Saker rant: Russians are just pathetic at public information

The deal between Russia and Turkey signed yesterday is truly a game changer for the EU and it is at least as painful as the Russian retaliatory sanctions against the EU agricultural export. Having achieved such a victory, you would imagine that the Russians would be eager to not only explain it, but also make some good PR from it.

Think again.

I just went to the English version of the Russian President's website in the hope of finding a fully translated version of the Putin-Erdogan press conference. Check out what I really did find:

That's right. Chess.

Quick look at the Russian Foreign Ministry's English page:

Apparently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs thinks of November 22nd as "current news". 

Now, I am hardly a big admirer of Stalin, but when I see how these people work I cannot but think about the fact that in Stalin's times they would have been shot as saboteurs...

I can hear some of you - anti-state libertarians - thinking that the state just cannot get it right.  You think it is only the state?  Ha! Check out Gazprom's page today:

Yup.  That is this multi-billion dollar mega-giant's idea of "information".  My local convenience store can do better...

There are a lot of people out there who are under impression that Russia is cornered, losing this Cold War v2 against the Empire, that the Russian economy is about to tank, that the sanctions are having a dramatic effect, etc.  In part, this is due to exposure to the Idiot-Tube (which many in Russia call the Zombo-box, the box to make zombies) and the rest of the MSM, but this is only part of the explanation.  The main culprit is the Russian state and media - including RT - who just don't seem to understand even the basics of PR such as:

1) When an important event happens, make darn sure that you provide a simultaneous translation into all major languages, then post the recorded video, and provide a transcript.

2) Make sure that good infographics, photos, footage, presentations are available to the press and the blogosphere.

3) Provide contact information to individuals who would reply to questions, help arrange interviews, provide background information, etc.

But no, not in Russia.  Apparently in Russia every success has to be hidden as it it was some truly shameful event.

I think that the Poroshenko regime has (yet again) disgraced itself by placing foreigners  in ministerial positions.  And yet, when I see how absolutely and terminally incompetent Russians are in public information I wish they stopped trying themselves and hired an American PR firm.  Honestly, look at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website and tell me that any group of US high school kids could not do way, way better?!

The sad reality is that to try to honestly 'cover' Russian political developments from abroad is an extremely frustrating and disappointing exercise.  You get exactly *ZERO* help from the very people who should be most interested in your efforts.  Thank God for the Russian blogosphere which is full of dedicated and talented people (Colonel Cassad, Anna-news, Kazzura, South Front, Anti-Maidan and many, many others), who do, on their free time, what highly paid professionals are paid to do in the West.

But yeah, Russia will eventually prevail and it will eventually become obvious to everybody that the EU cannot take on Russia and the AngloZionist Empire cannot take on the "Russia+China combo".  Heck, with time people will even come to realize that Russia and China have forged a strategic alliance which make them more powerful than the US/EU/NATO combined.  But I sure hope that Putin will find the time to fire all the imbeciles who are in charge of Russian public information and replace them with a new generation of younger Russian who understand what has to be done, and how that should be done.  Either that, or hire Americans.

The Saker

Saker rant: Please tell me my worst fears will not come true!

Several Serbian commentators have expressed their concern, if not outright worry, about what is happening right now in Novorossia. I have to admit that I now share that concern. While I am not Serbian myself, some of the longtime readers of that blog know that I have had the opportunity to follow the entire war in Bosnia and Croatia literally minute by minute while working for the UN far away from Yugoslavia, but with daily access to UNPROFOR reports and with the possibility to debrief any UNPROFOR officers including two Force Commanders. For me this war will forever feel 'raw' because that was the event which really opened by eyes to the nature of the so-called "free and democratic West" and which, combined with the war in Chechnia, eventually cost me my career. I will thus readily admit that I might be over-reacting. In fact, my brain tells me one thing, but my gut tells me another and as a result I am feeling a very unpleasant but persistent feeling of alarm.

It all began when I finally listened to the full inauguration speech of Poroshenko. Up to that moment, I had some hopes that while even though this would be difficult, some kind of reasonable beginning of some kind of peace process could be negotiated with the man. I knew that the guy was an unprincipled prostitute, but it was precisely that "quality" which made me cautiously hopeful: better a rational prostitute that a crazed lunatic, right?

Listening to him I understood that in this case Poroshenko was completely bought by the USA and that vague European effort to negotiate something had be summarily tossed out into the trash bin. As I wrote in a previous post, his message to Novorossia and Russia was as simple as it was blunt:

• No federalization
• No state status for the Russian language
• No recognition of the Novorossian political leadership
• Full and unconditional surrender of the Novorossian Defense Forces
• Crimea will forever belong to the Ukraine

So this was Poroshenko's "peace plan".  In fact,  Juan was absolutely right: it was a declaration of war combined with an ultimatum demanding a total and unconditional surrender.  The fingerprints of Uncle Sam were all over the place.  I was appalled by the lunacy of this "peace plan" but soon my disgust turned into horror when I saw the Russian reaction.

