Russia defiant on Ukraine, US pressures notwithstanding!

-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL

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Common play field

Russia is known for its defiance towards the USA whenever its vital national interest or prestige is under serious threat and it has been the USA that runs all over the world to find ways to make Russia   change its petrified anti-US mindset and dance to Washington muse like most of the world powers play very safe games with USA.   

USA and EU have no valid reason to respect Russia, let alone take it as an equal partner for the fact that it was because of Soviet Russia, they had to begin treating small countries seriously, treating poor and working masses indoors with some concern by providing certain basic rights but  yet refused to treat them as important entities.  With the disintegration of mighty Soviet Union, the fearless USA and EU, on the one hand, began reformatting their anti-people policies and, on the other, went all out to make the Kremlin a part of global capitalist and imperialist network. However, Russia began pursuing its own policies, though it supported the NATO wars in Islamic world for certain favors like support for Russian oppressive measures in Chechnya and WTO. . 

Since 2000 Russia became strong, reinvented its fallen economy with upsurge in arms cum oil sales. Vladimir Putin who took over from Boris Yeltsin made the presidency strong by killing the Chechens stock and barrel. Sept-11 offered Putin a great opportunity to come closer to USA to fight “Islamic terrorism” and obtained the assurance form USA and EU to stay away from the Chechnya issue. 

Against the will of US super power, Russian president Vladimir Putin wanted a strong Russia that is economically vibrant, militarily secure and a major player in the international system. In order to achieve it, the strongman Putin provides democracy only that much which does not create obstacles in his way of making Russia a superpower once again.

Russians always look for a new strategy to become a super power and locate a new enemy to rally Putin’s electoral base until election, and to discredit the opposition, to characterize them as being puppets of the United States, which, to some extent, is true.

However, Russia is now under so severe stress that it is unable to pursue its economic policy and its super power status, let alone contain a powerful USA with EU back up.

President Putin delivered his latest state of the nation address on December 04 at a particularly difficult time for Russia as USA and Europe imposed deadly sanctions or economic terrorism, crippling the Russian economy. Russia’s currency — the ruble — hit new lows. To complicate misfortune further, Russian economy has suffered due to a steep drop in oil prices and Western sanctions taking effect. It has dropped more than 40 percent in 2014.

Putin criticized the West over the conflict in Ukraine and over sanctions put in place by the United States and the European Union in response to the Crimea annexation. Putin said the Western policy of containment has been carried out against Russia for many years, always, for decades, if not centuries and the sanctions are just a part of it.  “Whenever someone thinks that Russia has become too strong or independent, these tools are quickly put into use,” he said the West would have found another reason to “contain Russia’s growing capabilities, even if the Ukraine crisis had not happened. “However, talking to Russia from a position of force is an exercise in futility, even when it was faced with domestic hardships, as in the 1990s and early 2000s.” Putin did warn Russians of difficult times ahead, but presented the economic situation as an opportunity. His proposals to bolster the economy included a policy allowing those with offshore accounts to bring money back into Russia with no questions asked, a four-year freeze on tax rates and a pushback against “speculation,” which he blamed for the ruble’s fall. So much so, last week the economic development ministry acknowledged that Russia stood on the edge of a recession.

Despite continuing economic and diplomatic pressure from the West, Putin remained defiant in a speech heavily focused on foreign policy. He defended Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in March saying it held “sacred meaning” for his country.

However, Putin said Russia would not sever ties with the West over the conflict as the 57 members of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) met in Switzerland to discuss a shattered truce agreement between warring parties in eastern Ukraine.

Containment and isolationism

Russia and West are once again in the square one over Ukraine and they are punishing Russia economically by sanctions. The known western policy of Containment and isolationism against Russia is being operated in full strength. Russia, knowing all western tactics, remains defiant.

The crisis between Russia and Ukraine that flared up with Moscow's annexation of Crimea in March can be deescalated as was shown by a tentative October agreement brokered by the EU on gas pricing to try to prevent a supply crisis over the peak winter months. Moscow cut off Kiev's gas in June in a row over unpaid bills and the price Gazprom charges Ukraine and any truce is very uncertain. For the future, the draft welcomed "the prospect of US liquefied natural gas exports" to Europe to diversify supplies.

