Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 19 Mar 2025 13:54 | #

Trump, having learned nothing from his humiliation: “I believe that Putin is acting in good faith. I think we can achieve a complete ceasefire in Ukraine in a few weeks.”

Whitkoff, confirming that Europe is of no importance to the administration: “Relations between the US and Russia are critically important for America.”

Posted by Thorn on Wed, 19 Mar 2025 14:13 | #

“I believe that Putin is acting in good faith. I think we can achieve a complete ceasefire in Ukraine in a few weeks.”

The art of the deal: Trump is utilizing a shrewd sales strategy. In the public eye, he maneuvered Putin into making a commitment.

“Relations between the US and Russia are critically important for America.”

100% true. Without a U.S.-Russia coalition, China will continue to gain an advantage in the multipolar world. OTOH, a Russia-China alliance would inexorably lead to the outcome you most fear: the Asian mind (particularly the Han Chinese mind) achieving dominance over the Western mind.

Posted by Manc on Wed, 19 Mar 2025 14:20 | #

Former head of MI6’s Russia desk, Christopher Steele responds to questions about Trump’s relationship with Putin and Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5NWwcgyNZk

Posted by Thorn on Fri, 21 Mar 2025 23:15 | #

@3

I scrape Christopher Steele off my shoe every time I misstep at a dog park.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 22 Mar 2025 23:15 | #

The astonishing stupidity of Donald Trump’s negotiation team was on full display in Tucker Carlson’s interview of Steve Witkoff, as reported by the Kiev Independent:

U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who recently emerged as a leading figure in negotiations regarding Russia and Ukraine, revealed insights into ongoing ceasefire talks between Moscow and Washington.

In an interview on March 21 with American far-right political commentator Tucker Carlson, Witkoff openly parroted Russian propaganda and agreed with most of the Kremlin’s talking points, further casting doubt on whether Ukraine can expect to gain a ceasefire on its terms.

“I think the largest issue in that conflict are these so-called four regions, Donbas, Crimea ... and there’s two others,” Witkoff said, apparently referring to partly Russian-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia oblasts, and Crimea, fully occupied by Russia since 2014.

“They are Russian-speaking, and there have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,” Witkoff added, omitting the circumstances surrounding Russia’s sham referendums “at gunpoint” in occupied Ukraine.

Following the start of Russia’s all-out war, Moscow occupied parts of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts in 2022 by killing thousands of people and destroying cities and towns.

The same happened in Ukraine’s east, where Russia further advanced in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, a portion of which it held since 2014.

In September 2022, Russia annexed the four Ukrainian oblasts following sham referendums at gunpoint rejected by the international community as null and void. In videos published online, the vote was secured by the Russian military and under duress.

In the occupied regions, Russian forces systemically terrorized Ukrainian civilians with abductions and killings, committing war crimes such as rape and torture. Russia continues to consistently erase people’s Ukrainian identity and prosecutes opponents of enforced Russification while also forcibly conscripting men to fight in the Russian army.

On the liberated territories, a number of Russian torture chambers were found.

Equating Ukrainian Russian speakers to Russians who support the war and using language as a way to justify its war against Ukraine is a common theme of Russian propaganda.

According to Witkoff, the problem around Russian-occupied oblasts is the Ukrainian administration’s resistance to political fallout in case “the world (would) acknowledge that those are Russian territories.”

“Can (President Volodymyr) Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict,” Witkoff said.

Witkoff also claimed that Ukraine will hold presidential elections. His statement came after Carlson echoed a Russian narrative, saying that Moscow considers Zelensky “not elected” and, therefore, “can’t sign any kind of treaty.”

Witkoff alleged that Ukrainian leadership had “largely conceded that they are not going to be a member of NATO” but added the discussion is open on whether Ukraine could have a degree of NATO-member protection from the U.S. and European countries.

Witkoff added that Russia “100%” doesn’t want to wage a war in Europe or “absorb Ukraine” fully.

“(Russia’s) reclaimed these five regions. They have Crimea, and they’ve gotten what they want. So why do they need more?” Witkoff added, not mentioning that Russia had made similar claims of not invading Ukraine prior to its full-scale invasion.

https://kyivindependent.com/i-dont-regard-putin-as-a-bad-guy-witkoff-says-on-negotiations-with-russia/

Posted by Thorn on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 00:11 | #

“I think the largest issue in that conflict are these so-called four regions, Donbas, Crimea ... and there’s two others,” Witkoff said, apparently referring to partly Russian-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia oblasts, and Crimea, fully occupied by Russia since 2014.

“They are Russian-speaking, and there have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,”

Absolutely true. Furthermore, to prevent WWIII and a probable nuclear exchange it would be prudent to cede those territories to Russia. A minor concession to save the modern world, I’d say.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 04:45 | #

No, it’s not true.  It is Kremlin propaganda.  Though I don’t think the MAGA people want real knowledge at all.  Here is Hans Petter Midttun, a fellow at the Centre of Defence Strategies:

Firstly, he said “The so-called four regions: Donbas, Crimea, you know the names, Luhansk and there are two others” are the biggest obstacles to resolving the war started by Russia.” Territorial concession is not the hurdle. It would be a strategic mistake. Russia’s aim of strategic parity with the US and China is the main obstacle.

Secondly, he falsely claims that “They’re Russian speaking, there have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule. I think that’s the key issue in the conflict.”

