The EU and the US, having used the diplomatic euphimism of a Russian 'incursion' into Ukraine, instead of what really is happening viz. a Russion 'invasion', are finally biting the bullet and beginning to supply Ukraine with arms. “I have no right to disclose any specific country we reached that
agreement with,” Ukrainian defence minister Valery Heletey said on
Sunday [14th September], “but the fact is that those weapons are already on the way to
us," the Ukrainian Unian news agency reports him as saying.“To stop Putin we need weapons,” he said. Also, Minister Siemoniak of Poland said that "the Kiev government was
free to agree arms deals with whom it chooses, and Poland would comply if
a request was made. If Ukraine expresses willingness to place an order, our defence industry will certainly be ready to comply.”
Furthermore, on this day, the 15th September 2014, 15 nations will begin the 'Rapid Trident 2014' exercises, comprising around 1300 soldiers, in the Yavoriv training centre inside of Ukraine and near it's border with Poland. Taking part in these exercises will be Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Canada, Georgia, Germany, Great
Britain, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, and
the U.S.
It is not so much who the participants are but rather who is NOT
participating. Conspicuously absent are NATO members France and Italy.
Why?
In the case of Italy, as Putin has said, " [he has] high hopes that Italy will give a new impetus to the development of relations between Russia and the European Union" due to the fact that Italy is the upcoming rotating head of the European Union, as reported in Ria Novosti on 17th April 2014. Furthermore, he now has a new Italian ally in Federica Mogherini, the 41- year- old Italian who has been named the new EU's Foreign Policy Chief, only seven months after she was plucked from parliamentary obscurity in Rome and named Foreign Minister of her own country. Not only is she lacking in experience but is also known to be conspicuously soft on Russia, the same minister whose conciliatory comments on Russia’s
possible annexation of eastern Ukraine were once given a welcome reception
by Itar-Tass, the [Russian] state-run news agency.
In a clear reference to Mogherini, Lithuania's President Dalia
GrybauskaitÄ— said that the EU must not pick someone who is
“pro-Kremlin”, as reported by Thomas Wright. But Matteo Renzi, Italy's Prime Minister, was determined to get her appointed, contrary to EU appointing procedures.
Federica Mogherini, the 41-year-old
Italian
Major problems for her include the confrontation
with Russia over Ukraine, an issue also likely to involve Caneta at
energy and Austria's Johannes Hahn, the new commissioner for the
European Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, as reported in a Reuters article. Hopefully supplying arms to Ukraine will now be decisive in defeating Putin and his proxies and pushing them out of Ukraine before she takes up her post on November 1st. If, however, Putin's 20,000 army on the border invades Ukraine then I dread to think what this typical Russian sympathiser EU Foreign Minister will do.
The really prickly question about Federica Mogherini is, "Did Matteo Renzi push her EU appointment on his own, or was Matteo Renzi himself pushed to get her appointed." Renzi, as Joaquin Roy suggests " wanted to attack head-on Italy’s poor track record in European affairs
in recent years, tarnished by the deplorable presence of former prime
minister Silvio Berlusconi in power and in opposition, a handicap that
affected his predecessor Enrico Letta before him."
Matteo Renzi
Given the fact that Matteo Renzi doggedly fought resistance from representatives of the Baltic states, amongst others, against her appointment, and that Renzi succeeded, was her appointment really to mollify Putin? Similarly, that the EU Association Pact that Ukraine signed, and that is being ratified today 16th September 2014, has been specifically watered down to satisfy Putin's excuse that the free-trade aspect of the pact should not immediately be instituted to prevent Russia from being flooded with cheap EU goods shipped via Ukraine. This change has led to Mr Poroshenko facing growing criticism in Ukraine for apparently
caving in to pressure from Moscow and postponing implementation of the
free trade deal with the EU.
Suffering Ukraine businesses want access to EU markets
Is all of this simply to allow Putin to save face, now that the real effects on the Russian economy and its people of the EU and US sanctions that are now in place has finally sunk in? Is this also why the Ukrainian Rada will, today, be discussing ," ...draft legislation aimed at ending the conflict in the east, including a
special status for parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions .." Will this 'special' status mirror the previous autonomous status of Crimea before Russia recently invaded and annexed it? Is this also why the rather shaky ceasfire is still in place?
