The nightmare would be only for Russian red color communists and propagandist because before they hit the button a rain of missiles would detonate in Russia making the dictator Putin and friends disappear from existence

Many in the US defense establishment—the military, government, think tanks, and industry—justify the rapid and expensive modernization of the US nuclear weapon complex, and promote the perception that a nuclear war can be won and fought. In fact, in the event of limited nuclear war, the United States has plans in place to beat its adversaries - by aiming nuclear weapons primarily at military targets to minimize the number of nuclear weapons that the adversary could launch. ✔️

By empowering Ukraine’s conventional warfare to expel Russian troops from what are⁠—following the annexation of the four former Ukrainian territories (Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson) last September⁠—permanently part of the Russian Federation, NATO would be potentially creating the conditions under which Russia would be able to doctrinally employ nuclear weapons. NATO still doesn’t get it that a nuclear power’s loss of a conventional war can lead to a nuclear one. ✔️

This point in the war when even the warmongers can see the game's up is perhaps a good point to examine how we in Europe got into this mess and what will come of it.

The prime difficulty lies in ignorance. Very few in the general public in Europe know what's been happening in the Donbas. And any attempt to get across what's been happening is now too late.

Via news articles, politicians' statements, via all the media, a monster has now been created. Russia. Any information showing what has been happening in the Donbass is automatically dismissed by most in the European population as propaganda put out by that monster. Or at least in the European countries I know, Germany and England, and in what little I read or hear off in other European media.

And if you don't know at least a little of what's been happening in the Donbass or elsewhere in the Ukraine. particularly in the run-up to last February, then there's no chance of making sense of the SMO. There is such a thing as proxy war fever and most of us in Europe have it.

Not always that proxy or indirect, either. And apart from the Liberals or Atlanticists, the quisling Russians who figure so largely in the Western media, I get the sense that the Russians are aware of the danger posed by this hatred, a hatred felt by an entire continent that has now been roused against them.

Just as well then that, apart from the now significant casualties the Russian soldiers have taken, this European hatred can find no effective outlet that will harm Russia. The "monster" that wickedly effective information war has created in the European imagination will emerge unscathed. Mr Kinzhal and Mr Zircon and various other bits and pieces will see to that.

Instead, this war will end with the extremist Ukrainian nationalists defanged. It will end when no part of the Ukraine can again become a spearhead for aggression to be used as desired by the neocon faction now in power in Washington. It can only end like that because there is now no other ending possible.

I doubt that ending will harm the ordinary American much. The American problems result mainly from internal political strife. That may or may not lead to consequences harmful to them but if it does it will not be as a result of losing this war. When it comes to it a continent that can feed and power itself, if it can get itself organised, has nothing much to fear from this defeat. In any case I get the feeling that outside the admittedly large and influential East European section of the American population, there's not that much gut Russia-hate going about in the wider American population.

In Europe it'll be different. That continent has been well taught to hate and has learned its lesson well. Result? The trade war that the Washington hard liners hoped would break Russia will now rebound on us. I don't believe there's that much prospect of repairing the damage. And it's unlikely there'll be a rational "New European Security Architecture" arrived at. The hatred of the monster felt by the generality of the European population will mean we spend our resources, such resources as we have, in arming our forces and conducting incessant exercises along the Russian border.

And it'll be a less pleasant place to live in, this new Europe the war has brought us. Dissent is already being penalised and will be penalised more so in future. The real political and economic problems we in Europe face will be side-lined in the hubbub of the new Cold War. The old moribund elites will stay in the saddle and I suppose it's safer that way for me and my children: Europe has no good record when it comes to shifting dysfunctional regimes and replacing them with a better. The continent that dominated the planet for five centuries will now become a backwater. It's been a cultural backwater for several decades, in truth, and now it'll be a trading backwater as well.

All so dumb. So unnecessary. So Europe, I suppose.

Negative views of Russia due to their invasion of Ukraine are largely confined to Europe and other liberal democracies. The countries with a widely held most negative view of Russia include Poland, Ukraine, Portugal, Italy, U.K., Sweden, U.S. and Germany, in that order. 20 European countries favour cutting economic ties with Europe. In stark contrast, as the annual global survey in 2022 of attitudes to democracy had found, many countries maintain positive views of Russia. Such views have been retained in China, India, Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. ✔️

I certainly won't be shocked if Europe is a worse place to live, after their embrace of post Crimean-annexation Russian energy, and the subsequent realization that being blackmailed is bad. Does Russia bear any responsibility for this war, in your view?

Scott Ritter is an absolute clown. If anyone doubts me, listen to this pre-invasion interview where he predicts Russia will be spending more time taking Ukrainians prisoners than actually fighting them. https://anchor.fm/red-star-...

Why does this website host articles from such a clown, who has also been convicted of sex crimes involving minors?

Scott Ritter is such a brilliant analyst that in January, on Red Star Radio, he predicted Russia would spend more time taking Ukrainian prisoners than actually fighting. Truly a top mind. Thank you, Canadian Dimension, for bringing us this brilliant man's writings.

