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English Outsider On Solving Ukraine
English Outsider comments in response to my Ukrainian glasshouse post:
“I seriously doubt that these people are sane.”
They’re psychos. Gaza shows that past doubt. But there’s logic to their insanity. Although we’re heading for straight military defeat in the Ukrainian theatre they still have the Russians over a barrel. The problem of remnant Ukraine, the problem that has been staring all in the face since February 2022, it still one to which the Russians have no good solution. It’s clear that the Western politicians, Trump included, will not assist with coming to any good solution.
The future of Eastern Ukraine is already determined though we don’t yet know how much of it the Russians will decide to incorporate within the RF. But remnant Ukraine, whatever that turns out to be in territorial terms, poses a problem as insoluble as ever,
First, Eastern Ukraine.
Lavrov:
And when we now liberate remaining parts of Zaporozhye, this is the Russian way to pronounce it. And Kherson, the people, in spite of the attempts of Ukrainian army to pull them into mainland Ukraine, most of them are not leaving. They’re staying, and they’re welcoming the Russian soldiers who liberate them. So this is not our will, our “imperialist desire”, some people say. This is our concern for the future of the people who feel being part of the Russian culture.
This fits with statements from the Ukrainian authorities to the effect that they were having difficulty evacuating Kupiansk. Many did not wish to be evacuated. The same was seen in Bakhmut and in other towns and cities.
Later on Lavrov returns to the subject:
And that’s for “1991 borders”, and “Russia must withdraw”. Ok hypothetically, in their dreams and delusions, if we leave the territories inside the 1991 Ukrainian borders, what happens to those people whom they publicly called the respective governments of Ukraine after the coup, called them “inhumans”, called them “species”.
“Species”, by the way, is the term used by Zelensky long before the special military operation started. He was asked in November 2021 what he thought about the people in Donbass on the other side of the line of contact, according to the Minsk agreements. And he was asked what he thought about those people. He said, you know, there are people, and there are “species”. And then in other interview he said if you live in Ukraine and feel like being part of Russian culture, my advice to you, for the sake and safety of your kids, for the sake and safety of your grandchildren, get out to Russia.
So in fact, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson, the population of these four territories, they follow his advice. They go back to Russia.
All this could apply to the rest of the old Party of Regions area, though population movements will have greatly altered the population mix that obtained before 2014.
Whatever the current population mix, for those living in the old Party of Regions area it’d be better for them if as much as possible of that area became part of Russian. That view’s not based on dreamy recollections of Catherine the Great, though Lavrov draws attention to those historical associations. It’s based on Lavrov’s strictly utilitarian argument that the pro-Russian element of that mixed population would be treated badly if that mixed population remained under Kiev rule. None would wish to see a repetition of the atrocities Brayard catalogued after 2014: video.
There are a thousand similar accounts. They cannot be brushed away by dismissing them as Russian propaganda. And the effect of such atrocities has been to change entirely the political orientation of the Donbass and likely the political orientation of much of other parts of the old Ukraine.
Because there is ample evidence that before 2014 most in the Donbass were not much concerned with the question of who ruled them. This was not Crimea. There was no strong separatist movement in the Donbass and indeed the early Donbass rebels after 2014 wanted neither independence nor union with Russia. They were federalists. Protection from the extremists in the context of a federalised Ukraine was their aim.
But as the number of atrocities mounted those atrocities could no longer be dismissed as isolated incidents. It became apparent to all that harassment of the pro-Russian element in the Donbass population mix was Ukrainian state policy. A country had declared open war on a significant minority within itself and Poroshenko’s declaration that “their” children would hole up in the basements whilst “our” children went to school was but one of many declarations from Kiev that that war would be pursued to the limit: video.
The result was inevitable. The Donbass, before 2014 accepted by its own population and by all outside including Russia as an integral part of Ukraine moved from that, to a desire for a degree of protective autonomy inside Ukraine, to becoming a region that would never again willingly submit to the post 2014 atrocities. The fighting spirit and determination of the LDNR armed forces, who often took the brunt of the fighting after 2022 and whose contribution to the final victory is uniformly ignored in the West, was proof of that. A “Westernised” Russian visiting the Donbass not long after the invasion found to her surprise that nowhere was support for the Russian invasion stronger than within the Donbass itself: video.
