boundary and governance systems within Ukraine (which was particularly revealing over the status of Crimea). Part of this section was taken from a recent interview he did with Delingpole, and the look of perplexed confusion on Delingpole’s face when Alex finished summarising was a delight to behold.
You are so complete with interesting information today B.F.F. (genuine & sincere remark btw).
I look forward to seeing Delingpoles face that you described.
There is a good novel by Bulgakov, “The White Guard” on the situation in Kiev during the Russian revolution, from his personal experience.
nothing wrong with being a fascist.
the governments of germany, austria, france, italy, canada, new zealand. and australia, to name just a few, are true fascists….
their flags might be different for the fascist from the good old days,but their ideology is exactly the same.
Yesterday I questioned the BBC/Guardian spelling of Ukraine rather than the “usual Ucraine” suggesting it was simply to infer ‘otherness’ but was somewhat rebuked by DS readers, presumably fellow Ukraine users.
I can read Cyrilic and what stares out at me with Ukraine is UKIP rather than Ucraine.
That you are using both GlassHalfFull perhaps reflects your own ambivilatiousness.
so you object calling the city of Roma : “Rome”, by many non italian speakers?
i would say: get a life..
Sounds about right, Liz Truss neglected to mention any of that during her civilian call to arms.
RT deleted from UK tv at 15.45 today in middle of this enlightening documentary that TPTB CLEARLY don’t want anyone watching!
Ukraine. The Everlasting Present. Documentary 2021.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/3HI1Nz8sBV8J/
Thanks for the link.
When I have a couple of hours to spare I will watch it.
That’s just a complete fiction. Yanukovych negotiated a free trade agreement with the EU; it was only after the Russians started pouring in massive amounts of money (much of it illegal) that he turned against. This is a guy who already had been caught trying to steal a previous presidential election with fraudulent votes, corruptly earned hundreds of millions for his family and friends (some estimates are up to 30-40 billion USD), and prosecuted and jailed his political enemies. The idea that he was driven out by the West is ridiculous; Russia was spending far more to prop him up, but the people and parliament turned against him.
Just watch the film “Ukraine on Fire” and you will see that you have been lied to.
Don’t believe everything you read in the msm.
Just be careful with anything involving Oliver Stone.
Exactly so! ✊👍
The US has also funded many biolabs in Ukraine.
If the media were even pretending to be objective reporters rather than naked propagandists, there would be intense interest in these biolabs.
So-called “Fact Checkers” have dismissed the claims as they say the US are funding research to “help in the health of Ukraine”.
Yeah, right.
I personally don’t know if they are working on bio-weapons or not but if I was Russia I wouldn’t take the risk.
Here is an article by a Bulgarian journalist from pre-Covid 2018 describing these biolabs.
http://dilyana.bg/the-pentagon-bio-weapons/
Well, if the Fact Checkers say so! We know how fair and neutral they are.
Thanks for the link – I’ll check it out.
My God. Documentation, clear exposition – and chilling data.
Before anybody want to comment further, it might be worth while checking it out and explaining clearly, without ad hominem attacks, what it’s got wrong.
Thank you. We need to start teaching real history in the schools we create when we are free of EU and American stooges in our Government.
well done.
how long did it take you to translate it from the russian original?
Where is your evidence for any of this apart from Putin’s propaganda being fed to the Russian people and you? The election of a Russian puppet government in 2010 was a result of the Ukrainians fear of what Russia would do if they did not comply. Now they know. If there are Russiam people in eastern Ukraine who want to be part of Russia why could this not have been achieved by negotiation rather than Putin’s extreme military aggresion? There has never been and could never be any threat to Russia from Ukraine so there is no justification for his actions and the bloodshed caused apart from the Russian propaganda you are repeating.
The evidence is historical fact if you care to educate yourself so you can form an opinion.
This phone call between US diplomats is featured in the documentary. In a nutshell it shows you that they are directly concerned with pushing their preffered people into power in Ukraine
https://youtu.be/L2XNN0Yt6D8
A far better take on a “sceptic” position on the Ukraine issue than Toby’s.
I would go further and argue that the global position renders the Russian action one that merits support, for the reasons I have set out in numerous comments here.
War is an accepted tool of state policy, as a matter of established fact, so long as there is no full and proper punishment of those in the US and its poodle states who have waged such wars recently, in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya etc. Until such time, the laws that Russia breached in attacking the Ukraine have no real meaning. They are mere aspirations, openly disavowed by the most powerful.
Sort out that problem, and we can perhaps begin to seriously aspire to a “rules based” global order. I’ll believe it when I see it, but it’s an understandable and worthy goal.
Agreed. And here is evidence item number 101 your honour. Condoleezza Rice ‘When You Invade a Sovereign Country, That Is a War Crime’
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/harris-faulkner-tells-condoleezza-rice-when-you-invade-a-sovereign-country-that-is-a-war-crime/
‘ the laws that Russia breached in attacking the Ukraine have no real meaning. They are mere aspirations, openly disavowed by the most powerful.’
If I may rewrite that to demonstrate what a cesspit of hypocrisy the West is:
‘… the laws that Western Governments breached in attacking their own citizens during Project CoVid Calamity have no real meaning. They are mere aspirations, openly disavowed by the most powerful.’
so because the western governments are lawless towards their citizens, russia gets to invade a country who’s sovereignty has been guaranteed by the russians…
so because the usa and allies attacked countries without repercussions, the russians can attack a sovereign country that has nothing to do with those attacks.
because the guy that shot your neighbour wasn’t sent to jail you are free to kill your other neighbour?
No doubt ensuring Ukraine never joins NATO is Putin’s goal.
That diplomatic solution seems politically impossible for the US/EU, given the vilification of Putin and Russia in the media. It seems to me as if they’ve closed that avenue.
So, the only way Putin could get his way is deposing the current Ukrainian president and putting in a pro-Russian one, which suggests a long drawn out crisis.
