I’m posting this article because there’s useful information in it, but the concluding paragraph is garbage. I have included my comments at the end. – Natylie

By Ekaterina Kurbangaleeva, Carnegie Endowment, 5/28/24

The reasons for rising incomes in Russia have been well documented: a labor shortage, hefty payments to soldiers and their families, and an unprecedented level of state spending that has obliged defense sector factories to work around the clock. However, whether standards of living have actually improved is open to debate, given the record military spending, high inflation, Western sanctions, and limits on hydrocarbon exports.

The data that would normally be used to attempt to reach a conclusion should be treated with caution: Russian consumer behavior has changed too radically amid the war in Ukraine, and there are huge differences across Russian society. While the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a major shock for the middle class, it has also channeled wealth to many people who were previously struggling to make ends meet.

The data that are available show that real incomes rose 5.8 percent in 2023 and at the same rate in the first quarter of 2024, according to Russia’s State Statistics Service (Rosstat). On top of that, figures from the Federal Tax Service show that the Russian state’s income tax revenues in 2023 were 40 percent higher than in 2021 (the lion’s share of this increase took place in 2023).

The fifteen fastest growing regions in terms of income tax contribution (excluding the regions Russia claims it has annexed in Ukraine) include hardly any of the traditionally big donors. Instead, the top spots are occupied by regions that before the war were traditionally net recipients from the federal budget. They include the republic of Chuvashia (a rise of 56 percent over two years), Bryansk region (54 percent), Kostroma region (52 percent), Kurgan region (50 percent), Smolensk region (49 percent), and Zabaikalsky region (47 percent). There were only three regions where income tax contribution growth was under 20 percent.

It’s important to remember that using income tax payments to gauge standards of living means excluding a key source of wartime wealth, since soldiers’ wages and payouts in case of injury or death are not subject to income tax. However, given the growth in income tax payments (and that Rosstat assesses that 59 percent of incomes in 2023 derived from wages), it can be said with confidence that real incomes have risen faster than inflation since the full-scale invasion.

How are Russians spending this money? The answer seems to be that they are both spending more and saving more (a trend that the head of Russia’s central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, has described as odd). According to the central bank, the amount of rubles held in Russian bank accounts climbed 19.7 percent to 7.4 trillion in 2023 (nearly three times what it was in 2022), buoyed by high interest rates. In particular, there has been growth in the category of deposits worth between 3 million and 10 million rubles (both in terms of their total value and in the number of people holding such deposits). In other words, a lot of people are prepared to hold sizable sums in the bank, and they appear confident that there will be no disaster in the near future.

When it comes to consumption, the picture is extremely varied. Consumers operate within certain limits: for example, Russians aren’t going to Europe because air transport links were severed at the start of the war, and it’s hard to get a visa. It’s also difficult to buy a car: not everyone wants a Chinese-made vehicle.

However, there are two spending trends that suggest at least some consumers have money to burn. Firstly, demand continues to grow for mortgages (the total value of mortgages held in Russia grew 34.5 percent in 2023). This growth has mostly been driven by state-subsidized mortgage programs. And demand showed no sign of slacking in the first four months of 2024. Many Russians have enough savings to put down a 30 percent deposit on a property (the average initial deposit), and are happy to take on twenty-year mortgages, suggesting they are counting on continued state support.

The second trend is the booming gambling market. The income of legal bookmakers rose 40 percent in 2023, and active gamblers (those who bet at least once a week) numbered some 6.6 million people. In total, more than 15 million people gambled (about one in seven Russians over the age of 18) over the course of the year. At the same time, inflation means the size of the average bet is growing. Current trends have even led to calls to raise the legal limit on a single bet from 600,000 rubles to 1.4 million rubles.

Among those who are “winning” from the current situation are the millions of Russians in blue-collar and gray-collar jobs. Some of the most in-demand wartime professions are: milling machine operator, machinist, welder, weaver, and garment worker. While there are some regional differences, the wages of the men and women working in these professions have more than tripled and in some cases quintupled. Weavers, for instance, were paid between 18,000 and 25,000 rubles per month in December 2021 (about $250–350 back then), whereas now they can get 120,000 rubles ($1,300).

Another good example is couriers and drivers. Long-distance truck drivers now get an average of 180,000 rubles a month (up 38 percent year-on-year), while couriers can earn up to 200,000 rubles a month. For comparison, President Vladimir Putin recently signed a decree raising the monthly payment to members of the Russian Academy of Sciences—the country’s leading academics and researchers—to 200,000 rubles from next year.

From even this brief analysis, it’s clear that the main financial beneficiaries of the war in Ukraine (excluding security officials and soldiers) are those whose professions were long considered low paid and low status. Now they enjoy high salaries and a surfeit of attention from both employers struggling to fill job vacancies, and the state as a whole.