The language does not define anyone’s nationality. The people who used to live in the regions – before Russia’s war of aggression and the start of forceful displacement – voted overwhelmingly in support of Ukrainian independence in 1991. Russia has, however, completely changed the demography. Many have become either refugees or internally displaced. There have been no credible and internationally recognised referendums in the occupied territories since 24 Feb 2022. His statement is either a result of ignorance, disinformation or worse still, an attempt to distort the facts.

As regards nuclear blackmail, when and where do you draw the line with a man who says the nation of Ukraine does not exist?

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 10:14 | #

On the eggregious Witkoff, yesterday’s ISW update had this to say:

Witkoff uncritically repeated several inaccurate Russian claims regarding the status of the Ukrainian territories that Russia illegally occupies. Witkoff claimed during the March 21 interview that Russian-occupied Crimea, Donbas, and Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts are “Russian-speaking” and that “there have been referendums [in these regions] where the overwhelming majority of people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.”[15] Russia has long used similar claims to justify its unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, having used the claim that Russia needs to “protect Russian-speakers” in eastern Ukraine to justify the launch of its full-scale invasion in 2022.[16] Russia has routinely undermined its own myth of “protecting Russian speakers” in Ukraine, however, destroying predominantly Russian-speaking cities in eastern Ukraine, killing Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and deporting Russian-speaking Ukrainian children to Russia in violation of international law.[17] The Russian invasions of Ukraine have never been about protecting Russian speakers.[18]

The assertion that the “overwhelming majority” of Ukrainians living under Russian occupation want to be under Russian control is also demonstrably false. Russian manipulations and coercive control tactics in occupied Ukraine are inconsistent with the claim that all residents of occupied Ukraine “want” to be part of Russia.  Russia staged sham referendums in Crimea and parts of Donbas in 2014 and then in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts in 2022 in an attempt to claim that most of the population “voted” to be annexed by Russia.[19] These referendums were all conducted under an intense Russian military presence and without legitimate election observers, and Russian authorities likely falsified attendance statistics and manipulated ballots.[20] Annexation referendums in 2022 did not account for the millions of Ukrainians who fled their homes to avoid living under Russian occupation.[21] Russian forces used physical intimidation to force Ukrainian civilians to vote for annexation during the 2022 referendums, with reports from occupied Zaporizhia Oblast suggesting that Russian occupation authorities instituted “at-home” voting in order to allow Russian security forces to enter the homes of Ukrainians and threaten them into voting for annexation at gunpoint.[22] Russian occupation officials also made their provision of humanitarian aid and basic necessities contingent on Ukrainians voting for annexation in the 2022 referendums.[23]

Russian demographic manipulations and mass indoctrination in occupied Ukraine are also at odds with the claim that Ukrainians living under occupation want to be under Russian control. Russian occupation administrators have had to institute coercive measures to force residents into obtaining Russian passports, threatening to deny Ukrainians access to basic services and medical care — demonstrating that there is no mass support in occupied Ukraine for Russian citizenship offers.[24] The extent of Russian pressure on populations in occupied areas is another strong indicator that residents of these areas do not want to be part of Russia but must be coerced to “Russify” — something that should be unnecessary among people who already identify as Russians. Russia has also embarked on a state-directed effort to deport Ukrainians from occupied Ukraine and to import Russians to live in occupied Ukraine, using manipulated demographic data to create the impression that there are more people willingly living in occupied areas.[25] Russia would not have to forcibly deport millions of Ukrainians to Russia if these Ukrainians actually wanted to be part of Russia.[26]

Witkoff’s statements undermine US President Donald Trump’s stated desired end state for the war in Ukraine that achieves an enduring peace and is in the best interests of the United States, Ukraine, and Europe. Trump has said that the United States will try to return as much territory to Ukraine as possible.[27] Trump also recently stated that the United States is interested in taking control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), which Russian forces currently occupy — implying that Russia would have to cede this territory in Zaporizhia Oblast before the United States can take control of the ZNPP.[28] Witkoff’s March 21 presentation of Russia’s territorial demands for the entirety of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts — including areas of these four oblasts that Russian forces do not currently occupy — undermines Trump’s efforts to achieve a resolution to the war favorable to US interests. Ceding territory in these four oblasts to Russia — either along the current frontlines or along the oblasts’ administrative boundaries – would not provide Ukraine with the defensible lines required to reliably defend against renewed Russian aggression in the future, hindering Trump’s stated objective of securing a lasting, sustainable peace in Ukraine.[29] Witkoff also claimed that Ukrainian officials have “conceded” that Ukraine will not be a member of NATO — a preemptive US concession to Russia on one of the Kremlin’s main demands as Russia continues to make no concessions in return. Witkoff’s statements appear to yield to multiple Kremlin demands before the start of official negotiations for a peace settlement, ceding valuable US and Ukrainian leverage over Russia in future negotiations that the United States will need in order to achieve Trump’s desired end to the war.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-22-2025

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 10:34 | #

On “Russkiy Mir” the same ISW update cites an interview by the French weekly L’Express of Vladimir Surkoff, who is a chief architect of the ideology known as “novossoriya”.