Shaky ceasefire in place. 16th September 2014
And suddenly, today (16/9/2014) at 11.52 UK time,the Ukrainian Rada has granted self-rule to the rebel-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine, as well as all rebel fighters been given an amnesty. The European and Ukrainian parliaments have also voted to ratify a major EU-Ukraine association agreement.
On the 12th September, 2014 after just over a week ago, a ceasfire was agreed upon by Putin and Poroshenko, we have yet another "Trojan Horse" of, wait for it, 220 lorries that crossed into Ukraine from Russia WITHOUT observing any of the inspections from Ukraine, the International Red Cross, and the OSCE, as was agreed upon when the last "Trojan Horse" of so-called humanitarian aid tried to circumvent inspection from the Ukrainian authorities and the Red Cross.
The New Russian "Trojan Horse"
Yet again Putin has raised the banner of "humanitarian aid". At the same time Donetsk International Airport came under artillery fire this
morning, the Ukrainian counter terrorism press office told CNN.This prompted the Ukrainian military to exchange fire with the rebel forces, it said. National
Defence and Security Council spokesman Col. Andriy Lysenko said in a
televised Kiev news briefing that a GRAD missile system was used in the
attack on the airport, from three different points in the area. Donetsk City Council reported that two homes in the area were hit. The modern St. George of Russia, Vladimir Putin, once again coming to the rescue ...... of what and of whom? In light of the new set of sanctions that have been put in place by the EU and the US this very week, we have this response of Putin and his Russian army generals.This response is aimed directly at the EU. More specifically, it is aimed at destroying the rather tenuous EU agreements over their current list of sanctions. After all, since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, the EU triumvirate of Germany, France, and Italy have broken out in a cold sweat over the employment and financial implications of their investments in Russia simply because they have to put these EU sanctions in place to try to bring Putin to heel. And not only this triumvirate. Even Finland is beginning to wobble.
But where Putin has seriously stumbled in trying to gain control of the soul of the Ukrainian people is the utter failure of Patriarch Kirill to stamp his authority on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as Katarzyna Jarynska points out.
This rather diminishes the recent boast of Putin that ...
Are members of the EU so blinded by the effects that their sanctions will have on their own economies that they cannot see just how determined the people of Ukraine are in defending the sovereignty of their country?
Has the EU indeed lost sight of its moral compass? As Alexander Motyl has pointed out, "..such countries as France and Germany, which have extensive economic relations with Russia, face a difficult moral choice. They must ask themselves whether Putin is evil or evil enough. If they decide his killing spree in eastern Ukraine is neither evil nor evil enough, they must explain -- to themselves and the rest of the world -- just why they believe the destruction of Ukrainian, Russian, Malaysian, Dutch and other lives is not a form of evil behaviour." And now Finland, like so many other EU countries, is also faced with this moral choice. Thus, the question is, "What will the EU do about Putin's 'humanitarian' Trojan Horse that he has, once again, sent into Ukraine?"
On this day, the 7th of September, 2014, as the ceasefire in Ukraine breaks down and Putin's Russian army and his proxies in Luhansk and Donetsk begin to break out the champagne, whilst those who attended the NATO summit in Wales 3 days ago have gone back to their respective countries; Obama took off some time before heading for the White House to visit the pagan site of Stonehenge. Apparently, a visit to Stonhenge was on his "bucket" list.
Is this Stonehenge visit of Obama yet another indication that "...the foreign policy of the United States is in a state of unprecedented disarray", as Bret Stephens so eloquently outlines in his article? His summing up is a rather fitting title for the above picture.
"Since I am writing these words on the centenary of the First World War,
it seems appropriate to close with a line from the era. At the battle of
the Marne, with Germany advancing on Paris, General Ferdinand Foch sent
the message that would rally the French army to hold its ground. “My
center is yielding. My right is retreating. Situation excellent. I am
attacking.” Words to remember and live by in this new era of headlong
American retreat."