More money in their pockets makes these people—who are not accustomed to self-reflection and who do not have easy access to independent sources of information—even more susceptible to propaganda. Putin’s public image provides them with a comforting feeling of stability, and a sense that their leaders are making the right decisions. It’s unsurprising that the level of support for the Russian regime among these groups is only growing.

[“who are not accustomed to self-reflection and who do not have easy access to independent sources of information” – suggesting that these people don’t ever engage in self-reflection is just plain elitist, same for suggesting that they have no access to smart phones and therefore Telegram, YouTube and the like: elitist and ignorant. Also, it’s normal for working class people anywhere to vote for and support policies that result in concrete improvements to their material lives. Again, suggesting that doing so is merely a result of propaganda is insulting and elitist. This is typical of the kind of people that write for western think tanks about Russia – people who have contempt for their subject. – Natylie]

By Paul Grenier, Landmarks, 6/12/24

Introduction

Americans have a tendency to assume that their opponents are evil.  Bond films and Hollywood blockbusters instantiate, in the final analysis, what is already the common American assumption. It is not simply a matter of America’s opponents doing something bad. The situation is far more dire than that.  The opponent wishes to do evil, because their very will is oriented in that direction.  Given such an assumption, it follows quite naturally that neither diplomacy nor compromise can be considered realistic options. How can one compromise with evil?  The only possible response is to wage a war – perhaps a messianic war – against the enemy of the moment.  

The most recent consequence of this long-standing pattern is America’s intractable and constantly escalating proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.  From the perspective that matters in Washington, the reasons for this war are uncomplicated, having to do with the evil will of the Russian president, who, it is said, initiated a war on his neighbor, wholly unprovoked, in the usual Bond villain pattern. Still today, no compromise is being considered, nor is any diplomacy underway. Quite to the contrary, what we have seen, since the war began, is a constant escalation in the lethality of weapons supplied to Ukraine, and in the risks the US side is willing to take in its unprecedented direct confrontation with the Russian nuclear superpower.   

The result is a strange paradox:  on the one hand, we are confronted with a war which, as any responsible analyst will admit, could easily have been prevented altogether, by the simple expedient of allowing Ukraine to remain neutral. It is also a war that could have almost immediately been stopped, back in March/April 2022, after negotiations between Kiev and Moscow reached a successful compromise in Istanbul – a compromise which the Americans, making use of the good offices of British foreign minister Boris Johnson, saw fit to reject. The upshot of this process, then, is that, for the sake of avoiding a neutral Ukraine, the world now faces the very real risk of a further escalation that could easily end in nuclear war.  

How did we get into such a thoroughly irrational position, which seemingly has reached a dead end?  We have gotten here by viewing reality through the prism of moralism, through the assumptions, just described, that those who oppose us must be motivated by an evil will.  It goes without saying that this moralizing pattern of thought (the word ‘thought’ is being used here in a purely metaphorical sense) nearly always involves a complete distortion of reality.  

The dire consequences of these habitual assumptions make obvious the need for a different approach, one that is both less moralistic and more adequate to reality.  Fortunately, such a perspective exists, and has existed for almost as long as philosophy itself. In the Platonic (Socratic) philosophical tradition, as anyone can see from reading, for example, the dialogue Gorgias or The Republic, the greatest danger we face in our political community is viewed not as the ‘bad will’ of the enemy, but ignorance and illusion, which may exist and usually does exist on all sides.  From Socrates’ perspective, all desire is oriented to what is believed to be the good, even if irrationality, or failure to understand the true needs of the soul, often leads us astray. 

The Platonic tradition, to be sure, does not deny the reality of evil. After all, a stubborn persistence in ignorance and illusion is also a form of evil. All the same, the Platonic perspective allows for a far more subtle understanding of the problem of evil.  “When we do evil,” noted the Christian Platonist Simone Weil, “we do not know it, because evil flees from the light.” The avoidance of thought is the typical form taken by this ‘fleeing from the light.’ Continuing on this same theme, Weil adds: “When we are the victims of an illusion, we do not feel it to be an illusion but a reality. It is the same perhaps with evil. Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty.”  

“When we are the victims of an illusion, we do not feel it to be an illusion but a reality. It is the same perhaps with evil. Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil but as a necessity or even a duty.   

