Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 47

An Ignored US Diplomat’s Warning on Russia – My Interview with E. Wayne Merry on His “Long Telegram of the 90’s”

Consortium News, 1/2/24

The National Security Archive recently published a 1994 memo by E. Wayne Merry, a U.S. diplomat in Moscow who provided an on-the-ground assessment of U.S. policies toward a Russia that was in chaos. 

In his memo — sent by telegram — Merry criticized the U.S. tendency to prioritize experimental shock therapy rather than laying the foundation for the rule of law. 

He also said that Russia’s historical and cultural experience was not conducive to the same lionization of unfettered free markets that Americans had.

The memo represented a different view of how the U.S.-led West could have managed its relationship with and guided reforms in post-Soviet Russia — a view that unfortunately was not followed.      

Natylie Baldwin:  You wrote an assessment of what was going on in Russia for the State Department in March of 1994.  It was entitled “Whose Russia Is It Anyway? Toward a Policy of Benign Respect.” The National Security Archive published it in December 2024 and described it as “The Long Telegram of the 90’s.”  What was your formal role for the U.S. government at that time and what prompted you to write this assessment?

Wayne Merry: From August 1991, I was chief of the Political/Internal section of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, in charge of reporting and analysis on political developments in the late Soviet Union and then Russia.  I had worked in this section a decade earlier and was very familiar with the role. 

Given the historic events underway from 1991 through 1994, it was a central part of my job to attempt to explain these events to a Washington readership and especially to challenge misperceptions in Washington about Russia through the advantage of being on the ground.

Baldwin: One of several themes in the assessment was the U.S./West’s insistence on implementing exploitative neoliberal economic policies on Russia in that era that were leading to a lot of destabilization and major social problems.  These policies were understandably unpopular among most Russians.  

You made the point that, as far as U.S. interests relating to Russia were concerned, Washington should have prioritized diplomacy and the successful building up of democracy and the rule of law and let the Russians decide their own domestic economic policies.  Explain how you arrived at that conclusion about U.S. interests and how our policies at the time were problematic.

Merry:  It was not difficult in-country to see that the macro-economic stabilization policies which had been fairly successful in Poland were not so in Russia and that more maturity of post-Soviet Russia’s political institutions was essential to permit a non-criminalized development of a market economy. 

There was considerable debate on the American side, in Washington and in Moscow, as to which should have priority — market economics or rule of law.  As someone with years of in-country experience of Russia, I felt strongly that political and legal reforms should take priority. 

In 1998, demonstrators in Pereslavl, Russia, with banner saying “Jail the redhead!” in reference to Anatoly Chubais, the Russian politician and economist responsible for the privatization program under President Boris Yeltsin. (Pereslavl Week, Yu. N. Chastov, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Baldwin:  In making your case on that point, you predicted that U.S. policies were eroding much of the good will that Russians had toward the West in general and the U.S. in particular, right after the Cold War ended.  Indeed, Russians did become very disillusioned by the U.S./West and ended up having a less than positive view of democracy because it became associated with the poverty, crime and chaos that accompanied Western involvement in their country in the ‘90s. To what extent were you already seeing this resentment from Russians at the time that you wrote this in 1994?

Merry:  These developments began under [the last Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev and were well advanced by 1994.

Baldwin:  In your assessment you stated:

“Thus, ‘reform’ of the Russian economy will, of necessity, be the work of many years.  The Russian approach to this process will be different from our own, reflecting a better appreciation of their needs and societal preferences.  In facing the colossal mistakes of the Soviet period, Russia can and will fall back on traditions long pre-dating the Leninist state: traditions amenable and sometimes even rational in a Russian context, even if they differ sharply from American experience and inclination.” 

To most people, I think this point you make about Russia progressing on the road of economic reform in a manner that reflects their unique history — and you also go on to mention geography and climate — seems like common sense.  Why do you think U.S. decision-makers couldn’t understand this and act accordingly?

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Merry:  Most advocates of “shock therapy” in Russia had little or no experience of the country, let alone of its social and political cultures.  They simply believed in their macro-economic ideology as applicable anywhere on earth.  I had encountered this perspective among academic economists in the United States during my student years but had learned from other economists with a broader range of thought.

Baldwin:  To continue with that line of thought, when reading your 1994 assessment, it is notable that you provide an analysis based on an acknowledgment of objective reality.  Today that really seems to be missing from so much that is written by supposed experts in the U.S. about Russia and policies toward it. 

Analysis today seems to be very ideologically/narrative driven and facts seem to be easily dismissed if one simply doesn’t like the facts or they don’t fit a preferred narrative.  

What do you think may explain this?  Is there a difference in the education and training of academics and government officials these days?  It’s safe to say that arrogance breeds foolishness — is it just arrogance due to the fact that we’ve been the lone superpower for several decades? 

A young boy and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Red Square, Moscow, 1988. (Reagan White House, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

Merry:  I am not familiar with recent education in this country about Russia, but certainly the policy arrogance we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan had its parallels in our policy in Russia in the ‘90s.  

Baldwin:  At one point in your assessment, you refer to the legislative elections that had taken place in December of 1993. You said the following:

“What the election showed, yet again, is that Russia is a very different society than America. In contemporary American rhetoric, ‘democracy’ and ‘the market’ are treated as synonymous terms and certainly as mutually dependent. 

Few, if any, Russians perceive them so. American dogma portrays ‘democracy’ and ‘the market’ as freedom of choice for the individual in the political and economic realms, with highly positive ethical connotations.  Russians (and most non-Americans) are simply baffled by this vision of a societal double helix of political and economic decisions leading to a higher moral and material state of being. Very, very few Russians impart positive ethical content to market forces, and unfortunately more of these are mafia than economists.”

Can you discuss this difference in outlook by Russians about the relationship between democracy and the market?  What are those differences rooted in for Russians?  To what extent do you think this is still true in Russia today?

Merry:  I think Russia remains closer to its pre-Soviet roots than to any kind of contemporary Western market economy.  I would recommend reading the works of Nikolai Leskov, a late 19th Century Russian author, to get a grip on the realities of 21st Century Russia.

Baldwin:  You also noted that, given Russians’ seven decades of experience with Soviet socialism, one thing they were weary of was economic theory.  The last thing they wanted after communism fell was to be the subjects of a socioeconomic laboratory experiment which is how many Western officials and academics viewed Russia in the 90’s. Can you expound on that?

Merry:  Certainly, many of the Western economists who came to post-Soviet Russia did so with an enthusiasm for large-scale market experimentation.  I recall that one of the most common slogans in public demonstrations under Gorbachev and [the Russian President Boris] Yeltsin was “no more experiments.”  

Yeltsin ahead of the 1996 presidential election. (Kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)

The Soviet system fairly exulted in its mass social and economic experiments, which most people came to loath.  

Most Russians pretty much assumed that Americans and Europeans must know the correct way to run a modern economy, so did not need to experiment.  They were not amused when many of the Westerners who came to “educate” Russia in market economics saw their roles as one of mass experimentation. 

Russians said they wanted to live “normal” lives.  That word, “normal,” in Russian carries with it a very deep well of frustration and dissatisfaction both with their own leaders and with the outsiders with their view of the Russian people as little better than laboratory animals for experimentation.   

Baldwin:  You also discussed the fact that Yeltsin was losing his popularity at the time.  Yeltsin went from being very popular in 1991 to now being seen by many Russians as one of the worst leaders the country has ever had.  As someone who had a front row seat during that period, what factors would you say led to his popularity taking such a nosedive and virtually destroying his legacy?

Merry:  Yeltsin suffered from excessive expectations, especially after Gorbachev.  Yeltsin enjoyed very high levels of popular acceptance in 1991, but this proved fragile under the pressure of high levels of inflation; loss of employment and access to consumer goods; loss of great power status and pride, plus the poor human relations exhibited by some of his team.  

