That's not so simple with nuclear weapons. All nuclear weapons were not Ukrainian, or Russian, or Qazaq, they all were Soviet. All keys to use them were in Moscow. The missiles stationed in Ukraine were aimed at America and could be launched only after the command from Moscow. Even if Ukraine could have the missiles a little longer, it could not USE it. So it was not wrong for Ukraine to give such weapons away. But it was wrong that Ukraine did not get real security guarantees from another countries of the world, particularly from the US. On another hand, the US has always betrayed its "allies", so those guarantees would be worth nothing anyway.
Thank you for your comment. You can still do a lot. Sharing this article far and wide would help, for example, and will be greatly appreciated. Or you can reuse the points raised here in your conversations.
Well no. Look where the world's refugees are heading: never to China, never to Russia, never to conservative, reactionary or non-free countries. The European philisophical concepts of freedom and egality in life and spitit is still today's the world's strongest and oldest political brand; which we have strongly and prouldy built in over 3 000 years. It is a winning concept of civilisation and decency. It will never end up unmodern, dusty and defeated.
The refugees are heading where they can get money from the states and do not need to work, i.e. in Europe. The freedoms and civil rights do not play any role there. They just want to eat and sleep and do not do nothing. "Erst kommt das Fressen, und dann die Moral."
Thanks for an interesting reply and a question. I will try to make it short.
Russian history has always moved in and developed in historical waves; the intravert closing eras (the fight of the Slavics, orthodox, after the October revolution, after Yeltsin into Putinism) and the more extravert and into openness of Peter the Great ("Russia must be europeanised at every cost at any price"), under quite liberal tsars like Aleksandr II, and even Nikolaj II, and also during the glasnost' and perestroika era and during the Yeltsin era - and now this wave has turned again, since maybe the third Putin presidental period from 2012.
So, words, phrases and slogans come and go. It has always been so. The next "Russian wave" coming in Russian "future history" will either be continuation of putinism (hard to believe, but it can of course be so) or towards openness.
Russians have always since many centuries been one of the most strong European cultural and historical markers in the pan-European spectrum. They are by far more European than for example Scandinavians, English and not talk about Bulgarians and even Turks - these all move in the shadows around Europe.
The famous author Fiodor Dostoevskij once said: "Russians have two native lands: Europe and Russia".
Today's problem is that the economical system has fully been wickedly integrated in a new anti-politcal ruling system of the country: those who run the country also own it. They will gain nothing on reforms of the press and journalism (too many "truths" would enter into the society), the political system of opinion, debate, criticism and political struggle (which would overrun the today's anti-political actors in the demised Russian political system) or the third: the legal and court system (if it should work fully, many people of the ruling classes would end up in jail). So today's putinism and its actors of the system, have whatsoever NO reasons to reform anything. And that is their trap, without any exit. And that can also be dangerous. The level of agressiveness inside Russia aginst the civic society is the same of it, also outside Russia of today. They connect.
The younger Russian generations, let say those under 40-45 years old - are in general very western and European minded, with some few exceptions. As I heard once, not so long ago, a young Russian oligarch said: "Now we talk English, and we will never study Chinese".
So one day - we in Europe must be prepared in a new Russian pro-European wave that they actually CAN stand in front of our door, once again - as the young reformer tsar Piotr I (Peter the Great) - "Russia must be europeanised at every price, at any cost". The old Russian Crimea "may have been lost to Russia" - but the even larger tragedy would be if we will lose Russia to China. And among the younger Russian generations, we know exactly one thing: they are not and will not be Asians.
The West wanted only independence of the Baltic states, because their annexation in 1940 was not recognized de jure even under the pro-communist POTUS FDR. But for the rest of the Soviet territory they always, even during the Cold War, wanted that the Soviet Union would stay as a whole, maybe "democratized", but still under the Russian patronage. All anti-Soviet organisations of 1950-1080's supported by the US were oriented on the democratization of the whole SU, not on its break-up. Enver Altaili wrote about this very detailed in his book about Ruzi Nazar (Dark Path to Freedom/Türkic CIA Spy).
After the more or less peaceful dissolving of the SU in the end of 1991 the US and the West as whole wanted Russia to be a Gendarme (and "democratizator" of the post-Soviet space). Moreover they even forbade Yeltsin to make the political trial against the Communist party, because the West has always supported the Soviet communists.