I don’t think much of Putin one way or the other, but I’m sure growing to despise western leaders and the western establishment for the mindless, ideological way they seem to approach everything these days. It’s as if they have convinced themselves that they represent good and those who oppose them are evil. The idea that they may be wrong or that someone else might have a valid viewpoint seems anathema to the little tyrants that govern the west these days.
Ukraine could not join NATO whilst there were disputes in the Donbass region, it is a point NATO makes prominent (a state should have control over all of its lands). It is why there was a concerted effort in breaking the situation in the region by amassing Ukrainian forces on the borders of the Donbass region.
It was the fear of genocide that led the regions to plead with Russia for military help.
Not just” fear of genocide” — over 10,000 dead civilians since 2014
Where would such an act of submission end? China takes Taiwan & Nepal? India takes Bangladesh? Russia reclaims Georgia, Latvia and other Balkan territories? Surely if Ukraine wants to fight, it is reasonable to support their sovereign right by inflicting as much economic and emotional damage as possible? Who are we to barter away parts of a sovereign nation?
It seems hypocritical to vehemently oppose the oppression of Governments for ignoring civil liberties by imposing draconian polices like lockdowns, vaccine mandates and masks while at the same time supporting the violent subjugation of a whole nation by a foreign power in what is surely the ultimate act of cancel culture!
Yes, who are we to crush the rights of sovereign nations?
It’s called “American exceptionalism” – the policy of the US Deep State Victoria Nuland and the CIA!
And what does “Ukraine” want?
Do we really know what Ukrainian people want or think? Are there strong differences?
Did “Britain” want to leave the EU? Well 52% did, 48% didn’t and look what that sort of division sparked in our relatively urbane country.
The idea that there is a Ukrainian will that can be established in reasonably uncontroversial terms seems rather fanciful to me.
This is a very important point.
I’d say judging by the brave and stalwart resistance being shown by Ukrainian citizens it’s pretty clear they don’t want to be ruled by Russia and a totalitarian despite like Putin. Wouldn’t you?
You do understand that not everything you see on the BBC and in the US sphere mainstream media generally is strictly accurate, don’t you?
This might be a little shocking, but occasionally, I’ve heard, their coverage can be a little misleading.
Hence the banning of Russia Today because after all no one should dissent from the Official message
Bit like Covid
Exactly so.
The first and perhaps only unifying precept of Sceptics should be that any side resorting to censorship is immediately suspect.
Which side cencored RT or will that become obvious?
I[‘m assuming it was the anti-Russian side. Is there any reason to suppose different?
I was only ever a casual RT viewer but I’ve never regarded them as being rapidly pro-Russian worthy of censorship (this afternoon your column caught my eye 😎as reading “anti-Semite side” which was confusing but that was just me.
I noticed that RT is “not available in your country” (UK) just this morning after a few days internet absence. How long has it been enforced and which end barred it ?
TODAY IN AFTERNOON!
i do not watch bbc, nor usa mainstream media.
in fact i do not own a tv set.
nor a working radio.
but i do know exactly how the russians in ukraine situation works.
how?
remember flight mh 17, shot down in 2014 ?
it were russians regular military that shot down the passenger plane over ukrainian territory.
the problem is not so much them shooting it down but them denying they did so.
and because of the investigation into the killing of those passengers we know exactly what was going on.
no tv, just reading the report…..
You have swallowed the MSM narrative lock stock and barrel – almost like being re-programmed.
They have been psyop programmed – by Susan Michie – it will never wear -off unless they seek help!
This seems to tick all boxes for all those worried about being on the wrong side….
As Mark says, it’s hard to trust the reporting.
We’ve just experienced 2 years of being systematically lied to and deceived by the mainstream media (and continuing).
In addition, we are already seeing the censorship and information suppression that has been developed during the last 2 years deployed. RT has been shut down. Good luck finding an alternative view point on YouTube.
Finally, the tech companies are already explicitly endorsing the official positions – YouTube’s ad button with the Ukrainian flag colours is just a one very visible example).
In short, I am seeing the media and tech companies in lockstep with an official establishment narrative in what seems to be a new western order.
So I’m stunned you are taking what you see at face value.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more outraged I am.
We aren’t even in this war. And yet, we are in effect being told by the establishment that we mustn’t hear what Russians have to say about what they are doing. I seems we are somehow too stupid or too gullible to be able to watch RT or a Russian viewpoint and make up our minds about what is right.
It really infuriates me to see our society being dragged down to the level of China, where their leaders decide what the population should and should know and systematically censors the Internet and all traditional media.
We are moving in that direction so rapidly that it seems to be escaping even the editors of the Daily Sceptic.
Censorship is the future Johnson has planned for us as he embraces WHO/Gates forced vaccinations, digital passports, digital currency and politically controlled access to your own money along with the full-on ‘Great Reset’ nightmare – all in the pipeline !
People had better wise-up soon!
Proposed political control over peoples access to their own money is what created unrest and government overthrow in Kashakstan (?) following American withdrawal from Afghanistan if memory serves correct.
Hear hear!
At least it acknowledges that our leaders know Covid is all over (if it ever started) when they can turn their attention to things so fundamentally different and completely unrelated.
About the only thing they might have in common is their use to impose and enforce restrictions on international travel.
Damn right!
You Tube has cenesored RT and pro-Russian content so has Zuckerberg ( or is it our own Nick Clegg?).
I may have been lied to for two years by a coalition of
politicians,
social media,
journalists,
sports personalities,
academics,
actors (wtf?),
clerics and anybody else in public life (Internet Influencers 🤣).
but I haven’t been decieved, not from before the “Covid Crisis” was initiated.
Such statements are on a par with the Daily Mail/Independent screaming about me being ‘terrorised’ by this hostile act or another. I have never once felt scared, frightened or threatened, still less “terrorised”.
Conveniently forgetting those Ukrainian people who fled to errrrr Russia? Or don’t they count? Its good maybe that they’ve gone back to where they came from, leave Ukraine to the real Ukrainians.
Those poor people who only want the chance to have NATO missiles set on their Eastern border.
Trying to simplify this into goodies v baddies is a fools errand. We are dealing in amoral realpolitik here, the people’s concerns come secondary.
