Ten Years of War
Reflecting on ten years of war in Ukraine and our reaction to it in the West
Ten years ago, to the day today, the war in Ukraine began. At least where the official Russian account is concerned1. Reacting to what the Russian leadership perceived as a Western-backed coup in Ukraine (the Euromaidan revolution), the Russian military sent unmarked units into Crimea and later the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. A clear act of war.
At the time of the annexation of Crimea (the second one), I worked at the editorial offices of Germany's biggest IT magazine and I remember we discussed the news repercussions as events unfolded. I also remember I didn't know what to make of it. Back then, I had no particular interest in Ukraine and the country had not yet crossed my radar as a significant player in the field I was primarily writing about: IT security. Later on, I would discover it as one of the biggest originators of malware and consumer banking fraud in Europe. But at the time, I remember us mostly discussing if the "little green men" that appeared in Crimea were Russian military operators or not.
Like anyone else who had played some Arma II, I had enough knowledge of Russian military equipment — and the differences to Ukraine's more Western-influenced gear — to make it obvious to me that these were Russian military units (and rather well equipped ones) who had simply removed the patches on their uniforms and unit identification markings on their vehicles. And I said so at the time.
The Ignored War
As the crisis went on, I grew more and more baffled by the lack of response by the EU and NATO to this obvious Russian aggression. Especially the German government at the time showed remarkable constraint. In hindsight, with knowledge of everything else that went on, this stands out even more. Angela Merkel, in her signature statecraft move, just decided to not get involved and sit this one out, it seemed. I could not understand it at the time, but seeing the mess the current Scholz government has made of things, I now think that Merkel probably did the right thing back then.
But it wasn't only Merkel. Pretty much all of the Western governments decided to ignore Putin sending his military under a thinly disguised context into a neighbouring country to seize a part of its territory. Even Ukraine itself appeared to be reluctant to call this clear act of war what it really was. Putin’s gambit worked perfectly: Everybody was so hesitant to go to war with the military juggernaut Russia that they just acceded to his strongarm tactics.
The only time that the world cared about this war at all was when the Russia-backed separatists in the Donbass turned out to be too idiotic to properly operate one of the Buk anti-aircraft missile systems they had been handed to them by the Russian armed forces. Once they shot down Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over the Donbass, causing almost 300 casualties, the world started caring. But it turned out that it cared a lot more about a few hundred international victims than it did about the tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians who were dying in the ongoing war. After this episode, the war was quickly filed under "irrelevant local dispute" again by most of the corporate media landscape.
All of this changed in 2022, of course. Suddenly, the headlines read "WAR IN EUROPE!!!", again leaving me puzzled. First of all because there already had been a war in Europe in my lifetime2 and secondly because I did not understand why a war that had, at that point, been raging for eight years was suddenly treated as new. I mean, I understand that the second invasion was a significant escalation, but that didn't explain why politicians and the press apparently didn't care for years and now suddenly acted like Putin had suddenly declared war. Which, in reality, had already happened the better part of a decade earlier.
The Ugly Side of Realpolitik
The simple fact of the matter is that Vladimir Putin enacted a cold hearted and brutal plan that — when all is said and done — worked pretty well. He reacted to what he saw as obvious expansion plans by NATO and the EU in Ukraine. He considers the Euromaidan revolution a coup — a view that doesn't seem too unreasonable if one considers the actions of Washington, Paris and Berlin without emotion and concentrates on the known facts. This worldview was exacerbated by his peculiar interpretation of Russian history. It became clear in his interview with Tucker Carlson that not only does he consider Ukraine more of a historic Russian province than a separate and sovereign state, he also thinks of Crimea as a gift to Ukraine from the Russian people3. A gift the Ukrainians didn't look after properly, which justifies Russia to take it back. In Putin’s view, that is. Apparently, he started this war because he thinks of Russia like a parent who is dealing with an obstinate child — instead of a country dealing with another sovereign state governed by adults.
Unfortunately, Putin’s initial strategy worked well. By starting the war in 2014, he essentially halted all plans for Ukraine's membership in the EU and NATO — both alliances being legally prevented from signing on new members with disputed territorial claims. His second move in 2022 worked a lot less well, because he underestimated both the Ukrainian's will to resist — they courageously fought back almost to a man — and the West's reaction to the escalation — suddenly, Western politicians and the media freaked out. I must admit that, on the second point, I was probably as surprised as the Russian leadership. As I've already explained, I also don't understand the difference in reactions between 2014 and 2022.
To me, the second freak out in 2022 can only be explained by the theory that, unlike in 2022, power centres in the West suddenly felt threatened. And it also shows how well these power centres were able to make their own concerns suddenly the concerns of the common people, mostly by exploiting the press. Random dude on the street went from not caring about Ukraine at all (and probably not being able to point it out on a map) to suddenly being totally in tune with the plight of the Ukrainian people — and all in the span of only a few short days. A really remarkable propaganda achievement, when all is said and done.
