By Prof. Paul Robinson, Canadian Dimension, 11/28/22

November 28 marks the 200th birthday of Russian thinker Nikolai Danilevsky. Relatively unknown in the West, Danilevsky is extraordinarily influential in modern Russia, and understanding his ideas is essential to grasping the essence of the current political conflict between Russia and the West.

In the early 1990s, two theories of humanity’s future competed for the attention of those interested in international affairs. The first was Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History, which predicted that every country in the world was destined eventually to adopt the same social-economic and political system, namely Western-style liberalism. The second was Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, which stated that rather than converging, the countries of the world were separating into distinct civilizational blocs.

To Russians, none of this was remotely new. For the Fukuyama-Huntington debate did little more than echo a long-standing argument that has been raging among Russian intellectuals since the infamous debate between the Westernizers and Slavophiles in the 1840s.

The Westernizers were Fukuyama-ists before Fukuyama. They had what academics like to call a “teleological” view of the world, considering that the iron laws of history dictated that all societies eventually converged on a common end (telos in Greek). For them, this end was synonymous with the West. As the mid-19th century liberal Russian thinker Konstantin Kavelin put it, “The difference [between the West and Russia] lies solely in the preceding historical facts; the aim, the task, the aspirations, the way forward are one and the same.”

The Slavophiles countered this argument by contending that Western civilization had peaked. Russia, by contrast, still had much to offer the world through its own unique, Orthodox, culture. Only by developing this uniqueness and avoiding assimilation into the West could Russia contribute to universal civilization.

Interestingly, this argument still viewed Russia and the West as connected. Russia, by protecting its Orthodox heritage, was seen as being able in due course to export it to the West and so save the latter from itself. Slavophilism did not reject the idea of a common future.

It is here that Danilevsky stepped in, making the decisive break with teleological thinking. A biologist by profession, he adopted an organic view of the world. Human civilizations, he maintained, were organic beings that were born, matured, and died. None could be said to constitute the “End of History.”

In his most famous work, entitled Russia and Europe, he outlined a theory that Russia and Western Europe were entirely distinct “cultural historical types.” Different cultural historical types, he said, developed in their own separate ways. In opposition to theories of cultural convergence, he compared the world to a town square from which different roads (i.e. different civilizations) moved out in different directions. Each cultural historical type was inherently distinct, and consequently it made no sense to try to force it to develop along the path of another.

Other Russians built on Danilevsky’s theory. Late nineteenth century philosopher Konstantin Leontyev, for instance, postulated that civilizational life cycles had three stages: primary simplicity, flowering complexity, and secondary simplicity (the period of decay). Flowering complexity represented the peak of development. On an international scale, this meant that one should avoid the alleged homogenization that would come with everybody adopting Western-style liberalism, and instead celebrate a multiplicity of different civilizational types. The “End of History” would quite literally be the end of human development, and was thus to be avoided.

Later, Eurasianist thinkers used geology, botany, linguistics, and other fields of study to try to provide a scientific basis for the idea that the space of the Russian empire and later the Soviet Union constituted a coherent entity distinct from those around it. Originally devised by Russian émigrés in the 1920s, Eurasianism crept into the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev era, influencing among others the ethnographer Lev Gumilyov. Gumilyov argued that ethnic groups (etnoi) were a natural phenomenon and that what suited one group did not suit another, although those with certain complementarities could form a superetnos. The superetnos that was the Soviet people was entirely different from the superetnos of the West and as such should develop entirely in its own separate way.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, civilizational thinking has become de rigueur in Russia. A study by San Francisco State University professor Andrei Tsygankov showed that the most cited Russian authors in Russian academic articles on topics of international relations were Danilevsky and Leontyev. The idea that civilizational differences are real and can be objectively determined is now widely accepted outside the very narrow circle of Russia’s few remaining liberals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was rather late in coming round to this point of view. In the early 2000s he was a traditional Westernizer, speaking of Russia’s eventual integration into Europe. More recently, however, his tone has changed. Speaking to the Valdai Club at the end of October, he used the words “civilization,” “civilizations,” and “civilizational” some 20 times, and commented that “real democracy in a multipolar world is primarily about the ability of any nation—I emphasize—any society or civilization to follow its own path.”