If there is a simplification avaliable it starts with the staring competition ongoing between the US/NATO and Russia. The former say they won’t expand eastward, while doing so. The latter is asked to believe this is purely a matter of democratic and sovereign decision making, and not geopolitical manoeuvres.
As you unfer, it will be difficult for many ‘Ukrainians’ to decide where to flee too as they will have come from mixed parentage. Situation been around for decades or centuries becaus they really are the same people so “inter-marriage” is simply not recognised
I once had Ukranians in a neighbouring apartment. They would remove their shoes before entering their home. Anyone know if that was simply for domestic hygiene or an ingrained cultural feature shared with the Russians ?
Don’t know but I can’t stand people who ask to do that.
And that stalwart resistance being shown by Hong Kong Chinese was Prestatyn clear they didn’t want to be ruled in a brutal manner by the Peking Government but where was the BBC et al, and the moral outrage and sanctions against China?
The West and Moral Outrage Inc are remarkably selective about what pushes their hot button.
‘pretty clear’
Parrot the MSM message by all means, but don’t you ever stop to think exactly how independent journalists are still operating in Ukraine, the trains are still running, the internet is still on, the civilian infrastructure is still intact. Russia rules the air space, and could have obliterated this if it had any harmful intent toward the Ukrainian people. The stated Russian aim was the protection of the Donbass self declared states, and the disabling of the Ukrainian military – which seems to to be consistent with verified reports (as opposed to fake images).
The Russian Military is proceeding softly softly. The madness displayed by Zelensky in arming untrained civilians (and criminals) and placing military weaponry in residential areas is not being questioned by MSM. On top of which the refugee exodus from Ukraine is not altogether being driven by the Russian operation but the forced conscription of men between 18 and 60.
The sources are out there, but (as your site says) you have to question everything! Clearly you are failing to do this.
The Ukranian civilian infrastructure remains intact only with the aquiecance of Russia but what they (Russias) leaders say are their aims must largely be discounted as can all stated aims by leaders in a state of war, especially the aggressors.
President Wotsisname will be an opportunist like all the test of them.
There is no benefit to Russia from mass destruction or loss of life in Ukraine, as the country is their neighbour historically, geographically and culturally. In contrast the ever spreading USA and its ‘interests’ has no such connections or qualms. We are all invited to uncritically marvel at America’s awesome destructive power whenever its missiles and air force (mostly illegally) obliterate smaller countries (often with UK & NATO assistance), The aims of America and the West are always the same – to destroy cities, displace populations, replace leaders and rebuild infrastructure using its parasitic political-corporations such as Halliburton. The USA makes a profit from the weapons, makes a profit from the spoils (it is still illegally extracting and selling Syrian oil), makes a profit from the rebuilding and then seals long term binding financial deals with the puppet regime it has installed to asset strip the country for decades to come. This vile methodology keeps the USA’s massive national debt just about serviced, and we wilfully remain blind to it. Finally Russia (with a fraction of the NATO combined military spending, less than the UK’s even) stands up against a corrupt USA installed fascist puppet regime. Zelensky is there only… Read more »
Great post, we are blind if we cannot see what is coming to us if the globalists succeed in looting Russian assets. Multiple upticks!
Unfortunately the Ukrainians can’t choose who rules and in this instance it’s all over bar the shouting.
Do you realise what % of Ukrainians are Russian speaking or ethnically Russian?
I don’t actually.
Does it matter though? A high percentage of Americans are of European ethnicity and speak English, but wouldn’t want to be part of the UK. Or they might, I don’t know. That will hardly be determinant though, will it?
Of course it’s a determinant. Americans don’t have an ‘American’ language. Russian speaking Ukrainians have Ukraininan, but prefer to speak Russian. That’s the difference. Read the history of Polish speaking western Ukraine, or anything about the Austro-Hungarian empire pre-1914 and you get a feel for the kind of tensions these people live in. And that’s before you add geopolitics to the mix.
We are taught that Polish, Galician (if mentioned), Ukrainian, Transcarpathia Ruthenian, Russian, Lithuanian and etc. are all specific unique languages. But on the ground they merge one into the other with no real borders. The source of much distress throughout the recent phase of imposed Nation States.
Some words sound similar but there is a difference.
I asked a Polish mate what he thought of the War…he just told me to read about Wolyniu.
While uniformly speaking English, since WW1, many white Americans proudly retain their specific European identity while others are content to merger into a common Europeaness at which they are remarkably successful as the generations role by.
Ukranian and Russian are interchangeable since they grew out of each other 10th.-14th. Centuries, (same goes for The Genes) although some might make the effort to make them sound not so.
One of the few benefits of the “Covid Crisis” is that it subsumed that of Brexit with all its “in spite off” and “because off”‘s which is the last thing I heard the BBC moaning about before I switched it off entirely.
“Where would such an act of submission end? China takes Taiwan & Nepal? India takes Bangladesh? Russia reclaims Georgia, Latvia and other Balkan territories? Surely if Ukraine wants to fight, it is reasonable to support their sovereign right by inflicting as much economic and emotional damage as possible? Who are we to barter away parts of a sovereign nation?“
Yet “we” were happy for that to happen in Yugoslavia, in Iraq, in Libya…
If you want states to feel confident in a “rules based global order” as their shield,rather than relying on the old principles of security first, last and always, then the first thing you have to do is demonstrate that the most powerful (and therefore implicitly the most threatening, to their declared enemies) will be bound by that order.
Who is this we kemosabe?
“We” in quotes, for a reason. The bottom line is that nobody has been punished or meaningfully censured for those acts. They stand as precedent.
Didn’t some Serbs get indicted at The Hague or did they simply die in Dutch Police Custody ?
Is this clivepinder person really an editor of this website or merely an imposter ?