Yeltsin could be a terrific leader in a crisis, but keep in mind that the patience of the Russian public with its government had eroded badly even under [Soviet leader Leonid] Brezhnev.  Yeltsin had great instincts for tearing down the old Soviet system, but little grasp of what could or should come after.  I think his military interventions in Chechnya also were catastrophic errors, both at home and in terms of his image abroad.  

Baldwin: What do you think are the biggest lessons from that period that would be helpful for U.S. policymakers to understand now in our relationship with Russia?

Merry:  Humility would be a great asset in U.S. policy, but I do not expect to live to see it.

TASS: Nuclear doctrine, special op, Oreshnik missile: what Putin said at Direct Line Q&A session

TASS, 12/19/24

MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin assessed the progress of the special military operation, the possibility of negotiations with Ukraine and the growth of the Russian economy at the combined Direct Line Q&A and year-end press conference. He also spoke about the importance of sovereignty, the country’s updated nuclear doctrine and the latest Oreshnik missile.

TASS has compiled the key statements of the head of state.

On special operation and situation in Kursk Region

– The situation in the special military operation zone is “changing significantly,” there is progress along the entire front line, Russian servicemen “are liberating territory by square kilometers every day.”

– It is impossible to estimate how long the special military operation will last: “The fighting is complicated, so it is difficult and unnecessary to guess.”

– It made no military sense for the Ukrainian armed forces to enter the Kursk Region, just as it makes no military sense for them to stay there now.

– After the liberation of the region it will be possible to assess the damage, but for sure “everything will be restored.”

On possibility of negotiations with Ukraine

– Russia has people to talk to in Ukraine, “there are a lot of our guys there” who dream of ridding the country of neo-Nazism.

– Moscow is ready for negotiations and compromises, “politics is the art of compromise,” but Ukraine has refused.

– Russia is ready to sign peace agreements with any legitimate authorities in Ukraine, but the current authorities in Kiev are illegitimate.

On Kiev’s terrorist activities

– The Kiev regime’s sabotage acts against Russian citizens highlight its terrorist nature.

On sovereignty

– The growth of the Russian economy is due to the strengthening of sovereignty, and sovereignty itself is “the result of economic growth”.

– The country has become “much stronger” in the last two to three years.

– Russia has become stronger and from now on “will make decisions without considering other people’s opinions”.

On Oreshnik missile

– The Oreshnik missile is based on Russian developments, it is a “modern and very new weapon.”

– It has a range of up to 5,500 kilometers.

– There is no way to shoot down an Oreshnik missile.

– In case of doubt, the West should choose a target in Kiev, concentrate its air defense and missile defense forces there and try to intercept the missile: “We are ready for such an experiment.”

On nuclear doctrine

– The defense of Belarus is a “very important component” of Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine.

On economy

– The economic situation in Russia as a whole is “normal, stable”, “despite everything”.

– Russia’s economy ranks first in Europe and fourth in the world.

– The inflation situation is a “worrying signal”.

On gas transit

– Ukraine has cut off gas supplies from Russia to European consumers, although it is “picking from their hand”.

– There will definitely be no contract for the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine, but Gazprom will survive.

On migrants

– The migration problem is acute for Russia, although it is even more acute in Europe.

– To reduce the number of migrant workers, Russia must increase labor productivity and “use technologies that do not require large amounts of unskilled labor.

– Law enforcement agencies should ensure that migrants who come to work respect the traditions and culture of Russia and of Russians themselves.

On readiness for conversation with Trump

– “I am ready for it [a conversation with US President-elect Donald Trump] at any time, of course. And I will also be ready for a meeting if he wants it.”

On situation in Syria

– Russia expects peace and tranquility in Syria.

– Moscow “maintains relations with all groups controlling the situation there, with all countries in the region.”

– Russia condemns the seizure of any Syrian territory, this position remains unchanged.

– Israel is the “main beneficiary” of the events in Syria.

– Russia hopes that Israel will one day withdraw from the territory of Syria, but now, on the contrary, it intends to strengthen itself there.

– The presence of Russian bases in Syria depends on the coincidence of interests with the new authorities.

– Russia has offered to use the Hmeimim and Tartus bases to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria.

On Western platforms

– The slowdown of YouTube in Russia has mostly to do with problems on the part of the platform itself, not the Russian authorities.

– The claims against Google and YouTube are fair, they are abusing opportunities.

***

Transcript: Vladimir Putin summed up the results of the year and answered questions from journalists and the people of Russia in a live broadcast. (Excerpt)

Kremlin website, 12/19/24

Channel One war correspondent Dmitry Kulko and VGTRK presenter Alexandra Suvorova moderated the Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin.

* * *

Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office – Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov: Good afternoon everyone.

The President will be here within minutes to review the results of the outgoing year. I would like to remind you that this year we combine two events, the news conference and Direct Line.

Please show respect for your colleagues when I give the floor to journalists and make your questions as concise and clear as possible. This will allow the President to answer more questions.

Our moderators this year are Alexandra Suvorova and Dmitry Kulko, who will talk with the President. They worked hard to personally read extremely many questions from our people, possibly tens of thousands of them. They understand what the people of Russia are talking about and will help the President outline the subjects that are at the top of the agenda throughout the country.

Please.

Alexandra Suvorova: Good afternoon. This is the Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin. As usual, questions can be submitted in a number of ways until the end of our programme. Our colleagues continue working with the incoming questions.

First, you can submit your questions by calling 8 (800) 200 4040 or sending an SMS or MMS message to 04040. Questions can also be submitted via the programme’s official accounts on Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki. You can also use the website and mobile app called москва-путину.рф.

We have already received over 2.2 million questions, including 1.2 million via telephone, about 43,000 via SMS messages, and over 140,000 via the website. We can see that the number of questions is increasing in real time.

Let me share some interesting facts and figures on the Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin programme since this format was created. There was a time when the Direct Line and the news conference were two separate events and formats. This is the third time we are having it in a hybrid format. The first time it happened was before the COVID pandemic, the second was a post-COVID event in 2023, and now we are in 2024. Once again, the programme is taking place in a hybrid format, which means that both the people of Russia and, of course, journalists get to ask questions.

Here are some interesting statistics. For example, the event with the biggest number of questions took place in 2015 when the President received 2.25 million questions. This year, we have not reached this number. However, I believe that this could be attributable to the fact that regions hold their own direct lines, with governors answering questions from their people at the regional level. Therefore, some questions get resolved on the ground.

One thing to note here is that if we add up all the time Vladimir Putin has spent answering questions during events of this kind, the total already exceeds 64 hours. People have been tuning in from the regions since 2001 when the very first programme of this kind took place. It goes without saying that there will also be people joining us via videoconference from the regions today. Throughout the years when we had the Direct Line and the Results of the Year, people have been proactively contributing to these events not only by raising various issues with the President, sharing their concerns or asking for something, but also by expressing their gratitude. This year, considering that we are holding this event on December 19, we also received New Year greetings. This is another trend I wanted to mention.

Of course, social matters are in the spotlight today, judging by the submissions we have selected. Many questions deal with the special military operation. International matters are also high on the agenda, of course. So let us get started.

Dmitry Kulko: President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

For the third year in a row, volunteers from the Russian Popular Front have been helping prepare our programme and process the messages and calls. This year, they were also joined by veterans of the special military operation. For ten days since the free telephone line opened, they, too, have been taking phone calls. However, the Russian Popular Front’s work does not end today. In fact, we can say that it is only just beginning, because the moment the broadcast ends, the Popular Front volunteers will continue to work on the appeals people made to ensure that none of them is left unattended.

Alexandra Suvorova: I would like to add that some of the appeals have already been processed during the preparations for the Results of the Year programme, and some of the issues have been addressed by Popular Front volunteers and regional and federal authorities.