“Z’s” everywhere and a people resolute to see the war through. Yet we in the West see the Donbass quite differently. We see it as a region subjected to brutal Russian occupation and needing only to be freed from that Russian occupation.
It is in the context of those post-2014 atrocities that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is to be regarded. Me, I discount entirely the historical disquisitions of a Putin or a Lavrov. So what that much of modern Ukraine owes its origin to Russia? So what that much of it shares a common culture with Russia? Many countries in the world owe their origin to England and many still share a common culture with us. Try arguing with an Australian that that would justify their reincorporation into the United Kingdom! A ludicrous comparison, no doubt, but sufficient to allow us to dismiss any Russian historical claim to ancient lands. Panchenko states the true justification: https://t.me/panchenkodi/3344.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine must be regarded as first and foremost a rescue operation and if one examines the dispute in Russia itself over that rescue operation, the question is not why it occurred but why it occurred so late. Putin has been and still is heavily criticised within Russia for allowing the harassment of the Donbass to continue for so long, not for finally moving in to put a stop to it. It is the still living memory of the Madonna of Gorlovka, not hazy memories of the doings of the Zaporozhian Host, that is the only justification for his moving in at all.
But that’s only the East. Those arguments do not apply to the bulk of Western Ukraine. That is, what will be remnant Ukraine. Forget all the Russkiy Mir talk. As Havryshko points out forcefully, the population in Western Ukraine is mainly anti-Russian. It will remain so. Russian occupation of that region would be as undesirable, and as hated, as British re-occupation of the Irish Republic. The Russian problem there is a near insoluble one: how to prevent remnant Ukraine remaining a spearhead of the Western assault on Russia. How to prevent it remaining, in Sleboda’s terms, “A zone of destabilisation and insecurity for the rest of our lives,”
Because it is of NATO but not in NATO remnant Ukraine can be used as a base for mounting assassination and sabotage missions into Russia. It can be used as a launchpad for missiles and drones into Russia that are ostensibly launched by the Ukrainians but that are in reality supplied and targeted by us. It can be and is so used without our fearing Russian retaliation against NATO or any NATO country.
It’s often pointed out that if it were the other way round and the Russians used, say, Mexico for such purposes then the Americans wouldn’t put up with it for an instant. Well, that’s true but how would the Americans cope with the problem? If they occupied Mexico to prevent it being used for that purpose they’d find themselves having to go to vast expense. They would be forever having to commit troops and security personnel for the purpose. Instead, what the Americans would aim for would be a neutral Mexico that refused to allow itself to be so used.
That, in reverse, is the problem the Russians face in Remnant Ukraine. The parts of Ukraine that wish to be reincorporated within the RF will present few problems – there it’s more a question of getting an economy that’s been heading for dereliction since 1991 back on its feet again. But remnant Ukraine is a real dilemma for them. They don’t want to occupy. But they can’t allow it to remains as a handy NATO attack dog. If drones and missiles continue coming out of remnant Ukraine afterwards then the Russian people will be asking Putin “Why did we fight this war if we’re still at risk from NATO missiles?” And if Putin has no answer to that question, after at least 100,000 dead and a major Russian military effort, then his administration will fall. The Russian hawks will take over and we’re at risk of a direct war between NATO and the RF.
That dilemma has been apparent since 2022, even before. The obvious resolution is for the Western powers to declare they will cease using remnant Ukraine in this way. But the Europeans and the American hard liners would not countenance that. President Trump, facing that internal and external opposition, could not offer such guarantees. If he did they could not be regarded as binding, “Not agreement capable” is how most of the world regards the West in any case. The Russian hope of an overall security settlement on the lines of the December 2021 proposed treaties is unrealistic and will remain so. It’ll be as much as they can do if the Russians achieve the main points of the June 14th 2024 speech to the Foreign Office officials:
I repeat our firm stance: Ukraine should adopt a neutral, non-aligned status, be nuclear-free, and undergo demilitarisation and denazification. These parameters were broadly agreed upon during the Istanbul negotiations in 2022, including specific details on demilitarisation such as the agreed numbers of tanks and other military equipment.