Instead of walking out from this zoo (Poroshenko got US-style standing ovations at each of the worst of his statement), the Russian ambassador just sat there.  The Ministry of Foreign affairs did not comment either.  As for the Russian media, it did summarize the event, but most of its attention was focused on the latest kidnapping of yet another two Russian journalists and on the floods around Barnaul in Russia.  As for Putin, he announced that the had ordered the FSB to close down the section of the border which had been liberated by the NDF to prevent "the passage of illegal groups".

Not good.  Not good at all.  And it did remind me of Bosnia.

Quick flashback: the Bosnian Serbs had basically won the war and defeated both the Bosnian-Croats and their supporters in Croatia and the Bosnian-Muslims and their supporters from the Muslim world.  And yet they had to do that in spite of Milosevic who had agreed to cooperate with the AngloZionist by participating in the Empire's blockade of the Bosnian-Serb even though he knew full well that the Croats were getting convoys full of weapons, ammo and supplies from Croatia and that the Muslims were getting the same courtesy of the US and Turkish Air Forces.  Milosevic sold out his own people against a promise to be allowed to rule over Serbia and Montenegro.  That promise was eventually broken (most AngloZionist "promises" are), but at that time he thought he could negotiate with the devil.  He then sold out the Serbs of Kosovo (the craddle of Serbia no less than Kiev is the craddle of Russia).  That he then died poisoned in the Hague is hardly a consolation to me.

Now, as a good friend told me: Putin is not Milosevic and, besides, if Putin caves in now he would be committing political suicide.  I agree.  Or, should I say, my brain agrees.  My gut is in full "red alert" mode and I have been walking with a knot in my stomach since 2 days now.  Here is why,

First, I don't think that Putin can simply pretend not to have noticed Poroshenko's absolutely insane speech.  What a candidate says is, indeed, not very relevant, but an inaugural speech is really a totally different matter: it is, by definition, a *program speech* which outlines the goals of the new President.

Second, what is happening now in Slaviansk, Kramatorsk and the rest of Novorossia is a humanitarian catastrophe and Putin has promised to prevent that.

Third, Russia's careful and non-provocative stance is gradually being interpreted by the western media as a sign of weakness and this perception might be, in part, the cause for the escalation in both atrocities by the regime in Kiev and of the increasingly arrogant anti-Russian rhetoric of Western politicians.

I am most definitely not an admirer of Dugin, but he recently said something which I fully agree with: he said that the future of the planet is being decided in Slaviansk, Kramatorsk, Krasnyi Liman and the rest of Novorossia because the outcome of this battle will decide whether Russia can stand her ground against AngloZionist Empire and thereby initiate the liberation of the rest of the world or whether Russia will basically cave in.  I fully agree with him.  It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of the planet is being decided right now in Novorossia.

This is why I have a knot in my stomach.  So far, I am most definitely not seeing the kind of reaction Poroshenko's speech deserves.  And it is not just words, like some say.  The day of Poroshenko's inauguration saw a violent increase in artillery strikes on Novorossia and an attack on a high level Novorussian official.  Today - a Ukie artillery shell hit a church were the faithful were assembled for the feast of the Pentecost.

Putin has promised the Russian people (in Russia proper and outside) that he would not allow massive atrocities to take place against the population of Novorossia.  They are clearly happening now.  As for the "new" regime in Kiev, it is every bit as Nazi as the worst Right Sector lunatic would want.  Uncle Sam has basically crushed every EU attempt at a negotiated outcome.  This is most definitely not Putin's fault or the fault of the poor people of Novorossiia, but there can me no more hope for a reasonable negotiated settlement.

Russia has to act now and used her armed forces to liberate Novorossia.  Not to do so would be a betrayal of the Russian people.

My brain tells me that Putin will give the order to do so very soon.  But the memories of Bosnia haunt me.  So far Putin's track record is excellent, pretty close to perfect.  But for all my support for his policies, I never *trusted* him, at least not fully.  Honestly, I cannot image what will happen if he does not give the order to move in because if he fails to do so he would be giving up on the entire strategic plan of what I call the Eurasian Sovereignists to "resovereignize" Russia and liberate her from the AngloZionist Empire.  I cannot and do not want to believe that 14 years of struggle involving a great deal of dangers and, at times, truly superhuman efforts will now go to waste.  And yet I have this knot sitting there inside my gut and that knot gets worse and worse with each lame and vapid statement coming out of the Kremlin.

The US is hell-bent on war with Russia and the EU has completely sold out. Nothing new here, the European elites *always* joined in what I call a "Ecumenical anti-Russian coalition" with the SOB of the day against Russia: they did so when the Papacy launched a crusade on Orthodoxy, they did so under Napoleon, they did so during the Crimean War and they did so during the Third Reich.  So now that Eurotrash is on the side of Uncle Shmuel (a more accurate name for Uncle Sam, don't you think?).  What else is new?

This latest war might not be a "hot" one (although I really would not put anything past the AngloZionsit 1%ers), but it sure will be total and merciless anyhow.  And there is only one way to put and end to this: the Russian bear must bare his fangs, make an example with the Ukie Nazis and show these European imbeciles that Russia means business.