There is one more aspect that is different this year. GigaChat, an AI model provided by Sber, has helped us process people’s appeals and questions. Mr President, I know that you have already seen it.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I have.

Dmitry Kulko: Yes, GigaChat has drawn conclusions. This technology can do more than transcribe audio files into text – it can also extract the message and the essence of the problem, which has significantly accelerated the processing of requests this year. You will be able to see GigaChat’s insights on the screen throughout the programme. You will see the key subjects of people’s appeals, across the country and in each region. We will be using this virtual assistant during the programme today.

Anna Suvorova: Before we start taking questions from our people and our colleagues, journalists, I would like to ask the first general question.

In recent time, everyone has been feeling a disturbing sense that the world is going crazy, or already has, because the potential for conflict is off the charts in every part of the world, and the global economy is struggling. How does Russia manage not only to stay afloat, but also to continue growing in this situation?

Vladimir Putin: You know, when all is calm and life is measured and stable, we get bored. This amounts to stagnation, so we crave action. When action begins, time starts whistling by – or bullets do, for that matter. Unfortunately, bullets are what is zipping past our heads these days. We are scared, yes – but not as “all get out” kind of scared.

Our economics are the ultimate measure of things. As is traditional, I will start with the economy. Although your question was a bit provocative, I will turn to the economy anyway. The economy is number one; it is the cornerstone. It has an impact on living standards, general stability, and the country’s defence capability. The economy is everything.

The economic situation in Russia is generally positive and stable. We are growing in spite of everything, in spite of any external threats or attempts at outside influence.

As you know, last year Russia increased its GDP by 3.6 percent, and this year the economy is expected to grow by 3.9 percent, or possibly even four percent. However, we will have to wait and see the final results, as the year-end figures will be de facto factored into these projections in the first quarter of next year, which will be 2025 in this particular case. It may well be that this indicator reaches four percent. What this means is that our economy will have grown by eight percent over the past two years. After all, the tenths and hundredths of a percent make for a negligeable difference. This is what experts have been telling me – we exchanged views this very morning. About eight percent over the past two years, compared to a growth rate between five and six percent for the United States, one percent for the Eurozone, and zero for Germany, the EU’s leading economy. It seems that next year that country will also have zero growth.

International financial and economic institutions ranked Russia as Europe’s biggest economy in terms of volume, in terms of purchasing power parity, and the world’s fourth largest economy. We are behind China, the United States and India. Last year, Russia surpassed Germany and this year, we left Japan behind. But this is not the time for us to be complacent. We will definitely keep moving forward.

There is development everywhere you look and so much positive momentum across the board. If the Eurozone has fallen asleep, there are other centres of global development that are advancing. The situation in the Eurozone and the United States has been changing too. We must maintain the momentum we have gathered and transform our economy at its core, from a qualitative perspective.

There are other general performance indicators which have been quite satisfactory, to say the least. Unemployment is the first such indicator. All countries around the world, and all economies, pay a great deal of attention to this figure. For Russia, it is at its all-time low of 2.3 percent. We have not experienced anything like this before. This is my first point.

Second, there has been growth in specific manufacturing and industrial sectors. In fact, industrial output increased by 4.4 percent, while the processing sector reported a growth rate of 8.1 percent, with some of its sectors achieving even higher growth rates.

Of course, inflation has been causing some concerns. Only yesterday, while preparing for today’s event, I talked to the Central Bank Governor, and Elvira Nabiullina told me that the inflation rate has already reached about 9.2–9.3 percent year-to-date. That said, salaries have increased by nine percent, and I am talking about an increase in real terms, minus inflation. In addition, disposable incomes have also increased. So, the overall situation is stable and, let me reiterate, solid.

There are certain challenges with inflation and with the economy heating up. Therefore, the Government and the Central Bank have been seeking to ensure a soft landing. Estimates may vary for next year, but we expect the economy to grow at a rate of 2–2.5 percent. This soft landing would enable us to keep improving our macroeconomic performance.

This is what we must aspire to. I think that we will probably raise these matters during today’s meeting. Overall, the economy can be described as stable and resilient.

Alexandra Suvorova: I have a follow-up question, given the numerous questions surrounding price growth, to which we will return. You have cited Germany and Japan as examples. I wish to focus on Germany having a zero percent growth rate, which you mentioned as a case previously known for its economic expansion.

Do you believe this is perhaps linked to politics and sovereignty? Not long ago, at the VTB Forum Russia Calling!, you reminisced about Gerhard Schroeder’s birthday celebration, remarking how all the songs were in English, with none performed in German.

Vladimir Putin: There were. It’s an interesting episode. Quite some time ago, it was Gerhard Schroeder’s birthday, he invited me and I attended. There was a small concert, and, as it happened, all the companies performed in English. I remarked at the time, “Even the Hannover girls’ choir sang in English.”

There was, however, one ensemble that performed in German: the Kuban Cossack Choir, which accompanied me. Moreover, this was entirely unexpected on my part. I inquired, “How did you come to know these songs?” They replied, “Out of respect for the Germans, our hosts, we learnt these songs en route and performed them in German, including those from the local region where we are now.”

During the intermission, numerous attendees approached me (I recount this as it truly unfolded) and expressed, “We are embarrassed, truly, that only Russian Cossacks performed in German here.”

I recounted this to a colleague who was present at the event, which has now been recalled. You see, sovereignty is a crucial concept; it must reside within, in one’s heart. In the post-war era, I believe this sense – of homeland and sovereignty – has been somewhat eroded among the German people.

Who are the Europeans, after all? They are proud to be European, yet they are foremost French, German, Italian, Spanish, and then European. There is a tendency to smooth out things, to homogenise. Ultimately, this affects everything, including the economy.

I previously spoke about our economic growth – this is largely attributable to the reinforcement of sovereignty, which extends to the economic realm.

Many foreign manufacturers have exited our market. What has been the consequence? Our entrepreneurs have started producing these goods domestically, necessitating further research and the engagement of institutions, including those focused on development. All of this – what we are discussing – is the enhancement of technological sovereignty.

Sovereignty manifests itself in various forms: defence, technology, science, education, culture. This is of paramount importance, especially for our nation, because should we lose sovereignty, we risk losing statehood. That is the crux.

Economic growth is also an effect of bolstered sovereignty.

Dmitry Kulko: Mr President, I suggest we move on to questions from our citizens.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, let us begin.

Dmitry Kulko: You spoke about economic growth. It is true that a look at our economic indicators, which do look good, shows that the majority of Russian enterprises are working to capacity and wages are rising, yet they cannot keep pace with price increases.

Many Russian citizens have written about this, and AI has analysed all the requests and compiled a list of regions where more questions concerned price growth. These are eastern regions, such as the Kamchatka Territory and the Sakhalin Region, and also our westernmost territory, the Kaliningrad Region. Also, the majority of questions from the Irkutsk Region concern price growth. In short, it is a topical issue.

Alexandra Suvorova: It is topical indeed. I will cite the figures which have also been provided by GigaChat, which we are using.

The most frequent questions have to do with the rise in prices of bread, fish, milk, eggs and butter. People also write about the growth of fuel prices. This file contains some of the citizens’ questions about price growth.

If we look at the official data of the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), we got it last night, we will see that the prices of fruits and vegetables have increased by 3.4 percent over the past week. For example, the price of cucumbers has grown by ten percent after rising by 43 percent in November.

Vladimir Putin: First, I would like to apologise to the audience, especially those who are following this event via various media platforms, including online. When I said that price growth or inflation was slightly above nine percent this year, at 9.2–9.3 percent, and that people’s wages and real disposable incomes have grown as well, I cited average figures. Of course, our country is very big, and some people might ask me what I was talking about, that their well-being has not improved but remained at the same level. And some might even say that their well-being has deteriorated. Yes, this can be so and it is so, in some cases. I cited average figures, because when we make plans, we need to have figures to rely on, and we can only rely on average figures.

