Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 163

Meduza: The Kremlin’s internal polling shows that more than half of Russians now favor negotiations with Ukraine

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Article by Andrey Pertsev. Translation by Anna Razumnaya, Meduza, 11/30/22

Russia’s ongoing military defeats in Ukraine and the social burden of mobilization are rapidly cooling the public’s support for the war. Meduza has gained access to the results of an opinion poll commissioned by the Kremlin “for internal use only.” According to the study conducted by the Federal Protective Service (FSO), 55 percent of Russians favor peace talks with Ukraine, while only a quarter of the respondents still support continuing the war.

The FSO poll does not diverge all that much from the results of an October public-opinion study conducted by the Levada Center, Russia’s only large independent sociological institute. In the Levada study, 57 percent of respondents said that they supported, or would probably support, peace talks with Ukraine. Only 27 percent expressed the same range of support for continuing the war.

The FSO’s own polling indicates that Russians’ attitudes about the war have changed. As late as July 2022, only 30 percent of survey respondents favored ending the war by peace negotiations. Comparing the new results to those collected in the summer make the shift obvious:

Two sources close to the Putin administration told Meduza that the Kremlin now plans to limit the polling data that VTsIOM (the Russian Public Opinion Research Center) releases to the public. One source said, “You can get all kinds of results these days — better not to do it at all.” Also speaking to Meduza, a political consultant who works frequently with the Kremlin explained that it’s “best not to reveal the dynamics” of the Russians’ changing attitudes towards the war.

Denis Volkov, the director of the Levada Center, says the share of Russians likely to support peace talks with Ukraine began to grow rapidly following Putin’s September 21 mobilization decree:

“This is sheer reluctance to take part in the war personally. They continue to support it, but they have very little desire to participate themselves. Besides, their support was, from the very start, something they declared with regard to what they perceived as having nothing to do with themselves: “Life goes on — it’s even getting better.” Now, the risks are greater, and people want to start the talks. Still, the majority of people leave this to the government: “We’d like it, but it’s up to them to decide.”

Sociologist Grigory Yudin also links rising public support for peace talks to Russia’s draft. This fall, he says, Russians came face-to-face with the “crumbling of their everyday lives and a sense of danger.” Their “loss of faith in the victory” and the “absence of a convincing account of how exactly Russia might win” also contribute to the shift in opinions, says Yudin. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Yudin added,

“if this turned out to be mixed with an acute sense of danger to the country itself. In this sense, peace talks followed by legalizing the annexations should make the country safer.”

Yudin says the public’s resentment for how the war is going is not far from outright “apathy.” Still, he doesn’t rule out the possibility of anti-war demonstrations in Russia:

“Protests do not occur simply because people think something but because something makes protest possible. Russia’s protest potential is very high. When possibilities present themselves, there will be protests. Quite possibly, we won’t have to wait that long.”

Kremlin insiders who spoke to Meduza, however, said there’s little concern in the administration about potential mass protests, though they acknowledged that “it’s best not to raise the temperature, and not to anger people if not necessary.” Russia’s state media and propaganda outlets, moreover, have already received instructions “not to dwell on the war.” According to Meduza’s sources, the mass media is now being told to focus instead on a “more positive agenda.”

Political scientist Vladimir Gelman says the dynamics of Russian public opinion are unlikely to pressure the Putin administration into honest negotiations with Ukraine. The Russian side, he argues, is “not ready to make concessions,” and the prospects of any peace talks depend largely on what happens in combat — not in opinion polls.

Last October, Meduza wrote about Vladimir Putin’s unwillingness to abandon his claim on the Ukrainian regions he’s now annexed outright. The Kremlin’s recent hints at possible peace talks are likely a scheme to buy time to prepare a new offensive. Meduza’s sources close to the administration say the president still clings to his plans in Ukraine, and officials will reportedly resume Russia’s “partial” mobilization in the winter. Just how many more men the Kremlin hopes to draft remains unclear.

Dmitry Trenin: A confession from Putin suggests that the Ukraine conflict could last for years

Russian President Vladimir Putin

By Dmitry Trenin, RT, 11/28/22

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented, during a meeting with soldiers’ mothers, that he now regards the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 as a mistake. This concession was stark in the context of the possibility of peace negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine.

It is worth remembering that in 2014, Putin acted on a mandate from the Russian parliament to use military force “in Ukraine,” not just in Crimea. In fact, Moscow did save the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk from being overrun by Kiev’s army, and defeated Ukraine’s forces, but rather than clearing the whole region of Donbass, Russia stopped, and agreed to a cease-fire brokered in Minsk by Germany and France.

Putin explained to the mothers that at the time, Moscow did not know for sure the sentiments of the Donbass population affected by the conflict, and hoped that Donetsk and Lugansk could somehow be reunited with Ukraine on the conditions laid down in Minsk. Putin might have added – and his own actions, as well as conversations with then-Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, confirm it – that he was prepared to give the new Kiev authorities a chance to settle the issue and rebuild a relationship with Moscow. Until rather late in the game, Putin also hoped that he could still work things out with the Germans and the French, and the US leadership.

Admissions of mistakes are rare among incumbent leaders, but they are important as indicators of lessons they have learned. This experience has apparently made Putin decide not that the decision to launch the special military operation last February was wrong, but that eight years before, Moscow should not have put any faith in Kiev, Berlin, and Paris, and instead should have relied on its own military might to liberate the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine.

In other words, agreeing to a Minsk-style ceasefire now would be another mistake which would allow Kiev and its backers to better prepare to resume fighting at the time of their choosing.

The Russian leader realizes, of course, that many nations in the non-West, those who refused to join the anti-Russian sanctions coalition and profess neutrality on Ukraine, have called for an end to hostilities. From China and India to Indonesia and Mexico, these countries, while generally friendly toward Russia, see their economic prospects being impaired by a conflict that pits Russia against the united West. The Western media also promote the message that global energy and food security is suffering because of Moscow’s actions. Russia’s arguments and protestations to the contrary have only limited impact, since Russian voices are rarely heard on Middle Eastern, Asian, African, or Latin American airwaves.

Be that as it may, Moscow cannot ignore the sentiments of the larger part of humanity, which is now increasingly referred to in Russian expert circles as the Global Majority. Hence, official Russian statements that Moscow is open for dialogue without preconditions. However, any Russian delegation to talks would have to take into account the recent amendments to the country’s Constitution, which name the four former Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as part of the Russian Federation. As Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has put it, Russia will only negotiate on the basis of existing geopolitical realities. It should be noted that the Kremlin has not retracted the objectives of the military operation, which include the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, which means ridding the state and society of ultra-nationalist, anti-Russian elements.   

As for Kiev, it has gone back and forth on the issue. Having nearly reached a peace agreement with Moscow in late March, it later reversed course to continue fighting (the Russians believe this was done on Western advice). Having achieved operational successes on the battlefield this past fall, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had all contacts with the Kremlin formally banned and formulated extreme demands which he addressed to Putin’s successors, whenever they may emerge. For the West, this was bad from the perspective of public relations, and Zelensky was asked to make it appear as if he was open for talks, but in reality, nothing changed.

The reality is that the principal parties involved in the conflict in Ukraine, namely Washington and Moscow, do not consider the present, or the near future, as a good time for negotiations. From the US perspective, despite the unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia by the West and the recent setbacks that the Russian Army has experienced in Kharkov and Kherson, Moscow is far from being defeated on the battlefield or destabilized domestically. From the Kremlin’s perspective, any truce or peace that leaves Ukraine as an ‘anti-Russia’, hostile state, is tantamount to a defeat with highly negative consequences.