Vladislav Surkov, a former close adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, recently reiterated a number of longstanding Kremlin claims and ambitions that directly contradict Witkoff’s assertions in an interview with French media aimed at Western audiences. Surkov previously served as a long-time close advisor to Putin and organized protests in Crimea against the Ukrainian government in 2014.[2] Surkov also oversaw the Kremlin’s 2014-2015 project to promote the creation of “Novorossiya” (an amorphous, invented region in Ukraine that Kremlin officials have claimed includes all of southern and eastern Ukraine and is an “integral” part of Russia) in eastern Ukraine.[3] Putin relieved Surkov of his duties as Presidential Aide in February 2020.[4] Surkov stated in an interview with French outlet L’Express on March 19 that a Russian victory in Ukraine would be the “military or military and diplomatic crushing of Ukraine” and the “division of this artificial quasi-state into its natural fragments.”[5] Surkov stated that Russia will achieve this strategic objective — which Surkov stated has not changed since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — even if there are “maneuvers, slowdowns, and pauses along the way.” Surkov stated that the return of Ukraine to Russia’s desired and self-defined sphere of influence has been a Russian objective since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Surkov claimed that “Ukraine is an artificial political entity” consisting of “at least” three regions — the “Russian” southern and eastern Ukraine, the “Russian-non-Russian” central area, and the “anti-Russian” west. Surkov claimed that Russia’s war in Ukraine “will separate the Russians and the anti-Russians” and will “confine” the “anti-Russians” to their “historical territory” such that they “stop spreading across Russian soil.” Surkov claimed that “perhaps” Ukraine will exist as a “real state” in the future but as a much smaller entity. Surkov implied that Europe will be involved in the future partitioning of Ukraine, claiming that “a balanced division of Ukraine will have to include a share for Brussels.” Surkov responded to a question about how he sees Russian borders, stating that the ideology of the Russian World (Russkiy Mir) “has no borders” and exists “everywhere there is Russian influence,” including cultural, military, economic, ideological, or humanitarian influence. Surkov claimed that Russia’s influence varies across regions in the world, but “is never zero.” Surkov claimed that Russia “will spread out in all directions.” The Kremlin has repeatedly used the idea of the Russian World to justify Russian military interventions into former Soviet states and to claim that areas of the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire are historical Russian territories.[6] Surkov’s statements about Russia’s claims over southern and eastern Ukraine and the future expansion of Russkiy Mir are in direct contrast to Witkoff’s statement that Russia has no territorial ambitions beyond Crimea and Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts.

Surkov’s statements are consistent with those made by Putin and senior Russian officials, who have recently and repeatedly stated that Russia intends to bring Ukraine under Russian control and establish suzerainty over neighboring countries in order to weaken the West and strengthen Russia’s global influence. Senior Russian officials have recently reiterated that any future peace settlement must address the “root causes” of the war, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defined as recently as March 10, 2025, as the alleged “threats to Russia’s security from the Ukrainian and Western directions in general” that are due to NATO’s eastward expansion and the Ukrainian government’s alleged “extermination” of everything that is “connected with Russia and the Russkiy Mir,” including Russian language, culture, Orthodoxy, and media.[7] Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko acknowledged on March 17, 2025, that Russia’s demands for Ukrainian neutrality and NATO’s refusal to allow Ukraine into the alliance are the same demands that Russia made in 2021 before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[8] Putin’s 2021 demands also stipulated that NATO commit to not accepting any countries as new members and that NATO not deploy any military forces to states that became NATO members after May 1997; would ban any NATO military activity in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia; would ban deployments of intermediate-range missiles in areas that could reach Russian or NATO state territory; and would ban the United States from deploying intermediate-range missiles in Europe or nuclear missiles outside of US territory.[9] The Kremlin has used the “Russkiy Mir” narrative for decades to justify Russian aggression in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova and to set conditions to influence independent countries once colonized by the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire.[10] Putin and other senior Russian officials have repeatedly propagated pseudo-history to deny Ukrainian statehood and nationhood and have falsely asserted that Ukraine’s Western neighbors have legitimate claims to Ukrainian territory in an effort to sow division between Ukraine and Europe.[11] Putin has recently reamplified Russia’s territorial demands that Ukraine cede all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts, including areas that Russian forces do not currently occupy, amid ongoing bilateral US-Russia negotiations.[12] Putin and other Russian officials have also recently reamplified Russian narratives that “Novorossiya,” which Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has defined as all of eastern and southern Ukraine including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, and Odesa oblasts, is an “integral” part of Russia.[13] Putin has used the term “Novorossiya” to refer to eastern and southern Ukraine since 2014 to set informational conditions to justify Russia’s occupation and territorial ambitions and claimed in 2023 that Odesa City, Crimea, and the entire “Black Sea region” have nothing “to do with Ukraine.”[14]

Like Sergei Glazyev, Surkov seems to drift in and out of official prominence, and his exact relation to Putin and the Kremlin power structure is never as clear as his material influence.  His shady business activities, his strange venture in works of fiction, his own past, indeed even his birth-name are subject to claim and counter-claim.  “Only in Russia” is the logical conclusion.

Posted by Thorn on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 12:34 | #

“Witkoff claimed during the March 21 interview that Russian-occupied Crimea, Donbas, and Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts are “Russian-speaking” and that “there have been referendums [in these regions] where the overwhelming majority of people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.”

I recall back in 2022 (this happened after the referendum Witkoff was referring to) Elon Musk proposed a peace plan that was centered around a referendum in the eastern Ukraine regions to determine whether the people there wanted to separate from Kiev and join the Russian sphere or not. The referendum would be conducted under strict international oversight. Of course, his suggestion was immediately met with outrage, contempt, and condemnation by nearly all the Western leaders. They relentlessly hounded Musk accusing him of being a traitor by siding with Russia and Putin.

My takeaway from that is the Western leaders plan is to overthrow the Putin regime, and they are not going to let a common-sense practical peace agreement get in their way. They are determined to defeat Russia even if it takes sacrificing millions of Ukrainians and Russians and destroying Ukraine’s infrastructure in the process… not to mention an escalation up to who knows what?!? 