So please tell me that I am wrong and that when push comes to shove Putin will have willpower and courage to stand his ground against what I can only call a satanic coalition of the most evil ideologies and people I can think of.  I fully supported Russia's non-intervention right up until Saturday and Poroshenko's speech, but that policy has been taken to its limits and, to my immense regret, it has failed, primarily due to the truly unbelievable cowardice and immorality of the European political leaders (may they all rot in hell for selling out their own people the way they did it!).  It makes no sense to hope for a last minute miracle: those accursed EU bureaucrats did not find even a atom of dignity or decency inside themselves and as a result a full-scale Cold War v2 in Europe is now inevitable (the Bulgarians pushed their treachery one step beyond and under orders from MCCain agreed to stop the work on South Stream).

My brain tells me that Putin will give the order.  Soon.

But I have that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Please tell me that Putin is not Milosevic.

Please tell me my worst fears will not come true. 

The Saker

Creeping Fascism or maybe it's just me... (Saker rant)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn used to say that a single teaspoon of sea water can give you the taste of the ocean.  This morning, I had a taste of a teaspoon of what I would call creeping Fascism, and I would like to share this experience with you.

My wife has a business which requires her to go and see people at their homes.  I drive her to the needed address and wait in the car for her to come back out.  This morning we made one of those home visits in a very typical middle-class neighborhood.  As always, my wife entered the house and I stayed in the car, pulled out my Nexus 7 (2013) and connected to the Internet.

After a while I did notice that two of the neighbors gave me a weird look, but passed by and said nothing.  Then a guy came out of his house and asked me what I was doing here.  I replied that I was relaxing and reading.  That did not please him and he wanted to know exactly what I was doing on "his street".  I replied that "his" street was public and that I was minding my business.  He told me that the "entire neighborhood" was concerned about my presence and that I better tell them what I was doing here (I later learned that it was true - most of the neighbors were "texting" each other to, I suppose, "coordinate a response" to the "unfolding crisis" or possible "threat" to their well-being).  I was really baffled and I asked the guy whether he seriously believed that I was preparing a terrorist attack or dealing drugs and what made them so afraid.  His reply was "we don't know you and we protect each other".  I told him that something must be wrong with them to be so paranoid, at which point he left with this special self-righteous dumb look any kindergartner has when he goes to complain to the teacher.

Sure enough, a cop car soon showed up, cop came out and asked me what I was doing here.  I gave him the same reply, - relaxing, reading and minding my business.  I asked him whether I had done anything wrong or broken any law, to which he said that no, but that I was "suspicious".  When I asked him how I was "suspicious" he told me that the neighbors had complained about me sitting in my car.  I then asked him whether that made me suspicious in his eyes and he said that yes, it did.  He then ordered me to identify myself which I did and explained what I was doing here.  He said "okay" and left turned his car around and checked my license plate.  Then a 2nd cop car came, and they both stayed until my wife came out and we left.

Now some (most?) of you might think that this is no big deal or that I could have explained my reasons to be here to the neighbor who came out.  Maybe.  To each his own.  We all have different characters, different educations, different life experiences and different values.  And maybe to some (most) people, this all is a non-event.

Not for me, sorry.

To me, this is disgusting, especially in a country which fancies itself the epitome of democracy, human right and all that kind of crap.

Truthfully, I have nothing against neighbors looking out for each other, I actually find that beautiful, but in this case I was not doing anything which could have caused the alarm.  It was Sunday morning, 10:30AM, I was sitting reading in a van with all windows down enjoying the morning sunshine.  That's it.  I was not waving a Kalashnikov, or dealing small bags of white powder,  was not even listening to any "suspicious" music or even getting out to stretch my legs.  I was just there doing nothing.

 My wife thinks that I scare the local people for being 6"3, 255lbs and with a beard.  Oh, and I drive a van.  I am told that this combination makes me really really really scary.

Still, I think that my physical appearance and choice of vehicle cannot be considered as a legitimate reason for a man I have never seen come out into a public space and demand that I explain to him what I am doing on a public road.  At least not in the supposed "land of the free and the home of the brave".  If it is the land of the free, then I should be free to mind my business also, and if it is the land of the brave, then an entire neighborhood should find in itself the courage to live for about 45 min with a parked van and with a scary-looking dude inside without calling the cops.  But clearly, in the land of the free and the home of the brave this was the neighborhood of the enslaved cowards...

I also resent cops ordering me to identify myself just because *somebody else* considers me as suspicious.  If neighborhood is paranoid, does it mean that a trained officer has to act on it and also act in a paranoid way.  I keep wondering - did that stupid cop really think I was a danger to somebody?

It deeply saddens me that these putatively "brave" people and these cops don't seem to care one bit about privacy or about the civil rights which their own military "defends" (or so they think) in remote places of the earth like Afghanistan, the Philippines or Latin America when at home an entire society is taught how to fear and to mindlessly obey any order they are given.

Americans, the vast majority, are terrified, they don't even know why or of what, but they are terrified.  Hence the rent-a-cops everywhere. 

In Florida, you will see old geezers who can barely walk in uniforms everywhere: libraries, malls, department stores, hospitals - everywhere.  And since they are completely useless, they spend their time trying to do *something* and they end up harassing kids or telling people not to speak too loud.