Instead, both sides believe they can win. The West, of course, has vastly superior resources in virtually every field that it can use in Ukraine. But Russia is working to mobilize its own substantial reserves in both manpower and the economy.

Where Moscow has an advantage is in escalatory dominance. For the US, Ukraine is a matter of principle; for the Kremlin, the matter is simply existential – the conflict with the West is not about Ukraine, but about the fate of Russia itself.

It looks as if the war will continue into 2023, and possibly beyond that. Talks will probably not start before either side is prepared to concede due to exhaustion, or because both parties have reached an impasse. In the meantime, the death toll will continue to mount, pointing to the essential tragedy of major power politics. In the fall of 1962, then-US President John F. Kennedy was ready to walk to the edge of the nuclear precipice in order to prevent the Soviet Union from turning Cuba into its missile base. Sixty years later, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a military action to make sure that Ukraine does not become an unsinkable aircraft carrier for America.

There is a lesson to be learned from this. Whatever Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev thought about his right to counter US missiles pointed at Moscow from Turkey with weapons of his own targeting Washington and New York from Cuba (with Havana’s consent), and whatever successive US presidents thought about their right to expand the NATO military bloc to include Ukraine (at Kiev’s wish), there is always a horrendous price to pay for the failure to take into account the rival power’s security interests. Cuba went down in history as a narrow success for common sense. Ukraine is an ongoing story, with its outcome still hanging in the balance.

Andrew Beck: Russia’s Global Standing Depends on Where You’re Standing

Church on Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg, Russia. Photo by Natylie Baldwin, Oct. 2015

By Andrew Beck, National Interest, 11/28/22

Andrew Beck is Partner at Beck & Stone, a brand consultancy connecting enterprises and institutions to culture.

When missiles struck Polish territory last week, killing two Poles, the world was quick to point the finger at Russia. Despite the danger of magnifying an event that could spark a world war, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted that Russia was behind the strike and called for heightened aggression on his country’s behalf: “This is a Russian missile attack on collective security—a very significant escalation. We must act.”

The Biden administration has repudiated Zelenskyy’s claims of Russian involvement but has simultaneously asked Congress for an additional $37.7 billion in aid to Ukraine. This is the latest of many bipartisan spending bills passed on Ukraine’s behalf by Congress—in addition to aid from other countries.

What drives such strong rhetoric and financing to repudiate and combat one country—sometimes in spite of facts? The clear answer: perception. In September, US News & World Report announced that Russia was experiencing a precipitous decline in its “Best Countries” ranking. Seven months after the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February, Russia saw a 12 percent drop in its year-over-year global standing—one of the largest in the project’s history. The Russians’ lack of international support makes them an easy target for abuse.

This drop in rankings is not surprising when you consider US News’ methodology and audience. The company polls over 17,000 people from regions around the world as to whether they associate a country with terms like “human rights” and “strong international alliances.” According to SimilarWeb analytics, nearly all of the media company’s 20 million readers live in English-speaking countries, and Ukraine makes up just a tenth of a percent—Russia, even less.

But despite the difficulty of measuring something as fluffy as sentiment, Russia’s standing in the international community is a salient question. No country can exist as an island fortress. Without friends and allies, national sovereignty cannot last long.

Seven years ago, I co-founded a brand consultancy that specializes in cultural entrepreneurship—helping companies delve into their local culture or subculture and express themselves in those terms. My work often calls for thinking about how brands can be patriotic, historic, and even mythic—and what each national culture means to the rest of the world.

In America, our national brand—our standing—has long been a political football. President Barack Obama controversially embarked on a European tour during his 2008 campaign to spread the message that under his leadership, America would more closely resemble Europe in diplomacy. A major point of opposition against both President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden was that they have damaged how other countries in the first world perceive us. In every case, Americans seem preoccupied with that elusive prize of being liked by an international, first-world audience.

But how much does this global standing factor into matters of foreign policy? To what extent should international relations preoccupy our country’s leaders and decisionmakers? The answer is the same for nations as it is for brands: what matters most is not being universally liked, but the loyalty of your core audience of customers, stakeholders, and investors. In politics, the focus is on citizens, public servants, and partners—the rest are collateral at best, inimical at worst.

One type of brand that closely parallels the concept of national standing can be found on another US News ranking: universities. Aside from major scandals, universities are generally consistent from year to year in how they are perceived and how they attract new students or donors. Like most countries, universities are led by presidents and an administration with a balance of powers. But the college’s core brand is older, deeper, and stands apart from whichever educrat is currently at the helm.

Ask any development department and they’ll tell you what really matters is how a university is perceived by its most important audiences: prospective students, alumni donors, and prospective employers. This is why Ivy Leagues don’t bat an eye when they’re nipped at by higher education watchdogs or conservative academics. Nor do colleges like Hillsdale or the University of Dallas care when they catch flak from the political left. It takes a long time and consistent adherence to a brand persona to build or destroy an institutional brand; and there is no institution more prominent in the modern mind than national identity.

When the “global standing” of Russia becomes a news item in the Western press, readers wearing American-centric spectacles might see a drop in a US News ranking as signaling the impending doom of Vladimir Putin’s regime. It is a validation of what they saw unfold in the weeks after the war began, with companies and institutions and celebrities across the global American economic and cultural empire “canceling” Russia for its actions, some with punishing sanctions and divestment, the majority with projections of solidarity with Ukraine and high-fisted moral outrage at Russia. Who does not like to see proof that their distant participation in an active war is working?

But the opposite is closer to the truth: Russians are more likely to treat the Western media’s approbation as a badge of honor than a sign of their nation’s decline. They have built themselves an identity for a hundred years around the idea that Russia is the alternative to, if not the antidote for, the United States and the broader cultural trends we represent. Moving further away from America’s ideal is closer to the ideal they want for themselves. What appears to be a civilizational decline in the eyes of Americans is validation for Russians.

Many years ago in Russia, there was a sense of economic superiority: America was greedy, hierarchical, and oppressive—stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Russia and its Soviet Union were the champions of the downtrodden and had real equality under communism.

Eventually, after much pain and suffering, Russians let that particular farce fade away, but that did not mean they believed themselves to be defeated culturally. Their national myth is just as strong as that of Great Britain and perhaps stronger than that of the United States. As the American cultural empire became increasingly more modern and less traditional, Russia emerged from communism with a zeal for a pre-Bolshevik past. They doubled down on distinctly Russian sentiments by investing in cultural institutions like the church, the arts, and the academy, to restore their ties to each other and protect themselves from America’s soft power of cultural influence.

These institutions have in turn reaffirmed Russia in its identity as a fundamentally good nation with a storied history that uses setbacks as stones to build on their great inheritance. In the later 2000s, Russia found herself rising economically with America, but going in the opposite direction of America’s depleted, secularized, progressive culture.

This narrative has accelerated under Putin, a figurehead of cultural resistance who conducts the pieces of a national orchestra playing to an appreciative audience. Thus, his leadership fuels Russian resolve to be more “on brand,” leaning into the identity that their enemies wish to pillory them with.