So the global order was defined in what, the 1940’s? The powers of the world have constantly taken lands (see British Empire for example) and changed the borders of nation states. War is the economy of the world. If China acts, it justifies US continual spending of money on arms – if India takes Bangladesh, Pakistan will be justified in increasing their spending on arms. We cannot pretend that Ukraine is not of strategic import to Russia. If I was Putin I would propose that some defensive positions were taken up by the East in the West in order to allow Ukraine to succumb to Western goals of swallowing it into Nato and the EU. (Lets not forget that most of the Nato states don’t usually meet their stated contributions to the bloc so they can’t be that in thrall to it’s power) See how swiftly the West will either back away or ramp up their vitriol. It’s a ridiculous idea that every Ukrainian wants to be apart from Russia and likes being used as a Western puppet – it’s akin to the Brexit vote only lives are at stake this time, and look at all the lies we were… Read more »
It’s not about a global order. It’s about supporting citizens in their defence of their sovereignty.
That is completely untrue- you obviously know absolutely nothing about the Ukraine and want to keep it that way.
That seems terribly naive.
It’s about a geopolitical struggle for Ukraine.It was the prize Germany fought for in 2 world wars.This cause has been taken up by EU/NATO.
“(Ukraine) was the prize Germany fought for in 2 world wars”.
Don’t think I’ve seen that put so bluntly before now although it seems obvious today.
Certainly BBC no ITV WW1 retrospectives (Raymond Baxter, The World At War?) never suggested it.
Of course Germany managed to win the prize @ WW1 although the intefering Western Allies took it from her.
I’ll have to revise my denial that ‘we’ were responsible for Adolf Hitler and WW2.
But you started your argument by saying how much of the global order would change if Russia are allowed to invade Ukraine?
How does Russia need ‘allowing’ to invade Ukraine ?
They already have, quite successfully, and ‘we’ did nothing to prevent it. It looks more like 1930s Appeasement every day yet ‘we’ did nothing to prevent it.
Of course sovereignty matters.
But one can’t utter a phrase like that and assume that it represents the whole story and there is nothing else to it.
It reminds me of the phrase “you can’t just let people die” with respect to COVID, as if that thought could justify doing anything.
People have learned at enormous cost where that sort of simplistic thinking can lead.
Maybe the best way to preserve Ukrainian sovereignty is for the US and EU to stop meddling in internal Ukrainian politics. Or maybe not. I don’t know. I expect it’s pretty complicated.
Do you know anything about the sustained attacks on the Russian speaking population in Donbass since the fascist US puppet regime was installed in Kyiv in 2014?
I’m all for supporting citizens in their defence of their sovereignty.
I’m not impressed with much of your contributions clivepinder but seem to be missing something here.
Such wide ranging, sustained opposition and hostility aroused with just two lines; the second half of which being so demonstrably reasonable.
One of the best strawman arguments I’ve seen. Well done. Tell you what, I’ll see your strawman argument and raise you by a strawman argument – why are you supporting the death of millions of innocent, peace-loving, men, women and children by gleefully banging the drums of war with Russia rather than take a more diplomatic approach? There, we can both be strawmen now!
Good point!
You clearly know nothing about Russia and the Ukraine.
The point you are missing is that the growing unrest in Ukraine, fomented by the US, was acting as a direct threat to the national security of Russia. The final straw for the Russians was the possibility that Zelensky would get nuclear armaments. No US/UK diplomat spoke up at the Munich conference in february to dispute this.
Russia was left with no option but to act as she did, in fact Ukraine was set up by the US to draw Russia into war. Russians have been repeatedly invaded and understand the horrors of war.
The US has no concern for the fate of the Ukrainians, this is just another US/NATO proxy war. The hope is to destabilise Russia to such an extent that is can be looted by the globalists as it was in the nineties, before Putin took power.
The US has form in looting other sovereign nations, haven’t you noticed? And they are undergoing a financial meltdown at the moment so I guess they are short of money.
They have wheat and a whole load of minerals to plunder. As Galloway said, do you really want to risk destruction over Ukraine remaining neutral. Why don’t NATO fight them instead of a bully boy pushing a smaller boy into a fight with a bigger boy, why don’t you fight the big boy!
‘It seems hypocritical to vehemently oppose the oppression of Governments for ignoring civil liberties…’
That’s a coin with two heads.
The principal source of conflict in Ukraine stems from the fact that in 2014, expansionist US Neocons staged an illegal coup against a legitimate Ukrainian government that came to power in an election certified by the OSCE. The new regime immediately acted with hostility toward its Russian speaking citizens. Approximately 30% of Ukrainian citizens have Russian as their first language, yet on the first day in power, their language was removed from the list of official state languages. This was followed by more actions of hostility towards this large minority group. The resulting social unrest spilled over into violence culminating in US funded Ukrainian far-right nationalists burning down the Union Hall in Odessa where civil-rights protesters sought refuge. 38 people were burned to death in a crime that was never investigated. Supporters of the new US- backed regime tore down WWII memorials to Soviet liberators from Nazi occupation and erected monuments celebrating Ukrainians who fought for the 12th SS Panzer Division. Nazis killed 30 million Russians – so this behaviour sent a clear message to Ukraine’s Russian speaking population whose population centres and infrastructure facilities were already subjected to sporadic military shelling. When elements of the media criticised Zelensky’s approach… Read more »
Excellent piece! The truth is once again fighting to be heard in this now sad and increasingly ignorant little country !
Because he has been educated with a binary viewpoint that Putin = Doubleplus-ungood. Whereas everyone who is a bit more (ahem) sceptical, understands that Putin is far from good, but acts more in the interests of his own population than any of our totally corrupt Western snouts in the trough. In this case his actions probably in the long-term reduce the likelihood of nuclear war.
Anti-Spiegel.ru, a blog by a German living in Russia, published an article yesterday how European States are off-loading old weapons as military aid to Ukraine, which they otherwise would have to pay to destroy. Germany suddenly changed their rule never to export weapons. He proposes that Europe is very much interested to prolonging the war to get rid of their weapons , which the “EU” pays for, for their own economical gain.
Der Westen kämpft bis zum letzten Blutstropfen des letzten ukrainischen Soldaten gegen Russland | Anti-Spiegel
I understood that since Putin’s “Empire of Lies” speech, countries wanting to send weapons to Ukraine have suddenly lost their nerve.
Germany tooling up, what could go wrong!