Messianism: General Considerations

Normally we think of messianism as a proselytizing mania conducted by those who are certain that God is on their side.  The key to any messianism, however, is not the presence of the Absolute, but the conviction that what one values is absolute.  This conviction can be, and regularly is, based on some such value as ‘development,’ or ‘return on investment’ or ‘democracy.’  Hans Morgenthau, in his outline of the four cardinal rules of diplomacy, places in first place the need to banish “the crusading spirit” — another name for messianism.  The ideal vehicle for such a crusading spirit is what Morgenthau refers to as abstract principles, or some suitable ‘catchword’, which is then molded and adapted to suit the needs of the moment. There is no problem with the meaning of the catchword being twisted into variously-shaped pretzels in the process.  That is the beauty of the abstract principle or catchword in the first place. Its very vagueness lends its owners an ever-expanding freedom and power.  Or so it appears at first.  And yet, as Morgenthau notes, citing William Graham Sumner: “If you allow a political catchword to go on and grow, you will awaken some day to find it standing over you, the arbiter of your destiny.”  

Democracy today serves as just such a catchword for the American political class, and it has, correspondingly, generated its own species of messianism, that of democracy promotion.  Freedom is another such catchword.  Now, true freedom is, to be sure, among the greatest of values. It becomes a catchword when the meaning of freedom is distorted and misunderstood, as it has in our time, generating thereby freedom as ideology, freedom as a generator of the crusading spirit, of messianism.  We will return below to the crucial question of freedom. 

An additional form of messianism, perhaps the most obvious of all, is the quest to eliminate evil from the world. The American-led Global War on Terror was just such an effort. So too was the communist effort to eliminate from the world all capitalists, thereby supposedly ushering in a secular heaven within history.  

American Messianism

According to Fr. Alexander Schmemann (1921 – 1983), the American Protestant spirit has a strong tendency toward sectarianism, and this is a direct result of its rejection of the sacramental order, in other words, its rejection of the religious nature of creation itself.  Inhabiting this de-sacramentalized world are individual believers “obsessed with salvation,” but now their salvation can no longer be rooted in a relationship with the world or with the kingdom of heaven. As a result, a ‘salvation’ so conceived becomes an empty thing, shorn of content—and in this respect, as we will see, it echoes the liberal concept of freedom. At the same time, even a salvation so conceived must find some content, some justification; and so, the “experience of ‘being saved’… is unavoidably filled with any content. The one who is saved must ‘save.’ ” All the activity and all the excitement of life becomes a process of ‘saving,’ a process of struggling against various evils, whatever they happen to be (communism, populism, drugs, and most recently of course, Vladimir Putin). Without an evil to do battle against, there is literally nothing else to do; there is no substance, there are no ‘things’ which warrant loving and valuing for their own sake.   

Freedom from Roots

Schmemann’s perspective on the sectarian origins of American messianism bears a close resemblance to, and provides an added dimension, to Simone Weil’s famous dictum that “whoever is uprooted himself, uproots others” (cf. ‘those who are saved must save’).  Weil’s concept of being rooted overlaps in certain respects with Hegel’s notion of Sittlichkeit in as much as both presuppose a substantive complex of inherited moral and practical traditions as well as orientations to various ‘treasures’ which must be passed on to the future.  In a rooted community, work (labor) itself is a continuation of the liturgical side of life – or, to use a vocabulary more typical of Weil, labor becomes an expression within the world of the beauty and goodness ‘which lies beyond this world.’  

The process of emptying the world of rich content of this sort is nailed in place, is made all but irretrievable, by the peculiar liberal (mis)understanding of freedom.  American theologian and philosopher D.C. Schindler has, over the course of several books and numerous articles, carefully diagnosed where the liberal concept of freedom, which has been embraced from the beginning by the United States, goes astray. To vastly oversimplify, what D.C. Schindler has outlined is the process whereby the proper meaning of freedom has been narrowed to the point where it amounts to nothing more than a process of willing, a process of choosing; in the final analysis, the reduction of freedom to the possession of a power, full stop. 

…the proper meaning of freedom has been narrowed to the point where it amounts to nothing more than a process of willing, a process of choosing; in the final analysis, the reduction of freedom to the possession of a power, full stop. 

A freedom so understood uproots the whole world.  It is helpful to contrast this innovation with the traditional view of freedom, which Schindler terms ‘symbolical’: 

To say that the will terminates in things – that is, in actual goods outside the soul – is to conceive of freedom in essentially symbolical terms as a ‘joining with,’ a sharing in goodness, by uniting with a reality that evokes desire and at the very same time responsibility. To deny this, as Locke came to see that he must, is to deny that the will connects with reality in any genuine sense; it is to lock the will within its own boundaries, to replace the ontological union of the soul and reality with the power to carry out an activity …  

Modern freedom creates a world that is strangely empty, even as it becomes ever more filled with stuff.  And as we have seen, idle hands become the devil’s playground. 