And even those conditions the West will not agree to. So we have the Russians over a barrel. Occupy remnant Ukraine to get those conditions met and the Russians are buying trouble. Don’t occupy it and the SMO will have been unsuccessful in that remnant Ukraine will still be used as an attack dog.
The only solution is for the Ukrainians themselves to decide they will not be so used in the future. But the current administration is still in the saddle and able to employ increasingly repressive measures to ensure it remains so. Alternative Ukrainian administrations could not deviate much from the line the current administration is taking. When we consider remnant Ukraine as it is now it increasingly resembles more an occupied country than a country in charge of its own future. This is a country that voted overwhelmingly for peace in 2019 only to find itself committed to war by the West and its own extremists. Unless Putin can come up with a solution – he’s not been able to so far – we could well see the Russians forced into occupation.
If so, the Russians will have won the war but will have lost any chance of a stable and long term solution to that problem of remnant Ukraine. These people we doubt are sane, the current politicians of the West, are logical enough. That is how they hope to see this war ending up.
EO has defined the paradox well with respect to Ukraine: how to keep western Ukraine from being launch-pad for continue attack on Russia. OK so far.
Now consider: The SMO objectives included “new security architecture”. This is the vital, durable, fundamental requirement, and I assert that Ukraine is nearly irrelevant to its achievement.
So what actually _is_ “relevant to its achievement”?
For EU and UK and US elites to abandon their long-standing objective of dismembering Russia. Period.
What will cause EU, UK and US to abandon their objective?
a. Said elites get squashed emphatically. Killed, or economically ruined, or
b. The polities of EU, UK and US emphatically and permanently root these “elites” out of power, and that means economic and political power. Release control of money supply, media and government “deep state” apparatus
c. Conduct of WWIII
While I am fascinated with the history and mechanics and theatrics of Ukraine, I’ve never seen it as anything but the slow grind leading up to a, b, or c above. As many have pointed out, the head of the snake is doing just fine right now. I am seeing no real progress toward “new security architecture”.
How can Ukraine possibly be “irrelevant to achieving a new security architecture”?
Let’s use EU as proxy for the US-UK-EU elite-controlled anti-Russia team.
As I posted over the weekend in the open thread, the EU elite has the intent, the plan, the funding and the industrial capacity to continue the fight against Russia. The have a choke-hold on the EU money supply, the media and the governmental (legislative, judicial, secret police, and law enforcement) apparatus. Their polity is heavily and very successfully brain-washed; we have Goering-Redux in spades. And Goering-Redux is clearly working; broad-based anti-Russia hysteria is evident in most (not all; most) of the EU, especially northern EU states (from France upwards) . The “opposition” that wants to make peace with Russia is – apparently – quite small.
This is why I said “the easy part for Russia is over”. Now Russia has to take on the snake-head.
A few posters have suggested that Russia announce an “attack from anywhere results in immediate and disproportionate attack on EU” policy. I like this idea, as it gets Russia out of the business of occupation, and concentrates attention on the perpetrators.
However, that strategy lacks a few key elements:
a. Russia needs to punish the elites, and not the polity. That means extremely well and narrowly targeted destruction of western-elite-owned wealth-generating capacity, and
b. Russia needs to educate the western polity that the attacks are on their elites, and not them. There are ways to do this which are not preventable by the western elites.
Russia is being herded into a “bleed-out pen”. If it continues in its current stead, it’ll get bled-out. So long as the western elites have such perfect control over their respective polities, and so long as those same elites pay no price for their actions, those actions will continue.
At some point, possibly, the western polities will connect the dots, and turf out their elites. Or not; Russia can influence (via item b) above but not truly control how long it takes the western polities to accurately assess their situation.