The "west" (in some strange collective view) has actually never been in any deepening or hidden situation of support for the "Soviet communists", it depends on who you mean and concentrate on. That view all people who have and had some insight in Western European politics know very well. The Red Army did really take on the Nazis and the fascists and nationalists in Central- and Eastern Europe, but from mid- and late 1940's this view changed totally. Without the Red Armyand the famous Soviet Marshals Western Europe had collapsed totally in front of Nazis, as they actually did in 1939-1941 before the Nazi attack on the Union in July 1941 - when the real Second world war started (that expression was from the young exiled General de Gaulle in July 1941: " a new world war has started").
It is today's Russia which has indeed changed a lot during the late 25 years. The Russian republic (RSFSR) was in the late 1980's and early 1990's the very leading force for the break up of the Union (which we well could see during the August coup in 1991) - for Central Asia and maybe smaller countries like Armenia and Moldavia it was nothing but a economical and social disaster. But the old Soviet Nomenklatura party politics was completely dead, and the domestic economy slowly also dying off, in the country 1990-1991 - I know that, because I was there. The system strangled itself in a completely ineffective and bad economical model - in which "western armament politics" had in fact extremely little effect in contrast to what people know and accept today. The USSR's economical part for its own military budgets was much larger and stronger in the 1950's and 1960's than in the 1980's. The very high domestic subventions for people's food and housing slowly became a full negative economical trap for the Soviet economy, starting in the mid 1970's.
The great change today towards a more authoritarian and almost totalitarian system (which has scrapped all politics /opinions, party debates, free and open elections, free press etc./ in the country) has its roots that today's leading social and economical classes can not cope with an open and critical society, which would lead to these classes downfall or even jail etc. The question is, as always in Russian history, how long it will last. As always, it is always as paradoxically difficult to judge Russian history as its future. In the long run we in Europe can suddenly, and very fast, stand in front of a completely new Russian political situation with a young generation which will sooner or later just enter into the European cooperation and systems again. These currents do exist in the Russian country.
But telling that the "west" (what it now is?) had a hidden and permanent support for the "Soviet communists" is just a simple falsification of history. Russia is today a very right-wing conservative country which in many ways is scared in front of the future, and with a lot of support among conservative cirlcles on the European continent. The problems for these forces in Europe that right-wing populism is constantly very unproductive in all fields: social, economical and political: for example the now 30 years with Italian right-wing populist and libertarian-conservative mix of Berlusconism has led exactly nowhere for Italy. But this can soon be changed in the Russian society. We just do not know when.
Without the Red Army and the famous Soviet Marshals Western Europe had collapsed totally in front of Nazis, as they actually did in 1939-1941 before the Nazi attack on the Union in July 1941 - when the real Second world war started (that expression was from the young exiled General de Gaulle in July 1941: " a new world war has started").
Anyway the European countries occupied by Soviet marshals like Rokossovskiy, Konyev, Zhukov, Bagramyan, e.a., are still White and European. While the European countries liberated by Ike, Monty, Patton, e.a. are not White and not European and never will be White and European again.
The "west" (in some strange collective view) has actually never been in any deepening or hidden situation of support for the "Soviet communists", it depends on who you mean and concentrate on.
I mean Anglo-Saxon Imperialism of course. If you know the books by Dr. Antony Sutton like "The Wall Street and The Bolshevik Revolution" or "The Best Enemy Money Can Buy", you know how the Anglo-Saxon imperialists established, supported and financed the genocidal Bolshevik regime.
It is today's Russia which has indeed changed a lot during the late 25 years.
Yes, instead of the relatively "sane" Soviet Union in its late years, all post-Soviet republics (only Baltics are exception) transformed into extremely reactionary and archaic dictatorships, based on the cooperation of "siloviki", priests, propagandists and oligarchs, they all regard their people as their property and resource. There is no much difference between Russia, Ukraine, Qazaqstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaycan, etc. Some are softer, some are harder, some are more aggressive, some are more "introvert". But they all are authoritarian dictatorships and they all are clients of foreign powers. Russia is a client of China, Ukraine of the UK, Azerbaycan of Tuerkey. They are not independent.
with a young generation which will sooner or later just enter into the European cooperation and systems again. These currents do exist in the Russian country.
No, the young generation hates the West, and despises Europe as something degenerate. The wort "European" is an insulting euphemism in Russia and in some another post-Soviet republics. As I said the Soviet generations were much more sane and "normal" than the newer one. And, well, there is a question, WHY should the new Russian generation orient on the West or Europe? The West and Europe are already dead and rotten to the core.