Conclusion: The Good Will that Destroys Worlds

Paul Robinson, in his article for Landmarks critiquing the proposed new Containment policy, points out that Kiev’s extremely poor prospects for success, and the likelihood that continuing the war will lead to perhaps hundreds of thousands of additional deaths, doesn’t seem to bother ‘the new Cold War’ enthusiasts: 

Convinced that they are ‘helping’ Ukraine, they lead it further into the abyss, just as their predecessors led Vietnamese, Afghans, Angolans, and others into the abyss in decades past … Looking at this from a philosophical point of view, one might complain that the issue here is a failure to follow Kant’s categorical imperative and to view people as ends in themselves rather than a means to an end. The end is weakening Russia and China, and if others suffer in the process, we shrug our shoulders and consider it a price worth paying, knowing full well that it is not us but others who are paying the price. I think, though, that this complaint is not entirely accurate because the architects of these policies strike me not so much as cynics who know full well what they are doing but as true believers, who really imagine that their ‘help’ is in fact help, that the United States is a force for good in the world, and that spreading its influence and undermining that of others is thus for the benefit of all humanity.

What is striking here is the chasm between the declared aims — ‘helping this or that other nation’ — and the visibly disastrous effects of that ‘help.’ What is being offered, it is said, and if Paul Robinson is right, is being offered in the sincere belief that what is being offered is something good, is variously termed ‘freedom’ or ‘human rights’ or ‘democratic values.’ What is actually being delivered to Ukraine, as in the other countries he mentioned (and his was a very abbreviated list), is national dismemberment, death on an unimaginable scale (50% of Ukrainians today are said to be suffering from PTSD – the ones who are still alive, of course).  What I am trying to draw attention to here is a certain aspect of the psychology of modern liberalism: there is something here that is so pathologically self-absorbed that its notions of the good are incapable of noticing realities beyond its own ideological construct.

I want to close with an image that greatly impressed me, taken from a recent English novel that to my mind symbolizes the liberal uprooted consciousness. The novel in question, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, takes place in early 19^th century England. The England described therein has all the familiar realism of a Jane Austen novel, until two men with astonishing magical powers make their presence known. What drives the story forward are their efforts to counteract the efforts of yet another magical character, a powerful faerie, called the Man with Thistledown Hair. This faerie uses his power to ensnare and trap victims within his own world, a world which the Man with Thistledown Hair considers utterly delightful. This faerie takes a fancy to certain characters in the novel and sets about, with perfect sincerity, to ‘help’ them.  He demonstrates, like a good Kantian, a will completely dedicated to doing good, with the only problem being that the ‘goods’ that he bestows are only those that he himself defines. 

He demonstrates, like a good Kantian, a will completely dedicated to doing good, with the only problem being that the ‘goods’ that he bestows are only those that he himself defines.

It is not that he hears, but is indifferent to, the protests of his victims, who do not want any of these ‘gifts.’ What we have in the faerie is a degree of egotistical solipsism that has reached an infinite degree, such that he is simply incapable of noticing anything outside of his own interpretation of the world.  Spoken words that contradict his internal thoughts and wishes ‘to do good’ for others are, in the purely mechanical sense, ‘heard,’ and yet they might as well not be, in as much as they remain to the faerie utterly incomprehensible.  Only what is locked inside his own mind has any meaning for him. 

A Lindsay Graham, a Joe Biden, a Victoria Nuland, and, indeed, most of the liberal foreign policy establishment – an establishment which extends also to Europe –  strike me as analogues of the Man with Thistledown Hair.  As Paul Robinson said in respect to their efforts in such places as Vietnam, or Central America, or Libya, or Syria, or Ukraine, and now Georgia, in all such cases, they believe that they are doing good, that their help is actively desired. That they are saving the world.

Consortium News, 7/17/24

[Click on link above to watch video]

“Let’s face it: not all countries represented in this chamber recognise the key principle of the U.N. Charter which is the sovereign equality of all states,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.N. Security Council on Tuesday. “Speaking through its presidents, the United States has long declared its exceptionalism. This applies to Washington’s attitude towards its allies, whom it demands to be unquestioningly obedient even to the detriment of their national interests. Rule, America! This is the thrust of the notorious ‘rules-based order’ which presents a direct threat to multilateralism and international peace.”  Dozens of nations’ representatives spoke after Lavrov in a debate on multilateralism called by Russia, the council’s president for July. 

FULL TEXT OF SPEECH BY RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SERGEI LAVROV TO THE U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL

I would like to extend a warm welcome to distinguished dignitaries present in the Security Council Chamber. Their participation in today’s meeting confirms the importance of the subject under review. In accordance with Rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite the representatives of Australia, Bangladesh, Belarus, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Maldives, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Türkiye, the UAE, Uganda, Vietnam, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to take part in the session.

In accordance with Rule 39 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite His Excellency Stavros Lambrinidis, Head of the European Union Delegation to the United Nations, to participate in this meeting.