Meanwhile, the EU has drawn up a list of "new" sanctions against Russia, but these may be scaled up or down according to the development of the situation. What, exactly, does this tell us. Indeed, what message does this "up or down" convey to Putin, his kleptocratic inner circle and cronies, and his siloviki?
Even more important, how does Putin's army generals view this against the backdrop of them making their war games actually come to life? Is it any wonder that Putin has recently boasted that he can take over Kiev in 2 weeks? Is this an empty threat? No!
Now their determination to take over Mariupol, thus land-linking Crimea with Russia, is blatantly evident by their disregard for the ceasfire that Poroshenko and Putin's army and proxies are supposed to have put in place but 2 days ago, on the 5th September. And today, the 7th September, this ceasefire has also been broken in Donetsk.
These decisions of Putin, the Commander in Chief, the Russian KGB/FSB Godfather, are not simply directed towards his goal of dismembering Ukraine. Rather, the Lithuanian President, Dalia Grybauskaite, has perceptively concluded that Putin is really at war with the EU.
Russia 'practically' at war with Europe, says Lithuanian president as Ukraine accuses Putin’s tanks of flattening border town
And fully behind Putin's attacks on the EU are all those EU right-wing organizations, from Romania to Hungary to Paris to Rome to London, as exposed byAnton Shekhovtsov. What does this indicate, especially in light of of the rabid Russian nationalism that Putin has unleashed? Nothing more nor less than the rapid move of Putin's Russia towards galloping fascism, as Paul A. Goble points out.
The New Russia: Fascism on the move
More telling than these EU right-wing organizations
which support Putin is the support of Patriarch Kirill, leader of the
Russian Orthodox Church. Putin has been blessed by Kirill, who sees him
as the new St. George of Russia.
Putin as St. George
Perhaps the most telling action of
Kirill in clothing Putin with the cloak of St. George is his allowing the Trojan Horse aid convoy of August to be blessed by a Russian Orthodox priest.
This simply could NOT have happened without the blessing of Patriarch Kirill. Yet Western political pundits are deafeningly silent over the extremely close relationship between Patriarch Kirill and Putin, and the critical support that Putin is receiving for his pathological actions against the Ukrainian people from the pulpits of the Russian Orthodox Church inside Russia. Even the food ban announced by a somber Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, on August 7th, 2014, and which covers meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, and milk products from the U.S., the European Union, and a handful of other Western nations, and which has limited the Russian people's access to food, did not get a peep out of Patriarch Kirill.
Putin and Patriarch Kirill
Regarding witholding food from the Russian people; Putin has been here before. In 1992, he arranged to barter $100m worth of raw materials for food for the starving citizens of St. Petersburgfrom German banks and businessmen.
‘The raw materials were shipped abroad but the food didn’t
materialise. There’s 100% proof that in this Putin was to blame. As a
result in 1992 – when there was no food at all – the city was left with
nothing.’ Marine Salye, former [St. Petersburg] city council investigator
The critical question here is, "What happened to the money?". (to be continued)
There is an old Hopi saying that "The truth will always float to the surface". And finally, on 31st July 2014, it is emerging that Putin and Merkel have been having secret talks that will concede Crimea to Russia in exchange for ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Now six days ago, (25th July 2014) Alexander J. Motyl posed the following question: " Is Putin evil? His actions certainly are, if by evil we understand
behavior that willfully, consciously and purposely destroys human life.
