Signs of some kind of pathology are surely present from the get-go when we are talking about a Jewish comedian who has chosen to surround himself with Banderite neonazis who celebrate a heritage that includes the massacre of tens of thousands of Jews.
The issue of pathology is suddenly foregrounded in the grimmest possible way upon learning of increasing evidence that the collective West is instructing their Kiev proxy that Ukraine cannot depend on the current level of Western aid beyond next summer.
Indeed, for several months now, the evidence has shown that the volume and quality of Western aid has been tapering off. This could, of course, all be a complex ruse to lull the Russians into a false sense of security.
I don’t think this is probable, first of all because the evidence of a crisis in supplies to Western countries of tanks, armored vehicles, air-defense systems, fighter jets, missiles, and other ammunition comes at us from diverse directions and appears to be evident in the battlefield.
Secondly, it is not at all clear that things would be that much different on the battlefield if these Western supplies were not under strain.
Thirdly, I don’t think the Russians are giving much indication that they are liable to be lulled into a false sense of security any time soon. What else can you say about an opponent who allows most of its fighting to be done by a private army that recruits prisoners, in conjunction with local militia, and Chechnyans, and whose regular army force of 300,000-500,000 is amassing along Russian and Belurussian borders in potential preparation for a lethal assault, one that could include occupation of the entire country, and whose casualty rates – at between 14,000 to 20,000, according to the BBC – are at the very least five times less than those of Ukraine?
It could be that the West is buying time, knowing that by summer some of its supply issues will be resolved and that instead of turning off the taps as it now pretends, it will open them further.
I don’t think this is probable, first of all because a lot of the supply problems need a year or, in some cases, several years, before they can be resolved. Secondly, Western military will be very insistent, in their dialogue with their war-like but spoilt and amateurish political masters, that the first rounds of new supply should go, first of all, to replenishing domestic stocks of weapons – not least in an effort, vain, to ensure that they are ready for the next idiotic neocon proxy war – with China over Taiwan – one which they will assuredly lose no less emphatically than the one they are losing in Ukraine on account of their failure, amongst other things, to digest the new reality that Russia and China now form a very solid alliance.
So let us assume that yes, indeed, the West will begin turning off the taps of weaponry for Ukraine more vigorously from the “summer.” Perhaps this might suggest July of 2023. The next – 2024 – US presidential elections will be fought in the realization that by then well over half the US electorate will be very angry indeed that the largesse their bloated political overlords are bestowing on Ukraine would far better be spent solving some of the deepest challenges of domestic US politics, such as the problem of homelessness which afflicts over half a million Americans every night, and the problems of drought, wildfires and climate change amongst another thousand or so major issues that come to mind.
If your major sponsor, the West in this case, tells you that they can only continue their sponsorship for another few months, at a point in time when your own forces are suffering from depletion, tiredness and demoralization, what lines of action might you consider? The details of the situation will quickly suggest that, in this instance, Russia stands to win the battle, now, in six months, in a year or in two years (given that no matter how fast the west rebuilds its stocks, Russia will be augmenting its own stocks at a still faster rate).
What are you going to do? Intensify your attacks in the certain knowledge that many more Ukrainian lives and equipment will be lost, and that your position at the time of negotiations amid final defeat will be even weaker than it currently is? Or do you seek to negotiate now, while you still have some strength left, while there are still resources enough to help get you to the end of the war before being declared totally bankrupt, while you may still retire gracefully to the mansions you have purchased in Spain, France or Cyprus, while there may even be enough money in the bank to engage in initial restoration and rebuilding efforts?
One might reasonably expect the second course of action, no matter how circuitously, but experience with the mind-set of Zelenskiy and his cabal cautions one to expect the first course of action. And why should such determinedly suicidal, Wagnerian drama come as a surpise? Zelenskiy came to power unapologetically climbing the sleazy edifice of a regime whose “legitimacy” was founded on a US neocon-supported coup d’etat and the massacres of protestors that, in order for it to claim any kind of legitimacy, had to abolish the major political parties which, it feared, would compete with and likely lock it up.
Zelenskiy came to office promising peace (it wasn’t difficult, Ukraine had already signed the Minsk accords), he delivered war (he takes credit for helping subvert the Minsk process, and rolled over to Boris Johnson when Boris came to instruct him to back off from the peace talks in Istanbul in March 2022). He came to office, already corrupted by Pandora, yet promised an end to corruption, in a society permeated irretrievably by corruption. Prostrating before a phallicly conceived West, he begged for nuclear weapons in advance of the war, at the 2022 Munich Conference, by which time the West was planning major economic sabotage against Germany and Russia, was planning what it fancied would be crippling economic sanctions, was planning (or had knowledge of Ukrainian army intentions) to intensify its lethal, daily shelling of the peoples of Donbass and, in particular, Donetsk City, even beyond the graves of 14,000 citizens already dug.
For the mere and dubious pleasure of having Ukraine accepted as a full member of NATO and, eventually, the EU – an impossible and worthless dream since it would clearly take a millennium for the country to meet the preconditions for membership – he offered his entire country and its people – even while, or because, his popularity was sinking lower and lower in public opinion polls – as a staging ground for war with Russia, possibly nuclear war, in which his own people would be annihilated, as many of them (I assess it at between 100,000 – 200,000, others have put it higher) have already been annihilated, along with their houses, their cities, their infrastructure. And while throwing his people as red meat to the dogs, he and his cabal have stripped Ukrainian workers of their historically privileged protections, persecuted the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, imprisoned or murdered journalists and other dissidents, established death lists for foreign critics, opened up Ukraine’s farmlands and its economy to globalist predators. One can discern a perspective here in which the fewer Ukrainians the more convenient for this predator class.
Is this a leader who loves his people? Or, at the very least, refrains from hating them absolutely? The answer must be “No.” Zelenskiy has already talked of his pure hatred for Russia and Russians. He has demonstrated his pure hatred for those of his countrymen who are Russophone. He has demonstrated his contempt for all his countrymen in his determination of their suffering. No leader, for so little reason or no reason whatsoever, inflicts such massive suffering on millions upon millions of his subjects through death in battle, death in bombed apartment blocks, death in hospitals, death in freezing nights devoid of power, massive internal and external displacement and disorientation.
Nobody (in their right mind) who can choose, chooses this. We are talking pathology, we are talking hate in its purest form, the hate perfected in Germany in World War Two.
The case of Russia is different. As I have argued elsewhere, Russia found itself in a position where it was abundantly obvious that the west intended to destroy it existentially and that the only choice left to Russia was to help determine when the bloodletting would begin. None of this is pleasant. Everything is shot through with pain, shame, disgust and dread.
The West should now hope that its sullied leaders will, indeed, scrabble together sufficient sanity and humanity stop this satanic flow of munitions to Ukraine, and that they can indeed put an end to the pathological and murderous lunacy of Kiev, while Vladimir Putin and his entourage are still in control in Moscow.
For despite all the western propaganda blabber to the contrary, despite the existential horror of all war, Russia has, in fact, been relatively restrained, intelligent and even humane in the pursuit of its objectives. Even if it knows that it must be the winner, the record of this regime suggests that it will pursue only limited gains, that it will take the long view, and assess that, when push comes to shove, friends are so much nicer than enemies.
Putin’s successor, who will not be Washington’s choice, may very well take an entirely different view. Europe should attend to its survival.
(Featured Image: “Volodymyr Zelensky in a working visit to the State of Israel, January 2020. XVIII” by Кабінет Міністрів України is licensed under CC BY 4.0.)