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Here’s Tsarev’s essay in English (original in Russian).

A slave does not seek freedom. A slave seeks a good master.

This is not said out loud, but what you see in the video is the basis – the foundation of Ukrainian separatism. That’s what 90% of the Ukrainian population thinks.

“When they start building skyscrapers in Russia like in Dubai, when they start giving away 100 million dollars (?!), when Russia starts blossoming and smelling, then we will turn around and ask ourselves: look, they have so much money, nowhere to spend it, in that case we won’t need independence either”.

After perestroika in Ukraine they decided that Russia was no longer their big brother. Then the time passed. Russia has risen from its knees, but the myth has remained: the Ukraine must look for a new master. The best is the USA, but Europe will do. Think about why Ukrainians are being told stories that they will be accepted into the EU and that they will live like Europeans, while Russian soldiers are stealing toilets and washing machines. It’s exactly this which underlies the real ideology of the Ukraine. Bandera and the like are only outward attributes. Truly it is a desire for a better life. They are fighting to live like in Europe, not like in Russia.

You know, I have been writing for eight years about the need to deal with Donbass. If the efforts that are now being made to make life better in the Donbass had been made earlier, the SMO would not have been needed. Donbass has been a grey area for eight years, with all its consequences. In Ukraine, Donbass has been turned into a scarecrow for the Russian-speaking regions: If you want to live like Donbass, support Russia.

Why do I often write about the economy, the Central Bank and corruption? Because if, to repeat after the Ukrainian in the video, if Russia was like Dubai, the SMO would not be needed. All the former republics of the Soviet Union, and possibly some of the former territories of the Russian Empire in Europe, would have voluntarily joined the alliance with Russia. And there were all preconditions to make life better. Russia, unlike the UAE, is not a desert. The biggest territory, the richest in natural resources, populated by intelligent, hard-working people.

Russians deserve to live better. Then there won’t be a need for wars either.

It’s darkly amusing that in Tsarev’s video source, the Ukrainian everyman insists that the Russian State should be handing out $100 million to each citizen. This is typical of the unrealistic expectations of Ukrainians. They seem to have watched The Wizard of Oz way too many times – “Follow the Yellow Brick Road”. Someday, someone will have to break it to them, there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There’s hard work (to get you off the ground) and good timing/luck (to carry you higher) in an environment where those attributes are rewarded. Most citizens are not millionaires. To fall into the top 10% richest families in Canada required just an annual income of CAD$200,000 in 2022.

Still Tsarev is on to something here. Grozny was rebuilt as a model city and Tsetchens are among the most patriotic citizens of the Russian Federation.

Tsarev exaggerates the difference between life in Russia and life in Europe. Palaces in Spain are in a song, Europe is also vast and varied. But yes, the general standard of living in Northern Europe is quite high. We face huge issues in Europe as well, particularly since the Covid-19 lockdowns and new energy crisis. Small companies are closing their doors, more and more Europeans are dependent on multinationals, economic inequality increases with each year. The rich get richer and the rest of us get poorer. The statistics here don’t lie about the division of income.

In the face of heavy economic headwinds, the last thing the Ukraine needed, or Europe needed or Russia needed was a war in Ukraine. There’s only two beneficiaries to this conflict: the United States and the UK. The USA has the opportunity to ruin its competitors (Europe, Russia) at the cost of a state which is of no value to the USA (Ukraine) or even negative value (if the Ukraine rejoined Russia in a common Russian World). The UK has the opportunity to demonstrate its value to its major trading partner (the USA) and to show off its underused assets (espionage and sabotage), potentially acquiring effective control over part of Europe, despite leaving the EU.

What’s interesting here is that Russia may yet come out ahead in this economic footrace to win Ukraine’s heart via quality of life. With the economic disruption taking place in the EU and the internal boom in Russia from increased economic activity to cover sanctions, Russia may offer more opportunities for economic improvement than any other near neighbour. The EU cannot keep the Ukraine waiting like a bride at the altar forever. The only way the EU could hold Ukraine’s heart would be to break all its own internal rules and admit the Ukraine as a full member, which the EU cannot afford to do. The USA only has money for war, not for rebuilding. What money is spent on rebuilding is spent with US firms and in crooked contracts.

Both China and Russia have invested enormously in infrastructure in the last ten years and both Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin intend to continue on that path.

The Moscow skyline is unrecognisable in the good sense. Very sensibly the skyscrapers are restricted to a single district, just outside the centre of the city as in Paris (La Défense). When the Russian New Territories (that’s what the Russian are calling Kherson, Zaporozhe, Donbass and Luhansk regions collectively) gleam and their citizens live in attractive homes with low unemployment, the path back to Ukraine’s natural economic partner and native cultural space will look a great deal attractive.

Something similar has already happened in Crimea. Crimea generally and Sevastopol in particular have enjoyed a huge investment in its communal infrastructure since rejoining the Russian Federation in 2014. No one in Crimea would even consider going back to the stagnation which their region suffered under Ukrainian administration.