In the Western leaders’ eyes, this is not about protecting Ukrainian civilians, obviously. It’s about regime change in Russia. That’s what they are focused on.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 16:04 | #

If Musk had proposed a referendum in 2013 it would have had some moral force.  But once the Russian army and its security and mercenary adjuncts and the local maffia surrogates commenced operations no such possibility existed.

Has it occurred to you yet that the will of the Ukrainian people has no connection to, and is not disqualified or negated by, MAGA hatred of the American government and security apparatus?  It seems not.  But morally it does not matter what MAGA people think and feel about their own system.  The only substantive issue is what the people of Ukraine think and feel.  Because you are lost to this mechanical MAGA hatred you cannot sort your thinking out, and all you see is an American government and security apparatus which is completely irrelevant to Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian people never wanted Russkiy Mir.  So why do you want to coerce them into it?  Doesn’t human freedom and autonomy matter?  If not, why does the WN value of the freedom and autonomy of white Americans matter?

Posted by Thorn on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 16:58 | #

“The only substantive issue is what the people of Ukraine think and feel.”

The people of Ukraine are split on what they think and feel; an east Ukraine vs a west Ukraine split (just look at the political map of the 2010 Ukrainian Presidential Election).  What is unacceptable is the proxy war between the U.S. and Russia which has thus far led to the killing and maiming of two generations of the fittest Ukrainian men. A few more years of this senseless slaughter, and the thoughts and feelings of the Ukrainian people will be rendered irrelevant as they will be left facing the real possibility of their own extinction.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 18:48 | #

You have absolutely no evidence of a regional majority of the Ukrainian people desiring to be subsumed into Russia.  It never existed.  You could speak of a reactionary strand in Ukrainian politics seeking to hold the country in the Russian power orbit and thus prevent its turn towards modernisation and the EU.  That, along with protection of the Russian language, was the extent of it.  But the principal issue in the 2010 presidential election was the economy, and thus modernisation, and that alone is the driver for what followed in 2014.  Thus the wiki page on Ukrainian-Russian relations records that:

In September 2013, Russia warned Ukraine that if it went ahead with a planned agreement on free trade with the EU, it would face financial catastrophe and possibly the collapse of the state.[122] Sergey Glazyev, adviser to President Vladimir Putin, said that, “Ukrainian authorities make a huge mistake if they think that the Russian reaction will become neutral in a few years from now. This will not happen.” Russia had already imposed import restrictions on certain Ukrainian products and Glazyev did not rule out further sanctions if the agreement was signed. Glazyev allowed for the possibility of separatist movements springing up in the Russian-speaking east and south of Ukraine.[122]

On 21 November 2013, Yanukovych suspended preparations for signing EU Association Agreement, to seek closer economic relations with Russia.[123] On 17 December 2013 Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to lend Ukraine 15 billion dollars in financial aid and a 33% discount on natural gas prices.[124][125] The treaty was signed amid massive, ongoing protests in Ukraine for closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union.[126] Critics pointed out that in the months before the 17 December 2013 deal a change in Russian customs regulations on imports from Ukraine was a Russian attempt to prevent Ukraine from signing an Association Agreement with the European Union.

Do you, in parallel, believe there to be a majority in Belarus for national subsumption under the State Union Law?  If Belarussians had successfully thrown off Putin’s satrap after the August 2020 presidential election would you be calling that a western stratagem too?  Do not the Belarussians have the right to choose their own course?  Had war ensued and little Belarus held off the rusty might of the Russian army for three years would you be claiming that “it’s Nuland’s proxy war” or whatever?

The will of the Ukrainians is completely and magnificently clear.  Respect it.  Not doing so but clinging instead to Russian propaganda is blind or reprehensible, take your pick.  It’s also anti-nationalist.

Speaking of reprehensible, do you also believe Trump’s shameless repetition of the £350 billion aid claim?

Posted by Thorn on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 21:45 | #

“would you be claiming that “it’s Nuland’s proxy war” or whatever?”

I’m claiming the Ukraine conflict is a U.S. proxy war against the Putin regime. Had it not been for massive U.S. aid in the forms of money, arms, and intelligence-sharing the Ukraine military - along with the Zelenskyy regime - would have collapsed within a few months after the SMO commenced.

“Speaking of reprehensible, do you also believe Trump’s shameless repetition of the £350 billion aid claim?”

LOL. ....... that’s just Trump being Trump.

It is widely reported that a more precise estimate ranges between 175 and 200 billion. And surprise, surprise, ~10 billion (most likely a lot more) has gone missing ... unaccounted for. After all Ukraine has always been reputed for having the highest level of corruption in Europe. A significant portion of the funds are allocated to pay the salaries of Ukrainian (civil service) government employees…. or so I’ve read. 

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 23:04 | #

A fourth Russian empire is not in the interests of the west, as that has been understood since 1945 (and is only now being divided by the Trump administration).  It is completely legitimate for Europe and the white world to constrain Putin, his global and regional project, and his eurasianist ideology which drives it.  It is completely legitimate for Ukraine to be supported in its struggle to exist.  Zelensky is the national figurehead, and is massively supported by his people.  True to form the MAGA critters have read somewhere that he is corrupt, and lapped it up.  It’s just pathetic.

Posted by Thorn on Sun, 23 Mar 2025 23:18 | #

“A fourth Russian empire is not in the interests of the west”

A fourth Russian empire is not in the making; the idea of that is just ludicrous. Russia’s primary concerns are security assurances.