As someone correctly (in my opinion) stated above, Russia’s military technology advantage is interesting, but not compelling unless and until it’s brought to bear on the western elites themselves. Right now, those elites are profiting immensely from their gang-land operations, are they not?
Finally, I think it’s quite useful to characterize the western elites as gang-members. They show all the ear-marks. What does it actually take to destroy a gang? Think in those terms, and solutions become more apparent.
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 29 2025 15:25 utc | 131
The City of London…… Loyds of London used used to insure the majority of the worlds shipping and the cargo’s. Now we see the term in the propaganda media ‘The shadow fleet’ as other countries start to insure shipping themselves. That alone would be a big loss for London. No doubt they are also bleeding out in other Financial aspects.
Then there is their colonies in north America. London managed to pull them back into the Anglo fold in the 1950’s with the equal nuclear alliance.
Larry Johnson has the blurb on his site “Son of an American revolutionary”. The very careful wording all the Russian leadership used when asked about Trump by the press.
Ehret termed the two basic US factions the Nationalists and the Loyalists. Trump for whatever he is, represents that nationalist faction – Johnsons revolutionaries. I think what Russia sees is the US revolutionaries once again breaking away from Britain and once again Russia is supporting them.
That also would mess up the City of London’s dreams and aspirations.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Oct 29 2025 12:48 utc | 65
Here we see yet another specimen of an American wannabe on MoA, dutifully swallowing the myth of the American Revolution being a righteous fight against tyranny. As a member of another settler colonial state, Australia, Peter AU1 protects his labor aristocrat class interests and expresses solidarity with another settler colonial state. This American wannabe behavior can also be seen in another settler colonial state barfly, canuk of Canada.
American revolutionaries actually fought for the freedom to own slaves. The British were tyrants in the eyes of the Americans because the British expressed disapproval at the pervasive slavery in American society.
From Losurdo’s Liberalism: A Counter-History:
Virginia played a central role in the American Revolution. Forty per cent of the country’s slaves were to be found there, but a majority of the authors of the rebellion unleashed in the name of liberty also came from there. For thirty two of the United States’ first thirty six years of existence, slave owners from Virginia occupied the post of president. This colony or state, founded on slavery, supplied the country with its most illustrious statesmen. It is enough to think of George Washington (great military and political protagonist of the anti British revolt) and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (authors, respectively, of the Declaration of Independence and the federal Constitution of 1787), all three of them slave owners.52 Regardless of this or that state, the influence slavery exercised on the country as a whole is clear. Sixty years after its foundation, we see that ‘of the first sixteen presidential elections, between 1788 and 1848, all but four placed a southern slaveholder in the White House’.
Although repressed through a strict linguistic proscription, the institution of slavery proves to be a pervasive presence in the American Constitution. It is not even absent from the Declaration of Independence, where the accusation against George III of having appealed to black slaves takes the already noted form of having ‘excited domestic insurrections amongst us’.
In fact, disquiet about slavery was so strongly felt in the Europe of the time that prominent authors not infrequently proceeded to a sharp contrast between the two shores of the Atlantic. Let us attend to Condorcet:
The American forgets that negroes are men; he has no moral relationship with them; for him they are simply objects of profit … and such is the excess of his stupid contempt for this unhappy species that, when back in Europe, he is indignant to see them dressed like men and placed alongside him.
‘The American’ condemned here is the transatlantic colonist, whether French or English. In his turn, in 1771 Millar denounced ‘the shocking barbarity to which the negroes in our colonies are frequently exposed’. Fortunately, ‘the practice of slavery [has] been … generally abolished in Europe’. Where it survived, across the Atlantic, the practice poisoned the whole society: cruelty and sadism were ‘exhibited even by persons of the weaker sex, in an age distinguished for humanity and politeness’.120 This was also the opinion of Condorcet, who pointed out how ‘the young American woman witnesses’, and sometimes even ‘presides over’, the brutal ‘tortures’ inflicted on black slaves.121
Certainly, chattel slavery had been widespread in Rome. Yet the slave could reasonably hope that, if not he himself, then his children or grandchildren would be able to achieve freedom and even an eminent social position. Now, by contrast, his fate increasingly took the form of a cage from which it was impossible to escape. In the first half of the eighteenth century, numerous English colonies in America enacted laws that made the emancipation of slaves increasingly difficult.
