On August 15, US President Donald Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir
Putin met in Anchorage, Alaska. The Russian president behaved like anArctic fox, appearing athletic and affable, cordial and helpful, while
adopting maximum flexibility in negotiations to address the difficult
situation. Countering this cordiality was Foreign Minister Lavrov, who
sported a T-shirt emblazoned with the words CCCP, or Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics, as if to tell the Americans "we're back!" Indeed,
the entire ceremony surrounding the visit demonstrated Russia's return
to the world stage alongside the United States, as a country possessing
a nuclear arsenal on par with the United States, and therefore capable
of negotiating on equal terms with the titular empire. For his part,
Putin treated his interlocutor as a counterpart, not as a servant, as is
his wont to do with his foolish vassals, such as von der Stupid and
other European leaders.
After discussing their mutual strategic problems, Putin pointed out that
the first to violate the principle of the inviolability of borders were
NATO countries when they treacherously attacked Yugoslavia, causing its
dismemberment. He also convinced Trump that peace can be made without
going through a pinstripe and fire, as Ukrainians and eager Westerners
insistently demand. Trump, for his part, eager to disengage the United
States from the war in Ukraine, summoned Zelensky and seven dwarves to
Washington to report the results of the talks.
Although announced at the last minute, the Anchorage meeting was long in
the making. This is demonstrated by the complexity of the issues
discussed, including global strategic issues, the management and control
of nuclear weapons, economic relations between the United States and
Russia, and the exploitation of the Arctic.
The conclusion of the war in Ukraine was only one point of the
negotiations, but the parties reached an agreement to continue the
talks. This agreement consisted of accepting Russia's argument that a
prior ceasefire was not necessary for the opening of peace negotiations.
This condition, in particular, defeated Ukrainian claims and the
expectations of the so-called "willing" parties, who had relied on the
truce to deploy a joint Anglo-French expeditionary force in Ukraine,
positioned behind the front lines, thus placing a stake in and deterring
the conflict. For now, the only result of Washington's negotiations is
the acceptance, even by Ukraine and those who claim to be willing, that
the negotiations will take place without a prior ceasefire that would
have allowed the reorganization of the Ukrainian army, which is in
serious crisis on the war front. The reluctant acceptance of this
condition by Ukrainians and Europeans allowed Trump to declare: "I had a
very positive meeting with respected guests: President Volodymyr
Zelensky of Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron of France, President
Alexander Stubb of Finland, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy,
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom, Chancellor of the
Federal Republic of Germany Friedrich Merz, President of the European
Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte
at the White House, which concluded with a further meeting in the Oval
Office. During the meeting, we discussed the security guarantees for
Ukraine that will be provided by various European countries in
coordination with the United States of America. Everyone is very happy
about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine.
After the meetings, I called President Putin and began preparations for
a meeting between President Putin and President Zelensky at a location
to be determined. After this meeting takes place, we will have a
trilateral meeting with the participation of the two presidents and
myself." Once upon a time, it was a very positive and early step in a
war that has been going on for almost four years. Vice President J.D.
Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the special envoy."
The central issue of the Russian demands remains the elimination of the
causes that, in the Russian Federation's view, provoked the conflict,
namely the protection of Ukraine's Russian-speaking population
(acceptance of the Russian language as an official and indigenous
language, protection of the religious freedom of the Canonical Ukrainian
Orthodox Church, on a par with other denominations, protection of
Russian culture, broad administrative autonomy for the oblasts, and the
federal structure of the state). To secure immediate peace, Russia is
also demanding that Ukraine cede Crimea, which has long been Russian
territory, as well as the four eastern oblasts of Donnesh, Lukask,
Zaporizhia, and Kerson, withdrawing from territories not yet lost on the
battlefield. It also demands a drastic reduction in the Ukrainian army
and its armaments. In exchange, it is willing to offer Ukraine
guarantees of territorial security and inviolability.
It is willing to accept observers deployed on future borders, but only
on the condition that they be troops from non-European countries. These
conditions, taken together, should act as a deterrent and antidote to
the aggressiveness of Ukrainian nationalism.