We saw this same dynamic play out in the 2016 presidential election, when a supposedly brilliant diplomat, Hilary Clinton, called anyone who would vote for Donald Trump a “deplorable.” Everyone remembers the result: what was meant to be an epithet turned into a trademark banner to rally the Trumpist troops, uniting them against a common foe who openly despised them. The lesson here is that being disliked by the “right” people has the opposite effect intended.

Ultimately, neither America, the United Kingdom, nor any other nation can browbeat Russia by attacking their national brand. Putin’s core customer base—Russia’s voting public—affords him astounding levels of support that haven’t been seen since Ronald Reagan in the United States, even taking the country’s election integrity concerns into consideration. And internationally, Russia suffers from no shortage of friends: major players like Israel, Turkey, China, and India have not fully bought into the West’s renewed crusade against Russia. Perhaps they are pragmatists, not wishing to permanently destroy an economic ecosystem that was starting to reap rewards, or maybe under the surface, they know their own sensibilities are more closely aligned with old, familiar identities held together by borders, language, local customs, and self-interest.

The diplomatic tidepools that pit Russia against certain geopolitical foils and pair her with confederates are inevitable. Every brand eventually establishes a position in the public’s mind, and no amount of censure or promotion can forestall this inevitably. It is the law of perception. Russia’s brand draws crude lines in the international marketplace, a perception that Putin has not only exacerbated, but given the Russian people a cause to glory in: fighting against the perennial enemy of American global influence. The Western elite polarizing their institutions and media organs against Russia will not influence Putin or Russians to change their brand trajectory, but steel their resolve to triumph with it intact.

Prof. Paul Robinson: What can Nikolai Danilevsky teach us about today’s struggle between East and West?

By Prof. Paul Robinson, Canadian Dimension, 11/28/22

November 28 marks the 200th birthday of Russian thinker Nikolai Danilevsky. Relatively unknown in the West, Danilevsky is extraordinarily influential in modern Russia, and understanding his ideas is essential to grasping the essence of the current political conflict between Russia and the West.

In the early 1990s, two theories of humanity’s future competed for the attention of those interested in international affairs. The first was Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History, which predicted that every country in the world was destined eventually to adopt the same social-economic and political system, namely Western-style liberalism. The second was Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, which stated that rather than converging, the countries of the world were separating into distinct civilizational blocs.

To Russians, none of this was remotely new. For the Fukuyama-Huntington debate did little more than echo a long-standing argument that has been raging among Russian intellectuals since the infamous debate between the Westernizers and Slavophiles in the 1840s.

The Westernizers were Fukuyama-ists before Fukuyama. They had what academics like to call a “teleological” view of the world, considering that the iron laws of history dictated that all societies eventually converged on a common end (telos in Greek). For them, this end was synonymous with the West. As the mid-19th century liberal Russian thinker Konstantin Kavelin put it, “The difference [between the West and Russia] lies solely in the preceding historical facts; the aim, the task, the aspirations, the way forward are one and the same.”

The Slavophiles countered this argument by contending that Western civilization had peaked. Russia, by contrast, still had much to offer the world through its own unique, Orthodox, culture. Only by developing this uniqueness and avoiding assimilation into the West could Russia contribute to universal civilization.

Interestingly, this argument still viewed Russia and the West as connected. Russia, by protecting its Orthodox heritage, was seen as being able in due course to export it to the West and so save the latter from itself. Slavophilism did not reject the idea of a common future.

It is here that Danilevsky stepped in, making the decisive break with teleological thinking. A biologist by profession, he adopted an organic view of the world. Human civilizations, he maintained, were organic beings that were born, matured, and died. None could be said to constitute the “End of History.”

In his most famous work, entitled Russia and Europe, he outlined a theory that Russia and Western Europe were entirely distinct “cultural historical types.” Different cultural historical types, he said, developed in their own separate ways. In opposition to theories of cultural convergence, he compared the world to a town square from which different roads (i.e. different civilizations) moved out in different directions. Each cultural historical type was inherently distinct, and consequently it made no sense to try to force it to develop along the path of another.

Other Russians built on Danilevsky’s theory. Late nineteenth century philosopher Konstantin Leontyev, for instance, postulated that civilizational life cycles had three stages: primary simplicity, flowering complexity, and secondary simplicity (the period of decay). Flowering complexity represented the peak of development. On an international scale, this meant that one should avoid the alleged homogenization that would come with everybody adopting Western-style liberalism, and instead celebrate a multiplicity of different civilizational types. The “End of History” would quite literally be the end of human development, and was thus to be avoided.

Later, Eurasianist thinkers used geology, botany, linguistics, and other fields of study to try to provide a scientific basis for the idea that the space of the Russian empire and later the Soviet Union constituted a coherent entity distinct from those around it. Originally devised by Russian émigrés in the 1920s, Eurasianism crept into the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev era, influencing among others the ethnographer Lev Gumilyov. Gumilyov argued that ethnic groups (etnoi) were a natural phenomenon and that what suited one group did not suit another, although those with certain complementarities could form a superetnos. The superetnos that was the Soviet people was entirely different from the superetnos of the West and as such should develop entirely in its own separate way.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, civilizational thinking has become de rigueur in Russia. A study by San Francisco State University professor Andrei Tsygankov showed that the most cited Russian authors in Russian academic articles on topics of international relations were Danilevsky and Leontyev. The idea that civilizational differences are real and can be objectively determined is now widely accepted outside the very narrow circle of Russia’s few remaining liberals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was rather late in coming round to this point of view. In the early 2000s he was a traditional Westernizer, speaking of Russia’s eventual integration into Europe. More recently, however, his tone has changed. Speaking to the Valdai Club at the end of October, he used the words “civilization,” “civilizations,” and “civilizational” some 20 times, and commented that “real democracy in a multipolar world is primarily about the ability of any nation—I emphasize—any society or civilization to follow its own path.”

To rub in the point, Putin mentioned Danilevsky and cited his statement that progress lies in “walking the field that represents humanity’s historical activity, walking in all directions,” adding that “no civilization can take pride in being the height of development.” Putin followed this by calling for a “free development of countries and peoples,” in which “primitive simplification and prohibition can be replaced with the flourishing complexity of culture and tradition.” Though Putin didn’t say it, the language was pure Leontyev.

Some commentators argue that the “New Cold War” between Russia and the West differs from the original in that lacks an ideological component similar to the conflict between communism and capitalism. Others maintain that there is such a component and that it consists of the struggle between democracy and autocracy. Putin’s speech shows that both points of view are wrong.

For the speech reveals a very coherent philosophy well founded in a specific Russian intellectual tradition with origins in Danilevsky. However, this philosophy has nothing to do with autocracy and democracy. In fact, the very essence of civilizational theory is that no system is inherently the best. Putin is not making any claims about how states should organize their internal affairs, let alone promoting autocracy versus democracy. He is, however, making a claim about how the world as a whole should operate, and contrasting the vision of a world converging around Western values and institutions with that of a world consisting of distinct civilizations each advancing towards their own unique destinations. The New Cold War does, therefore, have an ideological component but it’s very different from what most people in the West imagine it to be.

Only time will tell which vision of the world turns out to be accurate. But for now, the terms of the intellectual debate have been set. Two hundred years on, it is very much Danilevsky’s moment.

Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on Russian and Soviet history, including Russian Conservatism, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2019.