The verdict of American Quakers and British abolitionists has been fully confirmed by contemporary historians. At the end of a ‘cycle of degradation’ of blacks, with the ignition of the white ‘engine of oppression’ and the conclusive soldering of ‘slavery and racial discrimination’, we see at work in the ‘colonies of the British empire’ in the late seventeenth century a ‘chattel racial slavery’ unknown in Elizabethan England (and also classical antiquity), but ‘familiar to men living in the nineteenth century’ and aware of the reality of the southern United States.9 Hence slavery in its most radical form triumphed in the golden age of liberalism and at the heart of the liberal world. This was acknowledged by James Madison, slave owner and liberal (like numerous protagonists of the American Revolution), who observed that ‘the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man’ power based on ‘mere distinction of colour’ was imposed ‘in the most enlightened period of time’.
A reminder to the Americans and American wannabes on MoA: the Democrats, Republicans, Biden, Trump etc are all liberals by definition.
Death to America
Marg bar Âmrikâ
Marg bar Âmrikâ
Marg bar Âmrikâ
Posted by: All Under Heaven | Oct 29 2025 17:22 utc | 169
I read English O’s comment on the other thread but, will leave my appreciation of his work here.
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As I have expressed before, Russia will have it’s military victory but I fear, not it’s deserved peace, perhaps, not even the cessation of hostilities. There are several factors contributing to this failed outcome, some are Russian, most are “NATO’s”.
1] Russia’s military victory, when it comes, will not impress the west, in particular, the mockingbird-media will be able to spin a narrative that keeps the neocolonialist-neocons in power and to be fair to those fools, I very much doubt it would impress General Zhukov either. It’ll be, at best, a cautious victory and a costly victory. The cautious victory that will come to the Russians did not spare it’s soldiers as was it’s intent but rather extended considerably the time in which the conflict occured. Deaths/month are lower but, when you extend a war long enough, the actual total is higher and the cost to the fabric of society is much higher.
2] The English problem. Now when I say “the English Problem” I am not referring to working class blokes just muddling through their earthly days. No, they may be propagandized into useful tools but, they are not the agency to which I refer. I’m talking about the uppermost-class-schoolboys who employ a quiet gravitas to their voice when talking about the needless deaths of “others” all the while comfortably ensconced in their posh clubs. And let’s not forget their American “cousins” those aglophilic-schoolboys who are spellbound by their English betters and aping every gesture and word that comes London. But I digress…
It’s always the English who meddle in affairs that are not theirs, particularly those in eastern Europe. Much blood has been spilt to validate an immoral ideology, one that is at the root of the greatest tragedies to befall Europe. Sadly they have led the Americans by the nose into these conflicts. Had the US not elected an aglophilic-schoolboy named Woodrow Wilson, [who proselytized the eugenic racism that inspired Hitler], the English would have had to negotiate reasonable terms with Germany and the Central Powers, WWII and subsequent cold-war-conflicts avoided entirely. But then had the English enacted Prince Albert’s reforms… Well, as I said, there is an English Problem. And so too with ex-ukrainia, it is the English who envision making the rump state into a hotbed of state-sponsored terrorism. Much of this revolves around using the Black Sea as a base for their particular brand of piracy.
3] Then there is the modern-day Waffen-SS of Galicia problem as part and parcel to 1] the Go-Slo attrition method has left these Nazi-nutjobs in a much stronger position than when the war started, they’re largely untouched and whenever they accidentally wander too close to the battlefield, where they can not flee fast enough and are captured, well, in any prisoner exchange they are given the highest priority. On the other hand the modern-day Waffen-SS of Galicia have used Russia’s attrition tactics to cleanse the land of their opponents and ethnic untermensch, power-wise, they are in a much better position than at the start of the war. Just opposite of the stated purpose of the SMO!