USA and EU work together on sanctions and on strengthening Europe and Ukraine's energy security as they seek to present a united front to Russia, according to a draft document. Throughout the year, the United States has led the push for tougher sanctions, while many governments in Europe, afraid economic measures on Russia will hurt them as much as they hurt Moscow, have been more cautious.

President Vladimir Putin accused the West of using the Ukraine conflict as a pretext to restrain a muscular Russia with sanctions and defiantly declared that Moscow would overcome the blow to an economy on the brink of recession.

Germany has been Russia's key partner in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but there are signs that Berlin is prepared to change this situation — and the sticking issues will take a long time to resolve and could determine the future of Russia-Europe relations as a whole. Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel toughened her rhetoric on Russian President Vladimir Putin in an apparent sign she is prepared to endure a long-term confrontation. The key issue in this situation was the legality of Russia's Crimea annexation, which is contrary to the EU rhetoric and values. Merkel personally dislikes Putin as a person, so she is putting her stakes on regime change in Russia, which will take some time. She thinks it's impossible to agree upon anything with today's Russia and its leader, who cannot be trusted. Germany has chosen to put the wellbeing of the EU above its own bilateral relations with Russia in deference to the values that define the EU.  Merkel is keenly aware of her country's unofficial role as the leader of the EU, and is exercising caution in the knowledge that other state leaders look to Berlin for guidance. Germany is no longer squeezed between the USA and Russia.  Merkel reportedly told U.S. President Barack Obama that Putin lives "in another world.

US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Russia not to isolate itself “through its own actions” as top diplomats grappled with elusive peace efforts in Ukraine but Moscow lashed out at biting sanctions. Kerry met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the OSCE conference, and accused Moscow of torpedoing the accord it brokered by continuing to support the rebels. “Russia continues to supply new weapons and increase support for armed separatists” in Ukraine, and thus is failing “to live up to an agreement that it actually negotiated and signed”. He insisted however that the United States and countries that support Ukraine’s “sovereignty and rights” do not seek confrontation. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that the eight-month conflict had raised the spectre of “a new division of Europe” as East-West relations plunged to frosty lows not seen since the Cold War.  European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who also held talks with Lavrov, urged Russia to withdraw from Ukraine. “Little can be achieved without Russia’s genuine commitment and constructive engagement,” she said.

Fake democracy alarm

Maybe for fun, Americans and Europeans who equate parasitic and exploitative capitalism and corrupt polls with democracy, claim to be great democrats and asks Arab nations to be imbibe US democracy and effect regime changes to generate puppet regimes to help USA advance its global interests. Moscow very closely follows Washington in policies and formulation of gimmicks to confuse the world.  As USA projects Muslims and Islam as its composite enemy number one in order to claim legitimacy to attack energy rich Muslim nations, followed quickly by Russia and Iran. Such false propaganda helps the US regime and media lords keep the educated Americans in complete darkness about the Sept-11 and US illegal wars against energy rich Muslims nations by blaming all terror operations essentially of USA-Israeli twins on Islam and Arab nations. 

Earlier, the ‘Russian Threat’ justified Nazi Germany’s conquest and occupation of the Ukraine, the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. After Germany’s defeat, division and disarmament, and with the extension of Soviet power, the US reinstated the Nazi industrial and banking giants, officials and intelligence operatives. By the late 1960’s Germany regained economic primacy in Europe and was at the forefront of European ‘integration’, in association with France and England. Germany set the agenda for Western Europe, gaining economic dominance while benefiting from US subversion and encirclement of Eastern Europe, Russia and the Baltic and Balkan states. Germany was transformed from an emerging influential EU partner, into the most dynamic expansionist power in Europe, especially in the former Warsaw Pact economies. The annexation of East Germany and the overthrow of the Communist governments in the East allowed German capitalists to dominate markets in the former Eastern bloc. Germany exported high value industrial products and imported gas, oil and raw materials from Russia. German power expanded exponentially, with the annexation of the “other Germany”, the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe and the ascendancy of client regimes eager and willing to submit to a German dominated European Union and a US directed NATO military command.

While NATO expanded and enhanced the US military presence up to Russia’s borders, Germany became the continent’s pre-eminent economic power. The fortuitous rise of Vladimir Putin and the gradual replacement of some of the most egregious ‘sell-out’ neo-liberal officials, and most important, the reconstruction of the Russian state with a proper budget and functioning national institutions, was immediately perceived as a threat to US military supremacy.  