"Persepolis" - I should mention that the writer of the article has a background that makes him ideally suited for evaluating this conflict. It's worth saying that there are now a host of military/intelligence/ Russian affairs experts such as Scott Ritter without whom any close examination of this conflict would be difficult indeed.

You have two that I know of in Canada, Professor Robinson and Patrick Armstrong. They join a host of American and European experts on the subject. Given the pressure such people are under not to speak out we may be grateful that they provide a corrective to the flawed account of this conflict provided for us by the Western media.

"English Outsider" - If he is ideally suited for this analysis, why was his pre-war predictions made in January, on the Red Star Radio show so wholly and thoroughly incorrect?

I don't knew what predictions those were, but back then who could have believed that Washington would be so foolish as to provoke the Russians to military action? Or that the Germans, of all people, would go along with that provocation?

And who could have predicted that the resultant military action would take the form it did?

So most of us, mere onlookers like you and me or expert analysts who knew their way around, were fooled twice. Once by Washington and then by Moscow.

He said that Russia would spend more time taking Ukrainian prisoners than fighting Ukrainians. He said that Ukraine had no will or ability to fight. He said that Russian gas would be more valuable to Europe after they invaded Ukraine. Really, there are too many things that he got wrong to list.

Instead of addressing them, or listening to the interview I directed you to, you blame America and Germany for tricking Putin into a murderous, illegal war of imperial expansion?

I know at least one commenter who predicted Ukraine would put up a fierce fight, but they are anti-Putin and work for mainstream media, so I am sure you would dismiss them automatically, despite them having a good track record, and Ritter having an abysmal one.

It is disappointing to find such cultural reactionaries when looking for Canadian leftists.

" ... for tricking Putin into a murderous, illegal war of imperial expansion?"

An examination of the circumstances along the LoC in February 2022 shows that the Russians had no choice but to take military action. Had the Russians not moved many living in the Donbass would now be dead or would have been subjected to ethnic cleansing.

So it was a forced move. The nature of the move was not important. What was important was that the Russians were forced to move. That enabled the implementation of the "Shock and Awe" sanctions that were expressly designed to bring down the Russian economy.

Excuse me, but what is the evidence that ethnic cleansing was imminent?

This is an extraordinary claim I haven't even heard Putin make!

I look forward to a presentation of your evidence to back this assertion.

"This is an extraordinary claim I haven't even heard Putin make!"

It's the justification for the SMO, Persepolis. The only justification.

After all, the other things the analysts are always mentioning - NATO's eastward movement. missile threats etc. - didn't have to be dealt with by invading. There were plenty of other actions the Russians could have taken to counter that.

And in fact those things the analysts always mention weren't dealt with by military action. As is now obvious. Those are matters that will have to be resolved after the war.*

But there was nothing that could have been done to counter the threat posed along the LoC to the Donbass other than what was done. Taking urgent military action to prevent that threat becoming reality.

From memory, the threat posed along the LoC to the Donbass has been mentioned many times by the Russians. But Putin's speech on 24th February 2022, spells that threat out clearly.

"This brings me to the situation in Donbass. We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014 have seized power, are keeping it with the help of ornamental election procedures and have abandoned the path of a peaceful conflict settlement. For eight years, for eight endless years we have been doing everything possible to settle the situation by peaceful political means. Everything was in vain.

"As I said in my previous address, you cannot look without compassion at what is happening there. It became impossible to tolerate it. We had to stop that atrocity, that genocide of the millions of people who live there and who pinned their hopes on Russia, on all of us. It is their aspirations, the feelings and pain of these people that were the main motivating force behind our decision to recognise the independence of the Donbass people’s republics."

http://en.kremlin.ru/events...

...............................

Edit. I added to my reply to you "Those are matters that will have to be resolved after the war."

That's now the central question that I don't see examined in Europe at all. Earlier on, at the time of his "NATO is brain dead" speech, Macron mentioned the need for a new"European Security Architecture".

But that discussion has now pretty well gone dead. Merkel, in her Munich speech at the SDZ anniversary celebrations, mentioned that there'd need to be some accommodation with the Russians afterwards and that accommodation will be in the minds of most of the European leaders.

But not on their tongues. From all those leader we still hear the Scholz/Stoltenberg line: remilitarisation, strengthening of NATO, perpetual conflict with an imperialist Russia etc..

We'll continue to hear that line. The European publics are now so convinced that Russia is in the wrong and Putin the embodiment of evil that it'll be difficult for the European politicians to row back.

So we know what the European position is likely to be. What of the Russians? After the war is finished, will they then return to their late 2021 security demands. And if so, given they are likely to meet with no useful response to those demands from the European leaders, what steps if any will they take to get a response to those demands?

Those are the questions we in Europe should now be asking, rather than doggedly insisting on the escalation of military activity that, as the Scott Ritter article above points out forcefully, can result in no improvement of the military situation for Kiev.

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Thanks for the reply, I remember the justification was denazification, demilitarization and the biolabs. I guess I missed that genocide claim.