A Dark Vision of the Future
So after ten years of war, and very possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths, where do we stand? Putin's got what he wants: Ukraine is deadlocked in a geopolitical stalemate and the West's expansion is halted. He's killing soldiers he doesn't care about in a meat grinder that the Russian armed forces have a lot of experience in implementing going back to World War II and which, ever since, has been a winning strategy for them. He's using obsolete military equipment that would have otherwise been decomissioned, giving him an opportunity to replace it with modern gear. And he's changed Russia's economy to adapt to this, taking a page out of the Americans' book and turning ongoing war into a boon for his country's economy. As a bonus, he’s caused an energy crisis in Europe that he can comfortably exploit, being the head of a huge country with ample natural resources.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are fighting a war they can't win, killing a whole generation of young men and probably ruining their country, which wasn’t exactly prosperous to begin with, for generations to come. While the West, including my own government, stands by and makes good money by producing weapons and shipping them to the conflict zone. I have a few contacts at Rheinmetall here in Düsseldorf and I can tell you, these guys are making asbolute bank — to an extent that is unprecedented since World War II. Even during the height of the Cold War — which was a really serious threat to Germany, much more so than to most other countries — the armament industry wasn't hiring this much.
Since Zelensky has even legally prevented himself and his government to negotiate with the Russians, and especially since very powerful interest — like the aformentioned armaments industry and also the media, for that matter — have no interest in this thing ending any time soon, the future looks bleak indeed.
Even considering how horrible the communist regime treated the people of East Germany for almost half of a century, the fate that Germany went through in the Cold War seems infinitely preferable to ten years, and counting, of open warfare. The eventual unification of Germany actually provides a good model for what might happen in Ukraine at some point in the future, if peace was even on the table. In a world after Putin has eventually died and the Russian government might have mellowed, a Ukraine divided into a western, pro-EU part and the Russian eastern provinces might eventually grow back together. "Time heals all wounds" is, in my experience, an overrated witticism when it comes to human relationships. But, when one considers human history from a birdseye viewpoint, nothing was ever more true.
One would think that bruised national pride and the inconvenience of a moved border was easier to swallow than hundreds of thousands of young men dying horrible deaths, but of course, this is not how it works in the real world. For the simple fact that, ever since the 20th century dawned, it's never the politicians and top military brass (or their sons) that lose their lives in war. Here in Germany, Otto von Bismarck was the last head of state who had the balls to personally take to the battlfield on horseback to participate in the wars he started.
Mark my words, this will go on for another ten years, at least. Until the public in the US, Germany and the other countries financing this madness stands up in mass protest against it, companies like Rheinmetall, Raytheon and BAE Systems will make sure the war continues. And that is not going to happen unless the press fucking wakes up and shows the public the horrible reality of this war — of all wars. But I've lost all hope for this. Most of my colleagues have crawled way too far up their own arse in their self-righteous belief in just causes like this to ever come out again.
Maybe there's a hope for a generational shift in journalism. But since the zoomers have pretty much deep-throated all of the propaganda around this and other topics, it's probably up to the alphas to break with their parents' misguided notions. And for them to enter the workforce of journalism — if the profession even exists that long — will take another ten years at least.
So war it is, Mandrake.
The date of 20 February 2022 is based on the obverse inscription of the Russian military's medal For the Return of Crimea. Since the Russian military put that date on the medal, it's safe to assume that the military's top brass considers this to be the date at which the operation began. The first — obviously Russian — troops (nicknamed "little green men" at the time) seemed to appear in Crimea during the night of 26/27 February.
Obviously, I am talking about the Kosovo conflict here. But technically, I guess, there had been a whole number of wars in Yugoslavia. Which, by the way, is a whole lot closer to central Europe and was historically always considered a part of it; unlike Ukraine. But I guess the press just forgot about all of this and, in a moronic move, widely termed the 2022 invasion of Ukraine the “first war in Europe since World War II”.
Even though Putin generally showed a firm grasp of history in his interview with Carlson, he also said he does not understand why Stalin made Ukraine its own state. Several times, he said this. That was either misdirection to distract the viewer from figuring out the truth or rather uncharacteristic ignorance on Putin’s part. Stalin — or rather Josif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili — wasn’t Russian, of course. Which is why he cared about the native populations of the USSR. Early on, he was made People's Commissar for Nationalities, after all. He was also under intense political pressure when founding the USSR and giving countries like Ukraine some semblance of autonomy was a way for the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power, which at the time was far from rock solid, especially on the international stage.
Your article is complete US empire propagandist nonsense.
Kiev began the war in 2014 by attacking Donbas, under direction of US operative Victoria Nuland and the CIA, following a US backed coup in 2014 in which Ukrainian neo-Nazis were used (much as the US used Muslim extremists in Afghanistan) to run the military action.
Crimea was transferred back to Russia by a peaceful vote of its majority Russian population who refused to be ruled by a Nazi controlled government in Kiev which literally attempted to ban use of the Russian language in Ukraine.
Below is the link to a *factual* report on how the war was started and then proceeded in Ukraine, by a reporter who actually does unbiased, objective and diligent research and fact checking before publishing. Be sure to follow the reference links at the end of the article to get the full picture of the history, from the Obama administration to today.
"Why Are *Both* Republicans & Democrats Lying About Russia?"
https://ericbrooks.substack.com/p/why-are-both-republicans-and-democrats
An interesting opinion, though I consider the coup in Maidan to have been an action of war against Russia. I am hoping that the war ends far sooner. Sometimes unravelling happens quickly.