To rub in the point, Putin mentioned Danilevsky and cited his statement that progress lies in “walking the field that represents humanity’s historical activity, walking in all directions,” adding that “no civilization can take pride in being the height of development.” Putin followed this by calling for a “free development of countries and peoples,” in which “primitive simplification and prohibition can be replaced with the flourishing complexity of culture and tradition.” Though Putin didn’t say it, the language was pure Leontyev.

Some commentators argue that the “New Cold War” between Russia and the West differs from the original in that lacks an ideological component similar to the conflict between communism and capitalism. Others maintain that there is such a component and that it consists of the struggle between democracy and autocracy. Putin’s speech shows that both points of view are wrong.

For the speech reveals a very coherent philosophy well founded in a specific Russian intellectual tradition with origins in Danilevsky. However, this philosophy has nothing to do with autocracy and democracy. In fact, the very essence of civilizational theory is that no system is inherently the best. Putin is not making any claims about how states should organize their internal affairs, let alone promoting autocracy versus democracy. He is, however, making a claim about how the world as a whole should operate, and contrasting the vision of a world converging around Western values and institutions with that of a world consisting of distinct civilizations each advancing towards their own unique destinations. The New Cold War does, therefore, have an ideological component but it’s very different from what most people in the West imagine it to be.

Only time will tell which vision of the world turns out to be accurate. But for now, the terms of the intellectual debate have been set. Two hundred years on, it is very much Danilevsky’s moment.

Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on Russian and Soviet history, including Russian Conservatism, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2019.

By Prof. Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 12/1/22

Summary of Alexander Mercouris Commentary (Mercouris 12.1.2022)

Bakhmut

Ukraine is rushing reinforcements to Bakhmut to avoid encirclement by Russian forces. One report claims that 30,000 Ukrainian forces are in danger of encirclement. This further confirms the critical importance of Bakhmut to Ukrainian defense lines in the Donbass and further west, despite attempts by western mainstream media to argue otherwise. It is a key transportation and logistics hub. Mercouris has previously noted that the Wagner group is now supported by regular Russian forces and that one reason why the Russian offensive here has taken so long (four months) is because the Wagner group might have bitten off more than they could chew and that it would have been more effective had the regular army contributed more to this offensive and much sooner.

The battle for Bakhmut is the most brutal and cruel of all battles fought so far in this war.

In the event that Ukraine loses the battle of Bakhmut and loses up to 30,000 troops, amid shell shortages and threats to the energy system, at a time when the weather has turned considerably colder, it will have experienced a very major set-back.

Missile Attacks

There are satellite indications of a forthcoming massive Russian missile attack in preparation, judging by activities at the Engels airfield where pictures show two dozen bombers ready for action with very active ground crews. This could be an exercise in Russian misinformation or a signal of some other kind of operation. There have been recent expectations of such an attack. Even following repairs of previous missile attacks (the last one was a week ago), 40% of the energy system remains severely degraded.

Another two to four such raids might lead to a final collapse of the energy system, at which point an overall repair might become impossible. The prospect of western help is not huge, given disparities of voltage etc. between Soviet-era and western standards. There have been multiple attacks by Kalibri and many other missiles, but there have not been any recent sightings of Geranium 2 drones imported from Iran. It could be that Russia is building up a stock of these and other drones in preparation for a terminal attack on Ukraine’s energy system. Lavrov has said that attacks on the dual-use energy system of Ukraine are justified for military reasons. His saying this points towards a Russian intention to knock out energy, rail, communication and transportation systems that might also include the Dnieper bridges.

Storm Clouds

Things are now building up. Shoigu has indicated that training of the 300,000 new reservists and the additional 80,000 volunteers is now basically over and that the soldiers can be deployed in preparation for the Russian winter offensive.

Kharkiv

Other reports talk about a critical situation for Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region. The Ukrainian forces’ advance has been at a standstill while Russia builds up heavy fortifications and mounts limited counteroffensives. Ukraine says that Ukrainian forces in Kharkiv are running critically short of ammunition, because the railway system is beginning to crumble.

Shortages

Ukraine is in need of far more ammunition at a point in time when they are experiencing a shell shortage on the frontlines and NATO countries are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with their supply. France has indicated that it is now capped out of the military equipment, Caesar systems, multiple rocket launch systems, etgc.,and will not be in a position to provide much more.

