RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/02/26/the_growing_threat_of_a_world_run_by_dictators_147250.html

Early Thursday, an authoritarian ruler deployed troops into an embattled democracy in clear defiance not only of that country’s sovereignty, but of condemnation and threats from the rest of the democratic world. The Putin regime’s incursion into Ukraine is just the latest symptom of a much larger pattern of antidemocratic aggression.

In 2021, for the 16th consecutive year, Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report found that respect for political rights and civil liberties declined globally. Military coups proliferated, and authoritarian regimes staged utterly uncompetitive elections in Hong Kong, Iran, Nicaragua, Russia, and elsewhere. An astonishing 8 out of 10 people in the world now live in countries rated by Freedom House as Not Free or Partly Free.

Fueling the spread of authoritarian practices has been a new kind of mutual aid society for dictators – less formalized than the Communist International (Comintern) of the Cold War era, but perhaps more effective. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the global dominance of democratic states meant that all nations needed to move or – appear to move – toward democratic standards of governance in order to gain credibility, access international trade and financing, and receive development or military aid. Over the last decade and a half, however, wealthy and powerful authoritarian regimes in China, Russia, and the Middle East have made it possible for an increasing number of despots to openly pursue antidemocratic systems, safe in the knowledge that any repercussions from the world’s democracies will be offset by assistance from their autocratic friends.

Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad have long been propped up by other authoritarian regimes: Havana, Moscow, and Beijing in the former case and Tehran and Moscow in the latter. More recently the practice has benefited Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus and the leaders of military coups in Myanmar and Sudan.

When tens of thousands of Belarusian citizens turned out to protest the fraudulent presidential election of August 2020, Russia’s Vladimir Putin came to Lukashenka’s aid – not only with words of support, but also with a $1.5 billion loan. The Kremlin sent propagandists to “report” on the election when real journalists in Belarus went on strike, provided security forces to backstop the regime’s brutal crackdown, and dispatched election observers to validate the farcical results.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/putin-sizes-biden-invades-ukraine-robert-spencer/

Russian troops are advancing briskly into Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has brushed off Old Joe Biden’s sanctions and made it abundantly clear that he is not afraid of Biden, as Democrat operatives and their propaganda arm, the establishment media, have long insisted.

This is what happens when America has a feeble president, an obvious figurehead, and our military is compromised by Leftist ideologues. Clearly Putin is taking advantage of Biden’s obvious weakness and the decimation of our Armed Forces by wokeness and Covid hysteria. He knows that there is little likelihood that Biden will touch off World War III by committing American troops to the defense of Ukraine. Putin also likely considers that even if the American military does end up confronting Russian forces, that the U.S. military’s concentration on pushing Critical Race Theory and other Leftist agendas on the troops, as well as the culling that took place due to vaccine mandates, have left our military in such a weakened, distracted, and confused state that it will not pose any significant threat anyway.

Meanwhile, Putin emphasized in his remarks announcing the beginning of the operation against Ukraine that “in December 2021 we once again made an attempt to agree with the United States and its allies on the principles of ensuring security in Europe and on the non-expansion of NATO. Everything was in vain. The US position did not change. They did not consider it necessary to negotiate with Russia on this important issue for us, continuing to pursue their own goals and disregarding our interests.”

If this is an accurate summation of what happened, and there is no reason to believe that it isn’t, then the fecklessness of the Biden administration’s foreign policy is as much to blame for this conflict as Putin is. The questions must be asked: was it really necessary to begin maneuvering to incorporate Ukraine into NATO, and to ignore all Russian entreaties that may have led to the formulation of an agreement that was mutually acceptable to both parties? Were State Department officials too preoccupied with implementing the woke agenda to bother to negotiate with Putin over NATO?

https://www.city-journal.org/understanding-putins-ukraine-gambit

Is Russian president Vladimir Putin mad? While it’s natural for people waking up to a war having broken out on the European continent to ask themselves this question, it is the wrong question to ask.

It’s wrong because it leads to strategic mirroring. In the run-up to today’s outbreak of hostilities, the Biden administration admirably focused much of its energies on keeping allies on the same page. It aggressively shared detailed information about plans behind the scenes across European capitals, and by earlier this week had managed to cobble together a united front against Putin’s increasingly threatening posture.