The Security Council will now begin its consideration of agenda item 2. I would like to draw the attention of the Council members to document S/2024/537, a cover letter dated July 9, 2024 from the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations addressed to Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres for a policy brief on the item under review.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

Your Excellency,

Today, the very foundations of the international legal order – strategic stability and the U.N.-centric system of international politics – are put to the test. We won’t be able to resolve the mounting conflicts unless we understand their root causes and restore faith in our ability to join forces for the common good and justice for all.

Let’s face it: not all countries represented in this chamber recognise the key principle of the U.N. Charter which is the sovereign equality of all states. Speaking through its presidents, the United States has long declared its exceptionalism. This applies to Washington’s attitude towards its allies, whom it demands to be unquestioningly obedient even to the detriment of their national interests.

Rule, America! This is the thrust of the notorious “rules-based order” which presents a direct threat to multilateralism and international peace.

The most important components of international law – the U.N. Charter and the resolutions of our Council – are interpreted by the collective West in a perverse and selective manner, depending on the instructions coming from the White House. Numerous Security Council resolutions have been ignored altogether, among them Resolution 2202, which approved the Minsk agreements on Ukraine, and Resolution 1031, which approved the Dayton Agreement on peace in BiH on the basis of the principle of equal rights of the three constituent peoples and two entities.

We can discuss endlessly the sabotage of the resolutions on the Middle East. Just think back to what Antony Blinken had to say in an interview with CNN in February 2021 taking a question about what he thinks about the decision of the previous US administration to recognise the Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel. In case someone is not sure what his answer was, I will refresh your memory. The Secretary of State said, “Leaving aside the legalities of that question, as a practical matter, the Golan is very important to Israel’s security.”

This is despite the fact that U.N. Security Council Resolution 497 of 1981, which you and I are well aware of and which no one has cancelled, qualifies annexation of the Golan Heights by Israel as illegal. However, according to those very “rules,” to quote Mr Blinken, “legal questions are something else.” And, of course, everyone remembers the statement by the US Ambassador to the U.N. that Resolution 2728 adopted on March 25 demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip “is not legally binding,” meaning that the American “rules” supersede Article 25 of the U.N. Charter.

Last century, George Orwell predicted the essence of the rules-based order in the novel Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” It means that you are allowed to do what you wish if you follow orders from the ruling leader. But if you dare to protect your national interests, you will be declared an outlaw and beleaguered by sanctions.

Washington’s hegemonistic policy has been the same for decades. Absolutely all schemes of Euro-Atlantic security were based on America’s domination, including the subjugation of Europe and the “containment” of Russia. The main role in this was assigned to NATO, which has ultimately tramped down the European Union that had been created to serve Europeans. The alliance has unceremoniously privatised OSCE bodies in brazen violation of the Helsinki Final Act.

The unrestrained enlargement of NATO, which went on for years contrary to Moscow’s warnings, has also provoked the Ukraine crisis that began with the state coup organised by Washington in February 2014 to seize full control of Ukraine and use the neo-Nazi regime they brought to power to prepare an attack on Russia. When Petr Poroshenko, and after him Vladimir Zelensky, waged a war against their own citizens in Donbass, outlawed Russian education, Russian culture, Russian media and the Russian language and banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, nobody in the West noticed that, and nobody demanded that their wardens in Kiev “observe the proprieties” and respect international conventions on the rights of national minorities or the Constitution of Ukraine, which stipulates respect for these rights.

It is to eliminate these threats to the national security of Russia, to protect the people who consider themselves part of Russian culture and live on the land that their ancestors developed for centuries, as well as to save them from legal and physical extermination that the special military operation began.

It is notable that today, when numerous initiatives are advanced for a settlement in Ukraine, few remember that Kiev trampled on the human rights and the rights of national minorities. It was only recently that a relevant request had been added to the EU documents on the start of negotiations, and then mostly thanks to Hungary’s firm position of principle. However, Brussels’s ability and willingness to influence the Kiev regime are open to speculation.

We urge everyone who is sincerely interested in overcoming the crisis in Ukraine to formulate their proposals with due regard for the fundamental issue of ensuring the rights of all, without exception, ethnic minorities. Its suppression will debase any peace initiatives, while giving de facto approval to Vladimir Zelensky’s racist policy. It is notable that ten years ago, in 2014, Zelensky said, quote: “If people in eastern Ukraine and Crimea want to speak Russian, leave them alone and let them speak Russian on legal grounds. Language will never divide our country.”  But Washington has disciplined him, and in 2021 Zelensky said in an interview that those who regard themselves as part of Russian culture should pack up and go to Russia for the sake of their children and grandchildren.