The USA has turned into a kindergarten where everybody is afraid of everybody, everybody calls the cops out of sheer panic of "something" and were everybody is guilty until proven innocent.  And uniforms everywhere.  These rent-a-cops belong to organizations like "Internal Intelligence" or "American Security" and they have fancy cop-like uniforms, but they are also totally *useless*: the bad guys don't care about them, and the good guys are constantly harassed.

But the worst is not that.  The worst is in the mind of people: they have accepted all this as normal and inevitable, they have embraced, whether consciously or not, the kind of creeping Fascism which permeates all of US society, on the streets and in the minds of the people.

People have accepted that we have to act like door-mats by identifying ourselves as soon as told to do so, we have to strip as soon as told so, we have to obey, move, stop, assemble, disperse, move left, move right and always always submit to any order given to us.  And all that in the name of security.

And if we question any of that  - then we are "argumentative", "hostile" or otherwise "uncooperative".

So what if I don't want to "cooperate"?  Is that really a sin?  Does that make me bad?  Was I supposed to be born with a natural sense of love for the police?!

Actually, many (most?) people would say that yes.  That I am wrong.  Here is how their logic goes:

"You could have "defused the situation" be explaining to the neighbor what you were doing.  He was only doing his "civic duty" after all.  You have to learn how to live in this society".

Well, guess what?  I don't want to cooperate!  I don't want to "defuse" a situation which I have not created to begin with!  If my mere physical presence creates a "situation" which requires "defusing" on my part then, yes, that is a form of "discrimination" and "violation of my civil rights" (to use the stupid lingo of these so-called "democrats").  I don't accept that I have a duty to comply with the paranoid arrogance of cowardly assholes just because they happen to be in the majority.  I despise the kind of human plankton which spends its life acting like prey, which submits to evil and stupidity and which has no real sense of dignity of freedom.

Call me unreasonable if you want.  I don't want to be reasonable in a society gone insane.  If this society is sane, and I am not, then let me embrace my insanity!

I have spent my entire life hearing hundreds of people lecturing me about freedom, human rights, civil right, political rights, freedom of choice, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, etc. etc. etc.  It's all "freedom and rights" in their mouths.  But in their daily lives, its all about submission, submission and more submission.

It makes me sick.

No wonder so many people drink, use drugs, stupidify themselves in front of flickering screens, suffer from bulimia/anorexia or various phobias.  No wonder so many people are sexually dysfunctional in one way or another, aggressive, depressed or delusional.  And, finally, it is no wonder at all that so many people have no sense of self-worth, of dignity, of their minimal right to be left alone when they bother no one.  The powers that be have given us a real slave mentality and anybody not acting like a slave is immediately singled out as a troublemaker or some psycho suffering from ODD (opposition defiant disorder).

Please get me right - I was born in a country where you have to carry your government issued ID 24/7 and where any cop can ask you for your ID and business without any reason at all.  And I have lived under all sorts of authoritarian regimes, including Latin American and Asian dictatorships.  I know that in comparison the USA is much better - at least here a majority of cops is more or less honest.  But what is so unbearable to me is not that the US cops can act like bullies, but that they do that in a society which still seriously believes that it is "land of the free and the home of the brave".  In all the other dictatorships I have visited everybody was fully aware that there was no freedom, no democracy, and that might made right.  Except in the USA.  Here the slaves actually believe that they are free.

At least Blacks in the USA do know.  If having a beard singles me out as a "suspicious" individual, just image what a Black guy looks like in a White neighborhood.  They get that kind of crap day after day, every day.  I heard that from my African friends who lived in the USA (who are very candid about it) and from local Blacks (who are usually very reluctant to talk about that).  Yes, Black here know that 1) White people fear them and 2) cops are their enemies.  And having Obama sit in the White House did nothing to change that.  But Blacks are the exception - the rest of the country still pretends like everything is just nice and cozy.

That the rest of the country seems to be sleepwalking in some kind of stupor which prevents them from seeing how a "cultural Fascism" is rapidly taking over their minds and lifestyles.  From the Sheriff deputies the kids see every day in their schools to ubiquitous rent-a-cops everywhere, to the constant sound of police vehicles constantly stopping drivers - Americans are living under constant monitoring, fear and a wholesale dissolution of their civil rights.

I feel like the only non-smoker in a room full of smokers.  I tell them that the room stinks, that there is blue smoke everywhere, that the air is foul and that I cannot breathe.  And they all tell me that no, there is nothing wrong with the room, the air is fresh and clean and that I am over-reacting.

So what do I do?  Shall I wait enough time until my nose gets desensitized to the disgusting stench around me?  Shall I pretend like I enjoy the nauseating stench just in order to be "like everybody else"?

Or shall I remain true to myself and say that the air stinks?