Perhaps we can call his actions undeniably evil and Putin himself "evil
enough." Evil enough for what? Evil enough for condemnation by people of
good will." He further goes on to point out that, "Such countries as France and Germany, which have extensive economic
relations with Russia, face a difficult moral choice. They must ask
themselves whether Putin is evil or evil enough. If they decide his
killing spree in eastern Ukraine is neither evil nor evil enough, they
must explain -- to themselves and to the rest of the world -- just why
they believe the destruction of Ukrainian, Russian, Malaysian, Dutch and
other lives is not a form of evil behavior." Furthermore, ".... the willingness of France, Germany and all the other states making up
the European Union to respond to Putin's evil doing will determine the
moral fate of the EU. If they sacrifice morality to arms contracts or
gas, the EU will have lost its rasion d'etre. Worse, like Putin, it will
be without a soul." This really is the bottom line for the EU. No amount of diplomatic concealment of "secret agendas" hidden from public view can disguise or simply brush over this glaring moral choice facing the whole of the EU. The current actions of Putin, especially since the implementation of the new round (August 2014) of EU and US sanctions against Russian companies and individuals, clearly exposes the contempt that Putin has for the Russian people. As Josh Lederman clearly points out, " Russia's year long ban, announced Thursday, August 7th 2014, by a somber Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev, covers meat, fish, fruit, vegetables and milk products
from the U.S., the European Union and a handful of other Western
nations ..... What the Russians have done here is limit the Russian people's access
to food," David Cohen, the US Treasury under secretary told reporters. "We don't do that. Our law doesn't allow
us to do that." The ban exempts only baby food and will last one year unless "our
partners demonstrate a constructive approach" with regard to sanctioning
Russia, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said. File photo Image by: RIA Novosti / REUTERS Russia is introducing a “full embargo” on most food imports from EU, US,
and other Western countries that have imposed sanctions against Moscow
over its policy on Ukraine, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said
Thursday. Photo by PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images What is really telling about this "ban" is that Vladimir Putin has prior experience about letting Russian people starve to satisfy his criminal megalomania. I refer, of course, to his actions against the starving people of St. Petersburg in 1992 viz.
the
deal struck between Putin and the German banks and businessmen in
1992. This deal involved the export of $100m worth of raw materials
in exchange for food for the citizens of St Petersburg. The materials
were exported, but the food never arrived, as Marine Salye,
who was
put in charge of a city council investigation into the deal, and who
fastidiously kept the documents from that time, identified Putin's
fingerprints all over it.
What even further exposes the perverse nature of Putin is that on 9th August he attempted an invasion of Ukraine under false pretenses. Disguised as peacekeepers and intent on provoking a significant military conflict, Russian troops were stopped from entering Ukraine following talks between both countries' foreign ministers, according to the Ukrainian government. The UK, US, and Germany denounced this invasion attempt by Putin.
The White House said that during a call on
Saturday, U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela
Merkel "agreed that any Russian intervention in Ukraine, even under
purported 'humanitarian' auspices, without the formal, express consent
and authorization of the government of Ukraine is unacceptable, violates
international law, and will provoke additional consequences." Obama
and British Prime Minister David Cameron also discussed the crisis and
said tougher sanctions should be imposed on Russia if it sends troops
into Ukraine, according to a statement from Cameron's office.
Germany, regarded as the powerful economic pivot upon which the Euro
zone of the EU rotates, has finally exposed itself as purely
"self-interested" when it comes to Putin, Russia, and Ukraine. Angela
Merkel, a child of East Germany who was awarded prizes for her
proficiency in Russian, and who is now the Chancellor of a unified
Germany, is the ace that Putin has up his sleeve. She represents, more than anything else, a continuation of the Ostpolitik started by Willy Brandt in the 1970's.
As Sumi Somaskanda so perceptively wrote on May 26, 2014 in the Washington Times,
"Chancellor
Angela Merkel’s predecessors worked steadily to build trust with Moscow
since the fall of the Berlin
Wall in 1989. Those efforts, said Stefan Meister, a senior policy
fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, stemmed
from a sense of guilt for World War II and a sense of gratitude after
German reunification. Now, 25 years later, both sides recognize the
geopolitical importance of maintaining what they have built."
Here we see Willy Brandt with Willi Stoph (Prime Minister of East Germany from 1964 to 1973) in 1970. And Today?
Here is Angela and her friend Putin, recently together in Brazil enjoying the 2014 World Cup football .
However, in light of the disastrous downing of Malaysian Flight MH17, how will the cosy relationship between Angela Merkel and Putin be affected? Just a few hours ago we learn that Putin's proxies in Eastern Ukraine, the so-called Pro-Russian rebels, are now desperately trying to remove or contaminate the evidence that this plane was shot down by a Russian Missile given to the pro-Russian terrorists in Eastern Ukraine.