Sorry to change the subject but this is a good read:

Why Black People Can’t Be British

https://gatesofvienna.net/2025/03/why-black-people-cant-be-british/

Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:24 | #

No one in Europe ... absolutely no one ... whose work it is to understand Kremlin geopolitics swallows the feeble lie that Putin only wants to sleep at night sound in the knowledge that the evil west isn’t going to attack his poor innocent landmass.  The Kremlin elites already know that NATO is a defensive alliance and has no designs on Russian territory save to confine Russia within it and protect Russia’s neighbours from Russia itself.  The Kremlin elites also know that none of those neighbours will ever want Russian dominion.  They don’t care.  They have their project of Russkiy Mir, and they do not waver one inch from it.  They are expansionists, as are the Turks, Chinese, and the little clutch of Ukraine’s neighbours who hope to pick up a piece of the country if Putin actually gets to Kiev (or gets someone in Kiev who will be cooperative).

If you don’t understand that, but insist on repeating the evidence-free MAGA claptrap, then everything that I, for example, present here will be totally lost on you.  I can’t save you from yourself.  You are lost to Trump’s Great Power ideology.

Posted by Thorn on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 11:58 | #

What you fail to comprehend is exacerbation of the demographic collapse caused by this Western-instigated war in both Ukraine and Russia - but especially Ukraine. Your Russophobia and Putin Derangement Syndrome has gotten the best of you.

Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 12:02 | #

Andreas Kluth at Bloomberg explaining in simple and (surely) understandable terms the regional aspect of Putin’s gambit:

https://ukrainetoday.org/russia-and-the-us-both-want-to-finlandize-the-world/

Putin’s original plan for Ukraine was outright conquest and subjugation. But when the brave Ukrainians, like the Finns in 1939, denied Moscow that triumph, Putin had to downshift. For him to tolerate Ukraine’s continued existence, the country would have to become a no-man’s-land, forever outside of NATO, demilitarized and bowing to the Kremlin. In short: Finlandized. He has similar visions for, say, Moldova or Georgia (outside of NATO) and even Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (in NATO).

As the Biden administration took pains to explain, Putin’s menace extends even further. He wants to cow, and ideally dissolve, not just Ukraine but the entire Western alliance. By violating Ukraine, he has also repudiated the whole “rules-based” international order, which is based on law and the principle of national sovereignty as enshrined in the charter of the United Nations.

And here is Andreas Pekar, a lecturer at the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, trying to answer the question of why the MAGA folk are unable to see Ukraine in its true moral light:

https://ukrainetoday.org/the-us-is-changing-its-vector-supporting-russia-instead-of-ukraine/

To many Americans, Russia appears as a defender of traditional values ​​in a postmodern world, a true Christian country standing up to the postmodern agenda they hate. Americans and Russians feel that their countries are similar in some ways. Vast expanses of land, conquered by brave pioneers and cleared of unwanted natives, and so on. Americans don’t like empires, but they don’t consider Russia an empire because they know almost nothing about it.
...
Americans love it when David defeats Goliath. True, they consider Russia to be David, the bearer of the weak blessed truth. And they consider NATO, led by themselves, to be Goliath, the stupid heavy force that opposes the Russian Federation (this is where the talk about the war being provoked by NATO expansion comes from). Ukraine is simply not in this equation.

Posted by Thorn on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 12:23 | #

To many Americans, Russia appears as a defender of traditional values ​​in a postmodern world, a true Christian country standing up to the postmodern agenda they hate. Americans and Russians feel that their countries are similar in some ways. Vast expanses of land, conquered by brave pioneers and cleared of unwanted natives, and so on. Americans don’t like empires, but they don’t consider Russia an empire because they know almost nothing about it.
...
Americans love it when David defeats Goliath. True, they consider Russia to be David, the bearer of the weak blessed truth. And they consider NATO, led by themselves, to be Goliath, the stupid heavy force that opposes the Russian Federation (this is where the talk about the war being provoked by NATO expansion comes from).

I largely concur with that sentiment.

Ukraine is simply not in this equation.

Balderdash!!!

Ukraine is in that equation because Ukraine is on the border of Russia and NATO was arming Ukraine to the hilt. Can you understand why Russia regards that as an existential threat? I and most others can.

Posted by Thorn on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 16:44 | #

This is the type of propaganda that drives the Western “progressive” ruling class up a wall. It infuriates them to the point of insanity. Quite hilarious to observe, actually. 

[ EXCLUSIVE ] - Judge Napolitano w/ Prof. Aleksandr Dugin {Moscow, Russia} - pt.1 & pt. 2

https://youtu.be/uVUB-mKgimk

https://youtu.be/QYekcTxZaqc

Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 16:47 | #

No, you can’t “understand why Russia regards that as an existential threat”.  Because Russia does not face an existential threat.  Does it.  A few moments consideration will confirm that, and also confirm that it is, of course, Ukraine which is facing an existential threat from Russia.  Yet again yesterday a hospital was missiled, this time in Sumy.  Thirteen children were among the seventy-four injured.  You are supporting exactly such daily wickedness in the weird belief that the perpetrator is somehow the victim, or has been provoked, or only wants to protect Russian speakers in the east, etc, etc.  Your arguments are circular, illogical, and fly in the face of the facts.

Let me demonstrate.  Why has Belarus been governed by a Moscow stooge for so long?  Is it (a) the decision of the Belarussian people, or (b) the decision of Moscow?  If the latter, is that because Russia is threatened by Belarussian freedom?  No?  Well let’s up the ante.  If Belarussians desire the protection of NATO, does that threaten Russia?  If so, how?  And would it make it “understandable” for Moscow to then missile hospitals?

