I’m trying to understand all that’s going on. I had heard of Mr. Karaganov a few years ago, but now his name has resurfaced, despite not being well known in the press in my country. The link to Mr. Putin’s interview also has interesting insights that show his willingness to reclaim old Russia role among the nations.
As we are in the midst of the whirlpool of tension, the increasingly dramatic and emotional press reports, often filled with jingoist propaganda, end up not helping at all. I wish I could read more about the ideas behind Russia s foreign policy.
The impression I have is that the people of Ukraine were offered in sacrifice. Russia conquers a piece of land, the West does not enter a war and some end up happier than others.
I continue to keep my opinions about the internal Ukraine situation to myself, but I would ask that everyone keep in mind the average person in the Donbass area has basically no say in this at all, either way.
They have been denied any financial help for years, including their own pension checks from the Ukrainian government, living out of their gardens and getting by. To get their checks required them a trip, through Ukrainian right wing nationalist militia territory, that cost about as much as their check. To send them help required the same.
So I guess it is no big loss that it is now completely illegal to help them, but still. The US policy of punishing the victims of despots continues. That, and the idea my tax dollars are being used to send the weapons that will fall on their heads, makes it a very complicated matter for me.
We all know that situation is far from perfect. As long as you’re not spreading BS stories from Russia about “genocide” and “death camps” being carried out by the “despotic” government in Kyiv we can talk openly about the real problems that do exist in Ukraine.
Such is always life for civilians caught up in the conflicts of what Timothy Snyder calls the “Bloodlands”. Given that ceteris paribus situation, does an invasion of a sovereign nation by a right-wing sado-populist regime that treats its own non-wealthy citizens badly really make things better for them?
Except for having to deal with Ukrainian fascist militias (a very real and long-standing problem there, not entirely a scare story made up by Putin) are they denied pension cheques on the basis of their ethnicity or because (as the UNHCR article describes) because they’te living in a conflict zone where the separatist militias – yet more fascists – are also making life difficult for pensioners of Ukrainian ethnicity in the region.
It is now completely illegal for U.S. citizens to send funds or aid to the fascist militias who have claimed leadership of these two bogus republics Putin recognised today. That is the only change in that regard that occured today.
Now, see, that’s a statement worthy of Putin’s foreign ministry when applied to this situation.
Your tax dollars most recently purchased anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles for Ukraine intended to dissuade Russia from sending its tanks and aircraft over the border. Those munitions aren’t fired directly at civilians. In contrast, the artillery that’s been falling on the heads of civilians in Donbas has been fired across the border by Russia more often than not, and Ukraine’s Soviet-era artillery and dwindling stockpile of shells isn’t supplied by the U.S.
Which is even more complicated, given the fact that the USSR strategically relocated many Russian families to the outer nations in the Soviet bloc in order to gain more social and political cohesion as they countered NATO.
Russia has already sent tanks and troops into Ukraine signalling an invasion, the UK health secretary says.
Sajid Javid told Sky News: “We are waking up to a very dark day in Europe. It’s clear fom what we have already seen and found out today that Russia’s President Putin has decided to attack the sovereignty of Ukraine and its territorial integrity.”
The UK has always said this was “unacceptable”, he says.
“We’ve seen that he’s recognised these breakaway eastern regions in Ukraine and we can already tell he’s sent in tanks and troops, so I think from that you can conclude that the invasion of Ukraine has begun,” he adds.
An aside: you’re joking but I’ve seen even American leftists, and so many of them, arguing about supporting Putin because sure, he’s a bit of an autocrat, but he’s standing up against nationalism and neoliberal capitalism and he also thinks that US/western imperialism is bad, so clearly he’s in the right… (These are usually the kind of people who watch Russia Today and take it at face value simply because it also says that ‘US bad’.)
Putin is so obviously corrupt (“Oh look, I am still president even though we have term limits that I exceeded long ago, and anyone who says this is wrong goes to jail, how convenient for me”) there is really no good-faith argument for “supporting” him, it’s just a matter of whether to oppose him abstractly or materially
Putin is coming from the same place as so many abusive people come from: every partner is turning away from him and asking the neighbour for help, so naturally the evil neighbour seduced the partner and turned them against poor old Abuser.
Last night’s speech really was an “I gave you all my love, you (expleted), now look what you made me do!”. A septuagenarian raging because we don’t give him the love and respect he demands.
Between state ownership of strategic industries like the defence and aerospace sectors and the remnants of the Soviet welfare state, there is scope for leftists to tell themselves that Putin’s Russia is still a socialist society.
Oh please. One, no, they weren’t Glenn Greenwald as far as I’m aware. Two, I’m not in the habit of remembering Twitter accounts and random streamers who appear in Youtube videos that I’ve seen over the years and made me roll my eyes with their completely uninformed opinions based on “US establishment policies and capitalism bad => enemies of US establishment policies and capitalism good”. (Which is not a purely leftist thing, by the way, many American liberals tend to fall into the same myopic thinking patterns.)
And for disclosure: I’m a leftist activist in Eastern Europe.
He’s not raging. “Raging” implies losing control. Putin does not do that. This is all performative. He is playing exactly as much of the “look what you made me do” shtick as he needs to to sell it (which, given his supine generals and complete control of the Russian media, isn’t much).
He wants Ukraine under his control. There’s nothing personal in it: he wants Ukraine back, and if he can’t have his satrapy, and he can’t bully them, then he’s just going to have to invade. Ukraine didn’t have to let it get this far: they could have just capitulated and let Lukyashenko remain as their Pétain in the first place. That’s where the "look what you made me do* is. He doesn’t care if the Ukrainians love him or fear him, so long as they obey him.
And the State is wholly owned by Putin. This isn’t Socialism, this is straight out Feudalism, as William of Normandy would recognise immediately if you were to interrupt his Scouring of the North and bring him forward in time to now. Everything in Russia belongs ultimately to Putin himself, and if you own anything, it is because he allows you to.
I mean, I guess there are leftists who haven’t read the news in ten years, but going for a fascist autocrat as long as he’s “anti-America” is a thing, to be sure, but it’s not really what I would call “leftist.”
I get what you mean. But when people online say that they’re 1) American and 2) leftists, there’s always a good possibility that they are lying about at least one of those things. Real leftists don’t usually say things like, “I’m a leftist!” And not many real leftists are going to be cool with Putin just because he’s anti-American imperialism.