Evacuations

If Ukraine is indeed worried for its energy system it is the legal and moral duty of the Ukrainian government to organize evacuations of citizens, especially the most vulnerable, from Ukrainian cities. If the transportation system also collapses it will simply not be possible to evacuate. Mercouris wonders whether one of the reasons why Ukraine has not been already organizing massive evacuations is that some people in Kiev are hoping for a humanitarian crisis so that this might elicit more western sympathy.

Diplomacy

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has also talked of the state of diplomatic discussions. He has ridiculed the idea that there are effective discussions taking place, and that there is no indication that Ukraine is in any position for discussion. This points increasingly to the Russians focusing on the military side of the war and discounting any idea of a diplomatic solution.

On the western side there are indications of considerable confusion. Macron is accusing Washington of benefitting from the war, from the sales of US LNG to Europe at very high prices, and complaining that the US Inflation Reduction Act is a mechanism for official subsidies to US industries at the expense of European (long gone the days of World Trade Organization authority, and even of “globalization.” OBB) There is no sign of any real US concession to Europe.

What to Do

There has been much discussion as to what to do to help Ukraine. The US is talking about relatively low levels of training support (2500 men a month, for a month at a time, will not remotely address Ukraine’s problems), talk about more weapons systems, perhaps including Patriot surface-to-air missiles (the Pentagon is strongly opposed, as it does not want to lose what it has), and suggestions about F-16s fighter jets which will only be available in a timeframe of months or years and, if used, will not make much difference.

Infighting

The issue of delivery of Patriots has caused a furious row between Germany and Poland in the wake of the fall of a Ukrainian missile on Poland. Germany offered its Patriots to Poland. The Poles have launched an anti-German campaign because Germany will not allow Poland to pass on the Patriots to Ukraine (which would require a full agreement of the entire NATO alliance). These kinds of quarrel are intensifying. Britain is also sniping at Germany.

Western media carry reports (as in the Guardian) that the USA should send 1,000 Abrahms tanks to Ukraine, that these would be sufficient to achieve victory over the Russian army – in other words, are suggesting that the USA should send a third of its entire arsenal of tanks to Ukraine. There would be enormous logistic challenges, challenges of maintenance (they are very heavy maintenance), and of supplying them with the 150mm tank ammunition, and of supplying fuel for their gas turbine engines. Fighter jets, long range missiles are also talked about.

Mercouris calls such talk borderline irrational/deranged. If and when Ukraine goes down to defeat such writers will doubtless claim that the defeat was because of failure to deliver such systems, that it was all the fault of the weak west and weak western politicians. (Such talk sounds like typicaly neocon double-down mischief, and indicates the extent to which mainstream media are bought and paid for by the neocons. OBB).

Non-Diplomacy

Russia’s intelligence chief has confirmed that he talked about Ukraine in his recent meeting with the CIA chief, William Burns, in Ankara, showing that there is nothing to the US claim that “there will be no talks about Ukraine without Ukraine.” But we dont know the substance of the talks.

Lavrov was clearly not impressed. Russia clearly feels, says Mercouris, that Washington is incapable of coming up with ideas that remotely address the problems. Western diplomacy, says Mercouris, is bankrupt. Attempts to isolate Russia, to implement a sanctions war, achieve military success, persuade China to intervene on behalf of the West, persuade India to stop buying Russian gas, etc., etc, – nothing has worked. The only promising negotiation back in March was wrecked by Washington and Boris Johnson. The price: Ukraine has suffered at least 100,000 dead among its military forces (as stated rather clumsily this week by Ursula von Leyen. OBB). Thousands more will die; many people will suffer extreme cold and similar hardships. Extreme cold, without heat, is unsustainable, despite however much clothing is worn.

The effects will be catastropic, especially for the vulnerable. We will have to go through all of this horror before negotiations begin – an act of tardiness and stubborness that represents political and moral bankruptcy.

(Note. There are western reports of an indication from Washington that Biden is ready for talks with Putin. OBB).