As for the growth of prices, there are both objective and subjective reasons for that.

What is more important is that the supply in our market should correlate with people’s incomes, or rather, people’s incomes and their purchasing capacity should correlate with the volume of goods produced in the country. Wages and incomes have been growing faster than the mass of commodities and the rate of production.

I will explain. Let’s say, food production in our country is constantly growing. I will talk about this later. There will certainly be questions on agriculture. In fact, I can tell you that it adds three percent every year. We are fully self-sufficient when it comes to meat. One hundred percent.

It is a good indicator. Why does this happen? In Russia, the annual consumption of meat is about 80 kg per capita while in other countries, it is about 42 kg on average. It may seem enough and yet, meat consumption has doubled recently, you see? Doubled.

Now, milk. Milk production grows every year, but consumption grows as well, and there is not enough milk to produce butter. I know that the butter prices have grown by 33–34 percent in some regions, and possibly higher in others.

Simply, the amount of products has not grown as much as consumption has. This is the first reason. The solution here would be to develop industries. And I will talk more about it later.

The second objective reason is harvest.

The third objective reason is that some products have become more expensive on world markets.

Of course, the external restrictions, sanctions and so forth are affecting the prices to a certain extent. They do not play a key role but still, they take a toll as they make logistics more expensive, in addition to other things.

There are also subjective reasons or things we could improve on our side. For example, some experts believe that the Central Bank could have used certain instruments other than raising the key rate, more efficiently and at an earlier stage. Yes, the Central Bank started doing it around summer. But again, these experts believe that it could have and should have been done earlier. There are many instruments. I will not list them now and will not tire our audience with these considerations about the Central Bank and its regulation methods.

The Government works efficiently and does a lot when it thinks about the future – and the future should always be considered. In our country, we always thought about the future even during the harshest times of the Great Patriotic War. We know these examples. There were efforts made and, as it turned out later, correct efforts.

Our Government does think about the future: it formulates tasks, national development goals and national projects. It is wonderful but it would also be great to take timely efforts with respect to industries and consider the development of certain sectors, the production of mass products. I will not list them now – perhaps, there will be questions on specific industries later. Timely decisions should have been made.

Growing prices are not something to enjoy and they have adverse impacts. But I hope that overall, as we preserve macroeconomic indicators, we shall address this issues as well because macroeconomics is the basis for a healthy economy in general.

Dmitry Kulko: Mr President, we are holding today’s event in a combined format, a direct line and a news conference. I now suggest that our journalist colleagues ask a question.

Alexandra Suvorova: We can sense that those present in the hall are eager to ask their questions.

Dmitry Peskov: Indeed, the audience is quite eager. Allow me …

A question from the audience.

Dmitry Peskov: You know, if we behave this way, it would be disrespectful towards everyone else.

Vladimir Putin: Nevertheless, let us refrain from acting this way, and let us begin. What is your name?

Alina Khastsayeva: My name is Alina Khastsayeva, I represent the 15th Region information website in North Ossetia.

Vladimir Putin: Alina, go ahead, please.

Alina Khastsayeva: The issue of professional service personnel has become increasingly important. Multiple schools, including the North Caucasus Military Institute of Interior Troops in North Ossetia, used to train military specialists in the North Caucasus.

Quite literally, a legendary institute: seven of its graduates became Heroes of the Soviet Union, and 14 more received the title of Heroes of Russia. To this very day, its graduates are successfully carrying out missions set by our state. Its graduates include former Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov, and Sergei Khairutdinov, a recent graduate, became Hero of Russia while taking part in the special military operation.

Is it possible to reinstate this institute at a time when the North Caucasus and the whole of Russia need it so much? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Alina, thank you for this question. This is a good point, and do not be angry with Alina; here is why.

First, North Ossetia has always been Russia’s outpost in this region, in the Caucasus, and it has always justified its lofty designation. We know how the republic’s residents feel about their region and about Russia, our large common Motherland. They have always defended it and have fulfilled this role worthily and admirably.

You have noted that the number of schools has been reduced. This is not linked to a decision to close them in Ossetia alone. It is related to the fact that, according to military specialists and agencies, there were too many military schools, and the Russian army did not need so many specialists and so much service personnel at the time. Due to various circumstances, we are now increasing the strength of the army, security and law enforcement agencies to 1.5 million people. I cannot say that we will achieve this tomorrow, but I promise you that we will certainly analyse this issue.

Thank you.

To be continued.

Geoffrey Roberts: Nine Reasons to be Optimistic about the Ukraine War

Here’s to hoping this awful war ends in 2025. – Natylie

By Geoffrey Roberts, 12/23/24

A swift end to the war is in sight: sooner rather than later, Russia’s battlefield successes will force Ukraine to agree an armistice that will halt hostilities and open peace talks.Putin is holding the pass against Russian hardliners who want to prosecute the war to the point of Ukraine’s complete destruction.Trump has no reason or interest in being dragged into the quagmire of the Western proxy war with Russia.Public opinion in favour of a negotiated, compromise peace is stronger than ever, not least in Ukraine itself.The Global South remains a staunch ally of peace and the closer comes a ceasefire the more powerful will be its influence.Western warmongers remain vocal but their shrill militarism sounds all the more hollow.The political tide in Europe continues to turn in favour of anti-war forces.Western media coverage of the war is less propagandistic, more realistic, and increasingly open to alternative views.The danger of existential escalation has not disappeared but it has diminished.

Ben Aris: Russia’s arms exports slump, Kremlin preparing for possible war with Nato

By Ben Aris, Intellinews, 12/20/24

Russian arms exports have plummeted by 92% since 2021, according to defence policy expert Pavel Luzin, as the Kremlin redirects all its military production to supplying the conflict in Ukraine.

Industry analysts warn that the sector’s long-term health hinges on a swift conclusion of the war in Ukraine and is putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to start ceasefire talks with Kyiv.

Arms exports used to be the second biggest export product after oil, but revenue from the sale of Russian arms will plummet to under $1bn by the end of 2024, Luzin, a lecturer at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, speaking at the “Country and World: Russian Realities 2024” conference in Berlin said at the end of November. This marks a sharp fall from $14.6bn in 2021, $8bn in 2022, and $3bn in 2023.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that Russia fell to third place in global arms exports in 2023, overtaken by the United States and France. This comes after a sustained decline in Russia’s defence exports, which halved between 2014 and 2018. By 2023, Russia was supplying weapons to only 12 countries, compared to 31 in 2019, illustrating its shrinking influence in the global arms trade.

The state-owned defence conglomerate Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov recently confirmed that Russian arms sales were valued at $15bn in 2021 but fell to $7bn in 2022 and $6bn in 2023. Figures for 2024 have yet to be released, but industry forecasts predict an even steeper decline.

“We see that Russia as an arms exporter has generally failed,” Luzin said, attributing the drop to sanctions, disrupted logistics, and waning client confidence.

The falling exports undermine Russia’s relations with its partners in the Global South, which rely on cheap but sophisticated weapons in their own security arrangements. One of the topics on the agenda during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Putin in July was the delayed delivery of Russia’s advanced S-400 surface to air missile defence system that India ordered and wants to protect its northern borders with China and Pakistan.

Satellite photos posted online by Russian military bloggers (milbloggers) show that the stocks of Soviet-era tanks and APC, among other equipment, are nearly empty. The Kremlin has been forced to turn to allies like North Korea and Iran to top up its supplies of missiles, shells and drones.

Shortages make ceasefire talks more likely

Putin quickly put Russia’s economy on a war footing following invasion in February 2022 and output of arms and ammo soared. However, that has left little over to meeting Russia’s export obligations.

Despite heavy investment in the military industrial complex, the output has not been able to meet demand and Russia has been running down in its military stocks much faster than they can be replenished.