Totally agree with GlassHalfFull. Although the west likes to portray themselves as ‘the good guys’, it is never as black and white as that. Although I have the greatest respect for Toby, I believe that Putin has shown remarkable restraint when it comes to Ukraine. As for Putin having ambitions beyond Ukraine and threatening to invade Europe, that appears to be ridiculous. Based on previous attacks on countries (eg Iraq, Libya), I think that Putin has more reason to doubt the west’s intentions than vice versa
We are constantly being told how slow the Russian advance is and where are the big airstrikes – perhaps Russia was going deliberately slowly to minimise civilian casualties ?
oh how very nice of them, they’re all heart
I’m no military expert, but hasn’t the MSM ramped (not to say lied) this whole thing up, in order to sensationalise the Russian “war”? In exactly the same way as “Death stalks the streets”, “supermarkets empty” and so on, when reporting on Covid in March 2020.
Today (Wednesday) is 6 days from when this started. Six days.
But, as with Covid, we have to have the narrative exaggerated and repeated umpteen times, inappropriate photos shown of bloodied victims, of damaged buildings, the 40 mile tank column “snaking” its way blah blah blah, the brave president etc etc.
Anyone remember when newspapers/telly reported what was actually in front of them, what was really happening?
I’ve often thought that and believe it to be so.
And we see the media hypocrisy on full display: Russia’s going slow it means it’s not going according to plan, Putin’s gambit has flopped, etc, etc.
And then the narrative switches to Russia is frustrated at the slow progress and therefore is going to start coming down hard with great loss of human life.
The propaganda is sickening.
Good article Noah. Hope it doesn’t land you in hot water with the boss. If Toby sacks you for dissent and insubordination, you needn’t worry, as you can always go to the Free Speech Union for support. :-))))
Actually, the Western Strategy is focussed on one simple thing: overthrowing Putin in a coup d’etat; balkansing the Russian nation to make it militarily impotent; and looting all the energy and mineral assets for US psychotic psychopath interests. Toby Young needs to grow up about the USA. It is not the leader of the free world it is a nazi state controlled by global hegemonists who have committed more genocides the past 80 years than anyone else on earth. Everything is about US domination, nothing is about freedom. Libya was bombed to a rump, not because Gadaaffi represented a threat to NATO security. He was bombed to a pulp because he refused to sell oil and gas in dollars, he was promoting an African Economic Union that threatened US imperialist looting strategies in Africa and also, most heinously, because he provided Libyans with the most prosperous life in Africa, the most generous support for young families, all kinds of educational benefits etc etc. Yes, he was a ‘strong man’, but he was not impoverishing his people. We can go on to talk about Suharto in Indonesia if you like. We can talk about the coup in Iran in 1953 if… Read more »
One simple thing. Then lists three.
I always think when reading a comment such as this one why it never occurs to the poster making such comments to fuck off and live in China if that’s the way they want to live.
Rightly condemning US aggression automatically makes one a lover of Chinese authoritarianism? What planet are you on?
US aggression?! Is it Biden flattening civilians willy nilly in the Ukraine?
In choosing which horse to back, I like to think how life would be under a Russian or Chinese controlled state.
The grass isn’t always greener. Especially Chinese and Russian grass, their human rights records and oppression are appalling.
I imagine it would be much the same as life under Covid is in the West.
No, I’m in Moscow and its much freer here. As much anxiety as I’ve had this week about the economic future, after seeing what’s been done to my home country of Canada over the last two years, I can’t even countenance returning and prefer to take my chances here.
@Backlash….According to the outstanding documentation of James Lucas of Countercurrents.org., US covert and overt criminal acts, including direct wars of aggression, proxy interventions, toppling duly elected governments, installing puppet regimes, stealing natural assets, organising unwarranted sanctions etc has resulted in 20-30 million deaths since World War 2.
Let me know when Putin reaches this gruesome benchmark.
I don’t think anyone’s been ‘backing horses’; what I’ve read are attempts to contextualise and make sense of what’s going on. If you want it to be about picking teams, you should try the BBC comments section, you’ll find it much more amenable.
No, it is Johnson who wants us to live the way the Chinese live here. You seem to have somehow missed that bit?
And if they want to tackle corruption, they can start with their front bench!
“OH, and to make sure the public are never educated about that, they have to have bogey men.”
Yes, and they also have to practice mass censorship so that those they demonise cannot explain their positions, justify their actions or defend themselves.
Like Putin said, the West is an ‘Empire of Lies’.
Putin is right -the West is an Empire of Lies.
Start with the Zero Carbon Save the Planet Lie then the Covid scamdemic Lie, the PCR test Lie …then the miracle “safe” Vaccines Lie – in the UK the “Save the NHS” Lieand the trivial but telling Partygate Lies, now the hot stream of Russia Hate and the Ukraine Lies – all leading to the coming endless forced vaccinations,digital ID and currency and the 2030 UN target of the “Great Reset” tyranny.
There is Globalist method in it all
And what of the “we have no intention of invading Ukraine” lie, and the “we didn’t poison anybody in Salisbury” lie
Let’s not get onto China’s lies!! It’s easier to quote when they’re telling the truth…..ie never.
“the “we didn’t poison anybody in Salisbury” lie“
ROFL! You really are a gullible one, aren’t you!
I mean, even if one were inclined to believe such a fantastically farcical concoction of totally implausible nonsense, surely one would have been jolted into alertness by the Russiagate lies subsequently put about by basically the same people!
ROFL to you too, you get to decide which version of the truth is correct and then condescend others? Putin and that Chink are renowned liars.
It was a genuine response to someone actually believing the preposterously absurd Skripal fantasies.
They were ridiculous in isolation, but when you see what happened with Russiagate and who was involved and how they did it, there’s no realistic basis for not seeing them as parts of the same campaign of lies and manipulation.
You’re choosing whose lies and manipulation you back. It’s that simple
Nope, I’m applying common sense, first and foremost.