I call on the masters of the Ukrainian regime to make it respect Article 1.3 of the U.N. Charter, which declares respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all “without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”

Colleagues,

The North Atlantic Alliance is no longer satisfied with the war it has unleashed against Russia by the hands of the illegitimate government in Kiev, nor is it satisfied with the entire OSCE space. Having destroyed almost to the ground the fundamental agreements on arms control, the United States continues to escalate the confrontation.

At a recently held summit in Washington, D.C., the leaders of the NATO countries reaffirmed their claims to the leading role not only in the Euro-Atlantic but also in the Asia-Pacific region. They declared that NATO is still guided by the objective of defending the territory of its members, but for this purpose they allegedly need to extend the alliance’s dominance to the entire Eurasian continent and adjacent sea areas.

NATO’s military infrastructure is moving into the Pacific with the obvious aim of undermining the ASEAN-centric architecture, which has for many decades been built on the principles of equality, mutual interests and consensus. To replace the inclusive mechanisms created around ASEAN, the United States and its allies are cobbling up closed confrontational blocs such as AUKUS and other groups of four or three countries that are subordinate to them. The other day Deputy Secretary of Defence Kathleen Hicks said the United States and its allies must be “prepared for the possibility of protracted war…and not just in Europe, either.”

For the sake of “containing” Russia, China and other countries whose independent policies are perceived as a challenge to hegemony, the West, through its aggressive actions, is breaking the system of globalisation, which was originally formed according to its own moulds. Washington has done everything to blow up (including literally by organising terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines) the foundations of mutually beneficial energy cooperation between Russia and Germany and Europe as a whole. Berlin was silent at the time.

Today, we see yet another humiliation of Germany, whose government unquestioningly obeyed the US decision to deploy US ground-based medium-range missiles on German territory. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said simple-heartedly that the United States has decided to deploy precision strike systems in Germany, and “it is a necessary and important decision at the right time.” The United States has decided so.

On top of it, White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby stated on behalf of the US President that they were not seeking a third world war, since it would have terrible consequences for Europe. A Freudian slip, as they say. Washington is convinced that it is not the US that will suffer from a new global war, but its European allies. If the Biden administration’s strategy is based on such an analysis, it is an extremely dangerous misconception. Europeans, of course, must realise the suicidal role they are destined to play.

The Americans, having called the entire collective West to arms, are expanding the trade and economic war with the unwanted actors, having unleashed an unprecedented campaign of unilateral coercive measures that are backfiring, primarily, on Europe and further fragment the global economy. The countries of the Global South in Asia, Africa and Latin America are suffering from the neo-colonial practices of Western countries. Illegal sanctions, numerous protectionist measures, restrictions on access to technology directly contradict genuine multilateralism and create serious obstacles to achieving the goals of the U.N. development agenda.

Where are the free market attributes that the United States and its allies have been telling everyone to follow for so many years? Market economy, fair competition, inviolability of private property, presumption of innocence, freedom of movement of people, goods, capital and services – all of these have been scrapped. Geopolitics has buried the laws of the market that the West once touted as sacred. Recently, we have heard public demands from the US and EU officials for China to reduce overproduction in high-tech industries, as the West has begun to lose its long-standing advantages in these sectors as well. Now, the very same “rules” have superseded market principles.

Colleagues,

The actions of the United States and its allies are hindering international cooperation and the creation of a more just world. They have taken countries and regions hostage, prevent nations from realising their sovereign rights declared in the U.N. Charter, and interfere with their vital joint efforts to settle conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and other regions, to reduce global inequality and combat the threats of terrorism and drug crime, hunger and diseases.

I am confident that this situation can be changed if there is good will, of course. To stop the implementation of a negative scenario, we would like to propose to discuss a number of steps towards restoring trust and stabilising the international situation.

1. The root causes of the ongoing crisis in Europe should be eliminated once and for all. The conditions for restoring stable peace in Ukraine have been put forth by President of Russia Vladimir Putin. There is no need to repeat them.

A political and diplomatic settlement should be complemented with practical steps, to be taken in the West and the Euro-Atlantic community, to remove threats to the Russian Federation. The coordination of mutual guarantees and agreements should be based on the recognition of the new geostrategic realities on the Eurasian continent, where a continental architecture of really equal and indivisible security is taking shape. Europe risks lagging behind this objective historical process. We are ready to discuss a balance of interests.

2. The restoration of the regional and global balance of forces should be accompanied with active efforts to eliminate injustices in the global economy. There must be no monopoly in monetary and financial regulation, trade and technologies, by definition. This opinion is shared by the overwhelming majority of international community. It is extremely important to reform the Bretton-Woods institutions and the WTO as soon as possible, for their operations must reflect the real weight of the non-Western growth and development centres.