The Saker

Saker rant: why I believe that Russia should not directly intervene in the Ukrainian conflict

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew (5:29-30)

When I began this blog, almost seven years ago now, I took two very deliberate and fundamental decisions about it:  first, I would make this an anonymous blog and, second, I would try to write only in a fact-based and logical style.  The first decision was prompted by several considerations, but the key factor was that I wanted this blog to be only about issues and not about me.  As for the second decision, it was prompted by a desire to offer a platform for frank and open discussions which would not be stifled by an overbearing and highly opinionated blog author.  Over the years, of course, a lot of aspects of my personality and values did come out and those of you who took the time and effort to "connect the dots" have a pretty accurate idea of where I "come from".  Still, I continued to try to keep myself out from the discussions as best I could.  Today, however, I will have to break both of my usual principles: I will have to explain why I hold the opinions which I will share with you and I will write in a far more polemical style: at best this will turn out to be an "op-ed" piece, at worst, a rant and a screed.  For me, the topic of the Ukraine is a very painful one but since several of you have raised some key issues, I will have to address them directly in the only way I can: directly and with no holds barred and no pulled punches.  On the topic of the Ukraine, the gloves are now off.

Ready?

Here I go:

My latest piece about the Ukraine concluded with the following paragraph:

As for me, I honestly wonder whether Russia would not be far better off *without* such wonderful "allies", "friends" and "brothers" as the modern Ukrainians and whether it not be a far better option for Russia to let the (already sinking) Ukrainians join the (already sinking) EU and then sit back and relax to watch the ensuing "love fest" between these two russophobic forces.

Several of you have immediately zeroed in on this sentence and asked me a number of direct and crucial questions which I now have to address:

Q: Mark Sleboda:  Give up the East and the South of the country that are Russian-speaking and largely Russian ethnic?!? Never! My wife was born in the Soviet Union, in the Crimea, in what is now considered the Ukraine. I have in-laws in the Crimea, Donetsk, and Kiev. Kiev is the heart of historic Rus. We will never give our families, shared culture and history up to the EU and the Galician ethnic nationalists and neo-nazis in the Western Ukraine.

A: The Saker: I come from a Russian family which has served Russia and the Orthodox Czar for centuries and which has fought many battles to free what is now called "the Ukraine" from Western invaders, form the Papist Teutonic Knights, the Masonic generals of Napoleon,  the Polish Jesuits,  the Swedes of Charles XII and, of course, the Germans while my wife is a direct descended of the Varangian Rurikides who founded the Kievan Rus'.  I assure you that we are acutely aware that the Ukraine is the historical heart of Russia.  However, I do not confuse the historical Ukraine, the "small Russia" in the Greek sense of "central" or "core" Russia, and the disgusting wannabe fake-Ukrainian state which has emerged in 1991 by the will of a few CPSU apparatchiks turned "nationalist" overnight.  That modern Ukraine is built on nothing but a pure and vicious hatred of everything Russian, on a completely fabricated historiography and it is run by a typical Mafia don (Yanukovich) a ape-like boxer (Klichko), a rat-like lawyer (Iatseniuk), a typical Galician Nazi (Tsiagnibok) and a typical Soviet oligarch bitch (Timoshenko).  To think that this scum seriously claims the heritage of Iaroslav The Wise makes me sick.  Modern Ukraine is not the "heart of Russia" - it is the prototypical anti-Russia!

Q: Yakoub Issa:  The problem is not the opposition or the government, both are abject, the issue is that there are about 17 million russians and several millions russian oriented ukrainians that Russia can't abandon to E.U. control, this would be death for them, let alone the major moral,spiritual, and strategic defeat that abandoning russian land like Sevastopol, the Crimea, Kharkov, Donetsk, Odessa...etc would mean for Russia, no Russia is right, the E.U. must absolutely be kept out. 

A: The Saker:  Tell me - what are these 17 million Russians and several million of Russian oriented Ukrainians doing right now?  It's their country which is driven directly over the cliff, and they are doing nothing at all.  How many Russian flags did you see in the demonstrations in the eastern Ukraine, in Donetsk, or in Sevastopol?  That's right - zero!  Even the so-called "Russians" and "pro-Russians" are marching under the yellow-blue flags which are west Ukrainian, Galician colors.  You speak of moral and spiritual issues at stake - have you ever heard the east Ukrainians raise such issues?  Do they ever speak of the thousands of saints which lived in this hallowed land?  Do they ever mention the millions of Russians who died freeing this land from the Poles, the Jesuits and the Jewish overseers which they imposed upon the Orthodox Christians?  No, never.  All the speak about is money, money and money:  "we will be poor with the EU, with Russia our business will flourish" - that is their idea of spirituality.  Pro-Russians in the Ukraine?  Ha!  Let me ask you this: when it became known that Ukrainian volunteers fought on the side of the Chechen Wahabis - did you see any protests in the Ukraine?  Or when the Ukrainian government was arming Saakashvili to the teeth - did you see any protests in the Ukraine?  No, never.  Their version of "pro-Russian" means "we like Russian money".  They are not pro-Russian, they are pro-Ruble!

Q: Sokenekos:  And what is Russia to do when NATO moves in - for which they can't wait?  What to do when anglo-zionists install nukes on the territory of Ukraine? Serbia was attacked for the same reason: to be a US launch pod - assuming that Russians will hesitate to respond in order not to kill its “brothers". Besides, nato ghouls didn’t want to leave any “holes” behind their frontline towards Russia (= Hitler’s school). Could you imagine what will they resort to when they get to Ukraine? It’s gonna be another Iraq with its own version of a perpetual “sectarian violence” fed from abroad to keep it going (= violent neotrotskism).  Ukraine is primarily a military issue.