Russia’s best move is to make the same thing happen in the New Territories. It would suit transplanted Ukrainians like Tsarev just fine. Like any Ukrainian (or anyone else), Oleg Tsarev would love to live surrounded by plenty in a prosperous city.

Photo of Grozny by Timur Agirov via Russia Trek. Photo of Moscow skyline by Deensel.

These are the comparative total troop strengths of NATO’s armed forces “juggernauts” between 1990 and 2021 that are now passing out “the check’s in the mail” promises to Ukraine:

Country      1990      2021      Change
Germany      545k     189k       -65%
Italy        493k     174k       -65%
France       548k     208k       -62%
Spain        263k     124k       -53%
UK           308k     156k       -49%
Turkey       769k     445k       -42%
USA        2,181k   1,352k       -38%

Similar declines occurred in their available stocks of artillery, tanks, armored personnel carriers, aircraft, ships, etc.

In fairness, the Russian numbers of men under arms are much lower than in Soviet times. Heck the Ukrainians would be listed as Soviet forces.

Still judging by the enthusiasm of the Europeans surrounding me to give up their world of hedonism-lite to march to war, it’s extremely unlikely that most of those countries outside of Turkey and the US would be able to successfully implement a draft.

Pineo argues that:

All these countries have reduced their military spending for two reasons:

1. They can’t afford to have an effective military.
2. They will let the US protect them fro free.

I’m very tired of the US for free argument, when in fact it’s the US dragging our European neighbours into foreign wars.

A better reason for European countries to reduce their standing military is that there is no threat.

Until Washington and its Atlantic Council lackeys executed a coup-d’état in Kiev in 2014 and then blew up Nordstream in 2022, the Russians were Europe’s best commercial partners. There was no external enemy until one was fabricated.

Large military costs money. This means less money for education, health care, social security and all the other good things modern social democracies can offer its citizens. Launching wars of choice is usually an indication that your leaders are either evil or stupid (or possibly both).²

COVID-19 might be the catalyst to allow Orlov to watch his vision of the self-destruction of the USSR’s Cold War Rival in his lifetime in his lifetime

The COVID-19 pandemic is the kind of unexpected event which shakes the foundation of an economy and a social system. Much like World War I shook Imperial Russia, who had been making steady progress on economic and social reform under Nikolai II since the failed revolutions of 1905. The additional burden of manning and paying for a war effort left the barnyard door wide open for Bolshevik revolutionaries to rabble rouse.

Astute commenter vk at Moon of Alabama makes a persuasive argument that COVID-19 fallout could very well end with the Balkanization of the United States

2) It’s very unlikely the USA will collapse in a single historical event. As a capitalist nation, the USA is much more decentralized, fragmented and anarchic (in production and distribution of the wealth it produces and consumes) than the USSR. The USSR was a centrally planned economy: when Gorbachev committed the mistake of demoralizing and destroying the CPSU, he automatically destroyed the USSR. That will not be the case of the USA: the fall of Washington D.C. – or even Wall Street – would not be the immediate end of the USA.

The most likely scenario for an end of the USA would be for a gradual and constant degeneration of its social structure, with or without balkanization (probably with). This balkanization would be very violent, because local capitalists would assemble private armies and fight against each other for supremacy and the reunification of the USA (a la Roman Empire). It would be a Mad Max cum Yugoslavia scenario. The problem with this is: who would be in control of the American nuclear arsenal? Will the USAAF be capable of stopping with the balkanization process and thus keep the country united?

Will the USA anihilate the rest of the world before it would disappear, in an act of nihilism? A lot of known unknowns – let alone unknown unknowns.

Will the economic breakdown and mass unemployment consequent to COVID-19 measures end with Americans fighting one another in gangs like the rats warring in the restaurant districts of New Orleans and New York?

[fvplayer src=”https://youtube.com/watch?v=-b0Okj94znc” splash=”https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-b0Okj94znc/maxresdefault.jpg” caption=”Coronavirus precautions lead to rat problem in New Orleans”]

An even more interesting question is what would the disintegration of the USA mean to the rest of the world. Would the world be better off?

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Featured image by John Paul Goguen, licensed under CC Attribution.

The reason Assange was dragged out of the Embassy this week is that the US had finally given up waiting for the exit of the UK from the EU (no deal Brexit should have taken place last week) and will have to take its chances against EU courts whose standards for human rights – for better or worse – are much higher than those of the United States or Great Britain.

When I was in high school, the USSR was infamous for its persecution of dissidents like writers and thinkers Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov and Vasily Aksyonov. When I grew up, the United States has become infamous for its persecution of dissidents (‘whistleblowers’), suspension of habeas corpus, violation of the Geneva Convention (‘enemy combatants’ and waterboarding) and its executions without trial (drone strikes). In contrast, Russia is now well known for its systematic advocacy for international law and national sovereignty.

What a curious world we live in.