3 December 2024, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
Simplicius the Thinker posted on December 2nd one of his best-ever status-reports on the war in Ukraine, under the title of “SITREP 12/2/24: Europe's Bigs Scramble Across Globe for Last Minute Jockeying”, and it documents that Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in Ukraine and his Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is in China, both of them trying to engineer a deal to end the war in Ukraine as unfavorably for Russia as possible, and more favorably for the U.S. empire than they expect that President Trump would do, for which reason their goal is to get this done before Trump comes into office on January 20th. His article also documents that the deal that Trump would offer would fail to meet the requirements that Putin has repeatedly laid out as being Russia’s minimally acceptable end to this war, which is (to summarize that):
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1. Permanent commitment by the U.S. empire to never accept Ukraine into NATO (because Ukraine is the only country that’s a mere 300 miles or 5 minutes of missile-flying-time away from blitz-nuking The Kremlin and thus decapitating Russia’s Government).
2. Permanent commitment of NATO to accept no new members.
3 De-nazification of Ukraine (permanent exclusion from Ukraine’s Government of all persons who had ever been members of either of Ukraine’s two racist-fascist-imperialist, or “nazi,” political Parties, the Right Sector, and the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine, or else a member of Ukraine’s equally nazi Azov Battalion).
That 3,700-word speech, which Putin delivered on the day of the invasion, 24 February 2022, to explain why Russia was invading Ukraine, but which speech has not been reported to the publics in the U.S. empire (so that their ‘news’-media could misrepresent why), boils down to this summary I just gave (even though he excluded to even mention the 300 miles or 5 minutes of missile-flying time, perhaps because he didn’t want to terrify his people about what the U.S. Government is intending to do to them and how they intend to do it — by decapitating their nation’s central command so as to leave their country to be raped by the hyper-imperialistic U.S.-and-allied rulers).
Putin’s speech, which, as usual, was loaded with distractionary details and also missed some of the essential details (such as I just mentioned in parentheses), included his saying that, “It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force.” There is NO indication that he was speaking untruthfully at that time, but the ceaselessly increasing U.S.-and-allied effort to defeat Russia in Ukraine has compelled him to abandon that unrealistic position, and this fact shows that, at that time, he was unrealistically optimistic about the intentions of Russia’s enemies — which are — and since 1945 have been — to conquer (take control of) Russia. (Maybe he is very reluctantly coming to his senses about that — after his expectations about it had already been violated even before he came into office on 1 January 2000. One would hope that he has finallycome to recognize the reality about his enemy.)
In other words: the effort by America’s colony Germany to engineer an end to this war before Trump comes into office, and also Trump’s effort to compel Russia to accept a settlement of that war upon terms that likewise clearly FAIL to meet the three minimal conditions that Putin had stated on 24 February 2022, BOTH will fail; and, so, the ONLY way that this war will end is either by Russia’s taking ALL of Ukraine (since that would be the ONLY way that Putin’s condition #3, denazification, can be achieved), or else, by America’s empire (including this post-coup Ukraine) conquering and absorbing Russia. It will be one way or the other: Russia will take all of Ukraine, or America will take all of Russia. I cannot see any other end to this war. For Russia, what is at stake is its very existence as an independent country; for its enemy, the U.S. empire, what is at stake is its continued dominance over the entire world. Those are the stakes, for each of the two sides.
Since Putin’s speech on 24 February 2022 has been hidden in The West, I shall here present excerpts from it (1,400 words), with none of its flab (62% of the 3,700 words) included [and my added comments included between brackets]:
In my address on February 21, 2022. I spoke about our biggest concerns and worries, and about the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year. I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.
It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.
Why is this happening? Where did this insolent manner of talking down from the height of their exceptionalism, infallibility and all-permissiveness come from? What is the explanation for this contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely legitimate demands? …
What I am saying now does not concern only Russia, and Russia is not the only country that is worried about this. This has to do with the entire system of international relations. ...
First a bloody military operation was waged against Belgrade, without the UN Security Council’s sanction but with combat aircraft and missiles used in the heart of Europe. The bombing of peaceful cities and vital infrastructure went on for several weeks. I have to recall these facts, because some Western colleagues prefer to forget them, and when we mentioned the event, they preferred to avoid speaking about international law, instead emphasising the circumstances which they interpret as they think necessary.
Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya and Syria. The illegal use of military power against Libya and the distortion of all the UN Security Council decisions on Libya ruined the state, created a huge seat of international terrorism, and pushed the country towards a humanitarian catastrophe, into the vortex of a civil war, which has continued there for years. The tragedy, which was created for hundreds of thousands and even millions of people not only in Libya but in the whole region, has led to a large-scale exodus from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe.
A similar fate was also prepared for Syria. The combat operations conducted by the Western coalition in that country without the Syrian government’s approval or UN Security Council’s sanction can only be defined as aggression and intervention.