Spend a few hours really looking into the skripal affair. If you are sincerely open-minded, you will see that next to nothing about the official narrative makes any plausible sense. You can start with this blog, which continues to follow the Skripal affair to this day: johnhelmer.net
By the way, it’s assumed that the Skripals are now dead as they haven’t been seen or heard from in years now. Sergei, who had been in contact with relatives in Russia on a few occasions, failed to contact anyone or send flowers or anything when his mother, who he was very fond of, passed away recently.
And it’s the same story with the Navalny “novichock poisoning”. Based on symptoms and toxicology, the most likely explanation is that he had a severe reaction to the mixing and abuse of bipolar medication and copious amounts of alcohol.
Absolutely right Mark – the Salisbury stories were ridiculous and it’s precisely because our media are capable of holding the line on that endlessly-changing, self-contradictory, codswallop that I’m not convinced of the narrative now. Over and over I thought – they cant’ get away with this line surely, but they did and then the BBC made a drama about it that had to completely mess with the verified time-line to make any sense. I posted just such comments to this & Toby’s thread, but they’ve not appeared – I wonder if this one will.
If you included more than two links they will have been held back.
Salisbury was utterly farcical and didn’t even make sense on its own preposterous terms.
I did believe the Salisbury line but I was sceptical of the MSM then, after two years I’m not even sure about that when you consider how close Porton Down is.
That was a great post until you got on to the jews…hold back a tad.
I was with you until the point about Straussian Jews. I don’t think the fact that the neocon warlords I think you’re referring to are Jewish is particularly of consequence and highlighting their ethnicity/faith runs the risk of defeating your own argument (which I otherwise completely agree with).
Thats like saying we shouldnt remind people that those heading up the British Empire were British.
If it looks like a duck, and talks like a duck, and walks like a duck – its a duck.
Of course it’s not. The British were a coherent politic and force that represented a nation and its values. How can the religion of these individuals be compared to that? They’re American!
Well said.
Be helpful all round if they could wear shirts in those colours.
You get today’s tea-spitting prize.
The primary posture of the political elites towards COVID over the last two years has been marked by a race to the bottom, a desperate competition to see who can come up with even more ridiculous and stupid policies than the next leader. This attitude has actually pervaded all of politics now, so for example, in regard to climate change, what’s the stupidest thing we can do, oh, blow up the coal fired power stations, convert everybody’s home to expensive heating that doesn’t work, etc etc. With that in mind, now Ukraine. Why does everybody expect now wise solutions to be proposed? or plans that will make things better? That’s not the way in 2022. The idea is to come up with virtue-signalling twirls which accomplish nothing and make people feel better on social media. So we throw Russia out of the Eurovision Song Contest, that will show them. And sic Harry and Meghan on to them, bet Putin is trembling in his boots. Meanwhile, the intelligentsia all fall over themselves to get on substack and provide brainy ‘solutions’ as if that is the point. It’s not the point. The point is to rush headlong into the abyss, all guns… Read more »
Note on Cuba 1962: the US put nuclear-capable missiles in Turkey; the USSR then sent some to Cuba. The deal was that both sides would pull them out – and that the US would not attack Cuba again (as it had done by proxy the preceding year). It should be called the Cuba-Turkey Missile Crisis. The USSR won that confrontation. It wiped the arse of the USA. But…the affair is still described in the west as the USSR backing down and the US merely agreeing to remove some rusty ol’ crap that it was going to remove anyway, in order to help the Soviet government “save face”. Haha! Anybody who believes that garbage will probably also believe that Greville Wynne, although he was spy-swapped for Kolon Molody (“Gordon Lonsdale”), really was a “British businessman accidentally caught up in a spying affair”. PS The difference between a “Russian-speaking Ukrainian” and an “ethnic-Russian Ukrainian citizen” (as per description on this chart) is mainly religious. That map is a bit of a mess – it attempts to do two different kinds of thing. PPS The British MSM at the moment is full of warmongering journos who “talk a good fight” but have probably… Read more »
As well as religion, it’s also worth mentioning that the Donbas (which means the “Donetsk basin”) is a coalmining area and many of the miners there are from families who emigrated (including some who were forcibly deported) from inside what is now the Russian Federation. The large majority in the Donbas simply see themselves as Russian – Russian-speaking, Russian Orthodox by religious denomination – rather than as “Russian speakers of Ukrainian ethnicity” even if they hold Ukrainian passports. If the bloodshed can stop soon, Ukraine become permanently neutral, and the Donetsk and Luhansk republics be integrated into the Russian Federation, that will be a much better result than many that can be imagined.
Have you seen the % of the Ukrainian population that actually speak Russian – I think you will be surprised.
The British “Elite” are now themselves moronic ( “officially”)
Well and truly the last days of Rome. So steeped in lies and corruption that it feels as though the establishment have started to believe them. Just listened to the Geopolitics and Empire podcast with Dalyana Gaytandzhieva about bioweapons labs in Ukraine. I hope they’ve been destroyed.
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We interview Tanya, an English teacher and theatre director as she navigates life through war torn #Kyiv.
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Kiev is Kiev…..suddenly calling it ‘Kyiv’ is just more stupid propaganda!
Chicken Kiev rules …OK?
Why not start calling Gdansk Danzig, Szczecin Stettin and Wroclaw Breslau again?
At least we could pronounce them!
I had a girlfriend from Szczecin. The streets designed by the same Architect who helped design many of the Boulevards of Paris.
Those hoping that Vladimir Putin will be ousted by his own people should bear in mind that the largest opposition party in the Russian parliament is not the Liberal Party but the Communist Party.
Things can always get worse. Always.
Especially if the Americans have anything to do with it they can!
There will be no CIA-Faecebook “colour revolution” or “Gucci springtime” in Russia.
Even when the CIA and their British helpers have been really “giving it some” using their “civil society” fronts during election campaigns, the Russian government has just let them get on with it and waste their money, because they’re no threat. They could have chucked the National Endowment for Democracy out on their earholes any time they wanted. The same goes for that other famous front for the CIA, the Fulbright Program.
And few people seem to realize that the last consequences of the new sanctions regime is likely to be re-communization of the Russian economy.
