It has been a while since I last translated an article by Rostislav Ischenko. In the past I translated such articles as The Great Patriotic War in Ukraine. A historical retrospective by Rostislav Ischenko and Ukraine celebrated its independence – from what?. His political and historical analysis largely centres around Ukraine and the parallels of the present-day historical process to those of the past. Recently he published a number of articles that were mostly of interest to the domestic reader. The one you are about to read now, however, touches upon the wider theme of the anti-Russian racism that has engulfed and consumed the Western world.
Rostislav Ishchenko, Columnist of MIA “Russia Today”
January 16, 2023
The French authorities are hypocritically sad to announce that they will be forced to close the Russian cemetery in Saint-Genevieve-de-Bois, since Russia has stopped paying for its maintenance. However, Russia stopped paying because the French authorities stopped accepting payments as part of the imposed sanctions.
Saint-Genevieve-de-Bois is a monument to Russian emigration. Emigrants of the Civil War era of the early twentieth century, and then the emigrants of all the subsequent waves are buried there. In addition to Drozdovsky and Drozdov’s followers, Alekseev and Alekseev’s followers, Rodzianko, Yusupov, Grand Duke Gabriel Konstantinovich, Bunin and Gippius, Galich and Nuriev, Taffy and Tarkovsky, Lifar and Merezhkovsky lie there.
This cemetery is a monument to the Russian history of the twentieth century, with all its problems and contradictions. But at the same time it is a monument to the Russians who did not get along in Russia. Some being the losers of the Civil War, some – of the political struggle, whether they left Russia in search of a better life or professional self-realization. But it is also a monument to the Russian culture in its highest manifestations, in which sense it constitutes the integral part of the world culture.
Finland votes to join NATO. Well, to each their own, and Finland choses to exchange a prosperous border trade with almost transparent border without any remotely significant number of troops stationed along it to a locked border with a heavy concentration of military hardware and Helsinki added to the nuclear deterrent target list. If Finland wants to have the longest NATO border with Russia with all the consequences it entails, so be it.
In this post I want to present to translations of articles, one looking back at the history of Finnish-Russian relations, which the Finns prefer not to remember (or, maybe, they do remember, and are afraid of retribution?), and one looking at the possible future consequences, including economic, of the Finnish choice.
In 1550, the Swedish king Gustav I Vasa, by his decree, resettled several hundred residents of the city of Borgo, in Finnish – Porvoo, at the mouth of the Vantaa River flowing into the Gulf of Finland, ordering the construction of a commercial port. The river with the local name Helsing had several rapids – in Swedish “fors”, which gave the name of the settlement – Helsingfors. By the time it became part of the Russian Empire under the Friedrichsham Peace Treaty, the city had only four thousand inhabitants. Quite a backwater.
The first thing that Russians always did when they came to the wild lands was to build furiously and selflessly. The poor, shabby former outskirts of Sweden did not escape this fate either. Emperor Alexander I made Helsingfors the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland. Under Nicholas I, a university was transferred here from the capital, named by him in honour of his brother Alexandrovsky. Alexander II granted the Russian colony its own constitution and a set of rights and freedoms that no one else enjoyed in the metropolis. Finland did not know serfdom. Finns were not recruited into the army even during the World War. They did not pay taxes, but enjoyed all the rights of subjects of the Empire. Finland had schools and gymnasiums with instruction in the Finnish language, had its own parliament and court. Along with the rouble, the Finnish Marka issued by the Bank of Finland was in circulation. The internal market of the principality was protected by customs while Finnish goods crossed the border of the Empire duty-free.
According to the tsarist authorities, all these goodies were supposed to arise a sense of gratitude among the local population, awaken a burst of patriotism and firmly bind the Scandinavian outskirts to the Russian Empire. Everything happened the other way around. Spoiled by the unprecedented benefits and privileges that fell on them for who knows what merits, the Finnish population gradually began to look at the titular people of Russia with disdain, as losers who were not able to organize for themselves the same standard of living as the Scandinavians, basking in the warmth of the tsar.
