We were at yesterday’s great demonstration in London.
The situation – a distant country invading another distant country – is not easy to sloganize. The small street you see on the left, opening off Whitehall, is Downing Street, the seat of British government. So some of the appeals, by placard and chant, were to western governments: “Support Ukraine,” “Stop Swift” – that is, cut Russia off from the Swift system of financial transfer, one of the difficult decisions, because it may damage other economies besides Russia’s.
I’m not sure what the red and white flag is, with a knight on horseback. The blue and yellow flag is that of Ukraine, and some signs were in Cyrillic letters and in the same blue and yellow: “Slava Ukraïni.” “Glory to Ukraine!” or “Long live Ukraine!”
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It’s a long way from San Francisco to Glasgow, but I wish Anthony and Walter could reach out across the oceans and shake hands. I regard both as good friends (though I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Anthony in person). Both have humane sympathies.
I hold to my (inexpert) belief that the war could be stopped by a negotiated agreement that Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova, the countries separating NATO and Russia, will never become part of NATO. Russians have to feel that they will be safe from bombardment; Ukrainians have to feel that they are safe from attack by Russia or by other Ukrainians.
Either Ukraine is a sovereign nation, or it is not. Sovereign nations have the right to enter into alliances as they see fit.
Meanwhile, Russian missiles and artillery shells are killing Ukrainian civilians and nearly a million people have fled their homes. This is what needs to be stopped, right now, and those responsible need to be held accountable.
Ukraine may have the sovereign right to accept Nato membership, so perhaps the diplomacy that could be made is that Nato will never offer membership to a country bordering Russia. Again, backed by no expertise of mine.
Yesterday’s UN General Assembly resolution demands that Russia immediately and unconditionally withdraw. Isn’t it obvious that Russia will not do that, and is perhaps made even less likely to do so by the language of the resolution?
If we want the killing to stop, I would think the offer of such a compromise is the best means to that end, the quickest, perhaps the only.
Ukraine isn’t sovereign, it doesn’t control its own territory. I’m no expert, but shelling 10% of your population for eight years would seem to exclude sovereignty.
Guy your proposal makes sense, though you assume the western leaderships want to stop the killing. When did they ever care about a few thousand victims? They’ve not bothered about the 13000 deaths that preceded them in Ukraine. The west wants to antagonize Russia and destroy its economy, advance Nato, stop the Nord 2 pipeline, and please the US. The few left wing Labour MPs that are left have been threatened by Starmer for suggesting diplomacy.
Btw Guy, is that a Jeremy Corbyn Doppelgänger in the crowd in your second demo picture? The banner seems an unlikely one for him to be holding. Do you have any more info on that picture?
(Shaking hands with Anthony – typing with the other one… :-) )
If it was Jeremy, I didn’t know. Would have been honored to be in company. Will ask Tilly to look at the photo; she has met him and his Mexican wife at an Amnesty International event.
It’s okay Anthony, you’ve done your duty to the masters of war – admit nothing! Then claim it’s irrelevant anyway. It’s where we came in. I’ll get my coat now! (Well, in a minute… :-) )
Thanks Guy. It’s interesting how language can play such a role. In the induced lexicon of years of controlled media and breathless war reporting, the word ‘dictators’ doesn’t include the US war sellers. Yes, there’s different face at the helm every 4 or 8 years. However, the military industrial complex has much greater longevity, and has dictated policy for decades, irrespective of the party in power. But the permitted language of war only leads us to official enemies as evil culprits, without us even being aware of it. To me this is a remarkable state of affairs.
If the rest of the world had not appeased the 2003 dictators (fronted by George W Bush and Tony Blair) and the Iraq catastrophe had been stopped, maybe we wouldn’t have had the attacks on Libya, Syria, Yemen. These wars – in which the US and UK were not threatened – have cost well over a million lives. The US-Saudi-UK Yemen war alone has cost almost 400,000 lives, according to UN figures.
I’m giving up on my new friend on these matters :-), but you might be interested to read this fresh article from Media Lens, who have chronicled the duplicity of western media war reporting over the last 20 years. The depths will probably surprise you:
https://www.medialens.org/2022/doubling-down-on-double-standards-the-ukraine-propaganda-blitz/
Just to paraphrase (or rather, ‘corollarise’ :-) ) one of their many good points – When the manner of the reporting depends on who the aggressor and the victims are, we should recognize the likelihood that we are being duped.
Thanks for the discussions and all the best.