Ukraine is also desperately short of materiel and entirely dependent on Western allies for supplies. Ukraine does not have the resources to reclaim occupied Crimea and Donbas by military means, so it is counting on diplomacy – Zelenskiy said on December 18 in Brussels.

“The Russians now control these territories. We do not have the strength to reclaim them. We can only count on diplomatic pressure from the international community to force Putin to sit at the negotiating table.”

Both armies are running low and as the war enters its end game, with widespread speculation that the incoming President-elect Donald Trump will bring the fighting to an end, it is hoped that Putin will be forced to make some compromises and offer a “just peace.”

“Real negotiations for a lasting peace will begin only when the enemy no longer has the resources to continue the war,” head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak told the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in Lviv on December 19, as cited by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Russia intends to win the war in 2025

In lieu of a deal, the Kremlin is preparing for a protracted war and getting ready to rebuild its military might. In September, the Kremlin launched a long-term military reconstitution programme aimed at restoring the losses incurred during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“It is clear that the military-industrial complex is counting on a halt, a freeze, an end to the war in order to return to fulfilling export contracts… because they provided a good inflow of hard currency,” Luzin said.

Putin has already increased the upper limit of men under arms to 1.5mn on September 16 from 1mn previously, but the biggest challenge will be to equip them and replace the materiel already used over the last two years of war – and pay for it.

Russia plans to continue the war until it fully occupies four annexed regions in 2025, Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov said on December 17 at a meeting with senior defence ministry officials. According to Belousov only 1% of the territory of Luhansk and 25-30% of the territory of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions remain under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU),

He said that Moscow intends to fully seize the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine in the new year and that Russia will achieve “the goals announced by President Putin in June,” adding: “In 2025, Moscow plans to win the war.”

Moscow is not satisfied with current proposals to freeze the war, so Russian troops will continue to fight if Ukraine does not agree to Putin’s conditions, Russia’s UN representative, Vasily Nebenzia, said at a Security Council meeting the same day.

At the defence ministry meeting Belousov also raised the possibility of a conflict between Russia and Nato breaking out for the first time that could happen sometime in the coming years.

Belousov said that the Kremlin is also against any Nato participation in ending the war, as talk of Nato peacekeepers in Ukraine goes from “unthinkable” to “discussed”.

On June 14, Putin said that Russia would agree to a ceasefire and peace talks only if Ukraine withdrew from four Ukrainian regions and formally abandoned its aspirations to join Nato. The demands also included recognition of Crimea and Sevastopol as part of Russia. More recently leaked comments from the Kremlin suggest there is some wiggle room in the proposed negotiations and the Kremlin is prepared to offer “limited” territorial concessions, Reuters reported in November.

Europe is as unprepared for a direct conflict with Russia, but, as bne IntelliNews reported, has a much more serious shortfall of arms and productive capacity after decades of underinvestment. With the leading EU members wracked by budget crises, it also has a lot less money to spend on rearming. Germany, in particular, which has the second largest army in Europe on paper, will not be able to return to pre-war levels of armament for decades.

After NATO’s Romanian Coup, Where Next?

YouTube link here.

This video was posted on 12/16/24.

William Schryver: Dictating Terms

By William Schryver, Substack, 12/11/24

A great many people in America and around the world are convinced that, come January 20, 2025, when Donald J. Trump is again inaugurated as President of the United States, he will (as he has already boldly asserted) call Vladimir Putin on the phone and say, in effect, “You must end this war immediately, or else we’re going to get real serious, and you will not like the consequences.”

Trump disciples genuinely believe he can impose his will on Putin to bring an end to the Ukraine War. At the very least, they are convinced Trump can “cut a deal” in the form of an offer Putin cannot refuse. They simply don’t realize that the only “deal” to be made at this juncture is the US/NATO agreeing to the terms Russia dictates.

That is what happens in the real world when you win a big war.

Naturally, Putin KNOWS the US will never accede to the long-established and often-repeated Russian stipulations regarding both Ukraine specifically and Russian security concerns in general — especially in the context of the opening days of Trump’s triumphant return to the White House.

Trump, consistent with his longstanding mantra to “Make America Great Again”, is going to come to the conversation with his OWN terms, which he will present with his awkwardly charming “take it or leave it” affectation.

And, of course, Putin will then bid Trump a polite прощай, and hang up.

You see, unless the fevered folklore of American “alien-derived military super-tech” is true, then the simple fact at this point in time is that the US has precious little credible bargaining power.

The people in the imperial realm, especially Americans, need to come to grips with the fact that they have, for years now, been fed a steaming pile of fantastical disinformation about Russia, Putin, and this war.

Russia is not a gas station with nukes. It is not weak, technologically backward, cripplingly corrupt, economically feeble, operationally inept, and certainly not  strategically defeated.

And, most pertinently, Russia is NOT militarily inferior to the United States — at least not in the context of a war in its own neighborhood.

Even among the relative handful of people that have closely followed its developments, most are incorrectly interpreting the inherent nature and evolution of this war. We are witnessing generational revolutions in warfare — even as most western observers and so-called “military experts” look down their noses at what they inexplicably imagine to be barbarian Slavs bludgeoning each other to death with clubs.

Here is the cold hard truth: the United States military — in all its branches — is simply not prepared to deal with the dynamics of 21st century warfare as it has now developed. The entire American force structure is anachronistic and, by all indications, impervious to expeditious reform.

The Russians now hold asymmetric military advantages in many decisive respects — most importantly integrated air defenses and effectively unstoppable offensive strike missiles. And, unlike the United States, Russia possesses an extremely potent and rapidly expanding industrial base — one which is able to produce many multiples of the anemic capacity of the entire NATO bloc.

Consider these two critical realities: the Russians are now able to routinely and consistently defeat 90%+ of the best western strike missiles, while simultaneously being able to routinely and consistently defeat the “few and far between” (and manifestly inferior) western missile defense systems.

Oh, sure, it is widely believed by both the general public and the flag officer punditry that American air defense systems are “best in class” and have had no trouble at all intercepting the best Russian missiles they have encountered in Ukraine. This myth is a primary tenet of what I have long called “The Imaginary War” — but it has no relationship to reality.

That said, the woefully misinformed and mostly imbecilic policy makers in the imperial halls of power are almost universally ignorant of this reality, and will resolutely refuse to accept it until it is indisputably proven on the battlefield. For this reason, Trump and his incoming administration, in the face of an explicit Russian rebuff of American demands, will almost certainly conclude that they must “teach the Russians a lesson they will not soon forget”.

Exactly what form this “lesson” will take remains uncertain, but given the pervasive perception that US air power is unquestionably preeminent, it can be confidently assumed that any American response to Russian impudence will consist of some species of conventional air campaign against high-value Russian targets.

And if that is the course the US pursues, I remain convinced it will result in a disastrous defeat that will shock not only the populace of the so-called “western democracies”, but most of the inhabitants of nations around the globe. (I treat upon this topic in what I believe to be one of my most cogent analyses of the current state of global military affairs: Staggering Towards the Abyss.)

Of course, historically speaking, all military advantages are notoriously fleeting. But at present, and at least until the end of this decade, the Russians will possess the most potent combination of comparative advantages they have had in a long, long time.

If Putin fails to exploit this opportunity to seize strategic depth — including AT LEAST everything east of the Dnieper, and all of Odessa — then I believe he could very well be deposed by the large and powerful component of the Russian leadership class that views such a course of action as a strategic imperative.

Ends of empire come around very seldom, and if you are not bold enough to strike while the iron is hot, someone else surely will.

Of course, many firmly believe that such a sequence of events will result in a massive nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia. I acknowledge that valid concern, but as I wrote in a January 24, 2024 essay on this question (To Nuke or Not to Nuke), I continue to believe:

Resorting to nuclear weapons is a “point-of-no-return” decision.

