The SMO – Notebooks

No such thing as Russia…

First published at New Catallaxy blog on 25 February, 2023

The backroom conversations and classified files of Foreign Ministries and Departments of State must be a wonderland of speculations and conditionals, of grand schemes and short-term crises. But, judging by the utterances of two former Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Poland’s Ministry is up there with the best of them.

Take Radoslaw (Radek) Sikorski, Minister from 2007 to 2014. Before that he was Minister of Defence, and for a year afterwards, Speaker of Parliament. According to the Center for Strategic & International Studies,

[H]e negotiated and signed the Poland-Russia regional visa-free regime, Poland-U.S. missile defense agreement, and—together with foreign ministers of Germany and France—the accord between the pro-EU opposition and Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2013.

Unfortunately, the latter accord was rendered meaningless by the Maidan coup of 2014. Before this small hiccup, Foreign Policy had ranked him in its top 100 “global thinkers” for “telling the truth even when it’s not diplomatic.” High praise indeed, and Mr Sikorski continues to live up to it. When the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged, and in disregard of the official narrative that “the Russians did it,” Mr Sikorski told the inconvenient truth by tweeting a photo of the gas bubbling up in the Baltic, with the caption, “Thank you, USA.” Only a week ago, Sikorski was asked during a radio interview, whether he thought that “ the government of PiS [Poland’s ruling ‘Law and Justice’ party] at some point thought about partition” of Ukraine. He responded, “I think there was a moment of hesitation in the first ten days of the war, when we all did not know how it would go, and perhaps Ukraine would collapse.” It was but a moment though, which was how long it took for the Polish Prime Minister to condemn his comments as “no different from Russian propaganda.”

The attachment of the Poles to “native Polish lands” is on display in the railway stations with recruiting posters for Leopard tank crews which mention “Polish armour in Ukraine,” unless this poster has been mistranslated.

Of more immediate interest to us, especially given the current constitutional debate, are the comments of another former Polish Minster of Foreign Affairs, Anna Fotyga. She is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament. It was founded in 2009 under the principles of the Prague Declaration, and declares itself to be a centre-right grouping. The principles make interesting and contradictory reading. Many of the principles will be applauded by readers here who consider themselves conservative or centre-right. But the Declaration is sown with mines.

• (1) Free enterprise, free and fair trade and competition, minimal regulation, lower taxation, and small government as the ultimate catalysts for individual freedom and personal and national prosperity.
• (2) Freedom of the individual, more personal responsibility and greater democratic accountability.
• (3) Sustainable, clean energy supply with an emphasis on energy security.
• (4) The importance of the family as the bedrock of society.
• (5) The sovereign integrity of the nation state, opposition to EU federalism and a renewed respect for true subsidiarity.
• (6) The overriding value of the transatlantic security relationship in a revitalised NATO, and support for young democracies across Europe.
• (7) Effectively controlled immigration and an end to abuse of asylum procedures.
• (8) Efficient and modern public services and sensitivity to the needs of both rural and urban communities.
• (9) An end to waste and excessive bureaucracy and a commitment to greater transparency and probity in the EU institutions and use of EU funds.
• (10) Respect and equitable treatment for all EU countries, new and old, large and small.

Let us turn our eyes modestly from principle (3). It could mean anything, including a reliance on nuclear power, or nothing.

Subsidiarity (5) is the principle that decisions affecting the body politic must be capable of being taken at the lowest possible level in any hierarchy of government, and must in fact be taken at that level. It is the obverse of globalism. Subsidiarity in this document seems to refer primarily to the sovereign integrity of the nation state.

The equitable treatment of (10) extends to countries new and old. What are these new countries? They would certainly include the young democracies of (6). The youngest are the ones that haven’t been created yet. Such countries are certainly on Anna Fotyga’s horizon. It is the possibility of such countries coming into being that focusses conservative and reformist minds on the “overriding value” of a “revitalised NATO.” These notions of nations are bundled up in (6).

What concrete policies might precipitate from this complex mix of requirements, one might wonder? Anna Fotyga illustrated one such policy in an address late last month, which is worth quoting from at length.

Putin and his gang of war criminals are not the cause, but the consequence of the problem, the root of which is the authoritarian and imperial essence of Moscow… [T]oday we find ourselves not in the 16th century of Ivan the Terrible or the 18th of Catherine II, but in the 21st century of international law, common organisations and shared values. The European Parliament and many other parliaments…have labelled the Russian Federation a terrorist state… This terrorist organisation, even if it is seen by many as an empire, should be dismantled…

[T]he international community…must…[support] re-federalisation of the Russian state…and the respect for the rights and desires of its nations. The victims of Russian imperialism should be able to rebuild their own statehoods, exercise their right to celebrate their heritage, and determine their own future…

There are no such things as Russian gas, oil, aluminium, coal, uranium, diamonds, grain, forests, gold, etc. All such resources are Tatar, Bashkir, Siberian, Karelian, Oirat, Circassian, Buryat, Sakha, Ural, Kuban, Nogai, etc. For most of the inhabitants of the regions — be they ethnic Russians or indigenous people — Moscow represents only war, repression, exploitation and hopelessness…

[W]e should discuss the prospects for the creation of free and independent states in the post-Russian space…The international community has the obligation to support the rights of indigenous nations…The same rights must belong to Khakas, Tuvans, Sakha or Evenks… [E]thnic Russians, while being the biggest nation of the Russian Federation, are just one of many…

The rupture of the Russian Federation will bring unquestionable benefits in the security, including energy security, and in the economy of Europe and Central Asia… [N]ew pro-Western states can emerge from within the Russian Federation…

[W]e are glad to host numerous experts, historians, journalists, politicians from both sides of Atlantic, and leaders and representatives of more than 20 nations of the Russian Federation, who will gather in Brussels in the European Parliament to discuss prospects for the decolonisation and deimperialisation of the Russian Federation.

Quite apart from the extreme Russia-hatred of Euroimperialists, generously projected onto “ethnic Russians”, the ostensible justification of this passion for destruction should be familiar to Australians; and not just Australians. It is the argument of supra-national empire against the nation-state, whether it be Australia, Canada, New Zealand or the U.K., because only the nation-state can offer effective resistance to the Borg. The tools of choice for dismembering the nation-state are the nation or nations within, with techniques being developed and refined over a number of decades now. Any nation created by colonisation or conquest is likely to be vulnerable to this approach. For example, Kim Beazley just last year in an address to the Ramsay Centre said,

So in those two acts [the First Fleet and the settlement at Albany] we supplanted with our colonies then and ultimately our nation 250 nations that at that point of time inhabited Australia.

Meanwhile, Poland looks to reinstate the full nation-state of the nation of Poland, so that the “benefits in the security, including energy security, and in the economy” will flow to all Poles when first Ukraine and then Russia are dismembered, by whatever means necessary. Europeans have long memories, but so do Russians (and so do Chinese.) Such memories motivated the best of those who originally sought to transcend long and bitter rivalries in an allegiance to a supra-national Europe.

And here we are, with the power of the EU executive held by a tiny clique; with Norway and Poland feeding on the energy-starved carcass of the once-mighty German industrial colossus; with the Poles marking out their territory on the other side of the borders; with the United States, through NATO, determining the security and hence the foreign policy of Europe; with the European centrifuge spinning up; and with only the external enemy and a proxy war holding the show together.

I wonder what Karol Wojtyla would make of it all?

A Small Price (for us) To Pay

First published at NewCatallaxy blog, 23 December, 2022.

On 25th of March, 2022 (keep the date in mind) Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Defence Minister, released figures for Russian army casualties in the month-long war, or “special military operation,” in Ukraine. 1,351 Russian servicemen had been killed, and another 3,825 wounded. NATO sources put the number killed at between 7,000 and 15,000.

On 22nd of September, Shoigu updated the figures to 5,937 Russian servicemen killed. Neither of these numbers included Donbas militiamen, or the Chechen forces, or mercenaries of the Wagner Group. Up to that time, much of the fighting in northern Donetsk and in Luhansk had been conducted by the Donbas militias, who had been carrying the main burden of the fighting with the Ukrainian army since 2014, by the mercenary Wagner Group, and by forces comprised primarily of Chechens under a Chechen leader. Both of the latter were engaged in the fighting around the city of Bakhmut, a vital supply link for Ukrainian forces which had been shelling the city of Donetsk since the war broke out in 2014.

At the same time, Shoigu put the Ukrainian losses at 61,207 dead and 49,368 wounded. The precision with which the Ukrainian losses are given is clearly spurious. Aside from the necessary inaccuracy of the sum of multiple estimates, they present of ratio of dead to wounded of 6:5, where a very rough rule of thumb would be more like 1:3 or 1:4.

Mediazona is a dissenting Russian media outlet founded by two members of Pussy Riot, so there is no question as to their dissent. Their services are sought out by, for example, the BBC, especially for anything detrimental to the Russian government. For the BBC, Mediazona did research on Russian casualties from information on funerals and various other notifications of deaths. On the 3rd of September, they claimed to have identified 6,024 Russian servicemen killed. By the 16th, the BBC was reporting 6,476 killed. The most remarkable thing about this is how close it is to the official Defence Ministry number. To give this some context, the CIA, Estonian Foreign Intelligence and MI6 were asserting that 15,000 Russian troops had been killed. Such estimates were dwarfed by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, which was claiming to have “liquidated” 55,100 Russian fighters. The take-away here is that the official Russian figures on their own casualties are reasonable, and that the Ukrainian figures are one of those forms of propaganda which consists in looking through whichever end of the telescope best fits the pre-determined story.

The Ukrainians do not provide their own casualty figures. These numbers are classified. However, in November, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley said that Russia’s armed forces had suffered 100,000 killed and wounded, and that Ukraine’s casualties had probably been similar. Given that the U.S. is the major sponsor of and major arms supplier to the Ukrainian war effort, Mark Milley must know exactly what Ukrainian casualty figures are, or he must explain to the Administration why he doesn’t. So his “probably” is obfuscation. While this announcement didn’t get a lot of traction, another did.

The sanctions so enthusiastically applied against Russia by the EU and the UK have rebounded very badly against the countries applying them, especially the UK and Germany, which is discovering how dependent its economy is on cheap Russian energy, and why Angel Merkel was so keen to push through Nord Stream 2 over the persistent and ruthless opposition of the US. Meanwhile the Russian economy is strengthening, much to the surprise of The Economist.

The EU needs all the money it can get, and the bureaucrats who govern are hungry for the €300 billion of frozen Russian central bank assets, and the €19 billion of assets seized from private Russian citizens, always referred to by these bureaucrats as oligarchs. There is, however, a difference between “freezing” and “seizing.” Brussels has not been able to find a legal way to take ownership of these funds, and some member states are rightly concerned about the precedent such a seizure would set. In the latest attempt to construct a framework for plundering these resources, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, made an ill-advised broadcast in which she said, “It is estimated that more than 20,000 civilians and more than 100,000 Ukrainian military officers have been killed so far.”

This revelation caused a storm in Ukraine and elsewhere. The EU PR gurus addressed the problem by editing the offending sentence out of the video, and re-releasing the edited version.

One expects of government bureaucrats a certain facility in the plundering of funds; that’s their day job. But this well of comedic talent in Brussels is something unexpected, and it evoked gales of laughter across the internet. Take three. The numbers that von der Leyen had given were only estimates, a spokeswoman said, and estimates of “dead and wounded,” at that. Unfortunately, she said “killed.” What about the 20,000 civilians? Were they “killed,” or “killed and wounded”?

The bottom line here is that Ukraine, in the estimation of the EU, has lost 100,000 men killed. That number is somewhere between a third and half of the entire Ukrainian army, although there have been repeated call-ups of the increasingly elastic category of fighting-age men.

Many Western readers may have realised that they, and by extension all of us, are suffocating in a miasma of misinformation and disinformation that is generated and re-generated by the news industries of the West. They may struggle to maintain their composure under the barrage of lies about climate change, CO2, “free” renewable energy; they may have despaired at the enthusiastic abandonment of hard-won Western civil liberties and traditions of the rule of law when Covid-19 came; at the loss of all reason, caution or medical ethics in the coercive application of mRNA “vaccines.” Yet many of these same readers have suspended all scepticism concerning Russia’s “unprovoked and unjustified” war in Ukraine. This cohort may well embrace every story from the Ukrainian military, and cheer at every video of a Russian tank being destroyed or Russian troops being killed by drone-directed artillery. So be it.

Yet both General Mark Milley and Ursula von der Leyen assert, for every Russian body over which we might care dance a jig, there is at least one Ukrainian body. In fact, if we pay attention to those numbers for which there is considerable agreement between the Russian Defence Ministry and sceptical indirect investigation, there is a shocking imbalance of casualties in Russia’s favour. Col Douglas McGregor, practically the lone ex-military voice in the US that is critical of the Western response, agreed with von der Layen’s estimate, and added an estimate of 400,000 casualties in total. He added that the recent fighting, and consequent Ukrainian casualties had been so great that the number of deaths was probably closer to 120,000. His own estimate of the ratio of Russian to Ukrainian deaths is one to eight, which would put total Russian deaths in combat at around 15,000.

Shortly after those casualty figures released by Sergei Shoigu on the 25th of March, a tentative agreement for a cease-fire and settlement was reached between representatives of Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul. As described in an earlier post, this agreement was sabotaged in an aggressive campaign of war-mongering lead by then British P.M. Boris Johnson. The cost in lives of this sabotage is terrible enough, but the economies of Europe in particular, and the U.S. to a lesser extent are being devastated by the sanctions designed to cripple the Russian economy, which has withstood these attacks handily. The conditions offered then by Russia will not be repeated. Russia, and Putin, have learned their lesson, not least from the revelations by Angela Merkel on Western and Ukrainian attitudes to the Minsk agreements. A full-scale Russian war effort is about to commence with the freezing of the Ukrainian soil, and all that has happened before will pale in comparison.

As this is being prepared, Poland, the most enthusiastic EU supporter of war in Ukraine, is on the brink of mobilisation, having announced that up to 200,000 Poles will be summoned for military training next year. Poland, it must be said, has irredentist claims on Ukraine dating from the 14th century, and particularly on Galicia and Volhynia in Western Ukraine, which were part of Poland from the Polish-Ukrainian war of 1918-19 until the joint German-Soviet invasion of 1939. The outcome of Polish military intervention in Ukraine (in which 1,700 Poles are said to have died already) may not be what Western puppeteers anticipate.

Decisions about war are the most immediately consequential decisions that any government makes. They are now, and always have been, taken by small coteries of men, and increasingly women keen to get into the business of wielding power of the lives of populations; from the ineffectual Ursula von der Leyen to the ruthless and cynical Victoria Nuland. Any polity which lacks the information or the power to demand accountability and rationality from such men and women cannot claim to be self-governed. And here we are, in spite of our remoteness from the theatre, doing what we can to bring about the total destruction of Ukraine.

Peace-Mongering, Ukraine style

First published at NewCatallaxy blog, December 10, 2022.

News Reports and Analysis

Daily Mail, 30th November, 2021

The Daily Mail reported that three gatherings of some Downing Street staff had taken place during November and December of 2020. This was the lifting of the lid on the cesspool of cynicism that characterised the political response to Covid-19 all over the Western world, with the notable exception of Sweden.

In January and February of 2022, the lid was completely unseated. Up to twenty events involving Government staffers, most frequently Downing Street staffers, were investigated. These included two parties in Downing Street on the eve of the funeral of Prince Philip.

24th February, 2022

Russian commences “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.

The White House 16th March, 2022

President Biden today announced an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine, bringing the total U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine to $1 billion in just the past week, and a total of $2 billion since the start of the Biden Administration.

Reuters, 30th March, 2022

In the most tangible sign yet of progress towards ending the war, Russia emerged from the talks promising to scale down military operations around Kyiv and the country’s north, and Ukraine proposed adopting a neutral status.

Wall Street Journal, 31st March, 2022

President Erdoğan announces that Turkey has hosted two rounds of Russian-Ukrainian peace talks. These talks had progressed to the point that Erdo?an offered to host a meeting between the two leaders. “Western officials have been hesitant to endorse Ukraine’s proposal to have its security guaranteed by outside powers…”

NPR 2nd April, 2022

“…around Kyiv and in northern Ukraine, Russian forces are withdrawing. …we don’t know yet where these Russian troops are going to be redirected to. The Pentagon says they aren’t going home…

“…there is an attack on a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod, which is near the Ukrainian border.

“Russia has said that the attacks came from low-flying Ukrainian helicopters, but Ukraine’s top security officials deny it. … And Russia has said that this attack could also impact peace talks, which are ongoing.” [my emphasis]

Forbes 6th April, 2022

“A Pentagon official told reporters Wednesday all Russian troops had left the areas of Kyiv and Chernihiv to regroup and resupply in Belarus and Russia…”

BBC 9th April, 2022

‘Prime Minister Boris Johnson has held talks in Kyiv with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. No 10 said the visit was a “show of solidarity” with the Ukrainian people. Following the meeting, Downing Street said the UK would send 120 armoured vehicles and anti-ship missile systems to support Ukraine…

‘Mr Johnson paid tribute to “President Zelensky’s resolute leadership and the invincible heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people”, saying: “Ukraine has defied the odds and pushed back Russian forces from the gates of Kyiv“…[my emphasis] Speaking…alongside President Zelensky…Mr Johnson said Ukrainians “have shown the courage of a lion but you, Volodymyr, have given the roar of that lion”…

‘Mr Johnson’s visit to Kyiv came the day after the UK announced £100m of weapons for the country.’

12th April, 2022

Boris Johnson announces that he had received a Fixed Penalty Notice for violations of his own Government’s lockdown regulations.

New York Times 14th April, 2022

Biden Announces $800 Million in Military Assistance for Ukraine.

U.S. Department of Defense 21st April, 2022

President Joe Biden announced today that the United States will send another $800 million in equipment to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s two-month-long invasion. Today’s announcement comes on the heels of an $800 million military aid package the president signed last week.

7th July, 2022

Boris Johnson announces his intention to resign when the Conservative Party has selected a new leader.

6th September, 2022

Boris Johnson resigns the Prime Ministership.

New York Post 4th October, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seemingly shut the door on the prospect of having any peace talks with Vladimir Putin — but not with Russia under a different leadership. Zelensky signed a decree on Tuesday formally declaring negotiations with the Kremlin autocrat to be “impossible.”

Vladimir Putin Astana press conference 14th October, 2022

“But we are also aware of Kiev’s position – they kept saying they wanted talks, and even sort of asked for them, but have now passed an official decision that bans such talks. Well, what is there to discuss?

“As you may be aware, speaking at the Kremlin when announcing the decision on the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, I said we are open. We have always said that we are open. We reached certain agreements in Istanbul, after all. These agreements were almost initialled. But as soon as our troops withdrew from Kiev, the Kiev authorities lost any interest in the talks. That is all there is to it.”