The Grand Duchy of Finland paid nothing to the treasury of the Russian Empire. The welfare of the natives exceeded the average Russian level. Thanks to this, peasant day-workers came from nearby provinces streamed to the Finnish village. Newcomers in Finland have always been disliked, a rural policeman could detain them, rob them for no reason, simply out of a sense of personal hostility. Archival reports have preserved eyewitness accounts of how, long before the revolution, the robbed peddlers from the Russian villages had to flee from the Finnish “hospitality”, while local policemen shouted: “Kill the damned Russians, nothing will happen to you!”.
Everyday nationalism, growing like a wild flower in the backyard of a Finnish village, as the local intelligentsia formed, successfully attached its root to the Russian treasury, flourished at the beginning of the twentieth century in the high society of the principality. In Finnish opposition newspapers, at first timidly, and then more and more insistently, appeals began to appear: “If we love our country, we need to learn to hate its enemies… Therefore, in the name of our honour and freedom, let our motto sound: “Hate and love! The death of “ryusya”! Or: “Russia has always been and will remain the enemy of humanity and humane development. Has there ever been a benefit from the existence of the Russian people for us? No!”.
One of my first posts on this blog was Is the West gearing up to invade Russia once again?, which looked at some historic parallels from the previous pre-invasion periods, and noticing some similarities. The article was written in June 2014, and the rhetoric question is still very much valid, even more so after the developments of these past 3 weeks.
The reports are worrying, with Ukrainian forces executing one provocation after. A few days ago a 5-year-old child was killed when Ukro-nazis dropped an explosive charge on a residential house from a drone.
The situation in the long-suffering Ukraine (without any irony to the country and its people) is developing in such a way that it can be stated that the parties interested in the, possibly armed, conflict have completed the pre-war preparatory measures, at least in the diplomatic sphere. After that, either someone has to give in, or the next step forward means war.
At the same time, Russia cannot have a “large—scale” war with Ukraine – they are in different weight categories. Ukraine is not even able to conquer Donbass. Kiev’s participation in a direct military clash with Moscow, even as part of a group of states, will mean for Ukraine an almost instantaneous destruction as a political entity.
At the same time, Ukraine acts only as a provocateur of the first strike. Its task is to somehow signify to the world community Russia’s participation in the military conflict.
Next, the United States intends to unleash a European war, with the participation of at least a few Eastern European countries, members of NATO and the EU. This will allow them to put pressure on their Western European allies, who do not want a conflict with Russia, demanding that they decide: if they are with Moscow or with NATO.
I’s been a while since I looked in the direction of Ukraine on these pages, and, more specifically, at the civil war that Ukraine wages on its citizens for 7 years, calling the whole population of the eastern republics for terrorists, including children, and treating with constant artillery shelling, terror bombings, denial of basic human rights, etc. This conflict was largely frozen with only occasional escalations and “only” a few civilians killed by the Ukrainian shells each day (the current death toll is close to 12000 people among the civilian population of Donbass). All this to a complete silence from the “humane, democratic, freedom-loving” media in the West.
The situation is about to change. Kiev is amassing troops on the borders with both Donbass and Crimea (not reported in the West), and Russia responds in kind, increasing its military capacity there (trumped about in the Western press). Russia has asked Germany and France (and, indirectly, the US) to curb their Ukrainian puppets, but the pleas have fallen deaf ears. The final warning was the summit between Putin, Merkel and Macron.
I am translating below an analytical article, highlighting the results (or lack thereof) from that summit. The article is written by Rostislav Ischenko on Cont platform: Мир без Украины
The World without Ukraine
Video conference in the format of Putin / Merkel / Macron took place anyway, and this is good news. Nothing else can be called as “good” about this.
The following article by a Ukrainian political analyst and historian in exile Rostislav Ischenko provides a much-needed context for both the current proliferation of Nazism in Ukraine, and the Banderite phenomenon of WWII.
The Great Patriotic War in Ukraine
by Rostislav Ischenko, published 09.05.2020 on the portal Ukraina.ru and at the open blog platform Kont.