Distinctive Characteristics of Ukrainian Nationalism
To understand and address the underlying causes of the Ukrainian crisis,
it is necessary to clarify the distinctive characteristics of Ukrainian
nationalism. This is not simply a political movement that places the
national idea at the center of its actions, exalting the identity,
culture, history, and interests of the inhabitants of a territory
politically identified as Ukraine, but also promotes a sense of
belonging to this territory that seeks to bestow particular
characteristics on it in order to assert its right to prevail over
others. Ukrainian nationalism is a weak (and therefore aggressive)
nationalism, evidence of which is its need to define itself through
difference and distinction (or perhaps better said, subtraction) from
Russian identity, given that the common identity of the Slavic peoples
of which it is a part does not, in itself, allow it to discover and
identify the indigenous and distinctive characteristics that distinguish
it. This is why current Ukrainian nationalism seeks to characterize
itself through the exclusive choice of language (prohibiting that of
other components of the nation's people, even if historically rooted in
tradition). This linguistic choice is reflected in the cultural sphere,
with the exclusion from the literary tradition of any work written in a
foreign language, especially Russian (a culture from which Ukrainian
culture seeks to define itself through difference and subtraction).
Ukrainian nationalism is also distinguished by its preference for a
state religion, which assumes one and only one confession as the
nation's own, placing its leaders under the orders of the state.
Ukrainian nationalism takes on an ethnic character, evidence of which is
its emphasis on a common ethnic and cultural origin, deriving from it a
supposed superiority over other peoples, disregarding possible
discrimination against ethnic, religious, and political minorities
present within the state (be they Polish, Romanian, Magyar, Turkmen, or
Russian), and the fact that this choice causes xenophobia, conflict, and
discrimination.
These Banderist elements make Ukrainian nationalism a rotten and fetid
set of values, which in the past was characterized by anti-Semitism,
pogroms, and militancy as SS auxiliary troops. Today, it pollutes the
regions of Europe and the world, effectively interpreting and reworking
values and principles that were specific to Nazism.
This dimension of Ukrainian nationalism eludes many and has even
distorted the assessments of the Ukrainian conflict espoused by the
President of the Italian Republic in his speech at the University of
Lyon. His reading of European history was characterized by
superficiality, falsifications, sloppiness, and bias in its assessment
of historical phenomena such as nationalism, fascism, and Nazism.
The Trumpian strategy of disengagement.
Unlike the previous administration, which had prepared and promoted
Ukraine's proxy war with Russia, creating the conditions for the
country's destabilization by organizing, supporting, and financing the
Maidan protests, the Trump administration has decided to withdraw from
the Ukrainian war, positioning itself as a third party in the conflict,
in order to leave the responsibility and burden to the Europeans. To
achieve this, it has transformed the supply of weapons into a paid-for
armament sale, forcing European allies and Ukraine itself to pay the
cost. It has thus achieved the dual purpose of doing business, emptying
its arsenals of depleted, largely obsolete, or end-of-life weapons, and
simultaneously avoiding direct involvement in the conflict, claiming
that the war in Ukraine was a choice of the previous administration,
Biden's. This has allowed Trump to position himself as a mediator in the
conflict, shifting the responsibility, costs, and consequences of the
now certain defeat on the battlefield onto Ukraine and the European
Union. Although the Western press and analysts are quick to emphasize
the meagerness of Russia's territorial gains over time, given the
enormous losses in men and equipment, the defeat of the Ukrainian army
is now undeniable. The Russian army waged a war of attrition, its
primary objective being to destroy Ukraine's military potential. Not
only that, but over the course of the war, the Russian army changed its
strategy, avoiding mass attacks and implementing tactical operations
that are dismantling the Ukrainian fortified systems protecting Donbass.
The fortifications are increasingly depleted due to the difficulty of
recruiting new soldiers, due to desertions, the high number of draft
dodgers, and the violent methods with which recruiters force a reluctant
population to take up arms. Until now, the Russian General Staff's
strategy has been to engage the Ukrainian army across the entire front,
forcing it to spread its forces across a front of more than 1,000
kilometers, then proceed to envelop, besiege, and enclose sectors of the
front in pockets. Now that the fighting is breaking through the last
structured defenses in Donbas, the nature of the conflict is changing,
and the Russian army's objective is the annihilation of those
ideologically driven Ukrainian army units, which are increasingly being
engaged in combat aimed at their annihilation. This is a reclamation
that is not only military but also political.