The Putin propaganda machine has pulled out all the stops to blame the Ukrainians for what can only be described as an act of evil. Even the International and YouTube propaganda machine of Putin viz. RT, is actually claiming that this was an assassination attempt against Putin, orchestrated by the Ukrainians. And today, 27th July, Obama and the US are blamed for the downing of MH17!
"Russia reacted angrily on Saturday to additional sanctions imposed by
the European Union over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis, saying
they would hamper cooperation on security issues and undermine the fight
against terrorism and organized crime.
Russia's Foreign Ministry also accused the United States, which has
already imposed its own sanctions against Moscow, of contributing to the
conflict in Ukraine through its support for the pro-Western government
in Kiev."
Apparently the Ukrainians thought this plane contained Putin on his way back from Brazil. To what depths will the propaganda machine of Putin sink to save him from the stench now emanating from the Kremlin?
Does Putin even care what the world thinks of him? Is it finally emerging that he has "lost the plot", as Merkel has suggested?
More importantly, as Tom Nichols so eloquently points out,
"Now that a civilian airliner has been blown out of the sky by a Russian
missile, however, there can be no further denial that Russia is actively
pursuing a major proxy war against its neighbor in the center of
Europe, and with a brutality that would make the now-departed marshals
of the old Soviet high command smile with approval. This is no longer a
war on Ukraine, but a war on the entire post-Cold War international
order."
Even in light of this disastrous event, that has the fingerprints of
Putin and the Kremlin all over it; Merkel simply continues to wring her
hands in anguish, whilst assuring German businessmen that it is still
"business as usual" with Putin and his kleptocratic FSB Mafia clan. So
while the UN Security Council calls for a "full, thorough and
independent international investigation [into the downing of MH17],
Merkel rather weakly calls for a "ceasefire" whilst German businessmen continue to stride with their jackboots over the Ukrainian peoples to suck at the teats of the corrupt Russian economic cow!
And not only Merkel! Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany stated in an interview on 25th July that:
"We remain true to our course: cleverly calibrated and mutually agreed
measures to raise the pressure and toward a willingness to have serious talks with Russia" But, unfortunately, this change of heart on the part of Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is as weak as Angela Merkel wringing her hands at the criminal behaviour of Putin. As the Economist stated on 26th July,
"Germany for its part would be expected to contribute by restricting
Russia’s access to high technology, especially in the energy sector. That is more conceivable than it was; German opinion seems to be
turning. “Nobody can blame Germany for not having taken efforts to
talk,” says the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “But
Russia did not stick to the agreements to the necessary extent.” The day
after the foreign ministers’ meeting Germany’s mass-circulation Bild, unimpressed, ran a headline mocking the EU for its Empoerend Untaetig—outrageous
inactivity. But if this signals a new German toughness, it is a stance
that will build up over months or years, not in weeks."
It would seem that only David Cameron, out of the many EU leaders, is willing to publicly stand up to Vladimir Putin over this isuue.
It
is always easy to start a story with, “It happened when” …. or
“It was a sunny day” … or any of the myriad opening lines that
authors are so fond of using. But how do you begin a story that is
simply a part of your life. If you believe in coincidences you simply
hang the beginning of your story on a coincidence. But that is
cheating. There are really no coincidences in life. Life is not
simply a series of random coincidences. If that were the case there
would be no history, no choices, no free will, just a series of
random coincidences. The invasion by Putin of Crimea, and its
absorption into “mother” Russia, would merely be a random
coincidence in space and time. But we all know that this is not the
case. Putin, the central actor in this dangerous tragedy, did not
wake up one morning and coincidentally decide to bring the world to
the brink of World War III through his invasion of Crimea. He planned
it and executed it. To understand it one has to try and understand
the man. But who, exactly, is Vladimir Putin? If we are to believe
Angela Merkel, Putin has somewhat lost the plot, so to speak. The
word “mad” is now bandied about him. But can we say that Putin is
mad?
The
lanes of history are littered with men who have behaved as Putin
currently does over Crimea and the Ukraine. Nowadays there are many
who are likening him to Hitler or Stalin. If we go further back in
history the name of Napoleon springs to mind. Still further, during
the heyday of the Roman Empire, the image of Nero looms large.
