The Western media, the US and NATO, would like us to believe that President Zelenskiy is a beacon

of ‘democracy’ in Eastern Europe. But is that really the case?

Read the rest here: https://www.latimes.com/.../ukraine-president-zelensky...
https://www.dw.com/.../ukraine-zelenskiy-bans.../a-56438505
Reminds me of a particular ‘girgit’ in a UT.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not for war. Am not in support of Russian action in Ukraine but also cannot
shut my eye and mind to incessant provocations. Life is not cheap anywhere! But then, you reap
what you sow! Would make sense for NATO and Ukraine to sit with Russia and address concerns.
If at all there is a nuclear incident, guess who remains unaffected? The USA of course. Any such
incident would happen on European soil and it is the Europeans who are affected. Why am I thinking
that the US is leading both NATO and Ukraine down the primrose path?

For those of us whose feelings are hurt watching the conflict play out in Ukraine, allow me to point
out that the West is to blame entirely for this. It is the West that created Putin, as we now see and
know him! The writing has been on the wall for some time, but political pundits have chosen to
ignore it and go with the narratives that are all too popular in liberal circles.
“Putin is like Hitler”.
“Putin is an egomaniac”.
“Putin is a warmonger”.
“Putin is corrupt”.
“Putin is autocratic”.
This may all be true but then there are a host of heads of state at whose doors, the same epithets
may be laid. And with better cause!
I recently educated myself. Thought I'll share some of what I learnt.

Some history:
The relationship between Russia and the good old US of A has never been this low; EVER!! Russians
have been anti-White House, anti-Wall Street but never have they been, in their vast majority anti-
American (towards citizens). However, today, it is anti-American at it’s very grassroots. And there’s a
reason why.
Gorbachev became President of USSR in March of 1985 and by December 1991, no more Soviet
Union. However, it didn’t ‘collapse’ as we are often led to believe. In Belavezha three Presidents
(Ukraine, Belarus and Russia) came together and decided to disband the Soviet Union – part ways,
so-to-speak. While they each had their reasons, we can understand why Boris Yeltsin, the President
of Russia was part of it. Being President of Russia, he was number two to Gorbachev, who was
President of the Soviet Union. No Soviet Union, no more number two! And of course, no more
Warsaw Pact. And that happened in February of 1992.

A new world! USA had to decide its engagement with this new entity, called Russia, as did Boris
Yeltsin with how Russia would engage the world.
Yeltsin came to the US and addressed a joint session of Congress, where he offered the hand of his
people, in friendship, where they could together build a better world, a world without war. His
words reflected the desires of the vast majority of Russians, back home. What was the response that
Russia received?

One could have been the response of the Allied Forces at the end of WWII towards their enemies,
Italy, Germany and Japan or the response towards their friends like France (that was occupied during
the war) or UK that was never occupied but were badly hurt.
At the end of WWII, the Communist parties of Italy and that of France were very powerful, and US
aid came with the condition of keeping Fascist, Nazi-like parties and communists out of power. It
was called the Marshall Plan!
The US could adopt a similar policy for Russia and encourage the development of democracy.
(However, bear in mind that, Russia in it’s over 1000+ year old history never had known the ‘animal’
called democracy!). Russians had no clue what it was. But the US (and allies) could have financed
and incentivized the Russian move towards it.

Another approach, could be that, since the Soviets had held the threat of nuclear weapons over the
Western world for decades, the Russians would now have to pay dearly for it!
And both approaches had their adherents in the US.

In early 1992, Paul Wolfowitz, Under-Secretary of Defense, and responsible for policy, introduced a
document that came to be unofficially known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine (you can Google this, if you
are so inclined). It however, came to be incorporated into what we now know as the Bush Doctrine.

In effect, what it said, was that the US needed to be THE superior country and not allow anyone to
challenge it – irrespective where and how. And that, the US must assure its allies that the US would
take care of their defenses and they need not develop and equip their own weapons. The US would
do it for them! (Sound familiar? That’s NATO today!!) The US was suspicious of Russia – the Bear
might get up on its hind legs again, and growl – and alerted its allies of its own fears.
This was leaked to the New York Times and a lot of people were very upset. Edward Kennedy called
it an ‘imperialist document’ and that no country should accept it…
History is witness, that unfortunately, this was the view that was accepted.