A: The Saker: The Ukraine has been a de-facto member of NATO since 1991.   Do you know how many military equipment these SOBs destroyed after 1991 even though Russia badly needed them?  I am thinking here of military transport and refueling aircraft, bombers like the Tu-160 or even entire aircraft carriers!  Not only that, but the Ukrainian military has been covertly supporting Chechens and Georgians, with US and Israeli assistance.  They have opened their ports to USN ships and they have basically done everything the Americans told them to do.  Why should NATO give the Ukrainians full membership when they can get 100% collaboration from them anyway without having to extend any guarantees in exchange?  Furthermore, as a result of truly fantastic incompetence, corruption and political indifference, the Ukrainian military today is a joke, as bad as the Russian military was in the early 1990s, but with even more outdated equipment.  It could not fight a war against Monaco in its current state (even if these two states had a common border).  As for NATO, politically it has already "moved in".  Militarily, of course, NATO did not deploy any equipment in the Ukraine, but I honestly don't think that they would want to do that except for the minimum needed to "show the flag" for political purposes.  Why?  Because forward deployment is a bad strategy against a powerful enemy.  If NATO deployed forces inside the Ukraine that would put them in close proximity to far more powerful Russian strike capabilities.  This is, by the way, the mistake made by the Poles and the other in central Europe who, by accepting to deploy US anti-missile systems, have basically painted a crosshair on their heads.  Should a conflict with Russia ever happen - and I don't think it will - they will be the first to know because they will be the first to die.  A very bad strategy.

Q: WizOz: Some people asked why is the "West" so hell bent to "free" the "imprisoned and tortured body" of Yulia Tymoshenko, the braided blond Goddess Berehinya (who was a cute brunette when only a "successful" businesswoman)? And they found an answer: she is a little bit Jewish. Voila. And guess what, her former PM Arsenii Iatseniuk who is now "the leader of the opposition" is Jewish too. So are "some" of the "oligarchs" who financed the erection of the "World Largest Jewish Center" at Dnepropetrovsk.
Is there a push "tsu a Yddish Land" like in the '20s of last century and in the late '40s with the proposal to create a Jewish State in Crimea (which led to the "unsatisfactory" creation of the Birobidzhan Oblast")?   We just find out that "In Ukraine protests, young Jews are marching with ultranationalists". Ukraine is OUR country. Hundreds of thousands Russian Jews emigrated to Israel have returned to where they left.

A: The Saker: it is absolutely sickening and revolting for me to see how Poles, Jews and Ukrainian nationalists always join forces against Russia even though they hate each other with a passion which is hard to conceive for normal people.  Did you know that the Simon Wiesenthal Center placed Oleg Tsiagnibok in its annual list of top 10 anti-Semites on the planet and accused him of calling for the “purges of the 400,000 Jews and other minorities living in Ukraine”?! And yet the Ziomedia does not have anything to say against Klichko and Co. for constantly sharing the podium with this guy and EU politicians express their full support to this opposition!  Can you imagine the planetary oy veh! if Putin had a political ally like this?  The entire Ukrainian opposition is run by Russia-hating Nazis, Jews and Papists, who all also hate each other, but who hate Russia even more.  To make it all even more ridiculous, these folks nowadays have the full support of Germany - another nation famous for its love of Jews, Poles and Ukrainians...

And yet these are the folks for whom the typical Ukrainian citizen votes for!  Anything that the big evil "Moskal" I suppose.   Ok, that is their sovereign right, but you will forgive me if I am rather dubious that Russia has any kind of moral obligation towards these people...

Having answered these question, let me know give you my take on all this.

I have spent most of my life in categorical opposition to the power in the Kremlin.  I volunteered to participate in what was then called "anti-Soviet activities" which included sending banned books into the Soviet Union (authors like Solzhenitsyn, Solonevich, Tikhomirov, Borodin, Ogurtsov and others) and sending money and help to families of political prisoners incarcerated in the Soviet Gulags.  We even managed to successfully sent help inside the Gulag a few times.  I was also a participant in various activities to support the underground "Catacomb Church" in Russia (on the problem of the persecuted True Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union and nowadays please read this).  All this got me blacklisted by the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the KGB and a few other agencies as a "antisovetchik" (anti-Soviet activist).  I even once got a direct death threat from a real KGB officer who acted without authorization (only the Politburo could take the decision to kill somebody abroad), illegally and out of frustration and who got in a heap of trouble with his own bosses after that.  But still, even though this was not a "real real" threat, it felt real enough to me at the time (I must have been 19-20 years old).  I am writing all this to explain and illustrate the fact that I am hardly a knee-jerk automatic supporter of Russia, Russian policies or whoever is in the Kremlin.  And yet, to my immense amazement, I find myself not only in almost complete agreement with what Vladimir Putin did since he came to power,  I actually have to admit to myself that I deeply admire this ex-"enemy" of mine (him being in the KGB and me being an anti-Soviet activist, we were on two opposing sides of the Russian ideological barricades for many years).  For me, who used to hate Brezhnev, Eltsin, Chernenko, Shevarnadze, Grachev, Kozyrev, Gromyko and all the other Soviet and Russian leaders which sat in the Kremlin during most of my life, I now enjoy a really bizarre and new feeling: I truly like and admire folks like Lavrov, Shoigu, Ivanov or, especially, Rogozin, and I think that they are a fantastic team who is finally succeeding in pulling Russia out of the constant state of deep crisis which it has lived under for over 100 years now.