Guy, I appreciate that you’re looking for a workable solution that will save lives. But I fear that if Putin wins a strategic victory by invading Ukraine, he will only be emboldened to continue using intimidation and outright warfare to expand Russia’s sphere of influence. For more than twenty years he has been very clear that his goal is to reestablish Russian dominion over the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe. History shows that appeasement doesn’t stop power mad dictators from inventing grievances and invading foreign countries.
P.S. I also appreciate that Walter is your friend. I am sorry if my rhetoric has been too harsh.
Thanks Anthony – I wouldn’t say it was harsh or not harsh, just not based on substance. Refute one claim or falsehood and up pops another.
The cartoonish ‘mad dictator’ meme works every time. Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad and now Putin – but it isn’t aimed at the discerning, who will recall that Putin is usually said by analysts to be shrewd. Suddenly when it suits, he’s mad. My understanding is that there are 300+ in the Russian Duma, and they all supported the action in Ukraine.
“For more than twenty years he has been very clear that his goal is to reestablish Russian dominion over the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe”?
Has he – do you have any evidence for this claim?
I’ll throw this well-known Putin quote in:
“Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/23/putin-narrative-ukraine-master-key-crisis-nato-expansionism-frozen-conflict
Walter, I am not going to continue this pointless discussion. You’re right. Every bad thing that happens in the world is caused by US imperialism. All we can do is politely ask murderous thugs what we can do for them in hope they will stop killing people.
That’s okay. I haven’t found the discussion pointless; have learned from it. The article cited by Walter (Jonathan Steele in the Guardian, Feb 23) suggest that Putin is more complex than our stereotype. Appeasing dictators can be a mistake, as Anthony says and as has been obviously proved; that doesn’t mean that we should never compromise, or there would be no successful peace treaties.
Russia threw away all the goodwill that actually existed in North America and Europe towards it. It had a chance to act as a normal European nation—Putin chose to take it in another direction. But the Russians themselves seem to be realizing their leader’s follies. ^,000 have been arrested for thr actions of Mr. Putin. Still Russia will not be trusted in Europe, Canada and America for many many years. PS if Ukraine HAD joined NATO in the late 1990s we would only be talking about cyber attacks at worst rather than actual kinetic warfare in EUROPE. But, even if Putin wins–he will have to absorb 44,000,000 hostile people—who will take up guerilla warfare—-(See Michael Collins)
Anti-war protests in Russia:
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-60518268
Anti-war protest in San Francisco:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Hundreds-of-Ukranians-supporters-rally-in-S-F-16950138.php
“Anti-war protest in San Francisco.” Yawn! Dog bites man.
Did you bother to read the article, or was a five-word introduction enough to get you to post a stupid snarky comment?
Guy, it seems like it is indeed the old Belarus flag. Pahonia, the coat of arms of Belarus, https://www.radabnr.org/en/pahonia-the-coat-of-arms-of-belarus/
It could be a Belarussian national objecting to Russia’s free passage through the country on route to Ukraine. If so they can’t be very nationalistic, or they would know that their country is next in line, after the Ukraine, to be flipped towards the west/Nato by US billions (check out the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the CIA’s new clothes) and western pressure.
One always has to consider the role of the US. Were the west and Ukraine to honour previous guarantees that Ukraine will not join the anti-Russian alliance, that Nato will stop trying to expand towards Russia, and that the Russophile region of Donbas would be protected from attack from officially sanctioned Neo-nazi militias, this wouldn’t be happening.
Yes, Nato is an anti-Russian alliance, and it may well be that the West could have gone half way toward Putin by undertaking not to expand Nato eastward. Both sides might feel safer with a buffer zone between Nato and Russia. Putin is now driven into a position from which to fall back on compromise is to lose face. Diplomacy is about avoiding such situations.
NATO is a defensive alliance. It has never had enough troops in Europe to pose a conventional threat to Russia.
Is NATO an anti-Russian alliance, or a pro-democracy alliance? By permitting Russian meddling in Syria, Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Donbas region, has the US or NATO been appeasing Putin/Russia, or behaving in a threatening fashion towards them? Why are Finland, Sweden and others now making noise about wanting NATO membership?
Thanks…I’d argue the latter – behaving in a threatening fashion. In all of these countries Russia had legitimate security concerns; mostly stemming from US arming rebels trying to cause revolutions along Russia’s borders, creating the danger of new US puppet regimes which might even acquire US-controlled nuclear weapons if they joined Nato.