Oliver Boyd-Barrett: Critical Turning Point

By Prof. Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 12/1/22

Summary of Alexander Mercouris Commentary (Mercouris 12.1.2022)

Bakhmut

Ukraine is rushing reinforcements to Bakhmut to avoid encirclement by Russian forces. One report claims that 30,000 Ukrainian forces are in danger of encirclement. This further confirms the critical importance of Bakhmut to Ukrainian defense lines in the Donbass and further west, despite attempts by western mainstream media to argue otherwise. It is a key transportation and logistics hub. Mercouris has previously noted that the Wagner group is now supported by regular Russian forces and that one reason why the Russian offensive here has taken so long (four months) is because the Wagner group might have bitten off more than they could chew and that it would have been more effective had the regular army contributed more to this offensive and much sooner.

The battle for Bakhmut is the most brutal and cruel of all battles fought so far in this war.

In the event that Ukraine loses the battle of Bakhmut and loses up to 30,000 troops, amid shell shortages and threats to the energy system, at a time when the weather has turned considerably colder, it will have experienced a very major set-back.

Missile Attacks

There are satellite indications of a forthcoming massive Russian missile attack in preparation, judging by activities at the Engels airfield where pictures show two dozen bombers ready for action with very active ground crews. This could be an exercise in Russian misinformation or a signal of some other kind of operation. There have been recent expectations of such an attack. Even following repairs of previous missile attacks (the last one was a week ago), 40% of the energy system remains severely degraded.

Another two to four such raids might lead to a final collapse of the energy system, at which point an overall repair might become impossible. The prospect of western help is not huge, given disparities of voltage etc. between Soviet-era and western standards. There have been multiple attacks by Kalibri and many other missiles, but there have not been any recent sightings of Geranium 2 drones imported from Iran. It could be that Russia is building up a stock of these and other drones in preparation for a terminal attack on Ukraine’s energy system. Lavrov has said that attacks on the dual-use energy system of Ukraine are justified for military reasons. His saying this points towards a Russian intention to knock out energy, rail, communication and transportation systems that might also include the Dnieper bridges.

Storm Clouds

Things are now building up. Shoigu has indicated that training of the 300,000 new reservists and the additional 80,000 volunteers is now basically over and that the soldiers can be deployed in preparation for the Russian winter offensive.

Kharkiv

Other reports talk about a critical situation for Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region. The Ukrainian forces’ advance has been at a standstill while Russia builds up heavy fortifications and mounts limited counteroffensives. Ukraine says that Ukrainian forces in Kharkiv are running critically short of ammunition, because the railway system is beginning to crumble.

Shortages

Ukraine is in need of far more ammunition at a point in time when they are experiencing a shell shortage on the frontlines and NATO countries are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with their supply. France has indicated that it is now capped out of the military equipment, Caesar systems, multiple rocket launch systems, etgc.,and will not be in a position to provide much more.

Evacuations

If Ukraine is indeed worried for its energy system it is the legal and moral duty of the Ukrainian government to organize evacuations of citizens, especially the most vulnerable, from Ukrainian cities. If the transportation system also collapses it will simply not be possible to evacuate. Mercouris wonders whether one of the reasons why Ukraine has not been already organizing massive evacuations is that some people in Kiev are hoping for a humanitarian crisis so that this might elicit more western sympathy.

Diplomacy

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has also talked of the state of diplomatic discussions. He has ridiculed the idea that there are effective discussions taking place, and that there is no indication that Ukraine is in any position for discussion. This points increasingly to the Russians focusing on the military side of the war and discounting any idea of a diplomatic solution.

On the western side there are indications of considerable confusion. Macron is accusing Washington of benefitting from the war, from the sales of US LNG to Europe at very high prices, and complaining that the US Inflation Reduction Act is a mechanism for official subsidies to US industries at the expense of European (long gone the days of World Trade Organization authority, and even of “globalization.” OBB) There is no sign of any real US concession to Europe.

What to Do

There has been much discussion as to what to do to help Ukraine. The US is talking about relatively low levels of training support (2500 men a month, for a month at a time, will not remotely address Ukraine’s problems), talk about more weapons systems, perhaps including Patriot surface-to-air missiles (the Pentagon is strongly opposed, as it does not want to lose what it has), and suggestions about F-16s fighter jets which will only be available in a timeframe of months or years and, if used, will not make much difference.

Infighting

The issue of delivery of Patriots has caused a furious row between Germany and Poland in the wake of the fall of a Ukrainian missile on Poland. Germany offered its Patriots to Poland. The Poles have launched an anti-German campaign because Germany will not allow Poland to pass on the Patriots to Ukraine (which would require a full agreement of the entire NATO alliance). These kinds of quarrel are intensifying. Britain is also sniping at Germany.

Western media carry reports (as in the Guardian) that the USA should send 1,000 Abrahms tanks to Ukraine, that these would be sufficient to achieve victory over the Russian army – in other words, are suggesting that the USA should send a third of its entire arsenal of tanks to Ukraine. There would be enormous logistic challenges, challenges of maintenance (they are very heavy maintenance), and of supplying them with the 150mm tank ammunition, and of supplying fuel for their gas turbine engines. Fighter jets, long range missiles are also talked about.

Mercouris calls such talk borderline irrational/deranged. If and when Ukraine goes down to defeat such writers will doubtless claim that the defeat was because of failure to deliver such systems, that it was all the fault of the weak west and weak western politicians. (Such talk sounds like typicaly neocon double-down mischief, and indicates the extent to which mainstream media are bought and paid for by the neocons. OBB).

Non-Diplomacy

Russia’s intelligence chief has confirmed that he talked about Ukraine in his recent meeting with the CIA chief, William Burns, in Ankara, showing that there is nothing to the US claim that “there will be no talks about Ukraine without Ukraine.” But we dont know the substance of the talks.

Lavrov was clearly not impressed. Russia clearly feels, says Mercouris, that Washington is incapable of coming up with ideas that remotely address the problems. Western diplomacy, says Mercouris, is bankrupt. Attempts to isolate Russia, to implement a sanctions war, achieve military success, persuade China to intervene on behalf of the West, persuade India to stop buying Russian gas, etc., etc, – nothing has worked. The only promising negotiation back in March was wrecked by Washington and Boris Johnson. The price: Ukraine has suffered at least 100,000 dead among its military forces (as stated rather clumsily this week by Ursula von Leyen. OBB). Thousands more will die; many people will suffer extreme cold and similar hardships. Extreme cold, without heat, is unsustainable, despite however much clothing is worn.

The effects will be catastropic, especially for the vulnerable. We will have to go through all of this horror before negotiations begin – an act of tardiness and stubborness that represents political and moral bankruptcy.

(Note. There are western reports of an indication from Washington that Biden is ready for talks with Putin. OBB).

Prof. Nicolai Petro: The Tragedy of Crimea

Billboard in Crimea that reads: “Crimea. Russia. Forever.” Photo by Natylie Baldwin, October 2015

By Prof. Nicolai Petro, Responsible Statecraft, 11/25/22

Recent media reports have highlighted Ukraine’s intention to retake Crimea, particularly after its success in recapturing Kherson. This has been the stated policy of the Ukrainian government since losing it to Russia in 2014. 

A brief history of the region’s difficult relationship with Ukrainian rule before 2014, however, shows why this would be extremely difficult.

It is well known that in 1954 the region was transferred from the Russian SFSR (Soviet Federative Socialist Republic,) to the Ukrainian SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic,) as a “gift” to the Ukrainian people in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslavl Rada that joined Ukraine to Russia. Less known, however, is that in January 1991, as the USSR was disintegrating, the Crimean regional government decided to hold its own referendum on restoring the autonomy of Crimea. 