Your position is untenable.

Posted by Thorn on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 18:38 | #

“Because Russia does not face an existential threat.  Does it.”

Through subversion, the woke West aims to divide Russia into smaller states while transforming Moscow into a moral cesspool akin to San Francisco.

Question:

Who is your most destructive enemy: Russia, or the traitors within?

Next question:

How’s London doing these days?

Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 19:53 | #

In fact, mindful of the 5,000 nuclear warheads in the country the west has sought to maintain political and military control from the centre in Moscow, but to restrain Russian expansionism to the west.  This has been the long-term and universal policy.  At no time has any component part of the west sought to fragment the Russian Federation and place nuclear warheads in the hands of local big-men, because the shared endeavour is security.

I am bound to ask where you heard this fantasy, and why you gave credence to it without a critical consideration of its likelihood.

Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 20:03 | #

To answer your question with regard to Sino-Russian global dominion one first has to ask what are the conditions under which a nationalist revolution against the current power structure can proceed.  A large part of the answer to that is vested in the residual ethnic, philosophical, political, and socio-cultural heritage we share.  This is why I often ask folks like you, Thorn, why you assume that your little liberal life will always persist, and why a dominant Asiatic mind will be content to see nationalists restore vigour and direction to the European creative genius.  Why would any possibility of power to a Euro-centric revolutionary faction be tolerated when a moments consideration of the fate of dissidents in Putin’s Russia and the CCP’s China militates so decisively to the contrary.

First we need the conditions under which we may operate.  We cannot operate if we are in prison camps or just dead.  I am not sure that it is possible for Americans, secure in the peaceful bosom of their vast continental heartland, to conceive of the fragility of life in Europe, with its history of conflict and struggle.

Posted by Thorn on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 20:14 | #

I am bound to ask where you heard this fantasy, and why you gave credence to it without a critical consideration of its likelihood.

A quick search on the subject brought up scores upon scores of articles. Here’s a couple to get you started:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/17/the-west-is-preparing-for-russias-disintegration/

https://theowp.org/incoming-eu-foreign-minister-approves-of-breaking-russia-into-smaller-states/

Posted by Thorn on Mon, 24 Mar 2025 22:53 | #

“the European creative genius”

Obviously, the European intellect has been stifled by postmodernism and the resulting chaos it has engendered. Postmodernists are deniers of objective truth; they are deniers of reality. If I had my way, I would mandate courses on The Bell Curve and Atlas Shrugged for all high school students. I can only wish.

Just about every white college educated person I know is a postmodernist. They make-up the managerial / ruling class in America. Brainwashed dipsh-ts by definition. Just about every non-white college educated person I know is an anti-white vindictive bigot. White college indoctrinated postmodernists refuse - for idiotic ideological reasons - to acknowledge what they are up against. Hense the massive non-white immigration into white homelands continues apace. Genocide by Stealth. Sarah the Maid of Albion is right.

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 25 Mar 2025 00:01 | #

I asked where you got the “information” from that “the woke West aims to divide Russia into smaller states”.  I did not ask for an article on readiness for the disintegration of Russia, nor one on Ms Kallas’s predictably Estonian desire to see Muscovy de-balled - not, let it be said, the policy of the EU now that she is installed as the bloc’s foreign minister.

Posted by Thorn on Tue, 25 Mar 2025 11:50 | #

GW, it should come as a great relief to you that Witkoff is a clear thinker; he realizes Russia was provoked. Taking the correct position that Russia was provoked is the appropriate starting point for a successful conclusion to peace negotiations.

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 25 Mar 2025 12:02 | #

A murderous dictator seeking a regional empire and, by that means, global projection claims to have been provoked to violence because none of his victim nations want to die!

Kellogg could think a bit.  Not a good man but too good for the murderer in Moscow.  So he was barged out of the way for the witless Witkoff, who has now displayed his total ignorance:

https://kyivindependent.com/editorial-what-steve-witkoff-doesnt-get-about-ukraine-and-russia/

In any negotiation, one of the most powerful weapons is knowledge. In that regard, Steve Witkoff is willfully disarmed.

And it’s playing just right for Russia.

The interview that Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, gave to Tucker Carlson a few days ago revealed a truth that was perceived especially bitterly here in Ukraine:

In the negotiation where everything is at stake, Ukraine’s most powerful ally is represented by a man who either knows next to nothing about Ukraine or woefully misunderstands it. Moreover, the resulting vacuum is being filled with the propaganda that Russians feed to him.

Observing it from Kyiv, knowing that Witkoff is among the people deciding Ukraine’s future, was sobering and terrifying ...

The whole article is educational for any MAGA supporter.

Posted by Thorn on Tue, 25 Mar 2025 12:04 | #

@28

The idea that the West seeks to fragment Russia into smaller states has been circulating since the dissolution of the Soviet Union over three decades ago. Where have you been?!? That idea has significantly ramped up as of late due to the invasion of Ukraine.

Putin himself directly addressed the issue: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/putin-west-break-up-russia-b2342313.html

Posted by Thorn on Tue, 25 Mar 2025 12:09 | #

The whole article is educational for any MAGA supporter.

Spoken like a true leftist.

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 25 Mar 2025 13:46 | #

There is no policy of fragmentation.  That would involve CIA ops to foment the Ingush, Chechens, Tartars, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Buryats, Tuvi, Finns, and the rest - the lot, really.  But no such ops exist, and no such uprisings are in train.  You just need to understand the region better, and not rely on the malign and ignorant voices of your own political constituency.