But
Putin is Putin, living today with his peculiar demons and not with
those of others.
Putin steals, but he is not a common or garden
thief. Putin steals in public. It is universally known that he stole
the ring of Robert Kraft in the full glare of public view! And then,
to add insult to injury, alleged a lapse of memory
“You know, I do
not remember either Mr. Kraft or the ring," Putin said, as
reported by AFP. What thief, in the history of thievery, consciously
committed a public act of thievery and afterwards claimed a lapse of
memory of even meeting the person from whom he stole? To allegedly
prevent a diplomatic scene, Robert Kraft then publicly stated that,
yes, he did give the ring to President Putin. But, the plot thickens.
Later Putin, rather nonchalantly, offered Mr. Kraft another ring in
recompense, also suddenly claiming that the stolen ring was
originally given to him by Mr. Kraft. Amazing how Putin emerges from
a total lapse of memory to total recall.
One
of the hallmarks in the field of espionage is training in the ability
of concealment. Indeed, the devious art of concealment can be said to
be somewhat central to the persona of a spy. I might add that this
art is also practised by politicians, amongst others. It is the pivot
upon which the world of diplomacy rotates. That Putin is a rather
poor practitioner of this art could be explained by the fact that
during his years in the KGB he only attained the somewhat lowly rank
of lieutenant colonel, подполковник.
Thus, when he first became President of Russia and, a few days
later, addressed a
meeting of 800 of the FSB (formerly the KGB) top brass at the
Dherzinsky Club, he smilingly and proudly pronounced, “The FSB
wanted to return to power. I am pleased to announce that we have
succeeded.!”
He made public what, in the world of espionage, should
have been concealed! No doubt many officers in the audience winced
inwardly at this pronouncement. Is this the devious KGB mind of Putin
that New York historian Nina Krushcheva, the grand-daughter of Nikita
Khrushchev, so admiringly speaks of? Thus there was only a ripple of
polite applause from the audience. And today? As reported in the
Russian press, during a session of the board of the FSB security
service in Moscow on April 7, 2014, Putin urged that,
“We
[the FSB] must clearly differentiate between legal opposition
activity, as is in every democratic country, and extremism, which is
built on hatred, inciting national and international discord, and
defying the law and the constitution [of Russia]”.
These
words ring hollow in international ears when currently applied to
Ukraine because his Russian groups of provocateurs that have
currently infiltrated Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv are actively
inciting national discord, hatred, and defying the law and the
constitution of Ukraine in an attempt to dismember Ukraine before the
impending presidential elections on May 25th
2014. More than anything else, what those words underline is that
Putin's real inner circle is nothing more nor less than a committee
of the FSB, the Russian doll concealed within the Russian doll
concealed within the Russian doll concealed within the Russian doll.
Unlike George Bush, who saw a sort of kindred soul when looking into
Putin's eyes; Colin Powell was correct when he remarked that when he
sees Putin he sees KGB. Yet it is the tiny concealed Russian doll
that Putin himself is unaware of that should give us real cause for
concern. Was it not Disraeli who candidly stated that, “ … the
world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined
by those who are not behind the scenes ...”. Putin should be under
no illusions. He is basking in the shadow of Kirill, Patriarch of
Moscow,
seeking from it the comforting solace that his 'New Russia'
illusion is real. But in whose shadow is Patriarch Kirill basking?
Meanwhile,
as the tense situation in East Ukraine continues to escalate, history
is blindingly repeating itself. On 16 April, 1922 the Treaty
of Rapallo was
signed at the Hotel Imperiale in the Italian town of Santa Margherita
Ligure between Germany and Russia under which each renounced all
territorial and financial claims against the other following the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and World War 1. The two governments also
agreed to normalise their diplomatic relations and to "co-operate
in a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both
countries". It is the ghost of this treaty that hovered over the
deal struck between Putin and the German banks and businessmen in
1992. This deal involved the export of $100m worth of raw materials
in exchange for food for the citizens of St Petersburg. The materials
were exported, but the food never arrived, as Marine Salye,
who was
put in charge of a city council investigation into the deal, and who
fastidiously kept the documents from that time, identified Putin's
fingerprints all over it. This deal opened the floodgates for German
businessmen to "co-operate in a spirit of mutual goodwill in
meeting the economic needs of both countries". And to-day,
twelve years later?