But in seeking to deter Putin, the Biden team made several mistakes. It kept waving the threat of sanctions, sure that the thought of economic pain would make the Russian leader flinch. After all, to a modern, liberal-minded leader, the looming threat of material privations feels like a heavy cost to bear. Putin himself punctured that fantasy in his speech on Monday, saying that he fully anticipated heavy sanctions to be applied no matter what. The whole tone of his speech, dripping with hateful grievance, indicated that material privation was a small sacrifice to right what he insists are historical wrongs. Now that sanctions are set to roll out, we will see if Putin misjudged how much stress the Russian state can bear. As a means of deterrence, however, sanctions failed miserably.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2022/02/eurasianism-putins-new-world-order/

The West was forewarned. It has been no secret that a grand imperialist vision of a vast new Eurasian empire drives Vladimir Putin and the cadre of Russian ultra-nationalists who surround him. Central to this vision are the heartland states of Russia and Ukraine, which is why the latter must be subordinated to the Kremlin as the first step in this grand strategy.

Tragically, the globalist elites who dominate Western politics have refused to even recognize the existence of this vision, much less acknowledge its ideological and psychological power. These elites have displayed only weakness and lack of direction and resolve, confirming Putin’s conviction that the West is in sharp decline and that the time for a new autocratic world order has arrived.

Neo-Eurasianism. At the centre of this vision is the political religion of Neo-Eurasianism, exemplified by the work of its high priest, Aleksandr Dugin (above), whose spiritualized neo-fascist imperialism is based on an all-encompassing rage against liberalism, globalization, modernity, and the West in general – what he and his followers call the ‘Atlanticist World Order’, exemplified by NATO, the EU, and a terminally weakened US.

Dugin & the Radical Right. Only recently have commentators been able to foreground the importance of Dugin in the development of an elaborate anti-liberal ideology and establish links between it and major ideological movements on the Radical Right in the West. For example, Benjamin R. Teitelbaum’s War for Eternity: The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right (2020) explores the close ideological association between Dugin and Steve Bannon, a one-time key aid to Donald Trump. Dugin also has a chapter devoted to him in Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy, edited by Mark Sedgwick (2019), a key scholar in this field and author of Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (2004). Central to these analyses is the political use being made by Dugin of the esoteric new religious movement of Traditionalism, which we will discuss later.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/02/24/is-putins-next-target-the-baltic-states-n1561480

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sent a wave of unease across Eastern Europe, especially in Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. The three Baltic States joined NATO in 2004, but that might not matter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has out-guessed and outmaneuvered U.S. President Joe Biden and the rest of NATO since the crisis began.

Indeed, the question asked during the Ukraine crisis is the same one that would be asked if Putin invaded one of the Baltic states: Would NATO risk world war, and possibly nuclear war, to save Lithuania?

The Baltic states aren’t so sure.

Associated Press:

Along with Poland, also a NATO member, the small Baltic countries have been among the loudest advocates for powerful sanctions against Moscow and NATO reinforcements on the alliance’s eastern flank.

Baltic government leaders in recent weeks have shuttled to European capitals, warning that the West must make Russian President Vladimir Putin pay for attacking Ukraine, or else his tanks will keep rolling toward other parts of the former Soviet empire.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ukrainian-officials-warn-of-fighting-in-chernobyl-exclusion-zone/

Russian forces captured the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after battles in the nuclear exclusion zone on Thursday evening local time, Ukrainian officials said.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s office of the president, confirmed that the reactor was in Russian hands, according to Reuters.

Ukrainian officials warned earlier that damage to nuclear storage facilities could send “radioactive dust” across Europe.

“Russian occupation forces are trying to seize the” Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Twitter post. “Our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated….This is a declaration of war against the whole of Europe.”

The Chernobyl reactor was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, when the core of the reactor melted down. Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of the Interior, wrote on Facebook that Russian forces had moved to Chernobyl from Belarus, Ukraine’s northern neighbor.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/russian-government-cracks-down-on-widespread-anti-war-protests/

The Russian Government is cracking down on its own citizens in cities across the country as protesters take to the streets to register their opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Despite Putin’s efforts to convince his populace that the Ukrainian Government was prosecuting a genocide against Russian-speakers in the country’s easternmost region, many Russians are showing up in the streets to register their discontent with the already bloody conflict.