By Prof. Nicolai Petro, Responsible Statecraft, 11/25/22

Recent media reports have highlighted Ukraine’s intention to retake Crimea, particularly after its success in recapturing Kherson. This has been the stated policy of the Ukrainian government since losing it to Russia in 2014. 

A brief history of the region’s difficult relationship with Ukrainian rule before 2014, however, shows why this would be extremely difficult.

It is well known that in 1954 the region was transferred from the Russian SFSR (Soviet Federative Socialist Republic,) to the Ukrainian SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic,) as a “gift” to the Ukrainian people in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslavl Rada that joined Ukraine to Russia. Less known, however, is that in January 1991, as the USSR was disintegrating, the Crimean regional government decided to hold its own referendum on restoring the autonomy of Crimea. 

Nearly 84 percent of registered voters participated in this referendum, and 93 percent voted for Crimean sovereignty. This opened the door to potentially separating Crimea from both the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR, thus potentially allowing it to join the new Union Treaty then being proposed by Mikhail Gorbachev as an independent member. 

On February 12, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR (its main legislative body) recognized those results. On September 4, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the now Autonomous Crimean Republic (ACR) proclaimed the region’s sovereignty, but added that it intended to create a sovereign democratic state within Ukraine. It is in this context of regional sovereignty that 54 percent of Crimeans voted in December 1991 in favor of Ukrainian independence, with a voter turnout of 65 percent, the lowest of any region in Ukraine.

From the outset, however, both sides had diametrically opposed interpretations of what Crimean “sovereignty” meant — Simferopol, Crimea’s capital, wanted sovereignty, while the Ukrainian capital of Kiev a weak form of autonomy within a unitary state in which Ukrainian language and culture would be the norm.

On May 5, 1992, the Supreme Soviet of the ACR effectively declared total independence from Ukraine and announced a new referendum to be held in August 1992. The Ukrainian parliament declared Crimea’s independence illegal and authorized President Kravchuk to use any means necessary to prevent it. After a two-week stalemate, the Crimean parliament rescinded its declaration of independence in exchange for a negotiated devolution of power from Kiev to Simferopol. Crimea was given its own president and prime minister, as well as the authority to hold its own local referendums.

The crisis was averted, but only temporarily, since it did not deal with the core issue — the desire of a large portion of the Crimean population to be part of Russia rather than Ukraine. It therefore resurfaced in 1994, when Yuri Meshkov and his “Russia Bloc” party won the presidency of Crimea on a platform advocating reunification with Russia. Again, an incipient crisis was averted on March 16-17, 1995, when Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, after consulting with his Russian President Boris Yeltsin and receiving his support, sent Ukrainian special forces to arrest the Crimean government. Meshkov was deported to Russia, and, that same day, the Rada abrogated the Crimean Constitution and abolished the Crimean presidency.

Still, it took three more years to pass a new Crimean constitution that declared Ukrainian the sole official language of Crimea and specified that Crimea was an inalienable part of Ukraine. In a surprisingly candid interview in 2018, the last Ukrainian-appointed prime minister of Crimea, Anatoly Mogiloyv, explained that Crimea had always been “a Russian region,” and said that he repeatedly warned Kiev that, if it refused to grant the peninsula more autonomy, it would bolt to Russia.

The results of the Crimean referendum of March 16, 2014, have been rightly called into question because of the anomalous conditions under which it was held, but they were hardly surprising. Anatoly Karlin has conveniently compiled a list of 30 public opinion surveys taken between 1994 and 2016. Twenty-five show Russophile sentiment at over 70 percent, and five at 25–55 percent. One of Crimea’s foremost sociologists, Natalia Kiselyova, says that the percentage of Crimeans who “yearned for Russia” between 1991 and 2014 was always greater than 50 percent, while the percentage that favored Crimean regionalism was never less than 55–60 percent. 

Since 2014, a number of Western-sponsored polls have likewise shown a high level of support for reunification with Russia. Thus, a Pew survey  from April 2014 showed that 91 percent of Crimean respondents believed the 2014 referendum was free and fair. A June 2014 poll, this one by Gallup, found nearly 83 percent of the Crimean population (94 percent of ethnic Russians and 68 percent of ethnic Ukrainians) thought the 2014 referendum reflected the views of the people. A spring 2017 survey conducted by the German-based Center for East European and International Studies found that, if asked to vote again then, 79 percent said they would cast the same vote. 