There is a world of real geopolitical analysis to which no MAGA folk pay the slightest attention, because their goal is to declaim against “the west”.  In so doing these persons declaim against their own sociobiology and call for a world without rules, and without the fundamentals our race requires.  They are so conceptually narrow this cannot be explained to them.  They cannot go beyond their own basically religious suggestibility.  In your case, you are unable to distinguish between leftism and ethnic nationalism.  You simply cannot see that MAGA supremacism is, in fact, a politics for elites, not the people.

Posted by Thorn on Tue, 25 Mar 2025 15:45 | #

You and “the lovely” Samantha Power would get along quite nicely. You two share the same inverted worldview vis-a-vis Russia. She is convinced Russia poses a dire threat to the West’s Rules-Based Order. People like Ms. Power would be laughable if they were not in positions of power; but they are holding positions of power which makes them dangerous. 

Left-wing ideologies warp the mind. Unfortunately, most of the ruling-class in Western countries adhere to left-wing ideologies. For one thing, they regard ethnic nationalism - particularly white nationalism - as the greatest threat to their existence. Consider the entire Democratic Party along with two-thirds of the GOP. On the subject of race, they are either outright Kool-Aid drinking “race is a social construct” leftists or beholden to their leftist donors. Let us not forget that President Biden declared to a national audience that “white supremacy” is the greatest domestic threat. Now, one must consider how they define “white supremacy.” Obviously, they define it as anyone who is not sufficiently anti-white. That would include all of us Trump supporters. Like I said, leftist ideologies warp the mind. “[Modern] Liberalism is a mental disorder.” 

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/samantha-power-outlines-russian-threat-to-the-united-states-rules-based-order/

Posted by Thorn on Wed, 26 Mar 2025 21:38 | #

NATO Sec.-Gen. Flip-Flops On Normalization With Russia

On March 15 I mocked NATO Secretary General Rutte for his flip-flop over Ukraine’s accession to NATO.

Here is another flip flop of his:

NATO Chief Says Russia Relations Should Be Restored Post War - Bloomberg, Mar 14 2025

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said relations with Russia should eventually be normalized once the fighting ends in Ukraine, while stressing the need to keep pressure on Moscow to ensure progress in ceasefire negotiations.
“It’s normal if the war would have stopped for Europe somehow, step by step, and also for the US, step by step, to restore normal relations with Russia,” Rutte said in an interview on Bloomberg TV Friday.

Just twelve days later ...

‘This is not the time to go it alone,’ NATO’s Rutte tells U.S. and Europe - Reuters, Mar 26, 2025

While welcoming Trump’s push for peace in Ukraine, Rutte said there would be no normalisation of relations with Russia once the war had ended.
“This will take decades because there is a total lack of confidence. The threat is still there,” he told reporters.

Could we please have other people but fools ruling over us?

Posted by b at 19:01 UTC | Comments (49)

Clink on here to access links: https://www.moonofalabama.org/

Posted by Thorn on Wed, 26 Mar 2025 21:52 | #

Try to take your mind off your irrational fear of Russia and refocus on the real threat.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 00:42 | #

I have been trying to explain to you why the world order of force that Xi and Putin are striving to bring into being, and which is now adopted by Trump, renders the peaceful development and advocacy of ethnic nationalism impossible.  Ethnic nationalism is anathema to that force, which itself can only exist if the will of peoples of the land is stamped out.  It is a more profound opposition than that of the systemically liberal political order in the west, because liberal politicians do not own their betrayals.  They are owned by them.  They are agents of them.  But Xi and Putin and their respective cohorts truly own their global ambitions, their plans, their deeds.

Now, if you are an American imperialist then just say so.  But if you are not an American imperialist ... if you believe that peoples of the land must have independence and autonomy ... then try to grasp that the conditions under which ethnic nationalism may appear do exist under the rules-based order, regardless that hitherto western governments have acted against the life of peoples of European descent.

Posted by Thorn on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 11:36 | #

“I have been trying to explain to you why the world order of force that Xi and Putin are striving to bring into being, and which is now adopted by Trump, renders the peaceful development and advocacy of ethnic nationalism impossible.”

Ethnic nationalism not a consideration for white people simply because is not a priority for them. IOWs, White people do prioritize preserving their race enough to pursue an ethnic nationalist agenda. Why that is so is the question you need to refocus on and grapple with.  Of course, that question existed long before Trump, Putin and Xi came upon the scene.

Posted by Thorn on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 12:15 | #

Ethnic nationalism is not a consideration for white people simply because it is not a priority for them. IOWs, White people do not prioritize preserving their race enough to pursue an ethnic nationalist agenda.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 13:57 | #

With vanishingly few exceptions American whites do not have ethnicity.  Those without a trace of non-white genes have race in its stead. But as I noted in another article race gives a weaker signal than ethnicity.  It would be interesting to know how many “white Americans” are wholly European by descent, and then within that how many are wholly Northern European, wholly Mediterranean, or wholly Slavic.  I don’t think the resolution will get much finer than that.

But ... in the old continental heartland there remains native peoplehood, and thus that blood of the soil we call ethnicity.  This is what ethnic nationalism speaks to, and it is heard.  The problem is one of degree, which is one of the incoherence of the messenger and the weakness of his voice in the great gale of Establishment messaging (and that, of course, extends to the enworldment of Man in its religious, philosophical, social, cultural and political entirety).

Posted by Thorn on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 14:32 | #

American whites have - or had - an American ethnicity.

In a nutshell:

“In the context of the United States, ethnicity refers to a shared cultural heritage, including language, traditions, beliefs, and ancestry, that distinguishes a group of people, often distinct from their racial background.”