It is sometimes said that the war started earlier for Ukraine than for the rest of the USSR. Thinking of the fact that when Hitler attacked Poland, the Western Ukrainian and Western Belorussian lands were part of the latter and thus also came under attack
German checkpoint
This, however, is not entirely true. By the way, this interpretation of events has almost got no traction in Belorussia. And this is logical. The fact is that the German troops attacking Poland did not advance further than the Brest-Lvov line. Serious fighting was only for Lvov over the course of 2 days. After defeating the Polish group that retreated to the city, the Germans abandoned the city, which the Red Army entered, and it, along with all the Western Ukrainian territories, was annexed to the Ukrainian SSR.
If anyone in Ukraine entered the war on September 1, 1939, it was Ukrainian nationalists who opposed the Polish state on the side of Nazi Germany, just as they sided with Hitler against the USSR on June 22, 1941.
This difference between the Western Ukrainian territories and the Ukrainian SSR, the Belorussian SSR, and even the territories of Western Belarus (which were part of Poland before 1939) was well understood by Hitler. The Nazi dictator clearly understood the mentality of the peoples who inhabited the UkSSR much better than his generals and party bonzes. Let’s see how he administratively divided the occupied territories of the USSR.
This post is a translation of an article by a Ukrainian politolog and historian in exile Rostislav Ischenko. The translation will be supplemented with commentary, references and images added by yours truly. This is an important reading to understand the symbolism and history of St.George ribbon – “Georgievskaja lentochka” in Russian.
by Rostislav Ischenko, published 05.05.2020 on the portal Ukraina.ru and at the open blog platform Kont.
On the eve of the Victory Day in Ukraine, as it happened before, there is an increased activity among the nationalists who indict how to “properly” celebrate the holiday. Naturally, leading them all is the Institute of National Memory, the head of which, Anton Drobovich, zealously continues the work of his predecessor Vladimir Vyatrovich to eradicate the memory of the great Victory from the citizens of Ukraine. [Translator note: the naming of the “institute” is the direct nod to Orwell’s “1984”]
In this article I want to cover the topic of the so-called “Golodomor” (death by starvation), the term which was coined by the US Congress in 1988 as a tool targeting USSR, so as to foment discord and chip away the borderlands – Ukraine. The period of starvation in USSR of 1930s did indeed happen, but it was not exclusive to Ukraine and did not have such a scale, as claimed by the followers of the Washington directive.
To put that into personal perspective, my great-grandmother on maternal line died of famine, and he family lived in Southern Siberia (Altai Krai), one of the most fertile regions of Russia.
Back to collectivization and golodomor (= death from starvation): it took place in the early 1930s. It happened for several reasons: 1. Peasants sometimes didn’t care for fields and cattle that they felt wasn’t theirs after it was taken into kolkhozes. 2. Sabotage, burning and poisoning of cattle and fields by foreign agents. 3. Mistakes of authorities, both central and local. 4. Several bad years of drought and poor harvest in parts of Russia and Ukraine.
This is very important! Collectivization and golodomor were NOT Ukraine-specific phenomenons. Same exact results from collectivization happened in rich agricultural areas of Russia, such as Povolzhie and Kuban. In fact, the real hunger was in Povolzhie (the Volga region). Golodomor is a Russian word, not Ukrainian. Everyone suffered. So, making this into a Ukraine-specific issue is clearly a disgusting propaganda ploy.
There was never a secret made of golodomor in Russia – as a child I studied it in my Soviet history books. Perhaps, Russians were a little too self-punishing about it. The overall cost of golodomor was probably two hundred thousand lives, and it was a huge tragedy. I doubt more than 20,000 died in Ukraine. Much, much more died in Russia.
3 years have passed since that publication, but Washington is loath to abandon the propaganda line that brought so many dividends, and so this card is being played in the US, with the latest development of the State of Washington passing a “Golodomor” resolution… Below I am presenting a translation of an article by Ukrainian historian and political analyst in exile Rostislav Ishchenko with the title “Washington’s Genocide: USA speculates on the topic of starvation in Ukraine”.