Most striking of all has been the turnaround in the attitude of Crimean Tatars. A 2020 report in Foreign Affairs found that the proportion of Tatars who indicated that they thought being part of Russia would make them better off rose from 50 percent in 2014 to 81 percent in 2019.

Many leading Ukrainian political and cultural figures, including the writers Vasyl Shklyar, Yuri Andrukhovych, and former President Viktor Yushchenko, have referred to Crimea as foreign to Ukraine and depicted its multiculturalism as a threat to the nationalist Ukraine they were trying to create. After 2013, some have suggested letting this territory go its own way. The danger of doing so now, however, according to President Poroshenko’s permanent representative in Crimea, Boris Babin, is that “if we don’t liberate Crimea and the East [militarily], then all of Ukraine will become the East and Crimea.”

The history of Crimea since 1991 thus offers a vivid illustration of how nationalism can lead national elites to self-delusion. Knowing full well the region’s long-standing aspirations for autonomy, Kiev’s nationalist politicians chose to ignore or suppress them. 

The same problems could also arise for Russia, though, until now, it has managed to avoid them through a mixture of pragmatism and massive investments in areas of concern to the local population. For Crimean Tatars, these include the April 21, 2014, decree rehabilitating the deported peoples of Crimea, additional federal funding for the expansion of education in the Tatar language, the construction of more than 150 new mosques, and recognition of the Tatar language as official in Crimea, something never achieved under Ukrainian rule.

Critics counter that Russia is only pretending to address the concerns of the Crimean Tatars. In reality, they say, there has been a tenfold reduction in the number of Tatars in positions of authority in Crimea, because the Crimean Tatar Mejlis (Assembly) is now outlawed, and Tatars must run for office within different parties. It probably has not helped the overall popularity of the Mejlis in Crimea, however, that some of its exiled leaders in Ukraine support the policies of the Ukrainian government, which include the possible deportation of several hundred thousand Russian residents of the peninsula.

To be clear, the loss of Crimea stems directly from Russia’s illegal annexation, but, as Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Kravchuk, acknowledged in 2019, it was fed by years of “very aggressive attacks of one region [Galicia in Western Ukraine – NP], which often believes that its ideology is the most correct, the most essential for the Ukrainian people; [and it] encounters the opposition of all regions of Ukraine that have a different ideology, or maybe different views, to be more precise, on the situation in Ukraine.”

To regain their loyalty, Kiev will have to acknowledge the role that its own policies, most notably forcible Ukrainianization, have played in fracturing Ukrainian society, or face the prospect that recapturing these territories will result in a new cycle of violence, at some point in the future.

By Ted Snider, Antiwar.com, 11/23/22

In his March 21 press briefing, State Department spokesman Ned Price told the gathered reporters that “President Zelenskyy has also made it very clear that he is open to a diplomatic solution that does not compromise the core principles at the heart of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.” A reporter asked Price, “What are you saying about your support for a negotiated settlement à la Zelenskyy, but on whose principles?” In what still may be the most remarkable statement of the war, Price responded, “this is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine.”

Price, who a month earlier had discouraged talks between Russia and Ukraine, rejected Kiev negotiating an end to the war with Ukraine’s interests addressed because US core interests had not been addressed. The war was not about Ukraine’s interests: it was bigger than Ukraine.

A month later, in April, when a settlement seemed to be within reach at the Istanbul talks, the US and UK again pressured Ukraine not to pursue their own goals and sign an agreement that could have ended the war. They again pressured Ukraine to continue to fight in pursuit of the larger goals of the US and its allies. Then British prime minister Boris Johnson scolded Zelensky that Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with.” He added that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with Russia, the West was not.”

Once again, the war was not about Ukraine’s interests: it was bigger than Ukraine.

At every opportunity, Biden and his highest ranking officials have insisted “that it’s up to Ukraine to decide how and when or if they negotiate with the Russians” and that the US won’t dictate terms: “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” But that has never been true. The US wouldn’t allow Ukraine to negotiate on their terms when they wanted to. The US stopped Ukraine from negotiating in March and April when they wanted to; they pushed them to negotiate in November when they did not want to.