The US could ‘appease Putin’ very easily by implementing the Minsk protocols and keeping to previous agreements regarding Nato’s expansion Russia’s security.
Nato could obviously help there too, if only the US weren’t the main gatekeeper. If Nato was pro-democratic it would rule out Ukraine’s membership, and it would not be encouraging the US’s anti-democratic regime changing policies.
Western leaders talk about democratic Ukraine – Ukraine was stable in 2014 when its democratically elected leader was ousted in a military coup by neo-Nazi militia sponsored, trained and armed by the US for that very purpose, and now tolerated by the US-appointed leader. Not long afterwards vice-prsident Joe Biden’s son was appointed to the board of a major oil company in Ukraine.
You may remember Victoria Nuland of ‘Fvck the EU’ fame – that celebrated leak was in January 2014. However, the real significance of this conversation was that it showed the US was selecting Ukraine’s Prime Minister.
If Ukraine was in Nato it could wipe out the Russian people in the Donbas cities (as some of these militias would like to do) with impunity, knowing that any move by Russia to protect them would trigger a wider war.
So I would say neither the US nor Nato can be seriously claimed to be pro-democracy, no matter how often the politicians say it.
This is essentially Russian propaganda. The regime in 2014 was not democratic and the revolution that overthrew it was not neo-Nazi.
Russian propaganda? I thought I was just giving some facts.
Well John, it would be quite restrictive if I can only mention facts that no Russian has said!
Ukraine democratic in 2014: just to use the old-fashioned definition of democratic:
Feb 2010 Presidential election and the 2012 Parliamentary election: “fair”, “a good election, not perfect but clearly acceptable”, and “in compliance with democratic norms”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/08/viktor-yanukovych-ukraine-president-election
European Academy for Elections Observation (most of whom where European Parliament members)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Ukrainian_parliamentary_election#International_observers
The ‘neo-Nazi’ nature of these militias that Ukraine seem to be riddled with is well-known. The problem they have with Russian people is their ethnicity, this has fuelled the attacks on Donbas region.
This is widely cited: “Andriy Parubiy, leader of the Svoboda party that grew out of the neo-Nazi Patriot of Ukraine party, clearly stated in 2014 that attacks on ‘insurgents’ would continue after withdrawal of Russian troops.”
Svoboda was the fourth biggest party at the 2012 parliamentary election. It has a history of using neo-Nazi symbols. It’s other co-founder Oleh Tyahnybok can’t enter the US due to anti-Semitism. He has referred to jews as ‘scum’.
Here’s another snippet that shows the makeup of the National Guard:
“In August 2018, Global Affairs Canada approved a record-breaking arms deal to sell Ukraine fifty LRT-3 50 calibre sniper rifles manufactured by Winnipeg’s PGW Defense Technologies. With an approximate range of 1,800 meters, the rifles are described by PGW as intended for “long-range engagements of both hard and soft targets”—in other words, machines and people.
The sale became controversial because in June 2014 Ukraine had formally integrated extremist far-right militias including the Aidar, Dnipro, Donbass, and Azov battalions into the National Guard—which is itself under the command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. With this integration, the distinction between the official military and its extremist, far-right volunteer factions has been blurred.
In September 2014, Amnesty International released a report on war crimes by the far-right Aidar Battalion. Aidar was found to have detained, beaten and tortured civilians in Donbass including businessmen and farmers that members of the battalion accused of collaborating with the separatists. The UN Human Rights Commission reported on executions of Donbass civilians by members of the Dnipro Battalion.”
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/catholicdiscussion/far-right-extremists-neo-nazis-in-ukrainian-milita-t34081-s10.html
Azov is a right-wing extremist[1] and neo-Nazi[2][3][4] unit of the National Guard of Ukraine,[5][6][7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Incidentally this article also shows the far from defensive role of some Nato countries.
Cheers
If I die in a pre-emptive Russian nuclear attack, as Putin has threatened several times recently, I hope I’ll have a moment to remember that it’s an entirely justified response to US provocation and neo-Nazi terrorism.
Could we recognize the complexity of international politics and acknowledge that nobody’s hands are entirely clean, and still denounce and resist a dictator who has just invaded a neighboring country and whose forces are committing war crimes?
In the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, all the talk about US imperialism and neo-Nazis reminds me of the graceful little essay “On Bullshit” by moral philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt. Frankfurt distinguishes bullshit from lying — lying is deliberately promoting a falsehood, while bullshit simply ignores any concern about truth or falsehood to befuddle any possibility of productive discourse. Thus, bullshit is a greater moral threat than outright lying.