But before we embark on reading of this article, let us keep in mind the developments in the United States of 1932-1933. During these years – the years of Great Depression – 7,5 million Americans died of hunger, while at the same time Roosevelt’s government destroyed crops and stock so as not to allow further depression of the prices on the foods market. Try to find demographic statistics for USA for 1932 – you will not be able to, as data for that year is mysteriously missing. So here we have another example of projection, so actively used in the American politics, or, simply put, a case of a teapot calling a kettle…
Incidentally, in many Ukrainianophilic publications you will see the Ukrainised term “holodomor”, which sounds stupid to the Slavic ear – “holod” means “cold”, so the derived term becomes “death from freezing”…
The Ukrainian Embassy in the USA can be congratulated with another large necrophiliac “victory.” The Senate of the State of Washington (located on the Pacific coast, not to be confused with the U.S. capital Washington, D.C. located on the Potomac river, near its confluence with the Atlantic ocean) adopted a resolution recognizing the so-called Golodomor (ukr.: Holodomor) as “genocide orchestrated by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet regime against the Ukrainian people”.
Until now a resolution which called Golodomor for a “man-made famines” was passed on 19 August 2016 by the Assembly of the State of California. There are still 48 “unstarved” States remaining and therefore, another 48 potential “victories” of Ukrainian diplomacy.
This, however, cannot change the official U.S. view on this issue. The fact is that in 1984, actively fighting against the USSR, Ronald Reagan created a Commission to study the 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine (Mace Commission, named after its President, James Mace). The Commission predictably concluded that “Stalin and his entourage committed genocide against Ukrainians in 1932-1933”.
US still occasionally refers to the opinion of the Mace Commission, but they are yet to dare to officially legalize its findings at the Federal level. Moreover, the James Mace complained that after the Commission’s findings were made public, the doors of the academic institutions in the United States became closed to him.
This reaction of the American scientific community is natural. In the 80-ies of the last century, politicians in Washington still did not have a monopoly on truth, and scientists valued their reputation. It is therefore not surprising that attempts to confirm the findings of the Mace Commission failed. The International commission created in 1988 by the initiative of the “world Congress of free Ukrainians” with the goal of investigating the famine, upset their customers, finding no evidence neither of the artificial nature of the famine nor of the intention to destroy the Ukrainian nation.
It was actually after this that the theme of famine stalled for several years. It was too difficult, without losing objectivity, to explain why in the course of the famine, ostensibly aimed at the destruction of the Ukrainians, the greatest losses were in the rural population of Kazakhstan (nearly 31% of the total) and the Volga region (23% of the total). While in the Ukraine and the Caucasus (where famine was also raging) the losses amounted to 20.5% and 20.4% respectively of the total rural population.
There is no accurate data on the victims of the Great famine of 1932-1933 in the USSR. The range of researchers’ estimates is extremely large: from 2-2.5 million to 7-8 million people in the whole Soviet Union. the figure of 6-7 million seems to be closest to reality, because, according to the official data, only on the territory of the RSFSR, excluding Ukraine and Kazakhstan, 2.5 million people died of hunger. The number of famine victims in Ukraine is estimated by the conscientious researchers to be 2-3 million (the lower limit being 1.5 million).
As we can see, the numbers are comparable. In addition, Ukraine of the 1930s was a multinational republic. Much more multinational than it is now. It is enough to note that the proportion of the Jewish population of Ukraine in the pre-war years amounted to 5-6% percent, while now it less than 0.5% of the total population. In Ukraine (in addition to the returned Crimean Tatars [translator note: here Ishchenko makes a mistake – in the 1930s of which the article is about, Crimea was not in Ukraine, so the Tatar population should be counted towards RSFSR or USSR total]) there also lived a later expelled (but never returned) large Greek, Armenian and German communities. The famine decimated all without asking nationality and not checking the passport data.
Moreover, hunger was particularly rampant in the Left-bank Ukraine, that is in regions with a high share, and even with the predominance of the Russian population. While the most vocal about the famine Western Ukraine was at that time actually a part of the Polish state, so if anyone organized an artificial famine on its territory, it not the Bolsheviks, but the civilized Europeans.