Numerous videos circulating on social media show large crowds gathering in Russian cities — including Moscow and St. Petersburg.The Russian government has responded by instructing its people to “refrain from unsanctioned protests” and warning that those who violate that order will be “arrested & brought to responsibility.” It’s citing the coronavirus pandemic as its justification for the crackdown.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-attacks-ukraine-drawing-broad-condemnation-11645682406

Biden calls move an unprovoked attack, pledging further action against Moscow; senior Ukrainian official says he believes hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers have died

KYIV, Ukraine—Russian troops and tanks pushed into Ukraine and airstrikes hit the country’s capital and more than a dozen other cities early Thursday after President Vladimir Putin said he ordered a military operation to “demilitarize and denazify Ukraine” and bring its leaders to trial.

Ukrainian officials said an initial wave of strikes targeted military installations, airfields and government facilities across the country, as well as border force installations. Ukraine’s border service said its troops came under attack all along the country’s frontiers with Russia and Belarus.

In Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine’s largest city, residents said a large fire was visible in the morning darkness, after what appeared to be a hit at a weapons depot. Heavy shelling targeted the city of Mariupol on the Azov sea. Air-raid sirens sounded in Kyiv after 7 a.m.

In a televised early-morning address, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, called on citizens to remain calm. “We are working, our army is working,” he said. “Don’t panic, we are strong, we are ready for anything, we will overcome.”

https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/23/putins-predictabilities/

For all his caginess, dissimulation, and opportunism, Vladimir Putin is more or less predictable.

Putin’s aims? The Russian president’s two-decade dilemma has been how to reclaim the prestige and power of the former Soviet Union—but with only 75 percent of his country’s former territory and 140 million fewer people.

When does he strike? 

First, Putin moves on neighboring former Soviet republics when the world price of oil is high, and his coffers are full. So he went into Georgia in 2008 and into Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014 when he thought he had the financial wherewithal and public support to do so.  

But when the world is awash in oil, prices dip, and the United States reigns as the largest gas and oil producer, he hesitates. So he remained static between 2017 and 2020. 

Second, when the United States increases the defense budget and deters its enemies, Putin also pauses. In contrast, when America “resets” or appeases, he is emboldened.  

In 2008, the United States was battered by sky-high oil prices and bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then between2009 and 2016, President Obama went on an apology tour, cut defense spending, boasted of a new “Russian reset,” contextualized Iranian and North Korean aggression, and begged Putin to behave until Obama was reelected in 2012—in exchange for dismantling U.S. missile defense programs in Eastern Europe. Obama then invited Russia into the Middle East after a 40-year absence. 

As a result, during all those years Putin formally invaded Georgia, Eastern Ukraine, and Crimea. But between 2017 and 2020, Putin was quieter.  

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/kremlin-invades-ukraine-joseph-klein/

It’s official. The oft-repeated warning from the Biden administration that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent has come to pass.

On February 21st, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent so-called “peace-keeping” forces across Russia’s border with Ukraine into two eastern Ukrainian provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk, in the Donbass region. These provinces have been controlled by Russian-leaning Ukrainian separatists who have served as Russia’s proxies since 2014. However, to the rest of the world they are still considered within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.

Putin’s initial move in invading Ukraine followed his unilateral recognition of the ““independence” of areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres denounced this decree as “a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and inconsistent with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

But Putin could not care less what the UN Secretary General or the international community as a whole thinks. In his blistering speech on February 21st, the Russian president claimed that all of Ukraine belongs to Russia and should never have been created as a separate country in the first place.

Early in the morning of February 24th (Ukrainian time), Putin broadened the theater of war in Ukraine. He declared a “special military operation” in the country on the pretext of helping the people of Donbass. It was the equivalent of a declaration of war on all of Ukraine, punctuated by explosions that were heard in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, in the aftermath of Putin’s “special military operation” order. Missile attacks and ground troop assaults are undoubtedly on the way.