Nearly 84 percent of registered voters participated in this referendum, and 93 percent voted for Crimean sovereignty. This opened the door to potentially separating Crimea from both the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR, thus potentially allowing it to join the new Union Treaty then being proposed by Mikhail Gorbachev as an independent member. 

On February 12, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR (its main legislative body) recognized those results. On September 4, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the now Autonomous Crimean Republic (ACR) proclaimed the region’s sovereignty, but added that it intended to create a sovereign democratic state within Ukraine. It is in this context of regional sovereignty that 54 percent of Crimeans voted in December 1991 in favor of Ukrainian independence, with a voter turnout of 65 percent, the lowest of any region in Ukraine.

From the outset, however, both sides had diametrically opposed interpretations of what Crimean “sovereignty” meant — Simferopol, Crimea’s capital, wanted sovereignty, while the Ukrainian capital of Kiev a weak form of autonomy within a unitary state in which Ukrainian language and culture would be the norm.

On May 5, 1992, the Supreme Soviet of the ACR effectively declared total independence from Ukraine and announced a new referendum to be held in August 1992. The Ukrainian parliament declared Crimea’s independence illegal and authorized President Kravchuk to use any means necessary to prevent it. After a two-week stalemate, the Crimean parliament rescinded its declaration of independence in exchange for a negotiated devolution of power from Kiev to Simferopol. Crimea was given its own president and prime minister, as well as the authority to hold its own local referendums.

The crisis was averted, but only temporarily, since it did not deal with the core issue — the desire of a large portion of the Crimean population to be part of Russia rather than Ukraine. It therefore resurfaced in 1994, when Yuri Meshkov and his “Russia Bloc” party won the presidency of Crimea on a platform advocating reunification with Russia. Again, an incipient crisis was averted on March 16-17, 1995, when Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, after consulting with his Russian President Boris Yeltsin and receiving his support, sent Ukrainian special forces to arrest the Crimean government. Meshkov was deported to Russia, and, that same day, the Rada abrogated the Crimean Constitution and abolished the Crimean presidency.

Still, it took three more years to pass a new Crimean constitution that declared Ukrainian the sole official language of Crimea and specified that Crimea was an inalienable part of Ukraine. In a surprisingly candid interview in 2018, the last Ukrainian-appointed prime minister of Crimea, Anatoly Mogiloyv, explained that Crimea had always been “a Russian region,” and said that he repeatedly warned Kiev that, if it refused to grant the peninsula more autonomy, it would bolt to Russia.

The results of the Crimean referendum of March 16, 2014, have been rightly called into question because of the anomalous conditions under which it was held, but they were hardly surprising. Anatoly Karlin has conveniently compiled a list of 30 public opinion surveys taken between 1994 and 2016. Twenty-five show Russophile sentiment at over 70 percent, and five at 25–55 percent. One of Crimea’s foremost sociologists, Natalia Kiselyova, says that the percentage of Crimeans who “yearned for Russia” between 1991 and 2014 was always greater than 50 percent, while the percentage that favored Crimean regionalism was never less than 55–60 percent. 

Since 2014, a number of Western-sponsored polls have likewise shown a high level of support for reunification with Russia. Thus, a Pew survey  from April 2014 showed that 91 percent of Crimean respondents believed the 2014 referendum was free and fair. A June 2014 poll, this one by Gallup, found nearly 83 percent of the Crimean population (94 percent of ethnic Russians and 68 percent of ethnic Ukrainians) thought the 2014 referendum reflected the views of the people. A spring 2017 survey conducted by the German-based Center for East European and International Studies found that, if asked to vote again then, 79 percent said they would cast the same vote. 

Most striking of all has been the turnaround in the attitude of Crimean Tatars. A 2020 report in Foreign Affairs found that the proportion of Tatars who indicated that they thought being part of Russia would make them better off rose from 50 percent in 2014 to 81 percent in 2019.

Many leading Ukrainian political and cultural figures, including the writers Vasyl Shklyar, Yuri Andrukhovych, and former President Viktor Yushchenko, have referred to Crimea as foreign to Ukraine and depicted its multiculturalism as a threat to the nationalist Ukraine they were trying to create. After 2013, some have suggested letting this territory go its own way. The danger of doing so now, however, according to President Poroshenko’s permanent representative in Crimea, Boris Babin, is that “if we don’t liberate Crimea and the East [militarily], then all of Ukraine will become the East and Crimea.”

The history of Crimea since 1991 thus offers a vivid illustration of how nationalism can lead national elites to self-delusion. Knowing full well the region’s long-standing aspirations for autonomy, Kiev’s nationalist politicians chose to ignore or suppress them. 

The same problems could also arise for Russia, though, until now, it has managed to avoid them through a mixture of pragmatism and massive investments in areas of concern to the local population. For Crimean Tatars, these include the April 21, 2014, decree rehabilitating the deported peoples of Crimea, additional federal funding for the expansion of education in the Tatar language, the construction of more than 150 new mosques, and recognition of the Tatar language as official in Crimea, something never achieved under Ukrainian rule.

Critics counter that Russia is only pretending to address the concerns of the Crimean Tatars. In reality, they say, there has been a tenfold reduction in the number of Tatars in positions of authority in Crimea, because the Crimean Tatar Mejlis (Assembly) is now outlawed, and Tatars must run for office within different parties. It probably has not helped the overall popularity of the Mejlis in Crimea, however, that some of its exiled leaders in Ukraine support the policies of the Ukrainian government, which include the possible deportation of several hundred thousand Russian residents of the peninsula.

To be clear, the loss of Crimea stems directly from Russia’s illegal annexation, but, as Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Kravchuk, acknowledged in 2019, it was fed by years of “very aggressive attacks of one region [Galicia in Western Ukraine – NP], which often believes that its ideology is the most correct, the most essential for the Ukrainian people; [and it] encounters the opposition of all regions of Ukraine that have a different ideology, or maybe different views, to be more precise, on the situation in Ukraine.”

To regain their loyalty, Kiev will have to acknowledge the role that its own policies, most notably forcible Ukrainianization, have played in fracturing Ukrainian society, or face the prospect that recapturing these territories will result in a new cycle of violence, at some point in the future.

Ted Snider: It Was Never About Ukraine

By Ted Snider, Antiwar.com, 11/23/22

In his March 21 press briefing, State Department spokesman Ned Price told the gathered reporters that “President Zelenskyy has also made it very clear that he is open to a diplomatic solution that does not compromise the core principles at the heart of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.” A reporter asked Price, “What are you saying about your support for a negotiated settlement à la Zelenskyy, but on whose principles?” In what still may be the most remarkable statement of the war, Price responded, “this is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine.”

Price, who a month earlier had discouraged talks between Russia and Ukraine, rejected Kiev negotiating an end to the war with Ukraine’s interests addressed because US core interests had not been addressed. The war was not about Ukraine’s interests: it was bigger than Ukraine.

A month later, in April, when a settlement seemed to be within reach at the Istanbul talks, the US and UK again pressured Ukraine not to pursue their own goals and sign an agreement that could have ended the war. They again pressured Ukraine to continue to fight in pursuit of the larger goals of the US and its allies. Then British prime minister Boris Johnson scolded Zelensky that Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with.” He added that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with Russia, the West was not.”

Once again, the war was not about Ukraine’s interests: it was bigger than Ukraine.