Of course the American ethnicity has been undermined and deconstructed by filthy cultural-Marxists over the last 60 years. Everything the left touches, it destroys.

Posted by Thorn on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 15:20 | #

This depicts the typical public school classroom during the 1960s - back when white kids made up 90% of the U.S. population. It shows kids reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. It was recited at the beginning of every school day. The purpose was/is to instill loyalty and patriotism. It worked.

Now, in 2025, thanks to leftists, white kids in that age group comprise less than 45% of the U.S. pop. and are taught CRT, gender perversity, etc. 

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 16:13 | #

Depending on the geography and on the similarity and segregation of the group, ethnicity takes many centuries to generate on the soil in the form of shared distinctive genes.  The English emerged as a national group some five hundred years after the commencement of the Saxon migration, but even today that group contains north-south and east-west variation.  This is the way of things.  It may take in the low thousands of years for European-Americans to ethnicise, ie, generate a shared distinctiveness.  Of course, it has nothing to do with saluting the flag.  We are not talking about culture here.

Posted by Thorn on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 19:29 | #

GW,

White Americanos established their own ethnicity relatively swiftly (~ 200 years), owing to several factors, including:

1) We all originated from Europe. I.e. we are of the same race, the same overall gene pool. Only very minor genetic/haplogroup dissimilarities among us.
2) Adopted English as our language.
3) Christianity was the predominant religion and served as the foundation for our laws and values. 
4) The public school system provided students with a standardized curriculum.
5) There was minimal resistance to the integration of the various European ethnicities.  They share neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces and intermarriage between those groups was the norm. (Note: The Nordic and Med ethnicities took a little longer to fully accept each other.)

Of course, there are additional factors but those should suffice.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 20:07 | #

Ethnicity is validated by shared distinctive genes developed on the soil.  Nothing whatever to do with gods or language, or educational standardisation.  It is not demonstrated by these things.  It is not demonstrated by openness to migration.

One must be precise and clear about this, and not indulge in make-believe.  When there are no Italian Americans, no German Americans, no WASPS, nothing of the Old World but white Americans pure and simple, then one may speak of a white American ethnicity.  But today we are a very great distance from that.  It is for your distant posterity to know and live.

Posted by Thorn on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 21:24 | #

“Ethnicity is validated by shared distinctive genes developed on the soil.”

Race is frequently an identifier of, or intertwined with, a person’s or a group’s ethnicity but not always a necessary component.

I think ethnicity can be most accurately described or defined as follows:

>The word ethnicity is derived from the Greek word ‘Ethnos’ which means people who have the same distinctive culture.

>A group of people who identify themselves in terms of their social, cultural, language, religion or national experience.

>Ethnicity can also be reflected through common traditional clothing, music, arts, etc.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 27 Mar 2025 22:47 | #

Thorn, if you are a liberal, foundationally speaking, you reject nature and choose nurture, you reject relation and choose culture, you reject nationalism and choose patriotism, and so on.  If you are a nationalist, of course, you know that nature and kind and nationalist politics are the universal currency of Man.  America is a liberal project, so it is to be expected that liberal desiderata will be prominent in the assumptions of Americans.  It will be harder for them to separate from the world about them, which existed before them and which is the world they will themselves pass on.  But in the bloodlands of the Old World it is different.  I can be a nationalist and a nativist, and - certainly intellectually - stand apart from the liberal world (into which I too was born).  Accordingly, I choose nature, relation, and the politics of my people’s right and interests on the soil.  I am hoping that you might move on from the foundationally liberal content of MAGA, and do likewise.  You’re not actually all that far away.  You can do it!

Posted by Thorn on Fri, 28 Mar 2025 12:03 | #

I think you are confusing the ethnicity of the native European populations with their haplogroups. More to the point, the English haplogroup evolved (via migration and mutations selected for fitness) over tens of thousands of years resulting in modern day population of English men and women. Preserving the English haplogroup is what you are most concerned with. For that matter, that is the main reason for supporting the nature side of the debate.

Of course, leftists disparage and malign us with term “scientific racists” for referencing the genetic basis for the many differences between human populations, specifically racial differences.

Posted by Guessedworker on Fri, 28 Mar 2025 17:52 | #

The formal definition for Haplogroup is more slippery than you think:

A genetic population group of people who share a common ancestor on the patriline or the matriline.

The problem is the “or”.  A living example of the definition is the Judaic definition of Jews as a matrilinear descent group on the basis that every human being knows its mother but not necessarily its father.  My use of Ethnicity is “wholly” drawn from my definition of the English people, thus:

Subject to gene-flow from neighbouring territories, the English are the people wholly related to the non-immigrants, non-Irish and non-Jews present in England on 22nd June 1948, when the HMT Empire Windrush sailed into British territorial waters.

This definition incorporates “classic” gene-flow from a neighbouring territory, such flow being one of the four processes of genetic variation in Nature, as well as a temporal component excluding from that process the politically-engineered migrations since the post-WW2 period.  I would propose that any ethnic group can use such a definitional form to define itself.  If done properly, definitions will be exactly as particular and varied as the groups themselves.

Ethnic nationalism is currently defined by various mainstream intellectuals, none of whom are nationalists and most of whom are in the game in order to “save” it from its own truth.  I am concerned to uncover that truth in its full and, as always, foundational rigour.

Posted by Thorn on Fri, 28 Mar 2025 20:46 | #

Our worldview is not for the liberal mind to explain to us

That’s a good essay, GW.