It does disntinctly seem that we are entering a new era and everything that Russia had been attempting to build since 1991 is to be abandoned.
Indeed, the new sanctions regime makes a compelling argument to Russia and Russians that free market capitalism does not work for Russia.
This could actually be a good outcome if it leads the the Russian Central Bank being reigned in. The Bank persistently pursues anti-Russian policies, following the instructions from IMF and Washington. We may be about to see the murder of one of Davos’ hideous tentacles.
“American Exceptionalism” in all it’s grotesque glory! What was the point of NATO after the fall of the USSR?
Why has NATO/EU expanded too include former Warsaw pact countries despite US promises not to do so? A solution…NATO pulls back to it’s pre 1990 locations, then after period of time allowed so it can get it’s admin duck’s in a row, it disbands? Simples?? Never in this lifetime would the good old US of A dissolve the military/industrial complex cash cow that is NATO! PS…by seizing Russia’s central bank reserves held in the west we are about to witness the gradual collapse of the petro $ and the rise to prominence of Russia/China/India/SE Asian block! Hold on tight, the world as we new it is about to end…..
What a load of crap, Ukraine is being invaded by a deranged maniac and thousands of innocent free-thinking people are paying for his ego with their lives.
The only way this is resolved is if someone brave enough does the right thing by humanity and plants a bit of lead between Putin’s ears
Before his finger gets anywhere near the nuke button.
Myself, I’d be a lot more worried about Biden’s fingers and nuclear buttons, given his very obvious advancing senility…
His wandering fingers are dangerous in any context
Naughty!
So sweet that you regurgitate with such FORCE what you’ve been fed, @backlash, as if projectile-vomiting.
Basically it’s a James Bond film loony foreigner Mr Big, who may pretend to be pals with real Old Etonians but who could never actually be their social equal, and who keeps a big button and a shark tank, versus a people composed of democracy lovers who only want to be free – is that right? LMFAO.
It’s plain for all to see, a deranged maniac is murdering innocent people. No amount of pretending it is media nonsense is changing a thing.
Russia is certainly not a democracy, nor is China and in blocking Premier league footage this weekend we can now be 100% certain where the chink’s loyalty lies
Congratulations! You are fully “on message” – reward in the post!
Keep watching the BBC!
Fuck all to do with BBC1 you prick
Abuse will lead to a ban. Unless of course it is death threats against Mr. Bad Man
Quite startling to see the number of Putin fans on this site.
I wonder how many of the brave cunts would stand up and fight for their freedoms when their time comes?
You think it’s about ego? Such an ignorant and simplistic reading of world affairs, you should be embarrassed. Take some time to look into why this conflict is happening.
It’s happening because Putin can’t get his own way and he’s a maniac. That simple really.
On the other hand, we could turn to the wisdom of the Leader of the Free World for guidance:
https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1498847206203588609
“Putin may circle Keeve with tanks, but he’ll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people”
Inspiring stuff, from a senile, corrupt old liar.
Gangsters the lot of them!
A very welcome and excellent rebuttal of Toby’s article. Hope he doesn’t hold it against you!
Well Iraq never had any WMD’s but Ukraine had 15 US bio-labs all over there.
Like Iraq too, there’s a certain leader who is threatening the petrol dollar.
Ukraine’s membership in NATO is entirely theoretical. For very good reasons previous US administrations, as well as the Governments of NATO member states, have avoided pushing NATO membership for Ukraine precisely to avoid provoking Russia. You are making an argument about something that hasn’t happened. My next door neighbour might decide in the future to start preying on young children. That doesn’t give me the right to pre-emptively burn his house down or slash his tyres. Secondly the disenfranchised ethnic/linguistic minority argument is one that simply doesn’t hold water. Every county in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and much of Asia have ethnic and linguistic minority communities. But that doesn’t allow Mexico to start annexing parts of Los Angeles or San Antonio; or the Republic of Ireland to lay claims to odd its of Liverpool. Russia is, in case you missed it, a huge geographical area. If ethnic Russian speakers so desire, there is plenty of Russia for them to go and live in. They can’t enjoy the economic and cultural benefits of living in a democratic and open Ukraine, while simultaneously wallowing in the comforting grip of Putin’s kleptocratic dictatorship. Enough with the tu quoque fallacies. Russia has provoked the… Read more »
Thought you were off to a cosier, more censored comment forum?
You can fantasise all you want, based on mainstream media propaganda lies, about “entirely theoretical”. I’ll take Prof Mearsheimer’s word about the reality rather than yours, thanks.
“In the fall of last year, 2021, it began to ramp up, and of course early this year…it became a full blown crisis. And the question that we want to ask ourselves is: what happened here? Why all of a sudden did this crisis go from the back burner to the front burner? And the answer is that the US and its allies were effectively turning Ukraine into a de facto member of NATO”
https://youtu.be/Nbj1AR_aAcE?t=785
As so often, the problem here is not only what you don’t know, but what you “know”, that isn’t true. You have been lied to systematically, and with huge media resources, for decades.
Exactly!
Increased Russian aggression will be prompted by the Ukrainians who are pushing back harder than expected. Russia went for precise military targets at greater risk to their own forces and seem to be getting their arses kicked, which in turn is spurring resistance in the civilians who are forming human blockades to stop the convoys moving.
Putin has 2/3 of his forces still in reserve so he may just send them in and start flattening whole cities, Kyiv being first on the list. There is already video evidence that a Russian FOAB has been used.
Another disgraceful chapter in human history unfolding and the same puppeteers pulling the strings.
I see you are swallowing the mountains of anti- Russian propaganda streaming from western media while they ban RT.
These things are happening and I haven’t watched a second of mainstream coverage.
No they are not. . Only according to fantasy world of western mass propaganda (not independently verified)… apparently according to the same sources the Covid Pandemic is stil sweeping he world and the PCR tests are 100% accurate – so keep wearing those masks!
Russia has not used an FOAB.
What a fucking bell end you are
Russia is not getting its arse kicked. Russia is winning.