At every opportunity, Biden and his highest ranking officials have insisted “that it’s up to Ukraine to decide how and when or if they negotiate with the Russians” and that the US won’t dictate terms: “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” But that has never been true. The US wouldn’t allow Ukraine to negotiate on their terms when they wanted to. The US stopped Ukraine from negotiating in March and April when they wanted to; they pushed them to negotiate in November when they did not want to.

The war in Ukraine has always been about larger US goals. It has always been about the American ambition to maintain a unipolar world in which they were the sole polar power at the center and top of the world. 

Ukraine became the focus of that ambition in 2014 when Russia for the first time stood up to American hegemony. Alexander Lukin, who is Head of Department of International Relations at National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow and an authority on Russian politics and international relations, says that since the end of the Cold War Russia had been considered a subordinate partner of the West. In all disagreements between Russia and the US up to then, Russia had compromised, and the disagreements were resolved rather quickly. 

But when, in 2014, the US set up and supported a coup in Ukraine that was intended to pull Ukraine closer into the NATO and European security sphere Russia responded by annexing Crimea, Russia broke out of its post Cold War policy of compliance and pushed back against US hegemony. The 2014 “crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s reaction to it have fundamentally changed this consensus,” Lukin says. “Russia refused to play by the rules.” 

Events in Ukraine in 2014 marked the end of the unipolar world of American hegemony. Russia drew the line and asserted itself as a new pole in a multipolar world order. That is why the war is “bigger than Ukraine,” in the words of the State Department. It is bigger than Ukraine because, in the eyes of Washington, it is the battle for US hegemony.

That is why US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on November 13 that some of the sanctions on Russia could remain in place even after any eventual peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. The war has never just been about Ukraine: it is about US foreign policy aspirations that are bigger than Ukraine. Yellen said, “I suppose in the context of some peace agreement, adjustment of sanctions is possible and could be appropriate.” Sanctions could be adjusted when negotiations end the war, but, Yellen added, “We would probably feel, given what’s happened, that probably some sanctions should stay in place.” 

That is also why the US announced a new army headquarters in Germany “to carry out what is expected to be a long-term mission” while it simultaneous began pushing Ukraine toward peace talks. The military pressure on Russia and support for Ukraine will survive the war.

It is also why on June 29, the US announced the establishment of a permanent headquarters for US forces in Poland that Biden boasted would be “the first permanent U.S. forces on NATO’s eastern flank.”

It is again why, on November 9, the State Department approved the sale of nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System to Lithuania. They are not to be used by NATO in the Ukraine war. But they will, according to the State Department, “support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve the military capability of a NATO Ally that is an important force for ensuring political stability and economic progress within Eastern Europe.” At the same time, the State Department approved the potential sale of guided multiple launch rocket systems to Finland to bolster “the land and air defense capabilities in Europe’s northern flank.”

Presumably, the delivery of upgraded B61-12 air-dropped gravity nuclear bombs to NATO bases in Europe is also not in the service of current US goals in Ukraine.

Though to the US, the war in Ukraine is “bigger than Ukraine,” it is also “in many ways bigger than Russia.” Although the recently released 2022 National Defense Strategy identifies Russia as the current “acute threat,” it “focuses on the PRC,” or the People’s Republic of China. The Strategy consistently identifies China as the “pacing challenge.” The long-term focus is on, not Russia, but China. 

The National Defense Strategy clearly states that “The most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S. national security is the PRC’s coercive and increasingly aggressive endeavor to refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences.”

If Ukraine is about Russia, Russia is about China. The “Russia Problem” has always been that it is impossible to confront China if China has Russia: it is not desirable to fight both superpowers at once. So, if the long-term goal is to prevent a challenge to the US led unipolar world from China, Russia first needs to be weakened. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently said that “China will firmly support the Russian side, with the leadership of President Putin . . . to further reinforce the status of Russia as a major power.” 

According to Lyle Goldstein, a visiting professor at Brown University and author of Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry, an analysis of the war in Ukraine published in a Chinese academic journal concludes that “In order to maintain its hegemonic position, the US supports Ukraine to wage hybrid warfare against Russia…The purpose is to hit Russia, contain Europe, kidnap ‘allies,’ and threaten China.”

The war in Ukraine has never been just about Ukraine. It has always been “bigger than Ukraine” and about US principles that are bigger than Ukraine and “in many ways bigger than Russia.” Ukraine is where Russia drew the line on the US led unipolar world and where the US chose to fight the battle for hegemony. That battle is acutely about Russia but, in the long-term, it is about China, “the most comprehensive and serious challenge” to US hegemony.

Roger Waters and Scott Ritter in Discussion with Randy Credico

Link here.

Ritter and Rogers discuss the Cold War, Russia and Ukraine, the threat of nuclear war, and other issues.

Lindsey Snell & Cory Popp: Interviews with Ukrainian Ultranationalists

Azov

By Lindsey Snell & Cory Popp, ISGAL, 11/15/22

As Ukrainian forces took control of Kherson on Friday, soldiers flooded social media with victorious pictures and videos of themselves in the city. Nazi insignia was abundant, including Azov Regiment’s Nazi Wolfsangel, Totenkopfs, Black Suns, and patches advertising Misanthropic Division, a neo-Nazi organization that has recruited far-right volunteers for Azov from dozens of countries. As has become the norm, the overt displays of white supremacist ideology were unacknowledged in most of the major media coverage of Kherson.

“I agree with almost everything you’ve written about Ukraine,” said Mike*, a US military veteran and volunteer combatant in Ukraine, about a past article detailing mass corruption, theft of weapons and humanitarian aid, and inept military command leading to senseless injuries and deaths. “But I don’t believe that there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine. That’s just Russian propaganda.”

Steve*, an American volunteer military trainer, recalls seeing Azov Regiment militants covered in SS logos and Swastikas at a course he lead in Kiev. He asked Azov commanders to order the men to remove the Nazi insignia, and they refused. Still, Steve says he doesn’t think Azov men are truly white supremacists. “I think it’s just trendy to them,” he said.

Azov was founded in 2014 as a volunteer militia led by Andriy Biletsky during the Donbas War and was later integrated into Ukraine’s National Guard. Azov’s use of neo-Nazi iconography and abundance of members with far-right, white supremacist ideology immediately made them controversial, as did their violent attacks on feminists, minorities, and the LGBT community in Ukraine.

Major media outlets that condemned Ukraine’s ultranationalists in the years before the war now gloss over the history of human rights violations and white supremacist ideology of far-right organizations like Azov. In a piece examining Russia’s designation of Azov as a terrorist organization, German outlet Deutsche Welle writes, “the Azov Regiment originally grew out of a controversial right-wing extremist volunteer battalion. These days, Azov has been absorbed into Ukraine’s national guard, which answers to the interior ministry,” seemingly implying that the Ukrainian government’s legitimization of Azov eliminated the group’s deeply-rooted neo-Nazi ideology.

On a leadership level, Azov says it has purged its ranks of white supremacists. All of the Azov militants interviewed for this piece adamantly insist that they are not neo-Nazis. That said, all of the Azov militants interviewed for this piece openly display Nazi insignia and express white supremacist views.

“I want my nation to survive and prosper,” Dmytro said in an interview. “I support traditional values and the revival of white Europe. It’s important for white families to restore the greatness of Europe. Look at America. It’s a crime to be white. Look at Black Lives Matter!”