It took immense efforts but Russia is finally healing and standing up from the hideous crises which have plagued it for way too long.  Even the years of relative prosperity under Putin were far from being easy and Russia is still very very far from having fully recovered - what will take many decades, I am afraid.  So here is my question to you all:

Is this really the right time for Russia to get involved in the absolutely disgraceful mess taking place in the Ukraine?  Why should Russia make any efforts in helping the Ukrainians when the Ukrainians themselves do nothing but make things worse and worse and worse?

Yes, the Ukraine was the heart of Russia.  I know that.  I will even go much further than that and probably really shock many of you:

I don't even accept the notion that there is such thing as a "Ukrainian" nation or culture.  Yes, there is a Galician Ukraine and whatever that region was, it was never really part of Russia.  But most of what is today's "Ukraine" is no less Russian than "Belarus" (another invented nationality).  Look into a halfway decent history book and you will see that all the famous "Ukrainians" became famous in the Russian empire and as part of the Russian cultural elite.  What kind of music or literature did the "Ukraine" produce under Polish or Lithuanian rule?  Zero!  What about the russophobic nationalist "culture", what kind of great Ukrainians did it ever produce?  Zero, again.    Unless, of course, you count the "great" composer Mykhailo Verbytsky or the "great" author Tomasz Padura...

And yet, when I read the Ukrainian nationalist history books I discover something new every time.  One book tells me that the Ukrainians are the most ancient Aryan race from which all Europeans come from.  Another book tells me that all the ancient cites along the Black Sea cost were founded by, you guessed it, Ukrainians, long before the Greeks ever showed up.  And, just to reassure the Ukrainian Jew-haters, it turns out that Jesus was a Ukrainian too, through His Mother.  What I am still looking for is a book explaining to me that Adam and Eve were also Ukrainians and that the Serpent in the Garden of Eden was a disguised Moskal.

Seriously now - I have absolutely no objections against nations invented overnight.  To me, it makes no difference at all whether a national myth is based on fact or fiction.  Yes, I find it deplorable when people put Belarussians (an invented nation) and Georgians (an ancient nation) into the same category, but that is purely an intellectual objection.  I happen to believe in the self-determination of people.  If tomorrow some folks decide that they are the direct decedents of Atlanteans or of extra-terrestrial visitors of Ancient Egypt - let them create their own country somewhere if they get a majority of people backing them and they do so peacefully.  So for all my contempt for the very notion of a "Ukrainian people" I fully recognize the right of the folks currently living inside the modern Ukraine to decide of their own future.  I see absolutely no reason why a single Russian Ruble, nevermind a single Russian life, should be spent trying to prevent that.

Now, if there was some part of the Ukraine in which a majority of people was truly pro-Russia and not just pro-Ruble, if these folks demonstrated with Russian flags, and if they demanded that Russia refuse to recognize the internal administrative borders of the Ukrainian SSR and Russian SSR as an international border, or if they openly demanded that Crimea be returned to Russia, I might reconsider because what would be at stake would be people, actual real people, not historical concepts, monuments and ideological principles.  For example, I think that Russia did the right thing in 08.08.08 not only when it beat back the Georgian military, but when it recognized South Ossetia.  Why?  Because the Ossetians not only depended on that, they deserved it (if only by their absolutely heroic resistance during the first 24 hours of the war).

But what of the so-called "Russians" and "pro-Russians" in the Ukraine?  What right do they have to hope for Russian assistance?  What have they done in the past decades to deserve any help from Russia?

At least the Neo-Nazis and nationalists are speaking of a civilizational choice.  Somewhere, I have to say that they are right.  There is more to the Ukrainian question than just a choice between the Euro and the Ruble.

To be honest, I am not a big fan of any form of national exceptionalism, and when I sometimes listen to Russian nationalists I cringe.  But I have to say that I agree that there is more to being Russian than just to speak the language or live in the country.  The Russian civilization has always been different and I personally categorically disagree that Russia is a "part of the West" or even the "European culture".  In my opinion, Russia is neither European nor really Asian, but it is far more Asian than it is European.

Think about it, what are the roots of Russia?  I would submit that three key elements have shaped the Russian nation: its original Slavic roots (Kievan Rus'), its succession to Byzantium as an independent Orthodox Empire and the unification of the Russian lands and power by the Mongols.  So yes, Russians are mostly "White" (although the vast majority have plenty of Asian blood - I wish I could post a picture of my grandmother here - with her high cheekbones, slanted eyes, round skull and long black hair!), but the Russian culture has been fundamentally shaped by the Orthodox faith of the Middle-East and by its exposure to the Mongol hordes from the steppes of East Asia.