In the beginning of the new century, Putin and his team set new ground-rules, in which oligarchs could retain their illicit wealth and conglomerates, providing they didn’t use their economic levers to seize state power.  Putin even made overtures to join and co-operate with NATO and the EU. The West did not try to dissuade Putin of his illusions. He envisioned that the West would accept Russia as an economic, political, and even NATO partner. But the western powers escalated their backing for Putin’s internal opposition and prepared a series of imperial wars and sanctions in the Middle East, targeting traditional Russian allies in Iraq, Syria and Libya. The West moved decisively to an ‘outsider strategy’, to isolate, encircle and undermine the Russian state by undermining allies, and trading partners. The efforts by USA-EU to oust Putin and re-establish Western vassal state failed. What worked in 19991 with Yeltsin’s power grab against Gorbachev was ineffective against Putin.

Russia was enticed to support US and NATO wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya in exchange for the promise of deeper integration into Western markets. The US and EU accepted Russian co-operation, including military supply routes and bases, for their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. The NATO powers secured Russian support of sanctions against Iran. They exploited Russia’s naïve support of a “no fly zone” over Libya to launch a full scale aerial war. The US financed so-called “color revolutions” in Georgia and the Ukraine overt. Each violent seizure of power allowed NATO to impose anti-Russian rulers eager and willing to serve as vassal states to Germany and the USA. 

Germany spearheaded the European imperial advance in the Balkans and Moldavia, countries with strong economic ties to Russia. High German officials “visited” the Balkans to bolster their ties with vassal regimes in Slovenia, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Croatia. Germany as EU chief ordered the vassal Bulgarian regime of Boyko  to block the passage of Russian owned South Stream pipeline to Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia and beyond, causing huge loses to all these countries. The USA via NATO is engaged in a vast military build-up along the length and breadth of Russia’s frontier. The NATO Chief Jens Stoltenberg, boasts that over the current year, NATO has increased 5-fold the warplanes and bombers patrolling Russian maritime and land frontiers, carried out military exercises every two days and vastly increased the number of war ships in the Baltic and Black Sea.

In fact, the US-EU seizure of power in Ukraine detonated the current crisis. Ukraine power grab posed a top security threat to the very existence of Russia as an independent state.

Russo-West conflict is perpetual

Ukraine is the most important strategic military platform from which the US-NATO can launch an attack on the Russian heartland, to strangle Russia’s economy via sanctions and dumping oil and to militarily threaten Russia. The USA and German imperial elite, looking beyond Russia, believe that if they control Russia, they can encircle, isolate and attack China from the West as well as the East. As proponents of a permanent war to weaken Arab world, end Russia’s presence in Europe and to undermine China’s emergence as a world power, they are willing to go to the brink of a nuclear war.

Americans do think Putin would have to change his ways to get the endorsement of s Western powers if it is keen to focus on economy and security.   US President Barack Obama said Putin was unlikely to change his stance on Ukraine until he faced domestic pressure within Russia, until the reality of sanctions, which were “having a big bite” on its economy, sunk in but  that will not happen until the politics inside of Russia catches up to what’s happening in the economy inside of Russia, which is part of the reason why we’re going to continue to maintain that pressure.

Observers were looking for any softening in Putin’s stance since low oil prices and sanctions began taking a toll on the Russian economy, but his strident tone suggests Putin may be preparing to double down on his policies. But Putin dismissed Russia’s mounting economic troubles as the economy slides into recession under the pressure of Western sanctions and falling oil prices. “We are ready to take upon any challenge and win,” he told parliament.

Of course, in view of support of the Republicans for all capitalist and imperialist policies he pursues on behalf of crony capitalists, Obama can continue the wars as long he desires and the next president, irrespective of which party makes it, would definitely pursue the Neocons’ horrid war policy to effect regime changes in Mideast and even in Turkey so that only pro-US puppets rule Muslim nations. 

The brutal advantage of US leadership has been the total absence of popular discontentment leading to zero popular demonstrations to end illegal wars and war programs all together.    

USA and EU do not want normal relations with Russia and create obstacles to Putin's efforts to make Russia as a super power. The Western powers have engaged in a series of political and military interventions, eliminating Russian allies, trading partners and independent states.

They do not want to end sanctions and return to normal economic relations with Russia.  They are at totally eliminating Russia’s strategic position in the Black Sea.

Russia and world over must get away from the tyranny of US-NATO militarism and EU economic dictates.