Coming back, quite a few people pressured Gorbachev, to allow the two Germanys to unite. James
Baker (served as White House Chief of Staff to Ronald Reagan, later US Secretary of the Treasury and
White House Chief of Staff to George HW Bush) promised that NATO “will not move an inch
eastward”. On December 12th, 2017, the National Defense archives of George Washington
University declassified the minutes of the Baker-Gorbachev discussion. The records show that the
Western German leadership among the other Western leaders present in that meeting also agreed
to it.

This status quo prevailed till roughly 1996, when a decision was taken to expand NATO. The alliance
inducted Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary in 1998-99. In 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were admitted into NATO.
George Kennan (one of the most brilliant political minds of the US) spoke to Thomas Friedman in
1998 (NYT columnist) and when asked for his thoughts on the developments said, “this is the
beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely, and it will
affect their policies. This is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever”.

It was followed by the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO from March 24th, 1999 to June 10th, 1999,
and NATO was dependent on the US, as per the Wolfowitz Doctrine. The UN did not condone this.
Although part of Serbia for centuries, Kosovo became a new country and received recognition as a
nation.

Yeltsin was furious. And he reminded the members (UN) that Russia was a great nation and one day
would “come back”. He may not have been politically correct, but he did speak his mind.
In (and around) 2000, Putin was elected as President, and asked for Russia to become a part of
NATO. Why? NATO was created to defend Europe. And now that the Soviet Union is no more, and
there is no real threat, why not be a part of NATO and bring more value to the alliance and help
protect from some unforeseen act of aggression.
He was basically told to go take a walk!
OK, if not part of NATO, maybe in some sort of partnership? The response? No, your country is too
big. Insidiously, it was impressed upon Putin, that Russia was an ‘unimportant’ country now.

Please understand, like the Americans, the Russians have always believed that they have a larger
destiny to fulfill.
Over time, Russian public opinion gathered against both Gorbachev and Yeltsin. They failed to stand
up to the West. And in 2022, this is Putin’s Russia, by-the-way. There were economic reasons too,
but it all revolved around these two.

When 9/11 happened, guess who offered help to the Americans? To Bush Jr? Putin! And he did help
in Afghanistan. And if the need arose to have American troops on Russia’s doorstep in their pursuit
of these terrorists – in Georgia, Putin would help. These were not just words. Russia well understood
the consequences of staying out of warring against terrorists. It could also find its way to Russia. And
of course, Russia and Putin received nothing in exchange, for that courtesy.

On February 10th, 2007, in Munich, speaking to the group of 20, Putin said, “it is obvious that NATO
expansion has nothing to do with the modernization of the alliance itself or with ensuring security in
Europe. On the contrary it presents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And
we have the right to ask, against whom is this expansion intended? And what about the assurances
made by our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, where are those
declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience,
what was said. I would like to quote the speech of Secretary General, Mr Berner of Brussels on May
17th, 1990. He said at the time, quote, ‘the fact that we are not ready to place a NATO army outside
of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee’. Where are these guarantees?”
And the answer was, “yes, but that was a guarantee given to the Soviet Union and you’re Russia”.

In 2009, Albania and Croatia were admitted into NATO. In 2017, Motenegro and North Macedonia
joined NATO.
In 2017, Putin in a foreign policy speech, publicly said, “our mistake was that we trusted you too
much; and your mistake was that you tried to take advantage of that”.

TODAY!!

And this is the Putin we now know!

And the trigger is that in 2021, there was an announcement that Bosnia, Herzegovina, Georgia and
Ukraine will be admitted into NATO. De-facto there was a strong potential for the US and NATO to
put missiles on Russia’s border – remember the Cuban missile crisis of 1962? Besides, it old news
that the Western powers, led by the US are attempting a regime change in Russia. And this has been
done elsewhere, too. This is a blatant violation of a nation’s sovereignty.

Vladimir Putin DOES NOT trust the United States and this makes it very difficult for the US and/or
NATO to engineer a withdrawal by Russia from Ukraine.
And in all this, journalists from the West playing a destructive role and further fueling the current
crises by ‘labeling’ and publishing outright ‘falsehoods’. We here in India, as blessed as we are in our
critical thinking do not hesitate to crash our tongues in gear without engaging our brains!