Did he? It would be foolish to *threaten* a pre-emptive nuclear attack. I think these noises from Russia came after our own (UK) loose cannon foreign secretary threatened bringing Nato in, which itself is a nuclear threat. All nuclear threats are foolish – Democrat leaders have threatened their own population with them. UK security boffins glibly talk about the need to take out all of the Russian cities. This is the madness of not only having these weapons in the first place, but treating them as part of the great strategic game. But they’re a fact, so anything that pushes in the direction of wider war should be condemned. This condemnation should have been happening at least since 2014 (13000 dead due to not following Minsk protocols). The west’s great strategic game of destabilizing the world’s largest nuclear power should itself be denounced – let’s denounce in chronological order – but it needs to be recognized first.
Anthony re US imperialsim and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi militias…well I took the trouble to ascertain the truth of these two matters, so it couldn’t have been me who reminded you of Mr Frankfurt’s bullshit. Perhaps it was already in your mind?
Also I’d be interested to know where double standards on imperialism fits into your interesting proposed moral hierarchy.
Please read Frankfurt’s essay. Bullshit can be completely true in each of its factual statements and still complete bullshit.
As of this morning, at least 2000 Ukrainians have been killed by the Russian military. I’m sure they considered their deaths a small price to pay for opposing US imperialism.
“Double standards on imperialism?” It’s wrong for the US to invade foreign countries, but fine for Russia? How is that morally consistent?
Hi Anthony, you say
I didn’t say it was fine for Russia to invade – it’s far from clear Russia’s motives were imperialistic. Russia is under threat. Yes people are under threat on both sides but you have to examine the direction of flow of the fuel for the fire, and it’s evidently from west to east; if the US/Ukraine had accepted any of the peace accords since 2014, there would have been no invasion.
Whereas, we have seen a string of invasions from the US where the smaller country has posed no threat to the US. These have been motivated by profit, power and geopolitical strategy. Isn’t this simply imperialism at its most obvious?
If you resist even the mention of one imperialism, while stretching the other – which is at best, much less clear-cut – then surely that’s as clear an indication of double standards that we are likely to see?
Oops I tried to supply a quote from your post Anthony:
““Double standards on imperialism?” It’s wrong for the US to invade foreign countries, but fine for Russia? How is that morally consistent?”
but I put it in angle brackets because it already contained quotes, and I think the system bombed it out, so to speak :-)
Also my two posts appeared in reverse order in relation to your two posts.
Sorry for any confusion!
It’s simpler to just re-read your post – you implied there was no interest in their truth or falsehood – a falsehood on your part.
Yes 2000 civilians is what the Ukrainian government claims. They give no fighter casualties. They also claim 6000 Russian soldiers, which is kind of absurd.
The UN estimate 136 civilian deaths. That’s bound to be a big undercount – but doesn’t your lack of interest in trying to get a realistic number indicate bullshit? Please read Mr Frankfurt again :)
But I defer to your judgement as to which is worse between falsehoods and bullshit, as so far you can claim ownership of both.
Meanwhile in the real world, how many were killed due to the Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk and Lugansk, which has continued throughout the Russian invasion? 13000 dead since 2014 (UN estimate). This is one of the things Russia was trying to put a stop to.
Two sides fighting of course…but for Ukraine, this was to avoid implementing a peace agreement – because the US masters didn’t want one.
So I would say Dylan’s Masters of War has far more relevance than playing games about bullshit. It’s about *the people that push for war, behind the scenes, to make money and gain political advantage*. Their power steering brings the wars about.
Don’t you see the relevance? IMO they need to be called out, not protected.
It is the historical Belarus flag. It was used until 1995, ie before the present regime. I have seen images on Twitter of Belarussian volunteers fighting on the Ukrainian side under that flag.
It’s the pro-democracy Belarussian flag. See this page under “other flags” section. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Belarusian_flags
Not sure, Guy, but the flat could be one from Belarus? Not the current flag, but one from earlier, or maybe an earlier one that has been amended in some way….?
Thanks, Ruth. But I don’t think so; Belarus has been helping Russia in its attack on Ukraine.
I believe it’s the Lithuanian coat of arms.
Hmmm, I’m not sure, and I know very little haha But I thought it might be a variant of the Belarus flag from the early 1990s, changed (with the Knight – Pahonia? Coat of arms for Belarus…?) added, and now adopted by pro democracy demonstrators …? Sorry if this is complete waffle!