1) The different Soviet republics and post-Soviet countries within the CIS/SNG political systems, had NO international legal rights to "own" their own nuclear weapons arsenal - all the Soviet nuclear arsenal was then sorting under the former Soviet Union's and Russian Fedeartion's Ministry of Defence (Ministerstvo Oborony SSSR / RF) It was not even possible for countries like Belorussiya, Kazachstan and Ukraine to USE these weapons - they didn't have the codes to operate them - they all were in Moscow. It is ALSO against the United Nations' non-profileration agreements (a part of international law) which only permits the so called "Security Council-5" (or "Big-5") (USSR, USA, France, Great Britain and People's Republic of China) to possess nuclear weapons arsenal. All other countries possession (North Korea, India, Israel, Pakistan and the possible former South African and Libyan nuclear progammes) are all illegal. Russian Federation was decided by the United nations in these years 1991-1992 to be the direct and legal successor to the USSR in all legal aspects in the world: embassies, legal questions, contracts, agreements and whatsoever. So this question is also much cleared by the International society,
So there has never been any legal possibility for Ukraine, Belorussiya and Kazachstan to "keep 'their' inherited nuclear arsenal": it is -and was- illegal to international law and agreements, and they could, as seen above, not operate them either. The European Union and the OSCE and the majority of the European Nato members will hardly accept a new and still very unstable Ukraine to become a new nuclear weapon state: it will directly stop their entry into the European cooperative societies and agreements. It has also been recently presented for Ukraine that this is and will be the policy of all Europe via-á-vis the Ukraine.
2) One country in Continental Europe, the French Republic, has all these 30+ years been outside this Budapest Memorandum -and many have been wondering why. Some months ago we got to know why.
The then very skillful and experienced president of the French Republic, François Mitterrand (PS/Parti socialiste) (1916-1996) told in secret the then Ukrainian president NOT to enter this Budapest agreement with the now famous words: "They will betray you".
Thank you for reminding this story.
That's not so simple with nuclear weapons. All nuclear weapons were not Ukrainian, or Russian, or Qazaq, they all were Soviet. All keys to use them were in Moscow. The missiles stationed in Ukraine were aimed at America and could be launched only after the command from Moscow. Even if Ukraine could have the missiles a little longer, it could not USE it. So it was not wrong for Ukraine to give such weapons away. But it was wrong that Ukraine did not get real security guarantees from another countries of the world, particularly from the US. On another hand, the US has always betrayed its "allies", so those guarantees would be worth nothing anyway.
I wish I could force every United States politician to listen to your article. I am so ashamed of my government & our two feeble political parties.
Thank you for your comment. You can still do a lot. Sharing this article far and wide would help, for example, and will be greatly appreciated. Or you can reuse the points raised here in your conversations.
Well no. Look where the world's refugees are heading: never to China, never to Russia, never to conservative, reactionary or non-free countries. The European philisophical concepts of freedom and egality in life and spitit is still today's the world's strongest and oldest political brand; which we have strongly and prouldy built in over 3 000 years. It is a winning concept of civilisation and decency. It will never end up unmodern, dusty and defeated.
The refugees are heading where they can get money from the states and do not need to work, i.e. in Europe. The freedoms and civil rights do not play any role there. They just want to eat and sleep and do not do nothing. "Erst kommt das Fressen, und dann die Moral."
Thanks for an interesting reply and a question. I will try to make it short.
Russian history has always moved in and developed in historical waves; the intravert closing eras (the fight of the Slavics, orthodox, after the October revolution, after Yeltsin into Putinism) and the more extravert and into openness of Peter the Great ("Russia must be europeanised at every cost at any price"), under quite liberal tsars like Aleksandr II, and even Nikolaj II, and also during the glasnost' and perestroika era and during the Yeltsin era - and now this wave has turned again, since maybe the third Putin presidental period from 2012.
So, words, phrases and slogans come and go. It has always been so. The next "Russian wave" coming in Russian "future history" will either be continuation of putinism (hard to believe, but it can of course be so) or towards openness.
Russians have always since many centuries been one of the most strong European cultural and historical markers in the pan-European spectrum. They are by far more European than for example Scandinavians, English and not talk about Bulgarians and even Turks - these all move in the shadows around Europe.
The famous author Fiodor Dostoevskij once said: "Russians have two native lands: Europe and Russia".