3. Major fundamental changes are necessary in other institutes of global governance if we want them to work to the benefit of all. This primarily concerns the United Nations Organisation, which remains the embodiment of multilateralism against all the odds, with unique and universal legitimacy and universally recognised broad competencies.

An important step towards the restoration of the U.N.’s effectiveness would be the reconfirmation by all member states of their commitment to the principles of the U.N. Charter, not selectively but in their entirety and as a whole. The form of this reconfirmation can be discussed jointly.

The Group of Friends in Defence of the U.N. Charter, created at the initiative of Venezuela, is doing a great deal towards this. We invite all countries that believe in the priority of international law to join its efforts.

The pivotal element of the reform of the U.N. should be the reshuffle of the U.N. Security Council, although this alone will not promote efficiency without a fundamental agreement of the permanent members on its operating methods.  However, this must not hinder the imperative elimination of the geographic and geopolitical imbalances in the Security Council, which clearly has too many representatives of the collective West. A badly needed step is to reach the broadest accord possible on the concrete parameters of the reform, which should increase the representation of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The personnel policy of the U.N. Secretariat should be changed as well to eliminate the domination of Western citizens and subjects in the administrative U.N. bodies. The U.N. Secretary-General and his staff must faithfully and with no exceptions comply with the principles of impartiality and neutrality, as it is set out in Article 100 of the U.N. Charter, which we keep reminding you about.

4. The strengthening of the foundations of multipolarity should not only be promoted by the U.N. but also by other international organisations, including the Group of Twenty where all countries of the Global Majority and the West are represented.   The mandate of G20 is restricted to discussing economic and development issues, and it is important to protect substantive dialogue at this venue from populist attempts to add geopolitical topics to its agenda. This might destroy this useful platform.

BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are playing an increasing role in the development of a just multilateral world based on the principles of the U.N. Charter. Their member states represent different regions and civilisations whose interaction is based on equality, mutual respect, consensus and mutually accepted compromises, which is the golden standard of multilateral cooperation involving great powers.

Regional associations have practical significance for the development of multipolarity, including the CIS, the CSTO, the EAEU, ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Arab League, the African Union and CELAC. We believe that it is important to develop multifaceted ties between these associations, including by using the U.N. potential. Russia will devote one of the next meetings during its Security Council Presidency to interaction between the U.N. and Eurasian regional organisations.

Colleagues,

On July 9, 2024, President of Russia Vladimir Putin, addressing the BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St Petersburg, noted: “The formation of a world order that reflects the real balance of forces and the new geopolitical, economic and demographic reality is a complicated and, unfortunately, even painful process.” We believe that discussions of this issue should not devolve into fruitless polemics, and that they should hinge on a sober assessment of the totality of facts. First of all, it is necessary to reinstate professional diplomacy, the culture of dialogue, the ability to listen and hear and to retain the channels of crisis communications.

The lives of millions of people depend on the ability of politicians and diplomats to formulate something like a common perception of the future. It depends on member countries alone whether our world will be diverse and equitable. The Charter of our Organisation is our foothold. The United Nations will be able to overcome current disagreements and to reach consensus on most issues if everyone, without exception, honours its letter and spirit. “The end of history” has failed to materialise. Let us work together in the interests of launching the history of genuine multilateralism that reflects the entire wealth of cultural and civilisational diversity of the world’s nations. We are inviting everyone to join the discussion, which should certainly be completely honest.

So according to anonymous intel sources speaking to the WSJ recently, they didn’t see Russia’s outreach to China and North Korea coming. Just like they didn’t foresee Russia’s defense of its perceived interests in Crimea and Syria, or its resilience against every sanction the west could think up. What do these Russia experts and intelligence analysts do all day? I would have been fired long ago for this level of incompetence. I guess the Peter Principle is alive and well in Washington and Virginia. – Natylie

RT, 6/19/24

Moscow’s security partnerships with Beijing, Pyongyang and other US “adversaries” were not anticipated by Washington, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing anonymous intelligence sources.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a strategic partnership and mutual defense treaty with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Wednesday, before flying on to Vietnam. Putin’s trip to China last month prompted one US policymaker to declare that decades of American efforts to keep Moscow and Beijing apart have come to naught.

“The speed and depth of the expanding security ties involving the US adversaries has at times surprised American intelligence analysts. Russia and the other nations have set aside historic frictions to collectively counter what they regard as a US-dominated global system, they said,” the WSJ reported on Wednesday.

Washington has accused Pyongyang of “sending workers to Russia to help man weapons production lines,” as well as selling missiles and artillery shells to Moscow, for use against Ukraine.

