Russian Roulette: The Ruble Rises as European Economies Crumble

Did anyone say it would be over by Christmas like they did in 1914? Well, Christmas has come and gone, and very much like the trenches of the First World War, the ground lost and won can sometimes be measured in single-digit meters and kilometers. To be fair, Russia is doing most of the winning and Ukraine is doing much of the losing.

How did this ever come to pass? Well, context and history will show that American leaders promised Russian leaders that NATO would not expand one inch east toward the Russian borders after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

They lied.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO, in tandem with the European Union, has marched steadily toward Russia’s borders, and now many of the ex-Soviet satellite states are now de facto EU and NATO members with American/NATO nuclear bases now within strike range of Russian cities and military infrastructure, and the Kremlin is literally only a few minutes away from a NATO missile attack. As part of this encroachment policy, each country that borders the Russian Federation is a geopolitical target for American/NATO/EU recruitment. If they can hoodwink the populations of the targeted states with promises of a land of milk and honey within the European Union and if compliant state establishments and political leaders encourage a Yes vote for accession into the NATO-dominated EU, then another piece of the jigsaw puzzle of a new Russophobic Europe is complete. If, however, the targeted state, Ukraine in this case, does not toe the line of American client states, then unpopular coups are the orders of the day.Witness Maidan Square in 2014, the fascist stormtroopers of American imperialism, lead the violent murderous insurrection of a western-financed and armed coup and voilà, as the French might say, a country opposed to joining NATO and the EU whose leaders had planned that Ukraine would remain a neutral sovereign state were forced to flee for their lives from the fascist lynch mob; and Ukraine became a de facto fascist armed camp whose political policies where being dictated by the democratic party leaders in DC and not the undemocratic, unelected coup leaders in Kiev. The fascists now in charge in Ukraine began the systematic repression of the Russian language, Russian culture, and the Russian-speaking peoples of Crimea and Donbass; political opposition was banned and the military occupation of Lugansk and Donetsk began.

Why We Need War Crime Tribunals in Donbass

The seeds of Ukraine’s implosion may have been sown during the Second World War when many Ukrainian fascists joined the German army and committed heinous war crimes against their fellow Ukrainians, including Jews, communists, socialists, and those they considered racially impure. Those seeds were then watered, nurtured, and harvested by the imperialist hegemonic West in 2014.

The result? Two breakaway Ukrainian Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk are now members of the Russian Federation. Crimea is now also a part of the Russian Federation, we have witnessed the deaths of over 14,000 Eastern Ukrainians murdered by their own government between 2014 and 2022, two broken agreements Minsk I and Minsk II, the duplicitous clown of a President in Kiev, and a stumbling, bumbling, mumbling forgetful clown of a President in Washington. Both intend to fight Russia to the last 16-year-old Ukrainian boy or girl. As part of the American/NATO strategy to put boots on the ground, planes in the air, and nuclear missiles within a few minutes reach of Moscow, their brinkmanship has led us to the cusp of a global engulfment with potential nuclear escalation.

The West’s combined greed, coupled with its need to remain the dominant World superpower, backed by American military superiority, has created a false sense of invincibility and a level of brinkmanship that defies logic. From instigating a regime change coup in 2014 to being signatories of the internationally recognized Minsk I and Minsk II accords, the West, including the leaders in Berlin, Paris, and Kiev, has blatantly lied, by signing Agreements they had no intention of implementing. They have now stated publicly that those accords were simply used to misdirect Moscow of their true intentions, which included the reorganization and rearmament of the Ukraine fascist-led forces, including the reoccupation and possible attendant massacres in the now independent republics of Lugansk, Donetsk, and Crimea.

Declassified Documents Reveal US Contribution Behind Growth of Nazism in Ukraine

The Russian special military operation to denazify Ukraine began In February 2022. Its sole purpose was to defend the new republics from a fascist-led pogrom and the possible massacre and brutal repression of local Russian-speaking citizens, many of whom have memories of the German/Ukrainian brutal nazi occupation and war crimes committed against them by the Ukraine Banderite fascists in 1941. America started this war with its fascist-led coup in 2014.Many people refused to live under an unelected fascist junta, and they resisted .The threatened Ukrainian invasion, reoccupation, and possible massacre of civilians in the breakaway republics forced Moscow to intervene to protect the populace. An intervention that was 8 years late. Russia believed Germany and France when they said they would guarantee Kiev would comply with the Minsk Agreements. They lied, and Russia was deceived. Kiev was rearmed, and the Russian Federation was given no choice but to conceive of a plan to defend innocents from slaughter. The outcome is a de facto NATO-American-Russian war in Eastern Ukraine.The sanctions imposed by the West have backfired. Germany is being deindustrialized.

The collective Western imperialist countries, the empires of old, are heading into a recession. The rest of the Global South, Asia, Africa, and others who account for 87% of the world’s population are now focusing on a multipolar world order, where respect, tolerance, acceptance, and mutually compatible interests combine to the benefit of all parties. Economic growth can be achieved through sustainable partnerships. Countries that believe in observing international law are coming together to form a new world order. The threat of mutual nuclear destruction is being replaced with the promise of mutual cooperation. Uncle (Joe) Biden and the Democratic Party’s war on Russia have spectacularly backfired. Mishandled and misjudged from the very start, the dream of balkanizing Russia for the benefit of American and European capital has failed. The hope of fragmenting the Russian Federation for profit and plunder is over. American hegemony is failing. It is only in writing this piece that I now realize the true hope that lies before us.

Hope in humanity, hope in a better more equal world, and hope for future generations born into a more progressive tolerant multi-polar world.I have visited Donetsk and Lugansk and have many friends there. Russia has won the war both within and without Ukraine on the political, ethical, and military battlefields. What we must all do now is demand Zelensky’s departure. After all, he was elected on a mandate of seeking peace with the people of Eastern Ukraine not to butcher them.A negotiated comprehensive peace deal must be concluded, although going by the sad shenanigans of the West how could Russia possibly believe anything Kiev and others might sign?I am content to let others describe the depth of the war and how it has progressed on the battlefield. I see the bigger prize. Global peace secured by mutual honorable advocates for multipolarism. We are witnessing the end of Western imperialist hegemony, which invades and destroys its targeted enemies, causing millions of deaths, displacements, and refugees.Hasn’t the poor of the world been occupied, exploited, and mistreated enough?

(almayadeen)