This Russia as victim of an omnipotent American empire is as old as it is inaccurate. Russia's western useful idiots are perpetually inconvenienced in their American monopoly in imperial evil narrative by Ukraine's stubborn insistence on an independent existence in the face of Russia's Ukraine erasure obsession that's three centuries old, starting with Peter the Great in 1720.
Putin himself is narcissistically obsessed with this history, with his megalomaniacal delusions about himself as the second coming of Peter the Great:
“You might think he was fighting with Sweden, seizing their lands,” Mr Putin said, referring to the Northern Wars which Peter launched at the turn of the 18th Century as he forged a new Russian Empire. “But he seized nothing; he reclaimed it!” he said, arguing that Slavs had lived in the area for centuries. “It seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen,” Mr Putin concluded, with a near-smirk that left no doubt he was referring to Ukraine and his aims there. Peter’s rule, he suggested, was proof that expanding Russia had strengthened it….“Apparently, it is also our lot to return [what is Russia’s] and strengthen [the country]. And if we proceed from the fact that these basic values form the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in solving the tasks that we face.”
Putin has made clear that Russia is the biggest and most roguish of empire builders. No fence of international law and norms can hold it back:
"It’s impossible — do you understand? — impossible to build a fence around a country like Russia. And we do not intend to build that fence,” Putin said, according to Sky News."
In Putin’s ethno-nationalist world of geopolitical darwinism national identity is decreed from the top down. In this binary world there are two kinds of nations: the sovereign who conquer and the colonized who are conquered:
“”In order to claim some kind of leadership — I am not even talking about global leadership, I mean leadership in any area — any country, any people, any ethnic group should ensure their sovereignty,” Putin said. “Because there is no in-between, no intermediate state: either a country is sovereign, or it is a colony, no matter what the colonies are called.”
And Ukraine is, of course, an eternal colony, and Ukrainians “little Russians” (маленькие русские). This enserfment is essential to Russian identity and security, which makes Ukraine the opioid of Russia’s half millenium long empire addiction and the sole cause of this war.
Putin told Bush 2 in 2008 that "Ukraine isn't a real country". This war's correlation with western or American behavior is a very simple number: zero.
Mr. Dunn insists
Here's proof that Mr. Dunn never, ever mentions:
"Russian economist and pundit Mikhail Khazin remarks – “They need to be partially eliminated” – YouTube video (December 27, 2016)
Ukraine has “several million people [not loyal to Russia]” who “need to be partially eliminated and partially squeezed out.”
“New Russia,” or the territories from Kharkov, Odessa, Zaporozhye, and Dnepropetrovsk, “should be joined to the Russian regions, with full denazification, deukrainization.”
Russia should institute a “complete ban on Ukrainian fonts, Ukrainian texts, programs on [the] Ukrainian language, on teaching Ukrainian – ie completely.”
These implementations will cause a “surplus population – let the surplus population go to the [Russian] Far East.”
Former Putin aide Vladislav Surkov in Q&A – Surkov: “I’m Interested in Acting Against Reality” – Actual Comments website (February 26, 2020)
Surkov’s “vanity is forever satisfied by the fact that [he] put [his] hand and head into the building of a new Russian state.”
There is “no Ukraine,” although there is “Ukrainianism” – a “specific mental disorder. Surprisingly brought to the extreme degree passion for ethnography. Such bloody lore. Muddle instead of the state. There is borscht, Bandera, bandura. But there is no nation.”
Donbass “does not deserve such humiliation” of returning to Ukraine. Ukraine “does not deserve such honor.”
Putin – “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” – Kremlin (July 12, 2021)
The incorporation of “western Russian lands into the single state” was the product of “common faith, shared cultural traditions, and – I would like to emphasize it once again – language similarity.”
There is “no historical basis” for the “idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians.”
Ukrainization was “often imposed on those who did not see themselves as Ukrainians.”
Modern Ukraine is “entirely the product of the Soviet era” shaped on the “lands of historical Russia.” Hence, Russia “was robbed.”
Ukraine’s leaders “began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united [Russia and Ukraine], and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation.”
The “slogans, ideology, and blatant aggressive Russophobia” of “radical nationalist groups” have become “defining elements of state policy in Ukraine.”
Ukraine “peddle[s] Russophobia” and prefers to “exploit the image of the ‘victim of external aggression.’”
Russia and Ukraine together have “always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For [they] are one people.“
Medvedev op-ed – “Why Contacts with the Current Ukrainian Leadership are Meaningless” – Kommersant (October 11, 2021)
Ukrainian leaders are “people who do not have any stable self-identification. Who are they, what country are they citizens of, what is their historical identity, ethnic component, what gods do they pray to?”
There are “no fools to fight for Ukraine. And it is pointless for [Russia] to deal with vassals. Business must be done with the suzerain.”
Putin in press conference (February 8, 2022) and in official remarks (February 21, 2022) – An Independent Legal Analysis of the Russian Federation’s Breaches of the Genocide Convention in Ukraine and the Duty to Prevent – Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy
“‘Like it or not, take it, my beauty’” references a “vulgar Russian rhyme about necrophiliac rape, implying an intention to inflict similar destruction on Ukraine and a view of Ukraine as a corpse.”
Modern Ukraine is considered to be “entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.”
Mr. Dunn never mentions his previously inaccurate forecasts and views:
Feb 26: "the war is a manufactured distractions"
April: Ukraine is corrupt, not worth defending.
July: Russia is winning, Ukraine should surrender.
Sept: The war is a stalemate (just before the Kharkiv offensive)
Now: Ukraine can't win.
Better to read these writers, both fluent in Russian:
https://medium.com/@nadinbrzezinski/simonyan-and-the-coming-defeat-47a44d296e6b
RT editor Simonyan is now worried about ending up in The Hague.
BKean, who lived in Moscow for 30 years:
In April, knowing the Rules of Russian History I've studied since 1972, I forecast what we've seen in Kharkiv and Kherson: https://medium.com/illumination-curated/ukraines-citizen-vs-russia-s-serf-army-4f6177d5fe20
Expect a 1918 style military collapse and resumption of the implosion of the Russian empire that began in 1917. Expect Russia to be renamed Muscovy and St Petersburg and Kaliningrad to become independent EFTA city states associated with the EU after the EU offers referenda whose terms offer all their residents the right to work in the Schengen area and triples their pensions.
On my birthday, February 24, in 1988 I forecast the death of the Soviet empire due to the anti-Armenian pogrom in Azerbaijan.
Which analyst would you put your money on, seriously?