It’s a murder-suicide move.

And I strongly doubt any of the great nuclear powers are suicidal.

At least not yet.

Andrew Korybko: Russia Dodged A Bullet By Wisely Choosing Not To Ally With The Now-Defeated Resistance Axis

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 12/12/24

The Iranian-led Resistance Axis has been defeated by Israel. Hamas’ terrorist attack on 7 October 2023 prompted Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza, which set into motion a series of conflicts that expanded to Lebanon and Syria. Israel has also bombed Yemen and Iran. Hamas’ and Hezbollah’s leaderships were destroyed, leading to a ceasefire in Lebanon, while the Assad government was just overthrown by a Turkish-backed terrorist blitz that severed Iran’s military logistics to Hezbollah.

These outcomes were already surprising enough for those who believed the late Nasrallah’s claim that “Israel is weaker than a spider web”, but many were shocked that they occurred without Russia lifting a finger to save the Resistance, with whom they thought that it had allied against Israel long ago. That second-mentioned false notion will go down in infamy as one of the most successful psy-ops ever conducted against the Alt-Media Community (AMC), and ironically enough, by its own top influencers.

It was explained in early October “Why False Perceptions About Russian Policy Towards Israel Continue To Proliferate”, which readers should review for more detail, but which can be summarized as top AMC influencers telling their audience what they thought they wanted to hear for self-interested reasons. These include generating clout, pushing their ideology, and/or soliciting donations from well-intentioned but naïve members of their audience depending on the personality involved.

The preceding analysis also lists five related ones about Russian policy towards Israel since the start of the West Asian Wars, including this one “Clarifying Lavrov’s Comparison Of The Latest Israeli-Hamas War To Russia’s Special Operation”, which itself links to several dozen others. All of them also reference this May 2018 report about “President Putin On Israel: Quotes From The Kremlin Website (2000-2018)”. All of these materials rely on official and authoritative Russian sources to arrive at their conclusions.

They prove that Putin is a proud lifelong philo-Semite who never shared the Resistance’s unifying anti-Zionist ideology, instead always expressing very deep respect for Jews and the State of Israel. Accordingly, as the final decisionmaker on Russian foreign policy, he tasked his diplomats with balancing between Israel and the Resistance. To that end, Russia never took either’s side and always remained neutral in their disputes, including the West Asian Wars.

The most that he ever personally did was condemn Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians, but always in the same breath as condemning Hamas’ infamous terrorist attack on 7 October 2023. As for Russia, the most that it ever did was repeat the same rhetoric and occasionally condemn Israel’s strikes against the IRGC and Hezbollah in Syria, which Russia never interfered with. Not once did it try to deter or intercept them, retaliate afterwards, or give Syria the capabilities and authorization to do so either.

This was due to the deconfliction mechanism that Putin and Bibi agreed to in late September 2015 shortly before the Syrian operation. It was never confirmed for obvious diplomatic reasons, but these actions (or rather lack thereof) suggested that Putin believed that Iran’s anti-Israeli activities Syria posed a legitimate threat to Israel. For that reason, Russia always stood aside whenever Israel bombed Iran there, but Russia still sometimes complained due to Israel’s attacks formally violating international law.

It’s an objectively existing and easily verifiable fact that Russia’s opposition to Israel’s regional activities, be they in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, or Iran, always remained strictly confined to the political realm of official statements. Not once did Russia ever threaten to unilaterally sanction Israel, let alone even remotely hint at military action against it as punishment. Russia won’t even symbolically designate Israel as an “unfriendly state”, though that’s because it doesn’t abide by US sanctions and won’t arm Ukraine.

Therein lies another fact that most in the AMC were either unaware of or in denial about and it’s that Israel isn’t the US’ puppet otherwise it would have already done those two things long ago. It’s beyond the scope of the present piece to explain this, as well as why the Biden Administration has tried to destabilize and overthrow Bibi, but this analysis here dives into the details and cites related articles. The point is that Russian-Israeli ties remain cordial and these two are far from the foes that some thought.

It therefore never made sense to imagine that Putin, who considers himself to be the consummate pragmatist, would burn the bridge that he personally invested nearly a quarter-century of his time building with Bibi between their two nations. After all, Putin boasted in 2019 that “Russians and Israelis have ties of family and friendship. This is a true common family; I can say this without exaggeration. Almost 2 million Russian speakers live in Israel. We consider Israel a Russian-speaking country.”

He was speaking before the Keren Heyesod Foundation, one of the world’s oldest Zionist lobbying organizations, during its annual conference in Moscow that year. Whenever members of the AMC were confronted with these “politically inconvenient” facts from official and authoritative sources such as the Kremlin’s own website, they spun a “5D chess master plan” conspiracy theory alleging that he was just “psyching out the Zionists”. Top influencers also aggressively “canceled” anyone who brought this up.

The end result was that these false perceptions of Russian-Israeli relations as well as Putin’s own views towards this subject continued to proliferate unchallenged through the AMC, thus leading to the impression that they were secretly allied with Iran due to their allegedly shared anti-Zionist ideals. This notion became a matter of dogma for many in the AMC and correspondingly turned into an axiom of International Relations for them. Anyone who claimed otherwise was smeared as a “Zionist”.

It’s now known after Russia didn’t lift a finger to save the Resistance that they were never actually allies. Some of those that still can’t accept that they’ve been lied to by trusted AMC influencers who duped them for self-interested reasons (clout, ideology, and/or soliciting donations) now speculate that Russia “betrayed” the Resistance and “sold out to the Zionists” even though Russia was never on either’s side. If they don’t soon shake off their cognitive dissonance, they’ll detach themselves further from reality.

In retrospect, Russia dodged a bullet by wisely choosing not to ally with the now-defeated Resistance Axis since it would have needlessly ruined its relations with Israel, the undisputable victor of the West Asian Wars. Putin made the right choice, which was always driven by his rational calculation of what was in Russia’s objective interests as a state, not due to “Zionist influence” like some in the AMC now ridiculously claim to defame him after being mad that he didn’t lift a finger to save the Resistance.

The takeaways from this are several: 1) Putin and his representatives don’t play “5D chess”, they always say what they truly mean; 2) Russia isn’t anti-Israel nor anti-Zionist, but it also isn’t anti-Iran nor anti-Resistance either; 3) the AMC is full of charlatans who, for self-interested reasons, tell their audience whatever they think they want to hear; 4) their audience should thus hold them to account for lying about Russian-Israeli and Russian-Resistance relations; 5) and the AMC requires urgent reform.

Mark Episkopos: It’s time to retire the Munich analogy

By Mark Episkopos, Responsible Statecraft, 12/13/24

Contemporary neoconservatism is, in its guiding precepts and policy manifestations, a profoundly ahistorical ideology. It is a millenarian project that not just eschews but explicitly rejects much of the inheritance of pre-1991 American statecraft and many generations of accumulated civilizational wisdom from Thucydides to Kissinger in its bid to remake the world.

It stands as one of the enduring ironies of the post-Cold War era that this revolutionary and decidedly presentist creed has to shore up its legitimacy by continually resorting to that venerable fixture of World War II historicism, the 1938 Munich analogy. The premise is simple, and, for that reason, widely resonant: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in his “lust for peace,” made war inevitable by enabling Adolf Hitler’s irredentist ambitions until they could no longer be contained by any means short of direct confrontation between the great powers.

Professor Andrew Bacevich brilliantly distilled the Munich analogy’s two constituent parts: “The first truth is that evil is real. The second is that for evil to prevail requires only one thing: for those confronted by it to flinch from duty,” he wrote. “In the 1930s, with the callow governments of Great Britain and France bent on appeasing Hitler and with an isolationist America studiously refusing to exert itself, evil had its way.” This is the school playground theory of international relations: failure to stand up to a bully at the earliest possible opportunity only serves to embolden their malignant behavior, setting the stage for a larger and more painful fight down the line.