Disproving Western propaganda that the Russian economy was collapsing
under the weight of the war effort, Russia has not only increased its
GDP but, paradoxically, used sanctions to strengthen its economy, while
at the same time partially converting its economic and industrial
apparatus to a war economy. Internationally, Russia is far from
isolated, thanks to its trade and economic relations within the BRICS
network, although its economy currently suffers from excessive
dependence on China, both technically and financially.
The Crisis in Western Europe
The war in Ukraine is causing a profound crisis for the European Union
and its member countries. With their energy supplies cut off due to the
destruction of Nord Stream II and the US dictate that energy be
purchased at exorbitant prices, European manufacturing industry is
experiencing a profound crisis. This is inevitably affecting the budgets
of individual states, burdened by the burden of the war effort stemming
from the financing of Ukrainian weapons and the support for the
activities of the Ukrainian state, which has completely failed and is
supported by the European budget. This situation is reflected in the
future EU budget, so much so that the one about to be approved will
suffer substantial cuts in agriculture and cohesion funds, hitting the
most disadvantaged areas of the Union and the agricultural sector, which
has formed the foundation and cohesion of the entire community architecture.
Contrary to the views of the so-called "willing ones," it would be in
the European Union's interest to immediately end the war in Ukraine, to
prevent EU citizens from having to pay the price through a drastic
reduction in welfare, which will inevitably lack resources.
We must be honest and admit that among those least affected by this
situation is certainly Meloni, who has maintained a moderately
wait-and-see position, declaring herself open to compromise and hiding
behind the proposal to create a group of countries willing to defend
Ukraine in the future but for which Italy will not provide troops. A
position certainly more acceptable than that of the imbeciles of the
Democratic Party, who still advocate the need for a just peace, as if it
could arise from a war. Leaders like Macron and Merz, Starmer and Von
der Stupid are worn-out leaders, now in their twilight.
One can only hope that the inevitable defeat resulting from the
Ukrainian war will allow the European people to rid themselves of this
political class, allowing a new generation of politicians uncompromised
by the idiocies of the past to take the reins of their countries and
save them from ruin.
G.C.
MARGINAL NOTE
Journalists and commentators, hacks and pundits, self-styled reporters
who like to present themselves as objective and independent, have
exposed all their anger, having to admit, foaming at the mouth, their
dismay at the red carpet rolled out by the US Marines to allow Punti's
rapid strides toward Trump. We remind them that this is the customary
ceremonial at state meetings. Would they have considered it more
dignified if the carpet had been laid out by a group of servants,
perhaps black, Asian, or Mexican?
And again, in a letter from a particularly biased journalist who likes
to call herself objective, on a trip to Kiev from Germany, perhaps to
collect her propagandist's salary, she described the horrific living
conditions of Ukrainians living under Russian rule in the occupied
regions of Donetsk. She extolled the delights of democracy in Ukraine,
but omitted the fact that today, Ukraine is a country under martial law;
where forced conscription is practiced, and draft dodgers are beaten,
captured, and sent to the front; where corruption reigns (paying is
enough to avoid leaving for the front).
A country where religious freedom is repressed, where ministers and
faithful of the canonical Orthodox Church are persecuted, and their
churches and property are seized; Russian speakers are persecuted, even
if they are Russian native speakers; monuments are demolished, and
literary works and artistic expressions are banned because they are Russian.
Not even during the Cold War did the conflict between the West and
Russia reach the scale of incitement to hatred against the Russian
people, to the point of extending ostracism to the point of demanding
their exclusion from international relations. Hatred has extended to
relations between peoples, targeting Russian cultural events,
performances by conductors, and literary production, heaping ostracism
and condemnation on the Russian people as a whole, portraying them as an
aggressor, without any distinction from the actions of their government.
The perpetrators of the Nord Stream II sabotage (Ukrainian and British)
have been glossed over, interrupting the flow of natural gas and cheap
oil from Russia to support sanctions against the Russian people, despite
the exorbitant cost of energy having brought the European economy to its
knees, producing a serious employment crisis with profound repercussions
on the well-being of Europeans.
Funding from the European budget has been allowed and is being allowed,
thus drawing on the finances of individual EU member states to finance
Ukraine, a failed state with regard to education, pensions, healthcare,
welfare services, and everything else needed to sustain the war effort,
including supplying the country with weapons.
Generous subsidies have been provided to Ukrainian refugees, creating a
disparity in treatment with less well-off native citizens.
The Editorial Staff
https://www.ucadi.org/2025/09/04/la-volpe-artica/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten