Wait a minute. Is Putin actually Netanyahu? 

1. Same messianic type of pursuit of Greater Russia as Greater Israel. 

2. Same militaristic single mindedness. 

3. Same scorched-earth eradication of the poor peasant Ukrainians. 

4. Same triumphalist psychopathic celebration of “victory,” i.e., the mass death of fellow men. 

5. Same employment of Hannibal doctrine ruthlessneslly, when someone like Prigozhin or Strelkov gets out of line. 

6. Same relentless use of propaganda and distortion of basic facts ignoring that actually Russia was the invader and not the victim.

7. Same use of demonizing techniques of name calling, in this case, “terrorists” or Nazis, whether Ukrainians, Estonians or Moldovans for simply claiming their statehood. 

8. Same incitement of ethnic hatred against the immigrants from the former “friendly” countries of the Soviet space as against their independent internal policy.

9. Same mass brainwashing, as if Mother Russia were the impersonator of Good Mother God, all the rest of the people are either Nazis/Terrorists or Russia’s subservient vassals. 

10. Same hype of religious fervor, whether Christian Orthodoxy as Moscow-new-Rome, just as Biblical-based claims on property rights.

Is he ultimately killing innocent Ukrainians for political gain, or for Lebensraum on behalf of future colonists, whoever they might be?

via Washington Post

Putin’s goal to subdue Ukraine has not changed, and while he has agreed to peace talks, he has also vowed to fight on if Ukraine rejects Russia’s terms. In a recent interview on state television to mark a quarter-century in power, he said, “We have enough forces and means to bring what we started in 2022 to its logical end.”

In the same interview, Putin also described his country as being involved in something greater than itself, a seemingly messianic higher calling to change the world. “Russian people have some differences from, say, Western societies: We think more about something eternal, something infinite, something higher.”

While President Vladimir Putin hosted several world leaders, European ministers gathered in Ukraine to announce the formation of war crimes tribunal targeting Russian officials.

By Robyn Dixon, Francesca Ebel and Ellen Francis

More on Telegram

Ed Note: Algora Publishing made the same prediction in a book authored by Claudiu Secara, published in 1997 and written in the 1990s: The New ComonWealth.
Quote: “The centuries long Russian-Anglo-American love-hate relationship has been evolving dramatically from late 1978 until today, for sure. However, one might notice that it is being redesigned in such a way as to accommodate in the long run a more assertive, more successful and more powerful Russia overlording its European and southern peripheries. A first sketch of such an analysis I presented in 1992 at the ISA conference in Atlanta. ‘Post Soviet, Euroslavia’”

“The defeat of the West is not a victory for Russia. The West is destroying itself…”

Historian and demographer Emmanuel Todd, who predicted the collapse of the USSR in his book “The Final Collapse” back in 1976, this time predicted the defeat of the West and said that humanity is on the eve of changing the world.

The main reason for the impending defeat of the West, according to Todd, was “the evaporation of Protestantism, which led to the disappearance of what constituted the strength and specificity of the West.”

via Sputnik Globe

A renowned French historian and sociologist better known for predicting the Soviet Union’s dissolution well in advance now foretells the West’s overthrow in his newest book.

French historian Emmanuel Todd believes that NATO is already losing the Ukrainian conflict. He likewise concluded that the defeat would eventually culminate in Russia’s reconciliation with Europe and its rapprochement with Germany, contrary to the wishes of the United States.

This view was expressed to Le Point Magazine during an interview ahead the release of his new book La Defaite de L’Occident (The Defeat of the West).

In the book, he denounces the Western attitude toward Russia, stating that “Avoiding the rapprochement between Germany and Russia was one of the US goals. This rapprochement would have signed the ejection of the United States from the European system of power. Americans have preferred to destroy Europe rather than save the West.”

Todd’s La Defaite de L’Occident excerpt highlights America’s waning status as a global superpower and its weak military-industrial complex.

The French historian also underlined the diminished influence of Europe, once represented by a strong partnership between France and Germany, highlighting that Germany has taken a dominant role since the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

Furthermore, he pointed out that in the wake of the Ukrainian conflict, the European Union has distanced itself from Russia, therefore hurting its own trade and energy interests.

“We also saw Emmanuel Macron’s France vaporize on the international stage, while Poland became Washington’s main agent in the European Union, succeeding in the role of the United Kingdom that became outside the Union by the grace of Brexit…On the mainland, overall, the Paris-Berlin axis was replaced by a London-Warsaw-Kiev axis piloted from Washington,” Todd opined.

Todd decried the dominant narrative in the West about the conflict in Ukraine: “We are in a completely Putinophobic and Russophobic world.” He went on to argue for a pluralistic view that recognizes different perspectives. “I am fighting to keep the West pluralistic. If we look for my values, they are values of truth and pluralism,” he remarked.

Addressing the question of how this year’s US election might alter the trajectory of the Ukrainian conflict, the expert highlighted Russia’s steadfast commitment to its existing course. “For the Russians, it makes no difference. For Russia is at war with America, and they ignore changes in rulers,” according to Todd.

via RT’s Swentr

“In terms of being a global centre of power, the Old World is finished. Moscow understands this reality, but our former partners remain in denial”

Russia’s HSE University Dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs Sergey Karaganov attends a session of the 14th Eurasian Economic Forum in Verona, Italy. © Sputnik / Sputnik

by Evgeny Shostakov, in conversation with Sergey Karaganov

Not long ago, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said: “The European Union must be ready for war by the end of the decade.” Berlin has started talking about the return of universal military service and preparations for a confrontation with Moscow. There are similar sentiments in Poland. But is it only because of the events in Ukraine?

What is the reason for the upsurge in fighting talk in Europe?

Leading Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta talks to international relations expert Sergey Karaganov, who is the honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, an academic supervisor at the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow, and a former Kremlin advisor.

— Evgeny Shostakov: Mr. Karaganov, given the current difficult foreign policy situation, is there a need for a conceptually different theory of deterrence against Russia’s enemies in order to stop the growing confrontation at an early stage, and to discourage our adversaries from fueling conflicts?

— The elites of Western Europe – and especially in Germany – are in a state of historical failure. The main basis of their 500-year domination [of the world] was military superiority, on which the economic, political and cultural dominance of the West was built. But this has been knocked out from under them. With the help of this advantage, they manipulated the world’s resources in their favor. First they plundered their colonies, and later they did the same, but with more sophisticated methods.

Today’s Western elites are failing to address a range of growing problems in their societies. These include a shrinking middle class and rising inequality. Almost all their initiatives are failing. The European Union, as everyone knows, is slowly but surely sprawling out. That is why its ruling class has been hostile to Russia for about 15 years now. They need an external enemy; Josep Borrell [the EU’s top foreign affairs official] called the world around the bloc a jungle last year. Indeed, in the past, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the sanctions adopted by the EU [against Russia] were necessary first and foremost to unite the European Union and prevent it from collapsing.

The German and Western European elites have an inferiority complex in, what is for them, a now-monstrous situation, where their part of the world is being overtaken by everyone. Not only by the Chinese and the Americans, but also by many other countries. Thanks to Russia’s liberation of the world from the ‘Western yoke’, Western Europe is no longer lording it over the states of the Global South, or as I call them, the countries of the world majority.

The threat Western Europe now presents is that the Old World has lost its fear of armed conflict. And that is very dangerous. At the same time, the West of Europe, let me remind you, has been the source of the worst disasters in human history. Now in Ukraine there is a struggle not only for Russia’s interests, for the interests of its security, but also to prevent a new global confrontation. The threat is growing. This is also due to the West’s desperate attempts at counter-attacks to maintain its dominance. Today’s Western European elites are failing and losing influence in the world to a much greater extent than their American counterparts.

Russia is fighting its own battle and fighting it successfully. We are acting confidently enough to sober up these Western elites, lest they unleash another world conflict in despair at their failures. We must not forget that these same people’s predecessors unleashed two world wars within one generation in the last century. Now, the quality of these elites is even lower than it was then.

— Are you talking about the spiritual and political defeat of Western Europe as a fait accompli?

— Yes, and it is frightening. After all, we are also part of European culture. But I hope that, through a series of crises, healthy forces will prevail on that side of the continent in about 20 years, let’s say. And it will wake up from its failure, including its moral failure.

— For the time being, we are witnessing the formation of a new Iron Curtain in relation to Russia. The West is trying to “erase” our country, including in the fields of culture and values. There is deliberate dehumanization of Russians in the media. Should we react in reverse and “cancel” the West?

— Absolutely not. The West is now closing the Iron Curtain, first of all because we in Russia are the real Europeans. We remain healthy. And they want to exclude these healthy forces. Secondly, the West is closing this curtain, even more tightly than during the Cold War, in order to mobilize its population for hostilities. But we do not need a military confrontation with the West, so we will rely on a policy of containment to prevent the worst.

Of course, we will not cancel anything, including our European story. Yes, we have completed our European journey [in terms of integration]. I think it has dragged on a bit, maybe for a century. But without European inoculation, without European culture, we would not have become such a great power. We would not have had Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin or Blok. So we will keep European culture, which the West of our continent seems to be trying to abandon. But I hope that it will not destroy itself completely, in this regard. Because Western Europe is not only abandoning Russian culture, it is abandoning its own culture. It is cancelling a culture that is largely based on love and Christian values. It is cancelling its history, destroying its monuments. However, we will not reject our European roots.

I have always been against looking at the West with mere squeamishness. You should not do that. Then we would be like them. And they are now sliding towards an inevitable march towards fascism. We do not need all the contagions that have been and are growing out of the west of Europe. Including, once again, the growing contagion of fascism.

— The year 2023 saw the unfreezing of old conflicts and the demonstrative creation of the conditions for new ones – the predictable explosion of the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation, a series of wars in Africa, and more localized clashes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Will this trend continue?

— This trend will not become an avalanche next year. But it is quite obvious that it will increase, because the tectonic plates under the world system have shifted. Russia is much better prepared for this period than it was a few years ago. The military operation we are conducting in Ukraine is aimed, among other things, at preparing the country for life in the very dangerous world of the future. We are purifying our elite, getting rid of corrupt, pro-Western elements. We are reviving our economy. We are reviving our military. We are reviving the Russian spirit. We are now much better prepared to defend our interests in the world than we were a few years ago. We live in a resurgent country that looks boldly to the future. The military operation is helping us to purge ourselves of Westerners and Westernizers, to find our new place in history. And finally, to strengthen ourselves militarily.

— Do you agree that from 2024 the world will enter a period of prolonged conflict? Does humanity today have the political will to change this situation?

— Of course we have entered an era of protracted conflicts. But we are much better prepared for them than ever before. It seems to me that by pursuing a course of containing the West and building relations with brotherly China, we are now becoming an axis of the world that can prevent everyone from sliding into a global catastrophe. But this requires efforts to sober up our opponents in the West. We have entered a struggle to save the world. Perhaps Russia’s mission is to free our planet from the ‘Western yoke’, to save it from the difficulties that will arise from changes that are already causing a lot of friction. The threat comes in no small part from the desperate counterattack of the West, which is clinging to its 500-year-old dominance, which has allowed it to plunder the world.

We see that new values have emerged in the West, including the denial of everything human and divine in man. Western elites have begun to nurture these anti-values and to suppress normal values. So we have a difficult period ahead of us, but I hope that we will preserve ourselves and help the world to save traditional humanity.

One of the many problems facing the world today is, of course, that the global economy is in a systemic crisis because of the endless growth of consumption. This destroys nature itself. Man was not created to consume; to see the meaning of existence in buying new things.

— In an interview with Interfax, our Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov linked the possible future abandonment of the anti-Russian course of the United States and its subordinates to a “generational change” in the West. But could a change of elites in the West, if it happens, provide an impetus to defuse tensions? Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, born in 1980, for example, is a member of the new generation, but her views are more radical than those of other ‘hawks’ of the past. In your view, are there any reasonable, and diplomatic, politicians left in the West?

— I think that today in the West we are dealing with two generations of elites who are already quite degraded. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that we will be able to reach an agreement with them. However, I still believe that societies and peoples, including those in Western Europe, will return to normal values. Of course, this will require a change in generations of elites. I agree with Sergey Ryabkov that it will take a long time, but I hope that the Western European countries, and perhaps the US too, will not fall into a hopeless state, and healthy national forces will return to power across Europe.

However, I do not believe that real, pragmatic, and I repeat, national forces can come to power in Western Europe in the near future. So I believe that if we ever talk about normal relations between Russia and the West [returning], it will take at least 20 years.

We must also realize that we no longer need the West. We have taken all we could from this wonderful European journey that Peter the Great started. Now we must return to ourselves, to the origins of Russia’s greatness. That is, of course, the development of Siberia. Its new development, which means reaching new horizons. We must remember that we are not so much a European country as an Eurasian one. I will never tire of reminding you that Alexander Nevsky spent a year and a half traveling through Central Asia and then Southern Siberia on his way to Karakorum, the capital of the Mongolian Empire. In fact, he was the first Russian Siberian.

By returning to Siberia, to the Urals, by building new roads, new industries, we are returning to ourselves, to the roots of our 500 years of greatness. It was only after Siberia was opened up that Russia found the strength and opportunity to become a great power.

In the foreseeable future, unfortunately, there can be no serious interstate arms limitation agreements in principle.

— How reasonable is it to forget Europe for decades?

— Under no circumstances should we forget the old sacred stones of Europe that Dostoyevsky spoke of. They are part of our self-awareness. I myself love Europe, and Venice in particular. It was through this city that the Silk Road passed, and through it the great Asian civilizations. At that time, by the way, they surpassed European civilization in their development. Even 150-200 years ago, looking towards Europe was a sign of modernization and progress. But for a long time now, and even more so today, it has been a sign of intellectual and moral backwardness. We should not deny our European roots; we should treat them with care. After all, Europe has given us a lot. But Russia must move forward. And forward does not mean to the West, but to the East and the South. That is where the future of humanity lies.

— The Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty expires in 2026. What comes next? Given the legal nihilism of the West, can we count on new interstate military agreements? Or is humanity condemned to an uncontrollable arms race until the establishment of a new world order and, consequently, a new status quo?

— It is pointless to negotiate with the current Western elites. In my writings I urge the Western oligarchy to replace these people, because they are dangerous to themselves, and I hope that sooner or later such a process will begin. Because the current group are so deeply degraded that it is impossible to negotiate with them. Of course, you have to talk to them. After all, there are other threats besides nuclear weapons. There’s the drone revolution. Cyber weapons have emerged. There is artificial intelligence. Biological weapons have appeared which can also threaten humanity with terrible problems. Russia needs to develop a new strategy to contain all these threats. We are working on it, including at the new Institute of International Military Economics and Strategy, and will continue to do so with the intellectual elites of the countries of the world majority. These are, first and foremost, our Chinese and Indian friends. We will discuss it with our Pakistani and Arab colleagues. So far, the West has nothing constructive to offer us. But we will not close our doors.

In the foreseeable future, unfortunately, there can be no serious interstate agreements on arms limitation in principle. Simply because we do not even know what to limit and how to limit it. But we need to develop new approaches and instill more realistic views in our partners around the world. It is not even technically possible to count on arms limitation agreements in the coming years. It would simply be a waste of time. However, it may be possible to conduct some pro forma negotiations. For example, trying to ban new areas of the arms race. I’m particularly concerned about biological weapons, and weapons in space. Something can be done in those areas. But what Russia needs now is to develop a new concept of deterrence, which will have not only military but also psychological, political and moral aspects.

— Are assessments that the West has come to terms with Kiev’s defeat too premature? And the idea that the Global South is confidently defeating the Western world?

— The US benefits from the confrontation in Ukraine. [Meanwhile] for the Western European elites, it is the only way to avoid moral collapse. That is why they will support the conflict in Ukraine for a long time to come. In such a situation, we need to act decisively both on the ground and in the area of strategic deterrence in order to achieve our goals as soon as possible. At the same time, it is important to understand that the majority of the world will not fight against the West. Many countries are interested in developing trade and other relations with it. Therefore, the World Majority is a partner but not an ally of Russia. We have to be tough, but calculated. I am almost certain that with the right policy of containment and an active policy on the fringes of Ukraine, we can break the will of the West’s dangerous resistance.

In today’s world, it’s every man for himself. It is a wonderful multi-polar, multi-colored world. This does not mean that in 20 years there will not be some blocs, including a conditional pro-Russian bloc. We have to find ourselves, to understand who we are. A great Eurasian power, North Eurasia. A liberator of nations, a guarantor of peace and a military-political pivot of the world majority. This is our destiny. In addition, we are uniquely prepared for this world because of the cultural openness we have gained from our history. We are religiously open. We are nationally open. These are all things we are now defending. More and more, we realize that the most important thing about us is the Russian spirit and Russian culture. We are all Russians – Russian Russians, Russian Tatars, Russian Chechens, Russian Yakuts… I think we are finding ourselves again. And I enter the New Year with a sense of spiritual uplift and optimism. Russia is being reborn. It is absolutely obvious.

This interview was first published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, translated and edited by the RT team

by SCOTT RITTER via
scott ritter extra

Ukrainian workers dismantle the “Monument to Empress Catherine II of Russia and her companions” in Ekaterininskaya Square, Odessa, on December 28, 2022.

They came in the middle of the night, a handful of municipal employees manning a crane which they used to dismantle the bronze statue of Empress Catherine II, known as “Catherine the Great.” The statue was part of an assembly of bronze figures collectively known as the “Monument of the Founders of Odessa.” One of these figures was of José de Ribas, a Spanish naval officer who joined the Russian Imperial Army in 1772, leading it to victory against the Ottoman forces. Ribas led the assault that captured the territory which would be, in 1794, under an imperial edict issued by Catherine, Odessa. Ribas was the first administrator of the city. Another figure depicted François Sainte de Wollant, a Flemish engineer who was the first architect of Odessa. Platon Zubov was a Russian nobleman and believed to be Catherine’s closest advisor (and secret lover), while Grigory Potemkin, another Russian nobleman, was Catherine’s most influential advisor (and secret lover), who was the first Governor of the territories of New Russia, including Odessa, that were captured from the Ottomans.

These figures were all removed, and placed in storage, as part of an effort overseen by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “de-Russify” Ukraine by eliminating all symbols of Ukraine’s Russian heritage.

Zelensky’s efforts, however, have not dampened Russia’s emotional and historic ties to Odessa. This point was driven home by Russian President Vladmir Putin during his annual end of the year question and answer event on December 14. “I have always said and as I am saying today,” Putin declared, “that despite the current tragic developments, Russians and Ukrainians are essentially one people.”

Putin likened the current conflict to a “civil war” between two fraternal peoples. But he made clear that parts of Ukraine were more Russian than Ukrainian. “The southeastern part of Ukraine has always been pro-Russian because it is historically a Russian territory,” Putin said. “Neither Crimea nor the Black Sea region has any connection to Ukraine,” he continued, before concluding, “Odessa is a Russian city. We know this. Everyone knows this.”

The original Monument to Empress Catherine II of Russia and her companions was built in 1900, the belated byproduct of patriotic fervor that had gripped Odessa in 1894—Odessa’s centennial. It was toppled by the Bolsheviks in 1920, with Catherine’s bust dismantled, and the statues of the four founders removed to a warehouse. In 2007 a pro-Russian member of the Odessa City Council, Ruslan Tarpan, raised funds to restore the monument of Catherine and her four subjects. On October 27, 2007, the new monument was unveiled in a lavish ceremony that featured fireworks and a philharmonic orchestra.

But not everyone was thrilled with the idea of celebrating a Russian Empress; then-President Viktor Yushchenko, who had elevated the pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalist leader, Stepan Bandera, to “hero” status in Ukraine, condemned the monument, and police had to be called in to separate those who participated in the unveiling ceremony from crowds of Ukrainian nationalists who had traveled to Odessa to disrupt the proceedings.

These Ukrainian nationalists eventually succeeded in forcing Tarpon to flee to exile in the United Emirates to escape charges of embezzlement; these same nationalists later flocked to Odessa in May 2014, where they set fire to a building where pro-Russian demonstrators had gathered, leading to the deaths of 48 persons. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 provided the final impetus for the Ukrainian nationalists to remove the monument.

The marble plinth that held the monument is now empty, save for a Ukrainian flag. Despite the passage of a law by President Zelensky in April 2023 forbidding Russian names to be used for public places, the square that was home to the monument is still known as Katerynynska Square. Nearby are the Potemkin Steps, made famous in Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 classic silent movie, Battleship Potemkin, which tells the story of the revolt of the sailors of that warship during the 1905 Revolution.

While the Soviet authorities sought to depict Odessa first as a revolutionary city, and later as a “Hero City” (the city was besieged by German and Romanian forces from August-October 1941, before falling), the reality of Odessa was perhaps most closely captured by the Jewish-Russian writer, Isaak Babel, who, in his Odessa Tales, depicts a city defined by hedonism and lawlessness. Alexander Pushkin, the Russian poet, spent 13 months in exile in Odessa; his observations of life in that city, circa 1823-24, is said to have influenced his famous novel, Eugene Onegin. The culture of Odessa, whether told through the eyes of Babel or Pushkin—or any other Russian writer—was defined by its geography, positioned as it was on the Black Sea, serving as the gateway to the Bosphorus and eastern Mediterranean Sea. Odessa was always more Levantine than European in terms of its culture, its port city status linking it to the rich mercantile heritage of the region.

While Ukrainian nationalists emphasize that, based upon the 2001 census, a little over 60% of Odessa’s population of 1.1 million persons identifies as Ukrainian (Russians comprised just under 30%), the reality is that Odessa has always had an air of Russophone cosmopolitanism, with its inhabitants speaking in uniquely accented-Russian. This diversity of cultures grounded in Russian reality is what defines much of the Russian Federation today, a definition that held true during Soviet and Imperial Russian rule as well. The fact that Odessa and the pro-Russian regions of southeastern Ukraine (or New Russia, as it was known during the time of Catherine the Great) fell under Ukrainian rule following the dissolution of the Soviet Union is, as Russian President Putin noted, an accident of history.

It looks as if the “accident” is about to be rectified. Putin’s reference to Odessa as a “Russian city” provides a critical insight into the thinking of the Russian leadership. But this thinking is not shaped by nostalgia alone—the fact that the Ukrainian government has transformed Odessa into a base where NATO, using Ukrainian forces as its proxy, is able to threaten the Black Sea Fleet’s Sevastopol base, sealed Odessa’s fate. Simply put, Russia cannot permit whatever Ukrainian entity that emerges from the current conflict to ever again be able to use Odessa as a sword pressed into Russia’s side.

Odessa will be Russian again. This is a fact driven by geopolitical reality as well as historical precedence. Odessa will be Russian because it always has been Russian. No matter how much Ukrainian nationalism, manifested in the ideology of Stepan Bandera as interpreted by the deeds and actions of Voldymyr Zelensky, seeks to argue otherwise, the simple fact of the matter is that the Banderist ideology of the Zelensky government is completely out of step with the reality of Odessa which, even today, still retains the characteristic rogue charm as described by Babel in the 13 short stories that comprise his Odessa Tales.

Isaac Babel was executed by the NKVD in 1940, his post-revolutionary writing considered counter-revolutionary by Stalin and his ilk. But his words live on in the daily beat of life in a city which came to life under the multi-cultured guidance of Catherine the Great and her four associates—half of whom were not Russian. And let there be no doubt—someday in the not-so-distant future, Catherine’s visage, and those of her four advisors, will once again grace the plinth in the center of Katerynynska square, a Russian leader once again looming large over a Russian city.

While the West is busy with trying to find more money for Ukraine and organize WEF sponsored “peace talks” without Russia, some very important statements were made by Vladimir Putin today, during his call-in press conference, which might indicate the direction the SMO is headed.

“The whole southeast of Ukraine has always been pro-Russian, because these are historically Russian territories. Turkey knows this well, the entire Black Sea coast went to Russia as a result of the Russo-Turkish wars. What does Ukraine have to do with this? It has nothing to do with it. Neither Crimea, nor the entire Black Sea coast in general,” Putin said in response to a TASS question.

“Odessa is a Russian city. We know this. Everyone knows this. But no, they drummed up all sorts of historical nonsense,” he pointed out.

At the same time, the president noted that once upon a time “Vladimir Lenin gave away the whole of Ukraine when he created the Soviet Union.” “We came to terms with this after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We accepted it and were ready to live in this paradigm,” the Russian president emphasized. “But this part, the southeast [of Ukraine], is pro-Russian. It was also important for us,” he underscored.

Could wars in Ukraine, Gaza bring ‘major changes in the international order’? Fiona Hill thinks so

BY DOYLE MCMANUS

WASHINGTON COLUMNIST

Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Fiona Hill is worried.

The onetime Russia advisor to then-President Trump fears that support for Ukraine is gradually eroding, encouraging Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to wait the West out.

“Putin feels everything is trending in his favor,” she warns.

But she’s worried about much more than that, beginning with Israel’s war in Gaza, which has made the world more dangerous.

The two conflicts aren’t directly linked, but each is likely to affect the other.

“These could be global-system-shifting wars, something like World War I and World War II, which reflected and produced major changes in the international order,” she said. “In a sense, the Hamas attack on Israel was a kind of Pearl Harbor moment. It opened a second front.”

Most of the world’s major powers have lined up in two opposing coalitions: the United States and its allies on one side; Russia, China and Iran on the other. One of those coalitions is supporting both Ukraine and Israel. The other is not.

I met with Hill last week to hear her thoughts on the spreading global crisis.

It was a sobering tour d’horizon, as seen through a Russia-watcher’s eyes.

Let’s begin with Ukraine, which has been fighting for more than a year to secure its independence in the face of a Russian invasion.

The United States and its European allies have provided billions of dollars in weapons and financial aid to help stop Putin’s drive to reconquer the Russian Empire.

But Ukraine’s progress has been maddeningly slow, prompting impatience not only in the U.S., but in Europe as well.

“We put too much weight on Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Hill said. “This is going to be a long war. Putin thinks we will give up if he holds on long enough.”

The Russian leader is also “clearly waiting for 2024” and the prospect that Trump could return to the White House and cut off aid to Ukraine, she added.

An early test will come in the next few weeks, when Congress considers Biden’s request for $61 billion in new aid for Ukraine. The last time the House of Representatives faced such a request, 93 Republicans voted against it, including the newly elected speaker of the House, Mike Johnson (R-La.).

Now add the second front in the global conflict: Gaza.

“This helps Putin,” Hill said. “It’s going to distract the United States and European supporters of Ukraine.”

It isn’t clear whether any of the weapons the United States is rushing to Israel will come from supplies that had been earmarked for Ukraine. But Biden’s request for $14 billion in aid to Israel makes the burden on Congress and taxpayers look heavier.

The next piece on the global chessboard is China, which Biden — like Trump before him — has identified as the United States’ main competitor.

Under President Xi Jinping, China has strengthened its alliance with Russia.

“China doesn’t want to be stranded alone with no other major power as an ally,” Hill explained. “Xi needs Putin and Putin needs Xi.”

But that creates a problem for the United States, she said: “We’re not going to have any hope of curtailing Russia’s options and getting the Middle East to calm down if we have a super-antagonistic relationship with China.”

She thinks the Biden administration should try a “Nixon to China” effort to reduce animosity, referring to President Nixon‘s opening of a relationship with Mao Zedong in 1972.

Finally, Hill is worried about one more country: the United States, which is heading toward a presidential election as polarized as ever.

Putin isn’t the only world leader waiting to see how 2024 turns out.

“If the rest of the world thinks every time a new government comes along, we are going to tear up agreements we just made, we won’t be looked at as a very reliable partner,” she warned.

Is there anything encouraging in this picture?

Hill has been traveling around the United States for much of the last year, and she says her audiences are “thirsty” for an end to national discord.

In appearances on college campuses and with civic groups, she discusses Russia and foreign policy. But she also talks about her history as a coal miner’s daughter who grew up in poverty in the north of England, but, thanks to hard work and lucky breaks, earned a doctorate at Harvard, became a U.S. citizen and landed a job in the White House.

That personal story has made her passionate about promoting social mobility as the cure for the disaffection that helped elect Trump in 2016.

Along the way, she has noticed something about her adopted country that has surprised her: “We don’t have a unifying national figure who everyone respects.”

In less polarized eras, she noted, the president often enjoyed that stature, but that hasn’t been true for at least a decade.

“Who speaks to the whole country now?” she asked. “Taylor Swift? Arnold Schwarzenegger?”

It’s a good question.

Is there anyone who commands broad bipartisan respect who can knit a fractured country together?

At first, Taylor Swift struck me as a little far-fetched. But on second thought, we could do a lot worse.