The Cold War years saw a feverish universalization of the Munich analogy whereby every foreign adversary is Adolf Hitler, every peace deal is Munich 1938, and every territorial dispute is the Sudetenland being torn away from Czechoslovakia as the free world looks on with shoulders shrugged. This was the anxiety animating the spurious domino theory that precipitated U.S. involvement in Korea and Vietnam, but appeasement fever was kept in check by the realities of a bipolar Cold War competition that imposed significant constraints on what the U.S. could do to counteract its powerful, nuclear-armed Soviet rival.

These constraints were lifted virtually overnight with the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Soviet bloc. President George H.W. Bush proclaimed the end of the “Vietnam syndrome,” or Americans’ healthy skepticism of war stemming from the disastrous decades-long intervention in Vietnam, following U.S. forces’ crushing victory in the Gulf War. The George W. Bush administration gave itself infinite license to intervene anywhere against anyone, including preemptively against “imminent threats,” on the grounds that anything less is tantamount to appeasement. “In the 20th century, some chose to appease murderous dictators, whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war,” Bush said in 2003. “In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth.”

Even as the threat landscape has shifted since 2003, neoconservatism’s epigoni have trotted out the Munich analogy to justify every subsequent military intervention in the Middle East. Where direct confrontation is too costly and risky, as with Russia and China, the historicists insist that anything short of a policy of total, unrelenting maximum pressure and isolation amounts to appeasement.

Thus we are subjected to the insistence, one which was always implausible but comes off as especially fantastical today, that any conclusion to the Ukraine war short of Russia’s total battlefield defeat is redolent of Chamberlain at Munich.

The Munich analogy is potent insofar as it has been used as a neoconservative cudgel to bash all dissenters as craven fools who would sell out their principles for an illusory promise of peace, but that doesn’t make it true. The reality of Munich, if it’s of any help to anyone, is that Hitler was both unappeasable and undeterrable in the context of mid-20th century European international politics. Nazi Germany was a uniquely dangerous adversary because it was a revisionist power with virtually unlimited, and therefore insatiable, territorial and political objectives. France and Britain could not give Hitler what he sought – to wit, destroying the international system and rebuilding it from the ground up with Germany as the global hegemon – even if they wanted to. Threats and shows of force would have shifted Hitler’s tactical calculations, but they would not have dissuaded him from the conclusion that his objectives could only be achieved through a general European war that he believed Germany could win. Paris and London were caught militarily and geopolitically flat-footed against a resurgent Germany as the U.S. continued to adhere to a policy of neutrality, a united anti-fascist front with Soviets was politically not in the cards, and ultranationalist governments were coming to power across the continent in a way that further tipped the scales against Europe’s remaining liberal powers.

Critics of “appeasement” distort the difficult policy landscape that confronted Britain and France, conjuring up opportunities for deterrence and preemption that simply did not exist in mid 1938. They distill these specious arguments into a historical analogy, the “lesson of Munich,” that doesn’t even work in its own original setting and impose it as a kind of sacred truth through which all U.S. policy decisions must be filtered.

The U.S. has never again faced an adversary like Nazi Germany. The USSR, for all its revolutionary aesthetics and rhetoric, was a status quo power that competed but also cooperated with the U.S. on the margins and never sought to challenge core Western security interests in the way that Nazi Germany did.

The contemporary strategic landscape is even less reminiscent of the 1930’s. China harbors regional ambitions in the Asia-Pacific that are situationally at odds with U.S. interests, and Russia seeks to prevent post-Soviet states from drifting into the Western camp in ways that pose a challenge to NATO. But neither adversary is pursuing objectives that can only be achieved through great power conflict, positioning itself as a global hegemon, or trying to overthrow the international system. As I explained along with my colleagues George Beebe and Anatol Lieven, Russia invaded Ukraine as part of a strategy of hybrid compellence to curtail the West’s influence in part of the post-Soviet sphere, not as a prelude to a larger planned program of continental conquest against NATO states.

The Munich analogy is deeply dangerous not because it is historically illiterate and utterly inapplicable to the challenges America faces today – though it certainly is both those things – but because, in its framing of adversaries as existential enemies that must be pressured, isolated, and confronted at every step, it precipitates the very catastrophe it is supposedly warning against. Managing these complex strategic relationships in a way that does not lead to war between the great powers will require a diverse, flexible policy toolkit that recognizes our limited resources and is able to balance deterrence and engagement, rather than committing to a policy of rollback that would have been appropriate against Nazi Germany but simply does not capture the contemporary threat environment.

The real “lesson of Munich” is how corrosive ideologically-driven historicism, completely untethered from actual history, can be to the foreign policy debate. It is long past time to lay the ghosts of 1938 to rest.

John Varoli – Donetsk Diary – What the White House Doesn’t Want Americans to Know

By John Varoli, Substack, 12/4/24

Below is my exclusive interview with a Russian war reporter who grew up in Donetsk and lived in Kiev until 2018. She tells the truth that western regimes are trying to hide.

Svetlana Pikta was born in a mid-size city in the Volgograd Region, but at the age of two, her parents were sent to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, to the city of Donetsk. At first, they lived in the suburbs, in Peski, and later in Donetsk itself. Her childhood and youth were spent there. She was part of the Ukrainian youth Olympic swimming team. Training was mostly in Kurakhove (where battles now rage), and competitions were all across Ukraine. She has visited nearly every city in Ukraine. Later, she moved to Kiev, where she lived for 18 years and her children were born there. During her last pregnancy, she was attacked by two dozen members of C14, a Ukrainian Neo-Nazi group that was angry with her opposition to Kiev’s brutal crackdown on Donbass. In 2018, she and her family fled to the city of Yaroslavl (Russia) where she now works in TV as a war reporter and often travels to the front.

Below is my full and unabridged interview with Svetlana, originally conducted in Russian and which I translated. All her observations are very interesting and insightful. But one of the most important is her confirmation that the Ukrainian Army began a murderous bombing of Donetsk and other cities in Donbass one full week before President Putin sent an expeditionary force to protect the locals and attempt to compel Kiev to sit at the negotiating table, (something that the West mistakenly calls “the Russian invasion”).

Q: What was life like in Donetsk before Kiev began to bomb the city?

In 2013, life in Donetsk was very prosperous. The city competed with Kiev and often surpassed it in terms of both culture and infrastructure. The oligarch Rinat Akhmetov built Ukraine’s finest airport and finest stadium, the “Donbass Arena.” Businesses thrived. Nobody was concerned about language or politics; it seemed like everyone was only interested in making money.

Q: Why did Kiev bomb Donetsk and other places in Donbass in May 2014?

When the so-called “Maidan” occurred in Kiev, Donbass was left with a choice: either die fighting or die without resisting. The illegal insurrection in Kiev saw the rise to power of radical nationalist forces intent on destroying ethnic Russians and all things Russian. Despite the efforts of the Soviet Union and later an independent Ukraine, Donbass never truly became Ukrainian (there had been a policy of forced Ukrainization). It became clear that Donbass was being prepared as a sacrificial pawn, a pretext to entice Moscow into a war with the many years of lawlessness and genocide of the local Russian population.The pro-western Maidan regime, which unfortunately was recognized by Russia, was entirely subordinate to the West. President Poroshenko promised, while speaking publicly, that “the children of Donbass will sit in basements [under bombs], while our [Ukrainian] children will study.” He made it clear that Kiev was going to continue to devastate Donbass. The Maidan [insurrection in winter 2014] was orchestrated to provoke a war with Russia; but Moscow hesitated and only entered the war in 2022, unfortunately. When I visited Donbass after fighting began, I saw children playing with the shells of bombs, and my hair turned gray.Donetsk boy plays with army projectile

Q: When you lived in Kiev did you protest against the massacres in Donetsk?