Russia is NOT going to back off its objectives in Ukraine. If there is anything Russia has learnt, it is
that the WESTERN powers (NATO & US) are not going to face Russia in a conventional war – they do
not have the resources currently to do so. At best, they can impose crippling financial sanctions.
Unfortunately, it is not going to have the desired effect as the sanctions are going to hurt the EU
more than it will the Russians.

Moreover, Russia will probably become the undisputed master of the O&G reserves in the Arctic
following this conflict in Ukraine. The US and the collective West can go try and fart upwind!

With the sanctions in place, China with its rapacious appetite for O&G is going to be a ready buyer
(more so when it’s much vaunted BRI project is going down the toilet) via the North Sea.
It is being rumoured that there are US Department of Defense Biolabs (Gain of function…!!?????) in
Ukraine – I don’t know if this is true, but if it is then its FUBAR for the Americans.

The first fissures in NATO had appeared some weeks back, with a German leader putting up the
above points in the Bundestag. They recognized the concerns that Russia has expressed since the
past 20 years, and they now prefer to see Ukraine as the bridge between West and East and later
just member states in the same continent.

The Nordstream pipelines have been sabotaged! The West was quick to blame Russia. However, on
one end of the pipeline is Europe (the consumer) and on the other end of the pipeline is Russia (the
supplier). Russia had incrementally been squeezing off the supply of gas to Europe. It just doesn’t
make sense for the Russians to damage the pipeline when it is easier to close the tap, completely!
Guess who, the EU is now buying its gas from at a 40% higher rate than they were from Russia? Its
my bet that they might have had a hand in Nordstream pipeline sabotage.

It is now early October, 2022. Russia has just launched multiple missiles into Kyiv and other cities
targeting their infrastructure. As of now, all of Ukraine is plunged in darkness. Zelensky’s official
residence is reduced to rubble. While the citizenry have taken shelter in the underground metro
stations, things are looking bleak for the Ukranians. Unfortunately, most if not all, of this has been of
their own making – with enough instigation from the USA and the Western powers.

Ukraine recently carried out a ‘terrorist’ attack on the bridge connecting Crimea and Russia. While
there is no urgent need of rations or fuel in Crimea, the bridge was destroyed using what is
suspected a car bomb and a patsy from Azerbaijan who drove a truck carrying some kind of an
accelerant. The FSB has established that the Azerbaijani was tricked into driving the truck and a
suicide bomber in a car following the truck, detonated the device that brought down the bridge.

There are scores of videos coming to the fore of Ukrainian soldiers knee-capping surrendered
Russian troops. If these visuals are meant to strike fear into the Russians, I suspect it is achieving the
opposite. The videos are being seen by people from all across the world and the narrative that
Ukrainians are fighting for their country bravely is coming across a little thin. No sane individual
much less a nation, condone a war crime.

It is rumoured that some 1000+ Polish soldiers lost their lives in this missile strike in Ukraine (10 th
Oct). Some 200-odd Polish soldiers were awaiting induction into the battlefield. Russia took them
out with a well aimed missile. The Poles are crying themselves hoarse that Russia has attacked a
civilian building. Unfortunately for them, the rules of engagement state that soldiers in any building
makes it a valid military target. What were the Poles thinking? Russia had warned EU and the USA
against putting boots on the ground in Ukraine. In Russia’s understanding, this would have made
them active participants in the war, and their homelands could come under Russian attack.
The US is indulging in brinkmanship and unfortunately for Europe, its economically strongest partner
Germany, is being led by the nose into this war by the Americans. Other EU nations are following
suit. However, with the advancing winters, which tend to be pretty severe, Europe is staring at cold
furnaces and even colder homes and why? Because the US and NATO wanted to put missiles on
Russia’s borders!

French, German, Spanish citizens are protesting in the streets, that ‘this is not their war’! Rising
prices and inflation has forced EU citizens into the streets. Earlier on, when the sanctions had been
placed on Russia following their attacking Ukraine, all of EU and their citizens celebrated. They
believed they would have seen Russia on its knees, and in their own lifetimes – especially those who
had lived through the cold war. They perhaps never thought that this war between Russia and
Ukraine would affect them. But then, that is what happens in a ‘connected’ world. My money is still
on the Russians!

India and China are wild cards in this mess!