Nevertheless, after Ukraine gained its independence, starting in the mid 90-ies, the topic of the famine-genocide became more and more actively used by the Kiev authorities as political – especially international – trump card. Moreover, the subject was immediately given a Russophobic nature, even though Kiev initially denied this fact.
It is clear that if there actually was a genocide, it would imply that there was a customer (beneficiary) of this genocide, and the goal was specifically in the destruction of the nation. That is, Ukraine initially stressed that the famine was organized by Moscow and directed against Ukrainians as a nation, though in fact it mowed down peasants of all nationalities. And the reasons for it were known. It was a mix of both the “dizziness from success” in the collective construction, and crop failure, and overestimated grain procurement plans, and the inadequacy of local leadership, which for the sake of implementation of the plan, removed from the peasants even the seeding grain (as a result, the main impact of the famine came in 1933, when in some places the bread could not even be sown).
So as to prove the theory of Golodomor genocide, Kiev began to arbitrarily increase the number of famine victims in Ukraine. This was done in order to make Ukraine seemed the most affected in comparison with other localities of the USSR. Thus first appeared the figure of 6-7 million victims of the famine in Ukraine. The same political “researchers” lowered the figure for the rest of the Soviet Union down to 2.5 million.
And then Yushchenko came to power. This is where it all took off. Viktor Andrrevich Yushchenko was not satisfied with the already existing fraud. He immediately declared that Holodomor is the Ukrainian Holocaust. But by the end of the first year of his reign, Yushchenko claimed that the famine scale was greater than that of the Holocaust, and estimated the number of victims in 10 million people. A year later, Yushchenko already spoke of 10-15 million.
They had to stop at that, because the world ceased to pity Ukraine and began to laugh at her. It is easy to calculate that with 1932-1933 UkSSR’s population of 31-32 million people, every second or third inhabitant of the Republic had to die according to Yushchenko. Since the famine covered the territory unevenly, a significant portion of UkSSR would have to become a desert with abandoned cities and ghost villages. But painting up the atrocities of the Communist regime, Yushchenko did not stop at that and argued that up to ten million Ukrainians were dispossessed, exiled to Siberia where most perished.
That is, the Republic should have actually been losing population. It is unclear who then fought in the Great Patriotic War, which really killed seven or eight million inhabitants of pre-war UkSSR of all nationalities.
Currently Kiev does not operate with any approved (not even speaking of proven) number of famine victims, but voiced figures are never reduced below six or seven million, periodically returning to Yushchenko’s exorbitant eight to ten million.
In general, the history of the Ukrainian genocide is akin to the history of test-tube, which Colin Powers was shaking at the meeting of the UN Security Council, demanding international legalisation of the American invasion of Iraq. But in its extreme manifestations it is even more absurd and cynical. Bringing the number of victims to the point of absurdity in a futile attempt to prove genocide, the Ukrainian politicians and “scientists” relegated the real tragedy of millions of people to the grotesque. While the attempt to present Ukrainians as the sole victims of the famine, denying the millions of Kazakhs, Russians, representatives of the peoples of the Caucasus, who in those same years suffered this painful death, the right to memory and sympathy is beyond the bounds of morality and common sense.
Resolutions akin to that adopted by the Senate of the State of Washington are of short-term political nature. This is evidenced by the fact that of the 18 (including Ukraine) countries that recognized Golodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people, 9 did so before the Supreme Rada of Ukraine itself enacted it as a law on 28 November 2006. Moreover, Estonia and Australia recognized Golodomor as genocide in October 1993 (13 years before Kiev). They knew better than the Ukrainians themselves.
One can be happy on behalf of the Ukrainian diplomacy, which has a virtually unlimited space for further “victories”. If they actively work with Lesotho, Swaziland, Island States of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, the number of countries, professionally recognising Golodomor as genocide, can double.
I have on previous occasions translated articles by the excellent analyst Rostislav Ishchenko. This particular article, “The Future of the Russian World” appeared on Kont on the 28th of September. It gives a good definition of what the Russian World is.