Centuria

Dmytro joined Azov through Centuria, a far-right Azov spin-off organization led by Igor Mykhaylenko, an ex-Azov commander who has been referred to as Azov founder Andriy Biketskyi’s right hand. Mykhaylenko went on to lead the National Guards, the militia associated with the far-right National Corps party. In 2020, Centuria emerged as a rebrand of the National Guards.

Centuria began steadily supplying its members to Azov units after the start of the war in Ukraine. “Centuria basically became the backbone of Azov Special Forces,” Dmytro said. “We are very important to the war effort.”

Centuria describes itself as a group that, “stands on the ideological foundations of Ukrainian Statehood and European traditions.” Centuria members espouse white supremacy, misogyny, and homophobia. “Terrorism is the result of Western Europe’s multicultural policies,” Centuria wrote on its Telegram channel. “The only thing that can save France is the nationalists.”

Vitaly Avramenko, a commander of an Azov Centuria Special Forces unit, referred to the Zelensky Presidency as the “Jewish government” on his Telegram channel. Der III Weg, a German neo-Nazi party, celebrated the inception of Centuria on their website in 2020. Centuria, in turn, promoted Der III Weg’s endorsement of the organization.

Centuria emphasizes the importance of providing Ukrainian youth with nationalist education. “No government in Ukraine has been interested in educating the youth,” reads a blurb on Centuria’s official website. “They thought only about their own enrichment, not about building the national future. Our task is to raise a strong, proud Ukrainian.” Centuria often announces efforts to recruit boys as young as 15 years old.

Marko* is one such youth, recruited into Centuria as a teenager. He speaks about Centuria with the formality of a spokesperson. “We consider right-wing, patriotic movements very important to our country,” he said. “Centuria was formed for the Ukrainians who want to see Ukraine be a strong, independent, and prosperous European state.

“We believe that the best ideology for Ukraine is nationalism. Our nation, language, traditions and customs have been destroyed by enemies for much of history, and now, the Russian invaders are again trying to wipe the Ukrainian nation off the face of the earth. We will never forget how Russia tried to destroy our nation, and we will take revenge for every drop of Ukrainian blood shed.”

Marko poses in front of a Nazi Party flag hanging on the walls of his barracks. “That’s just to troll the Russians,” he said. “Because the Russians are always calling us Nazis. The Russians are the real Nazis.”

But Marko’s Instagram account contains enough virulently racist, misogynistic, and homophobic rants to fill a manifesto. He quotes George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. “If Israel is a Jewish Country and has the right to be Jewish, if Ghana is a negro country and has the right to be black, then why don’t we whites have the right to keep our white race?” He decries the white women who have children with “Chinese, Turks, Arabs, and Negroes”, wears a shirt that says, “White Pride World Wide”, and complains that Ukrainian youth aren’t sufficiently educated about Ukrainian nationalism.

Oleksander*, 24, is another Centuria member who joined an Azov unit when the war began. His Instagram is full of masked selfies in uniform, sometimes featuring a Hitler salute. Oleksander quotes figures he finds inspirational, like Adolf Hitler and American neo-Nazi Dylann Roof, who shot and killed 9 people in a predominantly Black South Carolina church in 2015.

“Once I found out who Dylann Roof was, I read his manifesto,” Oleksander said. “I began to admire him. I understand him, because he is a nationalist, like me. I support him. He is a man who loves his nation. The blacks commit crimes against his nation, and those crimes go unpunished. He is a hero. My call sign in my military unit is his name.”

Oleksander bristled when asked if he considered himself a neo-Nazi. “Ukrainian nationalists and Nazis are two different things,” he said. He didn’t respond when asked why he’d quote Adolf Hitler if he didn’t have Nazi sympathies.

Anton Radko, 32, is a professional MMA fighter and trainer who became an Azov commander after the war started in Ukraine. He, too, complains when he is referred to as a neo-Nazi, though he, too, uses Nazi iconography and white supremacist symbols liberally.

The username of Radko’s private Instagram account was “SSGalizien”, referring to the predominantly Ukrainian 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the Nazi SS. And fittingly, Radko posted Nazi content, including pictures of Nazi party flags and SS marches, on a near-daily basis before his account was suspended by Instagram. The Azov Regiment, which has claimed repeatedly to have purged its ranks of neo-Nazis, uses Radko in its official videos, social media posts, and even on billboards in Ukraine.

Groups like Azov have long been a draw for far-right volunteers from Western countries. It’s not clear how many foreign volunteers have traveled to Ukraine to join Azov, or how many have switched from other militant groups while in Ukraine. Centuria’s Poltava division recently shared an interview with a 23 year-old American militant in their ranks. “Francis,” from Texas, came to Ukraine and joined the International Legion, the official unit of foreign volunteers.

“I always wanted to join Azov,” Francis said. “I jumped when I got the chance.” When asked about how he felt about the US government’s issues with Azov, Francis said he was unconcerned. “To be honest, I don’t care,” he said. “I have my own opinion. I came to work, help, and support my friends.”

Azov and the West

US Congress has included stipulations in appropriation provisions that Azov may not receive “arms, training, or other assistance.” But a 2021 report found that that Azov Centuria members were trained by Western countries while at the Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Army Academy. But it’s clear that US aid is reaching Azov. Azov militants are frequently seen in photos with weapons provided to Ukraine by Western countries.

Beyond aid from Western governments, private donations have poured into Ukraine from the West. In March, money transfer and online payment system PayPal expanded their services to allow Ukrainians to receive funds from abroad. Virtually every Azov militant with social media uses it to court donations.

One Azov militant sought donations in honor of a fallen solder in an English-language Instagram post. “He spoke about support of the European people against Black Lives Matter riots. Our fight is 14 words,” referring to a quote from American neo-Nazi David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.” The Azov militant linked his PayPal account at the end of the post.

In September, a delegation of Azov members visited Washington, reportedly meeting with more than 50 members of Congress. The meetings apparently went so well that an Azov co-founder present in them, Giorgi Kuparashvili, predicted that Congress would remove the ban on funding and arming Azov.

The current size of the Azov Regiment is unknown, though the size of Azov relative to the Ukrainian Armed Forces as a whole is often cited to downplay the influence and danger of the organization. As a result of a widespread, continuous recruitment initiative, Azov’s ranks are growing. Azov’s recruitment page mentions that special dispensations can be made for active military personnel who aren’t able to visit recruitment centers in person, indicating that Azov is potentially swelling its ranks by poaching soldiers from elsewhere in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Azov is one of a number of ultranationalist militant groups active in Ukraine. Although bans on US funds being used to arm and train militants only apply to Azov, the rest of the Ukrainian far-right is equally problematic.

Ukraine’s Far-Right Beyond Azov

Carpathian Sich, a volunteer battalion formed by the ultranationalist Svoboda Party in 2014, was originally comprised of nationalists unable to enlist with the National Guard. Carpathian Sich’s current iteration, the 49th Separate Rifle Battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has been an official part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces since May and has a substantial number of foreign volunteers. Unlike Azov, Carpathian Sich seems to have muted its overt expressions of neo-Nazi ideology since the war began.

While volunteers from the US and Europe were welcomed into Carpathian Sich, a volunteer from a South American country says volunteers from his part of the world had a different experience. The volunteer, an army veteran, visited a Ukrainian Embassy and was encouraged to travel to Ukraine to join the International Legion. Once he arrived, the International Legion rejected him because he didn’t speak English. He was directed to Carpathian Sich.