Consider the motives of those who are encouraging the formation of “human blockades” to stop the convoys moving. Traditionally the gutless USA likes nothing more than “human shields”. They even used one that included civilian building workers when they captured the airport in Grenada.
Putin isn’t going to flatten any whole cities, not until this turns nuclear anyway.
“Father Of All Bombs” = fuel-air explosive weapons.
Russian morale knocks USA morale into a cocked hat, pulls it out, and tramples all over it, any day of the week.
The idea that Russia is going to be “stopped”, have the Riot Act read to it, crawl back into a smaller shell, and watch a peaceful CIA-friendly coup take place to replace Putin, is fanciful.
““Father Of All Bombs” = fuel-air explosive weapons.”
Also known as ‘vacuum bombs’ or FOAB, terrifying whatever you call it.
I read in “Afghanistan papers” that when the USA dropped their MOABs on Afghanistan it made a big bang but did largely nothing to damage their intended strategic targets instead killed a number of innocents.
The article totally fails to address the underhand and devious intentions of US Foreign Policy and its determination to undermine and isolate Russia and ensure it never forms an alliance with Germany – a nightmare for the Americans since the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. Ukraine is an expendable pawn for the US – a country to fight your wars in without being there just like Germany was during the 30 Years War. Ukraine is part of the line of buffer states which keep Germany and Russia apart. Nordstream 2 horrified the US – they have now forced the compliant, gutless new German Red -Green Government to kill it at their own expense. The Americans staged a coup in Ukraine in 2014 where Victoria Nuland ( currently Biden’s undersecretary of State!) played a major role on the Maiden square . The objective was to depose a Russia friendly President who saw Russia as ‘kin’ and wanted a friendly neighbour. The deliberate chaos created encouraged Extremist Nationalists like the Azov Nazi brigade ( they use SS insignia!) to start a slow burn ‘ethnic cleansing” war against Russian minorities. Russians wee burned alive in Odessa by Ukrainian Fascists in a Trade Union building… Read more »
Good post, @David.
Hopefully NATO will become a big issue in the French presidential election.
Christiane Taubira dropped out a few minutes ago. This may be to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s benefit. He’s in the péloton for sure.
Ahh…. the French election. Melenchon is a great performer but he has a ceiling to his vote even if he picks up straggling and struggling socialists from a party busted by the idiot Hollande. The real tragedy is that the monster Macron will probably get to round 2 by default on just 24% of the round one vote. With Zemmour on 14% Pelcluse on 13% and Le Pen on 15% (slight alterations all the time) there are several possibilities. 1.Zemmour drops out early failing to achieve enough political support and his supporters go to Le Pen if she manages to get over the line required – Le Pen and Macron then go though to round two again and Le Pen screws it up – yet again like last time – there are many who will just refuse to vote for her anyway . 2.Le Pen and Zemmour keep at it and both fail to get the political support required, so only Pelcluse gets MS Republican Party backing sufficient to enter round one and so she does thorough. and will be in round 2. 3.Will the right fall in behind her making a victory over Macron certain ? The French are… Read more »
I was starting to despair, I read all the comments so far and nobody mentioned…
so props for that David!
Same thing brought Russia into Syria.
For those who are under researched in this regard, read how Putin got into power after Yeltsin was set up by the US bankers and Clinton, read the Biden dossier detailing their involvement, you can start here: (yall have a lot to learn)
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/russia/the-real-backdrop-nobody-will-discuss/
Great piece. Short and to the point. Thank you.
Another lie falls apart:
EU Plans to Send Fighter Jets to Ukraine Fall Apart
In truth, such aircraft would have been shot down as they crossed the border anyway.
Let’s be clear here, arming Ukrainians to get more Russian soldiers killed is a significant escalation, even when it just involves portable AT and AA missiles that will mostly probably just be sold by the recipients.
The policy relies on blind faith that the Russians have no way to escalate in response. And that’s a foolish assumption, to say the least.
In the end, the Russians will always have escalation superiority over the Ukraine, because it matters to them, whereas it’s a luxury to NATO countries.
It was a total load of claptrap anyway, being imposed by the US abusive husband on the submissive subservient little wife.
‘Russians will always have escalation superiority over the Ukraine, because it matters to them, whereas it’s a luxury to NATO countries.’
Very, very true.
I stick by my position that I actively don’t care about any of these foreign Johnnies splitting each other’s ushankas.
I care about our borders, our laws, our liberties, and our economy.
For example, letting in another 100,000 dependents with nowhere to house them and paying for their consumption with yet more fiat borrowed from us and our children: that, I care about.
The more arriving to replace us, the better Johnson likes it!
This guy has been reporting on the region for years and has some very well made sceptical takes on the current broadcasts from The Ministry of Truth.
https://www.youtube.com/c/GrahamPhillipsUK
Minor point: the distinction between “mostly” and “predominantly” here is unusual. Never heard that usage before.
I thought exactly the same Star, but lacked your courage to post because I feared the intelligentsia on here would castigate my ignorance! 😉
Resolving the crisis: Removing the USA from any role in resolving it. They are the tumour that started it, they are in the dock, not the negotiating chamber. Bring in genuinely good-faith mediators who are not from the EU or Russia, particularly those from countries that have experienced civil wars in the past and have resolved them successfully. Ensure that the peace involves a 3 year long national conversation for all Ukrainians, again mediated by good faith peaceniks, none of whom are linked in any way to the Straussian US psychopaths. Reach initial positions where fundamental choices can be put to the Ukrainian people via referendum, not General Election. Fundamental choices like linking to the EU or the Eurasian Economic Union are too important to be diluted by general political manifestos. The same regarding the creation of any new statelets. Make it clear that until the USA renounces the Monroe Doctrine, NATO expansion is to be regarded as an act of war, worthy of hypersonic missile destruction of Capitol Hill, nuclear armageddon for a 50km radius around Langley VA and the complete destruction of the entire financial district of Southern Manhattan during a working day. In addition a further 100… Read more »
or
Point of order, since the US started this with Eastwards expansion, they need to be involved in the solution. Vlad isn’t going to waste his time “mediating” with the organ grinder’s monkeys.