Flag commemorating a years since the Crimean Spring
Two and a half years ago, when Crimea has just returned to Russia, I once had the opportunity to participate in a conference in Yalta, devoted to the prospects of the Russian world. Then, I was surprised by the limited approach to the issue by the majority of the participants in the discussion.
Some thought that the Russian world is Russia within its existing borders. Particularly insistent on this definition were the Crimeans, who came just barely into those boundaries fall. Some identified the Russian world as the territory of the former USSR. Those inclined towards the monarchy were replacing the Soviet Union with the Russian Empire. At the same time, most of them agreed with the fact that Alaska, is definitely a part of the Russian world, while Poland is not Russian, as for Finland, opinions diverged. Finally, yet another group believed that the Russian world extends to the Western borders of the states that once were members of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO).
As you can see, no matter how far we are willing to push the boundaries of the Russian world, members of this or that group all agree on the fact that the Russian world is only part of the known world, and is relatively small in comparison with the non-Russian world. No one was able to answer my question, in what exactly way Yakuts or Kamchatkan are so different from French or Germans, that Kamchatkan are without reservations allowed in the Russian world, while the French and Germans are not allowed at all? Although a part of the Germans (in GDR) were in the boundaries of WTO and, probably, too could qualify for inclusion into the Russian world.
This restrictive approach has another vulnerability. All the supporters of the Russian world (in whatever borders they were squeezed) state, that in order for the Russian world to exist, it must give the global world some idea, show it the direction of development.
But how can we “give an idea” of the Russian world to those, whom we a priori refuse to include into it?
For comparison, when we defined the modern world as Pax Americana, we understand that we are talking about a global world, not about the world within the borders of the United States, not about the world of the Anglo-Saxons and not about the world of the North Atlantic. Border ideas coincide with the boundaries of the planet, and if mankind lived outside the Earth, the idea of a Pax Americana would have expanded with it out of the planetary limits.
And this is not about Anglo-Saxon expansionism and not about the Russian peacefulness. In Russia there is also a sufficient number of supporters of solving complex international problems with military force. The most interesting thing is that even the Russian expansionists, who see their ideal in the tri-colour over the White House and a dozens of aircraft carrier battle groups sailing the seas and oceans of the planet under the St. Andrew’s flag, still however, just like their peace-loving opponents, separated the “true” Russian world, from the rest of the world. They consider 3/4 of the Earth’s land as something alien, something that is necessary to be defeated by the military force, that can be remotely controlled, but that is not subject to integration.
The meeting of defence Ministers of States participating in the Warsaw Pact. 1968
Characteristically, both of these ideas are in direct contradiction with the Russian history and the practice of building of the Russian State, be it in the form of the Kingdom, or the Empire, or a Union. If the kings, emperors and General secretaries thought about the boundaries of the Russian/Soviet world, the state would not have gone beyond the borders of the time of Ivan III. And even within those borders there lived a lot of foreigners.
While the United States created a melting pot in which all (even the British) have disappeared without a trace, becoming a new nation of Americans, Russia has always built the hostel, in which all that joined, lived comfortably lived, and where national identity did not preclude a general Russian-ness.
And that was understood by our enemies. While rushing into our land us with arms, they are well versed in national diversity, and have always sought to use any differences, to play people off against each other. But while identifying us from the outside, they have always talked about the whole mass of the peoples, as Russians.
Actually, this is the idea of the Russian World, which is opposed to the idea of Pax Americana. American world – a world of the averages. In its ideal expression, all nations and races should melt, mix and give at the output a common race. The two sexes are merged into a common “third gender”. Super-tolerance should ideally go so far as to artificially limit the abilities of intellectuals, because it is unfair to idiots, and prevents the allocation of the arithmetic average in the field of intelligence.
For its part, the Russian World, offers unity, which does not encroach on the variety. As in a family where everyone is different (all with a different degree of consanguinity), but all are united by common goals and interests.
That is why the United States is opposed to Russia, which, since the formulation of the ideals of the Pax Americana in the mid-twentieth century, was an example of an alternative world order. And it is a successful and sustainable alternative.