So you have a claim from Putin: "It became impossible to tolerate it. We had to stop that atrocity, that genocide of the millions of people who live there and who pinned their hopes on Russia, on all of us."

What "genocide of millions" is he referring to stopping? He says it has been stopped already, and this is on the eve of the war. Do you have evidence of this genocide of millions?

Are you not reminded of the rhetoric of American imperialism in Vietnam? "We must destroy the village in order to save it!"

If his goal was to protect Donbas, why attack Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv and steal Europe's largest nuclear reactor?

The fact is, there was no genocide in Donbas, it wasn't stopped by anyone because it simply wasn't occurring. You have no evidence of any genocide occurring. You have a claim by a known liar, Putin, who also claimed there wouldn't be a war. You've been duped by an imperialist, just like Americans who were duped by Bush and Cheney over Iraq.

Well, there we have it. If one doesn't believe there was a real threat to the people of the Donbass then Russian military action was unjustified. If one believes there was a real threat, then Russian military action was justified.

So it comes down to a question of fact. I doubt the facts will be known in the West outside a small minority. Very few in the West followed with any attention what had been happening in Ukraine for the past eight years and more. Few knew of Minsk 2. Almost none knew what had been happening along the LoC in February 2022.

So for most in the Western public, ignorant of what had been happening, all they saw was a powerful country invading a weaker. They knew no more than that. Another fine Canadian, Eva Bartlett, said recently from the Donbass, “I don’t really blame the Western public for being ill-informed about what’s happening here”. And the response of the Western public to this conflict will continue to be determined by that lack of knowledge.

I have been following the conflict for much longer than February 24, 2022. I know all about Igor Girkin and his band of thugs supported by the Russian military, MH-17, the battles for the Donbas Airport, the missile attack on Mariupol in 2015, etc. etc.

I see a lot of rhetoric from you, but no evidence of this imminent genocide that had to be stopped.

The truth is that there were some discriminatory language laws and some rioting stirred up by Russia, and then Ukraine had to assert control over the territory, just as any other sovereign nation would. See Canada and the FLQ.

If you have actual evidence of imminent genocide, show it, please. Just as Putin should have shown it to the UN.

Apologies if I implied you personally were not well informed. I was referring to the mass of the variou Western electorates.

Girkin/Strelkov is a chump and gets far too much attention. You can tell this from various statements he's made and from a long interview with him put out by the Saker way back. He got torn to pieces and rightly so. Believes, or says he believes, that Ukraine is crammed full of Russophiles just waiting to be liberated. You know that's nonsense. All know it's nonsense. So best leave him out of the reckoning. Ishchenko has perhaps a more accurate perception of the population mix in the Ukraine and of the true position there, at least from the interviews with him I've seen.

On the doings of C14, Aidar, Azov and such like there's an extensive academic literature on the subject, particularly on the international reach of Azov. Difficult subject to discuss on a Canadian website but there's any amount of material to go at.

Same with atrocities committed. Masses of material but let one item stand for all:-

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Also broadcasts put out on Ukrainian TV and media stating explicitly that the Russian inclined Ukrainian citizens in the Donbass should be killed or otherwise cleared out. Plus a fair bit put out recently showing the animosity between the two major components of the population. The Kurilets video not, oddly enough, the most extreme example of that.

So there's the background. Known to most in Russia, many in the rest of the world, but almost entirely unknown to the peoples of the West.

But it's been the background since before 2014. What was so urgent in February 2022 that justified rolling tanks into the territory of another country? Why the invasion then?

This is where we need to look at the facts carefully. Greatly increased shelling across the LoC targeting civilian settlements in the Donbass. Complete breakdown of Minsk 2. Kiev forces poised on the LoC to invade. Aidar and similar groups with a record of extensive atrocities in the Donbass a component of those forces. Repeated statements in the Kiev media that the Donbass should be cleared of Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens.

Add to that the refusal of Washington to engage in substantive negotiations with Moscow.

Washington's clear intention was to provoke Russian military intervention. That in order to give justification for the "shock and awe" sanctions that had been prepared in advance and that were specifically designed to break the Russian economy.

I'd add to that the plain fact that had the Kiev forces got into the Donbass, and particularly into the major cities, the Russians'd still be clearing them out. Putin would have been derelict in his duty had he not acted.

,

Persepolis - should say, I expanded my earlier reply to you above to touch on the question of the post-war settlement.

Goes to show you never read Scott Ritter:

(1) On how Russian Offensive Will Be A Slaughter For Ukraine. ✔️

(2) On Russia unlikely to trust West after Minsk deal lies. ✔️

(3) On How the US government attempts to control public perception of its aid to Ukraine: the US effort to arm Ukraine looks as if it’s been curated by the Biden administration to shape public perception. ✔️

(4) On NATO in the horns of a dilemma after former Ukrainian regions vote to join Russia: Moscow is flipping the bloc's script by moving to absorb Kiev's lost lands, thus switching the fight to its own turf. ✔️