Angela Merkel, the scientist Chancellor of
Germany, is coldly and dispassionately upholding the ghost of the
Treaty of Rapallo, wringing her hands in anguish while Putin tramples
over the rights of the Ukrainian people. Is it any wonder that
Gerhard Schroeder, the Chancellor of Germany when that export deal
was struck in 1992, fondly embraced Putin at his recent 70th
birthday party bash?
But
what about the other members of the EU? Cyprus is like a cat on a hot
tin roof, not knowing what it will do if all that stolen Russian
money wings its way out of her banks. Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, on
the other hand, must be sighing with relief whilst carrying out the
community service he was sentenced to for his fraudulent tax scams.
The hot potato of Putin's imperial adventurism has fallen into the
hands of Matteo Renzi, Italy's youngest ever Prime Minister. Italy,
soon to become the rotating Head of the EU, has oodles of money
invested in Russia, of which Putin is well aware. That is why Putin
has said that he has “... high hopes that Italy will give a new
impetus to the development of relations between Russia and the
European Union”, as reported in Ria Novosti on the 17th
April 2014. Have events in Ukraine, since then, put something of a damper
on Italian-Russian relations?
Can the young Matteo Renzi face up to
the howling of Italian businessmen not to jeopardize their sucking at
the teats of the corrupt Russian cow?
Can the country that gave us
the Italian Mafia stand up against one of its most ardent emulators, Putin's Russian (FSB) Mafia clan?
If
the political leaders in Germany and Italy have their businessmen to
contend with, the British Prime minister, David Cameron, has to
contend with the trembling 'stiff upper lip' in the boardrooms of the
City of London. Unlike the gas and oil pipelines that connects
Germany and Russia like an umbilical cord,
an invisible 'money'
pipeline links Moscow and the City of London. So much so that Putin
can demand that all street signs in Knightsbridge be written in
Cyrillic script. Bear in mind that David Cameron comes from a
stockbroking family whilst his sidekick, Deputy Prime Minister Nick
Clegg, comes from a banking family. So they are, so to speak,
children of the City of London. The problem that thus confronts David
Cameron is somewhat different from that which confronts Angela Merkel
and Matteo Renzi. We are here talking about the precarious nature of
the flow of digits through the ether, digits which represent the
billions upon billions of dollars that have been blatantly stolen
from the Russian and Ukrainian people and that, until recently,
nestled safely in numerous financial institutions in the West.
But
completely staunching the flow of these digits will have a negative
rippling effects on those financial institutions of the City of
London who, like the Italians and the Germans, are sucking on the
teats of the corrupt Russian cow. But, unlike Germany and Italy in
particular, the City of London was not privy to that deal that Putin
struck with Germany, in particular, when he suckered the people of
St. Petersburg out of $100 million.
However, British companies such
as BP saw a most profitable opening as Russian oilfields began to
shed the shackles of the old Soviet system and beckon, rather
seductively, for them to join the new Russian-oil gold rush. And as
these companies ran into the embrace of the budding Russian oil
oligarchs and the vodka-soaked Yeltsin, then president of Russia,
little did they know that the then KGB was smarting in the
background, licking the wounds they were sustaining during this
cataclysmic change that Yeltsin was ushering in. For the City of
London the 'good times' beckoned. 'Greed is good', as Michael Douglas
in the movie 'Wall Street' so aptly pronounced.
Unfortunately,
down the road, the Russian cow reverted to type under Putin and
turned back into a growling Russian bear,
as BP and the City of
London have discovered to their dismay. And the current events in
Crimea and in the East of Ukraine has caught many in the financial
boardrooms of the City of London with their pants around their
ankles. So, just like Angela Merkel, they too are wringing their
hands in despair in the face of Putin's growling Russian bear. But,
unlike Angela Merkel, the City of London can simply pull up its
trousers by the braces of financial control that it exerts over the
value of those Russian digits rushing through the 'money pipeline' to
all those financial institutions that the City of London controls.