The volunteer says that Carpathian Sich initially refused to enlist volunteers from South America. Eventually, they agreed to spend a month on the frontlines without payment. At the end of the month, Carpathian Sich was satisfied with their performance and enlisted them. The South American volunteer said he planned to remain in Ukraine permanently after the war.

Mikhail*, a militant from a Carpathian Sich-linked militia, says non-white volunteers should go back to their home countries as soon as the war is over. “Europe is white,” he said. “Europeans are meant to be white. This is how we Europeans differ from savages such as the Russians.

“We appreciate the help people from other countries have given us,” Mikhail continued. “But we have paid them, and they really should go back to their countries when the war ends. This is why we send food and grain to Africa, for example. So they don’t flee to Europe and try to live here.”

Right Sector

The Ukrainian Volunteer Corps (DUK) is the militant wing of the Right Sector, a far-right wing, ultranationalist organization founded in 2013. Today, the DUK is an official part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. But in the years following the Euromaidan, even as other militias split or merged into the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Right Sector remained independent. Though Right Sector’s prolonged consternation with Ukrainian authorities eventually mellowed, the organization’s ultranationalist, neo-Nazi ideology remained strong.

Right Sector rails against the LGBT community and feminism, even crediting the war in Ukraine for slowing the spread of tolerance by causing the departure of “most supporters of feminism and LGBT”. Human rights watchdog organizations have cited Right Sector’s role in many violent, racist attacks, noted that some municipalities have used members of far-right groups as street police, and complained that Ukrainian authorities have prosecuted activists attacked by far-right groups while taking no action against their far-right attackers.

Right Sector has an active youth outreach program with chapters throughout the country. Like Centuria, Right Sector places heavy emphasis on nationalist indoctrination of youth. “Right Sector seeks to educate the youth and eliminate the internal occupation,” said one DUK militant whose Instagram username features both “white boy” and “88” (a numeric abbreviation for “Heil Hitler”). “That means the political forces that reduce the rights of our indigenous nation to a minimum.”

As with Azov and all other far-right militant groups in Ukraine, the current size of the DUK is unknown. The DUK consists of “combat units, reserve units, operational units, initiative groups for the creation of reserve units, training centers, local training bases, and other auxiliary structures.” New militants are actively being recruited. As with Azov, Right Sector mentions that it’s possible for soldiers in the Ukrainian Army and elsewhere to transfer into DUK.

The Other Carpathian Sich

“Alien, remember! The Ukrainian is the boss!” chanted black-clad men demonstrating against the Hungarian minority in Uzhgorod in 2017. The demonstrators were members of a second, distinct group named Carpathian Sich.

This Carpathian Sich existed pre-Euromaidan and has been responsible for many of the worst attacks against marginalized communities in Ukraine. Among the group’s stated activities are patrols to combat “ethnic crime.” Carpathian Sich often joins forces with Azov and Right Sector. In 2016, 300 members of the three groups marched through the streets of Uzhgorod, calling for the extermination of Hungarians.

Carpathian Sich founder Teras Deyak says that at the start of the war in February, Carpathian Sich reformatted into a military unit. Existing members took up arms, and volunteers approached Deyak to join. In the years before the war, Deyak actively participated in Carpathian Sich’s attacks on feminist demonstrations. In 2017, Deyak filmed attacking people inside a bar in Uzhgorod and yelling “Sieg Heil!”

New Far-Right Groups Emerge

As the war drags on, there is an ever-growing number of new far-right militias appearing in Ukraine. Ilya*, a Russian militant belonging to the Russian Volunteer Corps, a new unit of far-right Russians fighting against Russia in Ukraine, has a tattoo on his left hand bearing an SS logo and the numbers 14 (“14 words”) and 88. In one of the photos on his Instagram, he is standing in front of an American flag. 14, 88, and SS are written on his ear protection.

Still, Ilya balked at being labeled a neo-Nazi based on his use of neo-Nazi insignia. “1488 is a lifestyle,” he said. “Muslims kill people all the time, but no one is trying to cancel the Islamic religion. And the world is determined to commit genocide against white Slavs, so this lifestyle is necessary,” apparently referencing the inherently white supremacist “Great Replacement” theory.

There’s Nordstorm, co-founded by an Azov Centuria militant from Latvia. “Nordstorm is more radical than Centuria. “We are engaged in more right-wing, radical actions,” he said in an interview. “The things we do are illegal, and I can’t say what they are. But the people who know Nordstorm know what we do very well.”

Additionally, white supremacists are plentiful within militant groups in Ukraine that aren’t inherently far right, like the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, a unit of Belarusian volunteers. One Belarusian volunteer with the Kastuś Kalinoŭski posted collection of horrifically racist poetry on his Instagram account. Excerpted from one: “Once in the white Europe, enslaved by the Jew. They broke in like their own home. Open doors cannot be closed.”

In short, Ukraine’s far-right is a growing problem, and it’s much bigger than the Azov Regiment alone.

“Here comes the myth that we’re Nazis,” said Boris* an Azov militant and member of Misanthropic Division, frustrated by our questions about the use of white supremacist symbols. “Russians confuse nationalism and Nazism.” We asked why so many nationalists in Ukraine would get Swastika tattoos, express admiration for the SS, and use 1488 if they weren’t neo-Nazis.

“We’re just trolling the Russians,” he said.

Angela Merkel’s Recent Interview with Der Spiegel

Wikimedia commons

The interview is behind a paywall and I’ve not been able to access it to read directly. I’ve read a few articles in English speaking media summarizing a few points from it. Below is Prof. Oliver Boyd-Barrett’s summary of Alexander Mercouris’ commentary on the interview as it relates to Russia, the Minsk Agreements and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Angela Merkel, former German chancellor, has given an interview with Die Spiegel in which she indicates that had she been in control the crisis would not have taken place. She mentioned her initiative with Macron to get a conversation going between Russia and the EU in 2021. She discovered that the Russians by that time were skeptical and doubtful whether she would be able to deliver on her promises, given that she would not be chancellor for much longer. She was regretful that she ran into opposition from the Baltic States, from Poland, from the Netherlands which made dialog with the Russians impossible. She also talked about the Minsk agreements, which she largely authored, about how by 2021 the Minsk agreement had been hollowed out (Ukraine’s Poroshenko has openly admitted he never intended to honor it anyway) and she indicates she was looking for some form of Minsk III.

Mercouris considers that Merkel lacks understanding of how Russia thinks about these things. He recalls how Macron offended the Russians intensely by telling Putin to forget about Minsk II, to hand the Donbass back to Ukraine, and talk with Zelenskiy. Neither Merkel nor Macron ever understood how giving up on Minsk and letting Zelenkiy off the hook for Ukraine’s egregious failure to implement the peace agreement, poisoned relations with Russia. They seem to have thought that, provided the price was right, Russia could be persuaded to give up the Donbass, despite the clarity with which Russia had told Europe otherwise – reminiscent of the US attitude to the Russian intervention in Syria in 2015 when the Americans thought they could get Russia to agree to abandon its support for Assad. Russia insisted that the joint interest was fighting the jihadists.

Merkel’s inability to understand Russia, to take its positions seriously, is critically revealing of Europe’s fateful disdain for its opponent. The West badly underestimates Russian persistence, and maintains wholly flawed misconceptions of the true nature of Russia and Russian institutions.

Link to Mercouris video here. Begins around 49 minute, 50 second mark.