But the example that stands apart from the above events is, of course, the invasion of Iraq without any legal grounds. They used the pretext of allegedly reliable information available in the United States about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To prove that allegation, the US Secretary of State held up a vial with white powder, publicly, for the whole world to see, assuring the international community that it was a chemical warfare agent created in Iraq. It later turned out that all of that was a fake and a sham, and that Iraq did not have any chemical weapons. …
Nearly everywhere, in many regions of the world where the United States brought its law and order, this created bloody, non-healing wounds and the curse of international terrorism and extremism. …
This array includes [violations of U.S.-and-allied] promises not to expand NATO eastwards even by an inch. To reiterate: they have deceived us, or, to put it simply, they have played us. Sure, one often hears that politics is a dirty business. It could be, but it shouldn’t be as dirty as it is now, not to such an extent. This type of con-artist behaviour is contrary not only to the principles of international relations but also, and above all, to the generally accepted norms of morality and ethics. …
The whole so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and likeness is, in its entirety, the very same “empire of lies.” …
In the 1990s and the early 2000s, when the so-called collective West was actively supporting separatism and gangs of mercenaries in southern Russia, what victims, what losses we had to sustain, and what trials we had to go through at that time, before we broke the back of international terrorism in the Caucasus! We remember this, and will never forget. …
In December 2021, we made yet another attempt to reach agreement with the United States and its allies on the principles of European security and NATO’s non-expansion. Our efforts were in vain. The United States has not changed its position. It does not believe it necessary to agree with Russia on a matter that is critical for us. The United States is pursuing its own objectives, while neglecting our interests. …
In 1940 and early 1941 the Soviet Union went to great lengths to prevent war or at least delay its outbreak. To this end, the USSR sought not to provoke the potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself from an imminent attack [by Hitler]. When it finally acted, it was too late.
As a result, the country was not prepared to counter the invasion by Nazi Germany, which attacked our Motherland on June 22, 1941, without declaring war. The country stopped the enemy and went on to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost. The attempt to appease the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake, which came at a high cost for our people. …
Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as their enemy. They did so with impunity. Make no mistake, they had no reason to act this way. …
A military presence in territories bordering on Russia, if we permit it to go ahead, will stay for decades to come or maybe forever, creating an ever mounting and totally unacceptable threat for Russia. …
Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory, are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy. The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which [in the case of Ukraine] I have to note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside [by the U.S. Government, since 2014], it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.
For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing [and ultimately CONQUERING — but he STILL refuses to acknowledge this reality] Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death. …
This brings me to the situation in Donbass. We can see that the forces that staged [I have added the link here to the documentation of] 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. …
They will undoubtedly try to bring war to Crimea, just as they have done in Donbass, to kill innocent people, just as members of the punitive units of Ukrainian nationalists and Hitler’s accomplices did during the Great Patriotic War. They have also openly laid claim to several other Russian regions. …
They did not leave us any other option for defending Russia and our people, other than the one we are forced to use today. …
In accordance with Article 51 (Chapter VII) of the UN Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22, I made a decision to carry out a special military operation.
The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.
It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force. …
The current events have nothing to do with a desire to infringe on the interests of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. They are connected with the defending Russia from those who have taken Ukraine hostage and are trying to use it against our country and our people. …
Putin still calls this a “Special Military Operation,” like his original 24 February 2022, one, was; but it has by now long since (after the U.S.-and-allied greatly increased involvement in it) become instead a war-of-survival for Russia, and for Russians, against the U.S. Government’s till-now-insatiable and ever-expanding empire.
The U.S. empire itself is already collapsing — there is no way now to avoid that, and the neocons (the individuals who insist instead upon its continuing to expand — never to end) are trumpeting from all of their ‘news’-media, how this imperialism must instead be accelerated in order to end the ‘autocracies’ so that the war-loving U.S. Government will continue to dominate the world; but its coming end is increasingly clear by the day now. For example, on December 3rd, Stephen Bryen, who is retired from a decades-long career near the top of America’s Military-Industrial Complex, headlined “Martial Law in Korea: A Disaster for South Korea and the United States: Unless ended quickly the US-Korea alliance may collapse”. This isn’t mere bluster from him: it is the reality, which all of us are experiencing, even those of us who are ignorant of all this. Trump is hardly a person who would accept any such reality (no more than Biden is), but will he blow up the entire world in order to continue this empire? Certainly, his demands upon Russia will need to be stripped of their violations of all three of the demands that Russia won’t compromise upon and that Putin laid out in his 24 February 2022 speech, if WW3 is to be avoided. And he must likewise recognize — as the U.S. Government formally did in the Shanghai Communique signed by both China and the United States — that “Taiwan is a part of China” — which, likewise, China will not compromise upon, if Taiwan (with all the urging of the U.S. Government) publicly announces that it is NOT a part.
This empire — like all empires in the past — will end. Either the U.S. Government will accept this, or else we all shall end because it won’t do so.
Russia needs Ukraine to get rid of all its nazis in government and in its media. America needs to get rid of all its neoconservatives (which are America’s version of nazis) in its government and in its media. If both things will happen, then we’ll get through this.
PS: If you like this article, please email it to all your friends or otherwise let others know about it. None of the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media will likely publish it (nor link to it, since doing that might also hurt them with Google or etc.). I am not asking for money, but I am asking my readers to spread my articles far and wide, because I specialize in documenting what the Deep State is constantly hiding. This is, in fact, today’s samizdat.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
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