Russia and North Korea agree on mutual aid against aggression – PutinREAD MORE: Russia and North Korea agree on mutual aid against aggression – Putin

The US also believes China has enabled Russia’s military industry to circumvent Western sanctions, by delivering “massive quantities of dual-use equipment, including machine tools, microelectronics … optics for tanks and armored vehicles, and turbo engines for cruise missiles,” according to the Journal’s sources. They also alleged that China has helped Russia “improve its satellite and other space-based capabilities for use in Ukraine.”

Beijing has rejected US allegations, called the sanctions unilateral and illegitimate, and accused Washington of hypocrisy for fueling the conflict by arming and supplying Kiev.

Iran has become “Russia’s primary weapons supplier,” unnamed Pentagon officials told the Journal, accusing Tehran of helping build a factory in Tatarstan Region capable of making Shahed-136 drones by the thousands.

Russia’s “expanded security ties” with the DPRK, China and Iran don’t amount to a NATO-like military alliance but appear to be “a series of bilateral exchanges,” anonymous Americans told the Journal. The technology transfers involved risk improving the long-term capabilities of all countries involved, thereby threatening the US, they added.

Earlier this month, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin announced that Russia’s strategy of economic relations with the ‘Global South’ would involve partnerships based on “technology and competency transfers rather than market control.”

Moscow has also signaled it would turn to the ‘Global South’, which has been alienated by the West’s behavior in the Ukraine conflict. The attempts by the US and its allies to isolate Russia have suffered a “complete failure,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in February.

By Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft, 7/19/24

Perhaps the most striking thing about Moscow today is its calm. This is a city that has been barely touched by war. Indeed, until you turn on the television — where propaganda is omnipresent — you would hardly know that there is a war.

Any economic damage from Western sanctions has been offset by the large number of wealthy Russians who have returned due to sanctions. The Russian government has deliberately limited conscription in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and this, together with a degree of repression, explains why there have been few protests by educated youth. No longer fearing conscription, many of the younger Muscovites who fled Russia at the start of the war have now returned.

As to the shops in central Moscow, I couldn’t say if the Louis Vuitton handbags are the genuine articles or Chinese knock-offs, but there is no lack of them. And far more important, Russia since the war demonstrates something that Germany once understood and the rest of Europe would do well to understand: that in an uncertain world, it is very important indeed to be able to grow all your own food.

In the provinces, it is reportedly very different. There, conscription, and casualties, really have bitten deep. This however has been balanced by the fact that the industrial provinces have experienced a huge economic boom due to military spending, with labor shortages pushing up wages. Stories abound of technical workers well into their seventies being recalled to work, fostering their income and restoring the self-respect they lost with the collapse of the 1990s. As I heard from many Russians, “the war has finally forced us to do many of the things that we should have done in the 1990s.”

In Moscow at least, there is, however, little positive enthusiasm for the war. Both opinion polls, and my own conversations with Russian elites, suggest that a majority of Russians do not want to fight for a complete victory (whatever that means) and would like to see a compromise peace now. Even large majorities however are against surrender, and oppose the return to Ukraine of any land in the five provinces “annexed” by Russia.

In the elites, the desire for a compromise peace is linked to opposition to the idea of trying to storm major Ukrainian cities by force, as was the case with Mariupol — and Kharkov is at least three times the size of Mariupol. “Even if we succeeded, our casualties would be huge, so would the deaths of civilians, and we would inherit great heaps of ruins that we would have to rebuild,” one Russian analyst told me. “I don’t think most Russians want to see that.”

Despite efforts by some figures like former president Dmitri Medvedev, there is very little hatred of the Ukrainian people (as opposed to the Ukrainian government) — in part because so many Russians are themselves Ukrainian by origin. Hence perhaps another reason why Putin has presented this as a war with NATO, not Ukraine. This recalled the attitudes to Russia of people I met in the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine last year, a great many of whom are themselves wholly or partly Russian. They hated the Russian government, not the Russian people.

In the foreign and security elites, various ideas for a compromise peace are circulating: a treaty ratified by the United Nations, guaranteeing Ukrainian (and Russian) security without Ukraine joining NATO; the creation of demilitarized zones patrolled by U.N. peacekeepers as opposed to the annexation of more territory; territorial swaps, in which Russia would return land in Kharkov to Ukraine in exchange for land in the Donbas or Zaporozhia. The great majority of Russian analysts with whom I spoke believe however that only the U.S. can initiate peace talks, and that this will not happen until after the U.S. elections, if it happens at all.

The overall mood therefore seems to be one of accepting the inevitability of continued war, rather than positive enthusiasm for the war; and the Putin administration seems content with this. Putin remains very distrustful of the Russian people; hence his refusal so far to mobilize more than a fraction of Russia’s available manpower. This is not a regime that wants mass participation, and hence is also wary about mass enthusiasm. Its maxim seems rather, “Calm is the first duty of every citizen.”

A German version of this article was published in the Berliner Zeitung on June 29, 2024.