The sentence "scratch the Russian and you will find a Tatar" is sometimes attributed to Napoleon and it has been often used by russophobes to make the point that, unlike Europeans, Russians are Asian savages.  Well, setting aside the silly notion that Asians are savages, and taking away from it all its anti-Russian connotations, I would argue that this thesis is fundamentally correct.  Culturally, the Russians are far closer to the Kazakhs than to the Poles, and this is no coincidence.

So what about our modern Ukrainians?  Are they aware of that?  Do they even care?  Or are they so submerged in the fairy tales about the (inevitably) "blue eyed" Ukrainians of the antiquity they like to imagine to realize that there is really a civilizational choice at stake here and not just a choice between the Euro and the Ruble?

I would say that the western Ukrainians, the Galicians, the nationalists, the Jews, the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Germans and even the Americans are all, to one degree or another, aware of that.  Except for the so-called "Russians" and "pro-Russians" of east and south Ukraine.  These are topics which they simply never ever raise.

Of course, one can legitimately ask the following question: if I claim that Russians and Ukrainians are essentially one and the same people, how can I also claim that modern Ukrainians and modern Russians are so radically different from each other?

My answer to that is simple: if we compare the history of the people who lived in what is today the Ukraine and what is today Russia, we will see that the history of both groups is often tragic and difficult.  Both groups suffered immensely during their past, but there is one huge difference between the two: in the Ukraine the Russian people were subjugated people and their elites either exiled (mostly to Russia) or killed.  There was no such thing as a "Ukrainian Czar" who could defend Ukrainian national interests.  There never was a stable Ukrainian state - it was either foreign subjugation or chaos.  To make things worse, during the Soviet period the mostly Jewish commissars truly engaged in a bloody orgy as a revenge for what they (correctly) perceived as intense dislike of most Ukrainians for Jews (itself a direct result of the role imported Jews from Poland had during the Papist occupation of the Ukraine).  As soon as the Jewish commissars were more or less done, the German Nazis took over and, assisted by their Galician Nazi allies, engaged in another massive campaign to terrorize, exploit and oppress the Ukrainian people.  Yes, World War II was horrible both of Russia and the Ukraine - but at least the former had the strategic depth to save what possible could be saved.  All of the Ukraine, including millions of its best people, completely destroyed by what is by several orders of magnitude the biggest and most contested war humanity ever witnessed.

Being aware of the true history of the Ukrainian land and the immense suffering of the people which inhabited it makes it even more painful for me to look reality in the eye and accept, however reluctantly, that the folks who live there nowadays really cannot be called "Russians" any more (even they call themselves "Ukrainians").  All I see is a population of more or less Russian speaking people who distrust the west Ukrainians and who believe - correctly - that these rabid nationalists will bankrupt the country.  I am very sorry, but this is not enough of a reason in my opinion for Russia to get involved.

Yes, the historical Ukraine is an integral part of the body of Russia.  But it now suffers from a combined case of infection (nationalism) and a impotent immune system (the cluelessness of the east and south Ukrainians).  Every time I look at the news coming out of the Ukraine, and especially these days from the center of Kiev, I think of the warning in the Gospel: it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. First and foremost, I want Russia and its real friends - Belarus, Kazakhstan - its allies - South Ossetia, Abkhazia and its partners - Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tadjikistan - to continue to collaborate on the road to recovery from the Soviet era.  I also agree with Alexander Solzhenitsyn that the real future of Russia is not in its south-west, but in its north-east.  As for the West, I think that Russia should stick to the foreign policy outlined several times by Sergei Lavrov and Dmitri Rogozin: make neutrals out of enemies, make partners out of neutrals, make friends out of partners and make allies out of friends.  Right now, the Ukrainians - both the opposition and the party in power - do not even qualify as neutrals.  Instead of trying to intervene in the ugly conflict taking place in the Ukraine, I believe that Russia's priority should be to protect itself from the inevitable impact on Russia this conflict will have.  Sooner or later - but probably later than sooner - the Ukrainian people will wake up from their current insanity and realize that they have sold themselves to the ugliest kind of political pimps possible and that as a result of that, they have ruined their country.  If or when that happens, Russia should most definitely sincerely extend a helping hand and do whatever possible to help the slow process of reconstruction and recovery which the people of the Ukraine will have to embark upon.

But until that happens, I hope that Russia stays out of this conflict.

That's it.  I spilled my guts and I have tried to be has honest as possible.  I am sorry if I have offended anybody with what I wrote above.  All I can say is that I am also offended, deeply offended, by what I see taking place today.  There are probably many shortcuts in the narrative above, plenty of logical and even grammatical holes, and you can easily attack much of what I wrote.  I wrote the above in one session, I will not even try to re-read myself, because I decided to write mainly from the heart and not from the brain.  Please ignore the innumerable typos.

One last thing to any Ukrainian nationalist reading the above: please spare me your usual crap about me being an evil Russian imperialist, Asian, Moskal or Mongol.  Except for the "imperialist" part, I plead guilty to all the other charges and, like Blok's Scythian, I make no apologies for it.

The Saker