But, and here comes the rub, Angela Merkel will simply precipitate a
rapid growth in German unemployment figures if she stems the flow of
money between Germany and Russia, whereas what the City of London
does to Russian moneyed digits could precipitate a financial meltdown
in Russia. And you do not want to aggravate a growling Russian bear,
bearing in mind that Putin displayed utter contempt for Russian lives
when he blew up Russian flats in 1999 and blamed it on the Chechens.
This 'false flag' tactic of his came to light on the 22nd
September, 1999, with the failed Ryazan bomb that was planted in a
block of flats and that blatantly exposed the role of the FSB in
planting this bomb in the first place
Ironically, it was the late
Boris Berezovsky who exposed those 1999 killings in Moscow flats as
having the fingerprints of Putin and the FSB all over it.
Thus
Putin has shown by his actions against the Russian people in 1999,
and now in Ukraine, that he can cock a snook at the West because the
West does not want to precipitate a fighting war with the current
Russian leader. So Putin surrounds Ukraine with a readied army and
blatantly foments and stokes dangerous unrest, especially in Eastern
Ukraine. After all, if he could cynically kill Russian men, women,
and children to bolster his image, why not dismember Ukraine to do
exactly the same, irrespective of the consequences? Is it not
Patriarch Kirill who has recently and publicly placed upon Putin's
shoulders the warm cloak of the saviour of Mother Russia?
The question is," Who started this St. George Ribbon Campaign in 2010?"
If
Patriarch Kirill could raise Putin's status to sainthood, as Pope
Francis recently did with John Paul II, he would do so gladly, and
with all the pomp and splendour at his command. And if, in the
process, the Russian people are once again reduced to serfdom, then
so be it. Was it not during the era of the Czars, when the vast
majority of Russians were serfs, that the Russian Orthodox Church was
at its zenith? Ironically, the utter failure of the Bolsheviks to
excise the power of the Russian Orthodox Church from the heart of the
Russian people has given Putin the perfect vehicle with which to
emulate St. George, with the active help and support of Patriarch
Kirill.
One can only wonder at what is currently being disseminated
amongst the people of Russia by the footsoldiers of the Russian
Orthodox Church. The deafening silence of the Russian pulpits about
the evil been done by Putin in Ukraine has, after all, its historical
counterpart in Germany under Hitler. There is, truly, nothing new
under the sun.
Let
us now take a slight detour to examine the possible origin of some of
the fears of Putin and the kleptocratic FSB clique, this den of
thieves, that he has surrounded himself with.
When,
in 2004, Yuschenko defeated Putin's candidate, Yanukovich, in the
Ukrainian Presidential elections one
could almost say that Putin was, somewhat, apopletic with rage.
But
his rage was a controlled rage; a rage that only he understood. Those
around him did, indeed, witness this rage, but could not quite fathom
its meaning. Yet now, in June of 2014, as is always the case with
hindsight, we have 20-20 vision.
There is a strange question mark
that hangs over the jailing of the braided Yulia Tymoshenko by
Yanukovich. Why is this so? Yushenko was poisoned, but this rather
backfired on Putin. In any event, Yushenko was weak, an
'intellectual' who became a banker and who tended to see events
through a bankers spectacles. Yulia, on the other hand, was a child
of the Soviet educational and, more importantly, cultural system. As
a Ukrainian from her mother's side, she has the blood of Scythian women flowing through her
veins.
Now Scythian women are really not to be messed with. As Hippocrates warned, “They [Sarmatian (or Scythian) women] have no
right breasts…for while they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a
bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the
right breast and cauterize it, so that its growth is arrested, and all
its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm.”
The whole
Pussy Riot thing of those Russian girls highlights the
difference between Ukrainian Scythian women as
opposed to Rossiya i.e Russian, women. Rus as opposed to Ros.
Personally I
think that Putin, the Russian wife-beater, rather admired Yulia. In
her he thought he saw a kindred spirit.