Today's problem is that the economical system has fully been wickedly integrated in a new anti-politcal ruling system of the country: those who run the country also own it. They will gain nothing on reforms of the press and journalism (too many "truths" would enter into the society), the political system of opinion, debate, criticism and political struggle (which would overrun the today's anti-political actors in the demised Russian political system) or the third: the legal and court system (if it should work fully, many people of the ruling classes would end up in jail). So today's putinism and its actors of the system, have whatsoever NO reasons to reform anything. And that is their trap, without any exit. And that can also be dangerous. The level of agressiveness inside Russia aginst the civic society is the same of it, also outside Russia of today. They connect.
The younger Russian generations, let say those under 40-45 years old - are in general very western and European minded, with some few exceptions. As I heard once, not so long ago, a young Russian oligarch said: "Now we talk English, and we will never study Chinese".
So one day - we in Europe must be prepared in a new Russian pro-European wave that they actually CAN stand in front of our door, once again - as the young reformer tsar Piotr I (Peter the Great) - "Russia must be europeanised at every price, at any cost". The old Russian Crimea "may have been lost to Russia" - but the even larger tragedy would be if we will lose Russia to China. And among the younger Russian generations, we know exactly one thing: they are not and will not be Asians.
The West wanted only independence of the Baltic states, because their annexation in 1940 was not recognized de jure even under the pro-communist POTUS FDR. But for the rest of the Soviet territory they always, even during the Cold War, wanted that the Soviet Union would stay as a whole, maybe "democratized", but still under the Russian patronage. All anti-Soviet organisations of 1950-1080's supported by the US were oriented on the democratization of the whole SU, not on its break-up. Enver Altaili wrote about this very detailed in his book about Ruzi Nazar (Dark Path to Freedom/Türkic CIA Spy).
After the more or less peaceful dissolving of the SU in the end of 1991 the US and the West as whole wanted Russia to be a Gendarme (and "democratizator" of the post-Soviet space). Moreover they even forbade Yeltsin to make the political trial against the Communist party, because the West has always supported the Soviet communists.
The "west" (in some strange collective view) has actually never been in any deepening or hidden situation of support for the "Soviet communists", it depends on who you mean and concentrate on. That view all people who have and had some insight in Western European politics know very well. The Red Army did really take on the Nazis and the fascists and nationalists in Central- and Eastern Europe, but from mid- and late 1940's this view changed totally. Without the Red Armyand the famous Soviet Marshals Western Europe had collapsed totally in front of Nazis, as they actually did in 1939-1941 before the Nazi attack on the Union in July 1941 - when the real Second world war started (that expression was from the young exiled General de Gaulle in July 1941: " a new world war has started").
It is today's Russia which has indeed changed a lot during the late 25 years. The Russian republic (RSFSR) was in the late 1980's and early 1990's the very leading force for the break up of the Union (which we well could see during the August coup in 1991) - for Central Asia and maybe smaller countries like Armenia and Moldavia it was nothing but a economical and social disaster. But the old Soviet Nomenklatura party politics was completely dead, and the domestic economy slowly also dying off, in the country 1990-1991 - I know that, because I was there. The system strangled itself in a completely ineffective and bad economical model - in which "western armament politics" had in fact extremely little effect in contrast to what people know and accept today. The USSR's economical part for its own military budgets was much larger and stronger in the 1950's and 1960's than in the 1980's. The very high domestic subventions for people's food and housing slowly became a full negative economical trap for the Soviet economy, starting in the mid 1970's.
The great change today towards a more authoritarian and almost totalitarian system (which has scrapped all politics /opinions, party debates, free and open elections, free press etc./ in the country) has its roots that today's leading social and economical classes can not cope with an open and critical society, which would lead to these classes downfall or even jail etc. The question is, as always in Russian history, how long it will last. As always, it is always as paradoxically difficult to judge Russian history as its future. In the long run we in Europe can suddenly, and very fast, stand in front of a completely new Russian political situation with a young generation which will sooner or later just enter into the European cooperation and systems again. These currents do exist in the Russian country.
But telling that the "west" (what it now is?) had a hidden and permanent support for the "Soviet communists" is just a simple falsification of history. Russia is today a very right-wing conservative country which in many ways is scared in front of the future, and with a lot of support among conservative cirlcles on the European continent. The problems for these forces in Europe that right-wing populism is constantly very unproductive in all fields: social, economical and political: for example the now 30 years with Italian right-wing populist and libertarian-conservative mix of Berlusconism has led exactly nowhere for Italy. But this can soon be changed in the Russian society. We just do not know when.