Russian World arose with its main features by the beginning of the XVI century, when the United States did not even exist as a project. Not having lost any nation, without coming across with anything even remotely resembling genocide of Indians, the Russian World lived on for half a millennium, while constantly expanding.
Our opposition with the US is not ideological, not economic or financial (this is only the external form ,in which the opposition manifests). We have a confrontation of the systems – not so much in world views, as in world perceptions.
The participants of the festive events dedicated to the anniversary of the “Crimean spring”
We live on the same planet but in different worlds. These worlds can push each other, but cannot mix.
All the while, the Russian World can coexist with the American, but the American cannot coexist with the Russian. This inability is determined at the level of basic values. For the Russian World there is nothing extraordinary in the recognition of the right to existence of another, alternative world. From the point of view of the United States, American world is the only correct, the only possible ideal form of human existence. Everything else should be eliminated.
From here we reach some simple conclusions:
First, Russia cannot artificially limit the scope of the Russian world, because the decision on entry into the Russian World is reached by every nation of their own accord. Russia can neither allow, nor prohibit, nor order. This would be contrary to the basic principles of the Russian World.
Second, because Pax Americana claims to exclusivity and uniqueness, it will always carry the threat of Russian World. The American idea does not provide for its existence. And because an aggressive attempt to eliminate the danger of the America World is contrary to the basic values of the Russian World, involving coexistence and not aggression, then its expansion is only possible by protecting those who enter the Russian world, escaping from American values.
Actually it is exactly this policy that Russia is now conducting in Syria. And Russian attempts not to stifle the opposition, but to make the parties in the civil war to agree, rely exactly on the basic values of the Russian World, involving not the destruction of the different, but coexistence with them.
Thirdly, being the alternative to American global idea, the Russian world is in itself a global idea, the ideal form of organization of the planetary common house of the peoples. It is clear that with the centre of this world, which is Russia, will lie the responsibility for maintaining order in this world, like the responsibility for the maintenance of order in Pax Americana lies with the United States.
And here it is extremely important not to succumb to the temptation of simple and fast decisions, and not to go the way of the US, which rescinded the role of the global judge, who is subject to the same rules as in the whole community, in favour of the Sheriff from the Wild West, whose Colt is the absolute law.
If the Russian global justice becomes the same as modern American, then Russian world will turn into American, and the peoples of the world are not interested in shedding blood and sweat for a change of sign at the jail from one to another.
Rostislav Ischenko wrote an article (in Russian) “Lost Independence”, about the recently celebrated in Kiev Independence day. I want to start this post with a translation of a short fragment from that article, followed by a report from Donbass – how Poroshenko’s words that he “loves Donbass” manifest into mortar shells falling onto people’s heads.
Ukraine celebrates the 25th anniversary of its independence. Independence from what?
From the oil of Tyumen and Yamal gas, from Yakutia diamonds, and from gold of Kolyma, from the world’s largest reservoir of fresh water – Lake Baikal, and from the incalculable riches of the Arctic shelf. From all this, and many other things has Ukraine been independent for the last twenty-five years. But two and a half years of Poroshenko’s reign achieved new accomplishments. Now Ukraine is also independent from Crimea with its unique climatic conditions, and from Donbass – two regions which gave more than 30% overall and nearly half of foreign exchange earnings to the budget.
Over these two and a half years Ukraine got independent of several millions of its citizens. Optimists say that of five, the pessimists – that of fifteen. Even during the Great Patriotic War, Ukraine was “freed” from Ukrainians with lower rates. So there are things in which Ukrainians can be more effective than Germans and their allies, who built a “united Europe” in the first half of the twentieth century. Back then, too, the Europeans wanted to see Ukraine in Europe, and neither did they promise that the Ukrainians would get there together with Ukraine. As a result, the country was cleared of 20% of its population over the three years [of Nazi-German occupation]. The current government cleared it by 25% over two and a half years.