Foreign Affairs September/October 2022

Foreign Affairs is the house journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, the most influential foreign affairs think tank in the U.S. In the 2022 September/October was an article written by Fiona Hill and Angela Stent, titled The World Putin Wants: How Distortions About The Past Feed Delusions About The Future. If you’re looking for a summary of every article written since February about Putin’s real motives and Putin’s real objectives in the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine and Donbas, this is a good place to start.

Buried on page eleven is this passing acknowledgement, which is the most comprehensive description of the conditions for peace that had been agreed between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators 5 weeks after the commencement of the Russian “Special Military Operation”:

According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.

Die Zeit 7th December, 2022

Angela Merkel’s interview with Die Zeit magazine is published. Merkel is tidying up her legacy. Among other things, she discusses her contradictory and poll-driven energy policies, including the shutdown of Germany’s nuclear industry, and her push, taken up personally with Vladimir Putin, for the building of Nord Stream 2. Most revealing though, in the current context, are her comments about policy towards Donbas, which require a little background.

After the US-engineered Maidan coup of 2014, which overthrew the elected government of Ukraine, the Russian-speaking Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts – the Donbas – refused to recognise the newly installed government, and broke away. Ukrainian armed forces immediately occupied Donetsk airport and from there launched attacks on Donetsk city and surrounds. This led to very heavy and bitter fighting between the Ukrainian military and the separatist militias (with covert Russian support.) The first Minsk agreement, signed on the 14th of September, 2014, failed to stop the fighting. The second Minsk agreement, signed on the 12th of February, 2015, was more successful, but it was never fully implemented.

Now back to Merkel’s comments:

I thought the initiation of NATO accession for Ukraine and Georgia discussed in 2008 to be wrong. The contries neither had the necessary prerequisites for this, nor had the consequences of such a decision been fully considered, both with regard to Russia’s actions against Georgia and Ukraine and to NATO and its rules of assistance. And Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time.

Ukraine used this time to get stronger, as you can see today. The Ukraine of 2014/15 is not the Ukraine of today. As you saw in the battle for Debaltsevo in early 2015, Putin could have easily overrun them at the time. And I very much doubt that the NATO countries could have done as much then as they do now to help Ukraine. [My emphasis.]

The Ukrainian defeat at Debaltsevo led to the signing of the second Minsk agreement. According to Merkel, it was “clear to all of us that the conflict was frozen, that the problem had not been solved, but that gave Ukraine valuable time.” Merkel also revealed that, in her view and presumably that of other Western leaders, “the Cold War never really ended because Russia was basically not at peace.” Another translation renders that as “…basically not satisfied.” NATO, she said “should have reacted more quickly to Russia’s aggressiveness” in 2014, contradicting her previous remarks. It was a long interview.

So Merkel, and no doubt her Western partners, cynically manipulated her interlocutors in the Minsk negotiations, but according to her, it was not Germany, the US and the UK that were “basically not satisfied” at the end of the Cold War, but Russia. Western powers never accept any opprobrium for cynical deceit and treachery, because the other side – in this case Russia – is always the underlying source of such destructive behaviour, and Merkel and Co are regrettably forced to respond in kind. Remember that Merkel was 35 in the year the Berlin Wall came down. She learned her trades in the world of The Lives of Others, but she found soul siblings in the foreign affairs organisations of the USA, the UK and the EU.

* * * *

All of the lives lost, the buildings and infrastructure destroyed, the refugees displaced, and the massive cost to the Ukrainian, Russian and Western economies since April flow from the sabotage of those peace talks. It is well to remember this now that negotiations are once again being proposed, this time by the USA, directly with Russia. The fact that these talks have been proposed by the US, and that Zelensky, who only a month ago declared that Ukraine would not negotiate with Russia until Putin was overthrown, turns the spotlight on the real real Western protagonist of this war. But that merely reasserts the lesson of Zelensky’s reneging on the April agreement.