Without the Red Army and the famous Soviet Marshals Western Europe had collapsed totally in front of Nazis, as they actually did in 1939-1941 before the Nazi attack on the Union in July 1941 - when the real Second world war started (that expression was from the young exiled General de Gaulle in July 1941: " a new world war has started").
Anyway the European countries occupied by Soviet marshals like Rokossovskiy, Konyev, Zhukov, Bagramyan, e.a., are still White and European. While the European countries liberated by Ike, Monty, Patton, e.a. are not White and not European and never will be White and European again.
The "west" (in some strange collective view) has actually never been in any deepening or hidden situation of support for the "Soviet communists", it depends on who you mean and concentrate on.
I mean Anglo-Saxon Imperialism of course. If you know the books by Dr. Antony Sutton like "The Wall Street and The Bolshevik Revolution" or "The Best Enemy Money Can Buy", you know how the Anglo-Saxon imperialists established, supported and financed the genocidal Bolshevik regime.
It is today's Russia which has indeed changed a lot during the late 25 years.
Yes, instead of the relatively "sane" Soviet Union in its late years, all post-Soviet republics (only Baltics are exception) transformed into extremely reactionary and archaic dictatorships, based on the cooperation of "siloviki", priests, propagandists and oligarchs, they all regard their people as their property and resource. There is no much difference between Russia, Ukraine, Qazaqstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaycan, etc. Some are softer, some are harder, some are more aggressive, some are more "introvert". But they all are authoritarian dictatorships and they all are clients of foreign powers. Russia is a client of China, Ukraine of the UK, Azerbaycan of Tuerkey. They are not independent.
with a young generation which will sooner or later just enter into the European cooperation and systems again. These currents do exist in the Russian country.
No, the young generation hates the West, and despises Europe as something degenerate. The wort "European" is an insulting euphemism in Russia and in some another post-Soviet republics. As I said the Soviet generations were much more sane and "normal" than the newer one. And, well, there is a question, WHY should the new Russian generation orient on the West or Europe? The West and Europe are already dead and rotten to the core.
Some details must be cleared here, too.
1) The different Soviet republics and post-Soviet countries within the CIS/SNG political systems, had NO international legal rights to "own" their own nuclear weapons arsenal - all the Soviet nuclear arsenal was then sorting under the former Soviet Union's and Russian Fedeartion's Ministry of Defence (Ministerstvo Oborony SSSR / RF) It was not even possible for countries like Belorussiya, Kazachstan and Ukraine to USE these weapons - they didn't have the codes to operate them - they all were in Moscow. It is ALSO against the United Nations' non-profileration agreements (a part of international law) which only permits the so called "Security Council-5" (or "Big-5") (USSR, USA, France, Great Britain and People's Republic of China) to possess nuclear weapons arsenal. All other countries possession (North Korea, India, Israel, Pakistan and the possible former South African and Libyan nuclear progammes) are all illegal. Russian Federation was decided by the United nations in these years 1991-1992 to be the direct and legal successor to the USSR in all legal aspects in the world: embassies, legal questions, contracts, agreements and whatsoever. So this question is also much cleared by the International society,
So there has never been any legal possibility for Ukraine, Belorussiya and Kazachstan to "keep 'their' inherited nuclear arsenal": it is -and was- illegal to international law and agreements, and they could, as seen above, not operate them either. The European Union and the OSCE and the majority of the European Nato members will hardly accept a new and still very unstable Ukraine to become a new nuclear weapon state: it will directly stop their entry into the European cooperative societies and agreements. It has also been recently presented for Ukraine that this is and will be the policy of all Europe via-á-vis the Ukraine.
2) One country in Continental Europe, the French Republic, has all these 30+ years been outside this Budapest Memorandum -and many have been wondering why. Some months ago we got to know why.
The then very skillful and experienced president of the French Republic, François Mitterrand (PS/Parti socialiste) (1916-1996) told in secret the then Ukrainian president NOT to enter this Budapest agreement with the now famous words: "They will betray you".
"They will betray you".
Of course, only idiots trust the Anglo-Saxons.
Stupid Arabs in 1916-1918, stupid Poles in 1939, stupid Ukrainians in 2022.
Thank you very much!