At that time, camps were organized for Ukrainian children, encouraging them to collect items for the Neo-Nazis of the Azov regiment who actively destroyed Donbass and murdered civilians. Essentially, all the children of Ukraine were made to become complicit in the bloodshed of their fellow countrymen. In every school, they organized collections of blankets, socks, etc for Azov. Children were involved in training camps for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This is a well-known tactic described by Dostoevsky in Demons — a shared crime binds together a group of people. Ukrainian society at that time lacked solidarity and purpose. Kiev used the war against the people of Donbass to unite the rest of Ukraine.One day, in a chat group raising funds for Ukrainian soldiers, I posted a photo of a monument commemorating the children of Donbass killed by the Ukrainian army. What happened? I was hounded and persecuted by Ukrainian journalists, the SBU [secret police], and later Neo-Nazis from C14, the youth wing of the “Svoboda” party affiliated with the SBU. My name was added to the Mirotvorets database [Kiev’s list of dissidents marked for assassination]. Ukrainian police ignored my complaints. I was pregnant and forced to hide daily from 9 AM to 6 PM except on weekends. Why only during those hours? We realized that Neo-Nazis appeared only during working hours, meaning they were on someone’s payroll. It was both amusing and sad, but after 6 PM we got a reprieve. They threatened violence when they pounded on my door. Eventually, I couldn’t bear it; I was too frightened. Moreover, I was pregnant. We decided to flee to Russia.

Q: Following Kiev’s bombing of Donbass, to where did most people flee?

During the first bombings [2014-15], the vast majority of people — over a million — fled to Russia. At the time, White House press secretary Jen Psaki callously and cynically remarked that those refugees had gone “to visit their grandmothers” in Russia. Most later returned home, as they tired of living off Russia’s support.

Q: What was life like in Donetsk from 2014-2022?

The years 2014-2016 were dramatic in the intensity of the conflict; later it was less-tense but still the shelling was deadly. The frontline regions didn’t see a single quiet day for eight years. I witnessed Ukrainian and Polish mercenaries, snipers, and nationalist battalions “entertaining” themselves by shooting at locals out of boredom. What struck me most was how locals, even six-year-old children, could identify the caliber, type of shell, and even the country of origin of ammunition by its sound. Over time, I also learned to distinguish “outgoing” and “incoming” fire, silent Polish mines, Grads, and howitzers. I was very cautious about where I stepped, many areas were littered with “Petals,” small mines that blow off a foot when stepped on. I especially pitied the elderly and children.Svetlana in Avdeevka after its liberation earlier this year

Q: Could you please tell us about how events developed in February 2022?

A week before the SMO [Special Military Operation] began [Feb 24, 2022], Donetsk faced the heaviest artillery shelling since 2014. Earlier that month (February) nationalist battalions occupied schools in the Zaporozhya and Kherson regions to prepare for an assault on Crimea, (I made a report about this). The population of Donbass was offered mass evacuation to Russia, but 90% refused, having grown accustomed to life under shelling. On Feb 25, water supply ceased in Donetsk after the “Seversky Donets-Donbass” pumping station was shut down due to an energy disruption caused by Ukrainian sabotage. A distinctive feature of this period was the use of HIMARS and other Western 152-155mm shells targeting the city center, deliberately hitting civilian sites and gatherings. In June 2022, I witnessed a HIMARS strike on the central bus station. I saw firsthand the destruction of U.S. missiles, the many dead civilian bodies and the wounded with severed limbs.

Q: Has life improved in Donetsk since the Russian offensive began this year?

After the liberation of Avdeevka and Krasnogorovka, Donetsk has had a slight sense of relief. There is now a fragile concept of “relatively safe districts of Donetsk,” which did not exist previously. Unfortunately, water issues remain severe, but there are a few hours of water supply daily to each area.

Q: Is Donetsk now able to rebuild itself?

Large-scale reconstruction has begun. As soon as it is possible to build without immediate destruction from nearby fighting, construction firms and road workers are eager to get to work. Progress is slower than desired, but Russian authorities have managed to build highways, hospital clinics, maternity wards, and entire new neighborhoods. Nothing of this scale was achieved during the 30 years of Ukrainian rule.

Q: What is life like now in Donetsk?

In Donetsk, I now have my own “paradise,” with water available for a few hours, and heating. My apartment is now warm! During water supply hours, the pressure is enough to run the washing machine, which is a great joy. Bathing still involves pouring water from a pot with a ladle, as the stream is too weak for a shower. But the main thing is the semblance of regular water supply. Usually, I spend mornings filming in different areas under shelling, and when I return, I’m thrilled to be able to wash in a warm apartment. Just six months ago, this was very difficult. I slept under three blankets in winter and bought water for washing.

Q: Could you please tell us about the people of Donetsk? What are they like?

People in Donbass are mostly fatalists. They’ve lived for a long time prepared to die at any moment. The best depiction of these people comes from the sayings I’ve heard: “You won’t hear the shell that’s yours, so why panic?” or “I wear lace underwear so that I won’t be ashamed on the coroner’s table.” Donetsk residents have learned the value of community, closely interacting with neighbors since survival in war isn’t possible alone. Unfortunately, they’ve also become emotionally reserved — smiles or emotions are rare. Warm words are seldom heard. Actions are what matter. To outsiders, they may seem embittered, but this is simply the strictness and composure necessary for survival in war.Ukraine’s American and German-built tanks burn in the Zaporozhya Region — during the disastrous ‘counteroffensive’ of summer 2023

Q: You were recently on the front lines in Zaporozhya Region — what was it like?

In the Zaporozhya region, I was in the frontline Pology district, in the Orekhov direction. I can confirm that there has been a shift in the front line near Robotino. At the time, it was minor, but the wheel has started turning. Many locals still live in fear of the SBU and the nationalist battalions and international brigades; that they might return. The locals fear being caught on camera. And in personal conversations, you hear things that make your hair stand on end. People refer to NATO military contractors and international brigades as “Germans,” which clearly has connotations of World War 2.There are also pro-Ukrainian individuals, but oddly enough, they were first in line for Russian passports and for the financial aid that Moscow distributed in the conflict zones. I’ve been visiting this area since 2022. Initially, I was told that the locals were all “waiters” (waiting for Ukraine to return), and to be cautious with them. But this is a complete lie spread by the fifth column and those Russian media magnates with villas in the EU. (Such people don’t want Russian people to reunite; they only care about preserving their money in the West and lifting sanctions, pretending to be patriots). These enemies of Russia are lying. The majority of the people in Zaporozhya were waiting for Russia — about 80%. I never return from Zaporozhya empty-handed. Locals give me honey, milk, and homemade wine; simple but heartfelt gifts from people living in a war zone.

Q: How is the fighting morale of Russian troops on the front?

Regarding the troop’s morale on the front: it’s a unique place, where a sense of brotherhood prevails. The world today is very selfish, where people are isolated, even within families, and people often feel alone. We live in a consumer society where comfort has replaced love. On the front lines, however, it’s very different. You’ll see genuine brotherly love, as one soldier told me. Broken or selfish people can’t comprehend this. It reminds me of what my university professor, a World War 2 veteran, used to say. You go to the front to breathe the air of brotherhood. The world of the front lines and civilian life are as different as a plastic tomato is from a real one.This brotherhood extends not only among the soldiers but also to the locals. For example, some locals refer to soldiers as “son,” and they respond with “dad” or “mom.” They help one another; soldiers share food with locals, who in turn share their internet connections. They are always helping with repairs. Of course, this warmth is only found among the bravest. Many are still afraid that the Russian army might leave, and that there would be reprisals from the Ukrainian Army and SBU. But the number of such people has declined tenfold compared to 2022.

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