The war in Ukraine has always been about larger US goals. It has always been about the American ambition to maintain a unipolar world in which they were the sole polar power at the center and top of the world. 

Ukraine became the focus of that ambition in 2014 when Russia for the first time stood up to American hegemony. Alexander Lukin, who is Head of Department of International Relations at National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow and an authority on Russian politics and international relations, says that since the end of the Cold War Russia had been considered a subordinate partner of the West. In all disagreements between Russia and the US up to then, Russia had compromised, and the disagreements were resolved rather quickly. 

But when, in 2014, the US set up and supported a coup in Ukraine that was intended to pull Ukraine closer into the NATO and European security sphere Russia responded by annexing Crimea, Russia broke out of its post Cold War policy of compliance and pushed back against US hegemony. The 2014 “crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s reaction to it have fundamentally changed this consensus,” Lukin says. “Russia refused to play by the rules.” 

Events in Ukraine in 2014 marked the end of the unipolar world of American hegemony. Russia drew the line and asserted itself as a new pole in a multipolar world order. That is why the war is “bigger than Ukraine,” in the words of the State Department. It is bigger than Ukraine because, in the eyes of Washington, it is the battle for US hegemony.

That is why US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on November 13 that some of the sanctions on Russia could remain in place even after any eventual peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. The war has never just been about Ukraine: it is about US foreign policy aspirations that are bigger than Ukraine. Yellen said, “I suppose in the context of some peace agreement, adjustment of sanctions is possible and could be appropriate.” Sanctions could be adjusted when negotiations end the war, but, Yellen added, “We would probably feel, given what’s happened, that probably some sanctions should stay in place.” 

That is also why the US announced a new army headquarters in Germany “to carry out what is expected to be a long-term mission” while it simultaneous began pushing Ukraine toward peace talks. The military pressure on Russia and support for Ukraine will survive the war.

It is also why on June 29, the US announced the establishment of a permanent headquarters for US forces in Poland that Biden boasted would be “the first permanent U.S. forces on NATO’s eastern flank.”

It is again why, on November 9, the State Department approved the sale of nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System to Lithuania. They are not to be used by NATO in the Ukraine war. But they will, according to the State Department, “support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve the military capability of a NATO Ally that is an important force for ensuring political stability and economic progress within Eastern Europe.” At the same time, the State Department approved the potential sale of guided multiple launch rocket systems to Finland to bolster “the land and air defense capabilities in Europe’s northern flank.”

Presumably, the delivery of upgraded B61-12 air-dropped gravity nuclear bombs to NATO bases in Europe is also not in the service of current US goals in Ukraine.

Though to the US, the war in Ukraine is “bigger than Ukraine,” it is also “in many ways bigger than Russia.” Although the recently released 2022 National Defense Strategy identifies Russia as the current “acute threat,” it “focuses on the PRC,” or the People’s Republic of China. The Strategy consistently identifies China as the “pacing challenge.” The long-term focus is on, not Russia, but China. 

The National Defense Strategy clearly states that “The most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S. national security is the PRC’s coercive and increasingly aggressive endeavor to refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences.”

If Ukraine is about Russia, Russia is about China. The “Russia Problem” has always been that it is impossible to confront China if China has Russia: it is not desirable to fight both superpowers at once. So, if the long-term goal is to prevent a challenge to the US led unipolar world from China, Russia first needs to be weakened. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently said that “China will firmly support the Russian side, with the leadership of President Putin . . . to further reinforce the status of Russia as a major power.” 

According to Lyle Goldstein, a visiting professor at Brown University and author of Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry, an analysis of the war in Ukraine published in a Chinese academic journal concludes that “In order to maintain its hegemonic position, the US supports Ukraine to wage hybrid warfare against Russia…The purpose is to hit Russia, contain Europe, kidnap ‘allies,’ and threaten China.”

The war in Ukraine has never been just about Ukraine. It has always been “bigger than Ukraine” and about US principles that are bigger than Ukraine and “in many ways bigger than Russia.” Ukraine is where Russia drew the line on the US led unipolar world and where the US chose to fight the battle for hegemony. That battle is acutely about Russia but, in the long-term, it is about China, “the most comprehensive and serious challenge” to US hegemony.