Fine..fine…but, what’s done is done…right?
Well, let’s look at problem number 1]. Does Russia “have-to” keep doing the same thing over and over? There are signs that Putin may reverse his policy and let loose his war-dogs…many of whom have been chaffing at their bridles, barely able to contain themselves. Getting far enough behind the lines allows the Russ-Soldier a chance to kill their real antagonist, the Waffen SS and NATO troops commanding this carnage. Personally, I think the Ruskies are up to the task. And that is just the kind of thing that makes a big “impression”. But, killing massive numbers of the Waffen SS’s political opponents and what they perceive as ethnic untermensch is not going to impress anyone but hopeless fanboys.
Problem 1] & 2] have a similar solution, the Russ have to take territory…yes..yes…the “smart” money here says endless slaughter is the way to impress! Except, we see no sign that it has made much of an impression on the west. Pourquoi? Well…let’s just say that to English/Anglicized-schoolboys..killing the Waffen SS’s political opponents and those they perceive as ethnic untermensch is not, in the least bit, painful. In the view of English/Anglicized-schoolboys it’s just untermensch killing untermensch with the tax money needed “donated” by American untermensch. What’s not to like?
So fine Mr Armchair General, what territory. Glad you asked, my views have changed as events have unfolded, until recently the Russ needed to establish defensible lines that incorporate the vast majority of cultural/ethnic Russian leaving the Magyar and Slovaks to take back their lands from the Galicians who stole it. So, a] that would mean a fortified border to the Dnieper river in the north; b] in the south all of the Black Sea Coast and environs to that zone’s north; c] in the west a fortified border to the Dniester incorporating Transnistria.
a] puts Kiev in the same artillery position that Galicians put the Donbass region, now should the English/Angliphilic-schoolboys encourage trouble, they’ll have it returned in spades, not in a fortnight but, economically, within the hour. Territory Matters.
b] takes away the land and plans prized by the English and ensures that Galicia is supplied only through Poland/NATO lands. This last point is very important as it makes the envisioned state-sponsored-terrorism by England far, far, far more difficult. This also protects the cultural/ethnic Russ of the south, many who have been forcefully displaced by the Galicians through a campaign of terror and conscription but, I repeat myself. Rest assured, Territory Matters.
c] gives the Ruskies a defensible border that can be secured with a welcoming population eager to throw off the Moldovian/Romanian yoke of poverty for Russia’s economic prosperity. Territory Matters.
That’s what I used to say but, that’s before the corrosive effects of the Go-Slo-war gave the west so much comfort/confidence that it emboldened them to think that Russia would absorb any act of terrorism/escalation without a commensurate reaction. At this point I feel that Russia needs to press further into Galician lands. Not to stay but, in a punitive raid of destruction upon the infrastructure comparable to what the modern-day Waffen SS of Galicia have wrought upon the Donbass. Letting the afflicted know that there is more of this to come if the significant remnant of Waffen bring grief onto ex-ukrainia’s former oblasts. This accomplished from the south showing consideration to Hungarian and Slovak’s who would be encouraged to reunite with there respective countries through plebiscite. Should Hungarian and Slovakian populaces do so, both respective countries could invoke Article 5 should the Waffen SS of Galicia attack them…as is likely.
When a], b], c], are accomplished a plebiscite, once the lands are resettled, should be offered, in the meantime, a harsh marshal law is necessity, summery public executions of terrorists caught red-handed should be expected as the Waffen SS/”NATO plan on remaining at war. As harsh measures are applied, the number terrorists will dwindle. It’s all well and good to talk of civil rights but when you are fighting a group who only understands the logic of a well placed shot..then..you’re forced to communicate with them at their level.
Bottom line: In War, In Peace, Territory Matters
Posted by: S Brennan | Oct 29 2025 18:30 utc | 199
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