At this rate, by 2025 Ukraine will become independent of its entire population. Presumably complete happiness will then come. No opposition. No dissatisfied. Only the eternal peace, reconciling the right and left, the Russian-speaking and the Surzhik-speaking, “Eurointegrationalists” and Eurasians, Orthodox and Uniate, rainbowy fanatics of homosexual love and the harsh traditionalists.
All this happened because first of all Ukraine got independent from common sense, having become a country of victorious absurdity already in the beginning of 1992. Opponents of exit from the USSR accounted for the majority of the population. They controlled the parliament. Executive power was so diligent and so quick to execute commands of the Union center (even before they were given) that Ukraine in the years of perestroika, was called a “stagnation reserve”, being contrasted with the “democratic Belarus”, in which social life was flourishing.
…
Ischenko’s conclusion is that Ukraine was a failed state from day 1 – because its elites were creating the state for their own enrichment and not for the benefit of the population, and now, when there is nothing left to plunder they are looking towards either US, EU or Russia to fix their problems:
…
But how well it all began. The largest, bigger than the Russian, European army, huge arsenals of the most modern weapons, half of the strategic aviation of the USSR, the third in the world (after Russia and the US) nuclear arsenal. 40% of the Union’s machine-building industry, about 50% of the Union’s Agriculture, 60% of the Union’s GDP. Ports, both commercial and military fleet, gas pipeline system, higher education institutions and world-famous scientific schools, highly qualified workforce and population, which ranked first in Europe in terms of education, social welfare, health care.
It seemed like it would never end. And yet, just 25 years later – the emptiness, catastrophe.
Now we say that the state has not materialised. But it didn’t happen now. It did not materialise from the first moment and hasn’t been a valid state for even a minute. Because, if the Ukrainian state manifested, at least at one point of its existence, it would never have reached such a life as now.
A state that somebody needs can’t not manifest. But a Ukrainian state is not even needed by the Ukrainian Nazis. They come as scavengers upon an already dead carcass, to have time to grab a piece of rotting flesh, and die next to the remains of Ukraine. For the Nazis, too, can not exist without a state. But they are finishing it off as they have nothing constructive to offer – in comparison with the program of the oligarchic elite, which they are coming to replace – except for “take everything and divide”, while dividing it in a new way.
However, there is nothing left to divide.
Meanwhile, the sad state of things in the East – how people of Donbass survive Poroshenko’s “love”. Watch the following documentary fragment of Vesti from 28th of August 2016, translated by me:
The NATO summit will begin in Warsaw on Friday. For two days (8 and 9 July), senior officials and generals will discuss a lot of technical and political issues. We are, however, interested in only one item on the agenda of the event. In Poland, the Alliance is going to once again discuss relief measures to the “Russian threat”.
As is the custom in the recent years, the “threat” is felt particularly acutely by the Balts and Poles, who demand the deployment on their territories of additional contingents of Western European and American allies.
Washington and London pretend to be impressed by the fears of the limitrophes, and agitate for meeting requests for strengthening NATO forces on the Russian border. We are talking about dislocation of four battalions.
In terms of the real military strengthening of the block’s abilities on the north-western borders of Russia, this gain is negligible. The American military analysts argue that even a dislocation in the region of four additional full brigades will not allow NATO to hold out much longer in the case of a real military conflict.
In fact, we are only talking about whether it will take the Russian troops one or two weeks to reach the Oder line. Or more precisely, how many US troops will need to be hastily evacuated from Poland and the Baltic states, if suddenly something goes wrong and, contrary to common sense, a military conflict in this area happens.
A US soldier during the 2016 Saber Strike exercises in Estonia.
Protection Poles and the Baltic states as a diversionary tactics
So, the United States believes that the Russian group on the Baltic borders now has absolute superiority, which it is impossible to stop by unfolding of either four or sixteen battalions. At the same time, as a result of NATO’s war hysteria of NATO, Russia decided to deploy in the western direction three new high-grade divisions, and another army corps in Kaliningrad.
Rostislav Ishchenko is an astute Ukrainian political analyst, who had to go into exile after the Nazi coup d’etat in 2014 Ukraine. Below, I present hist article on a topic, which I intend to expand upon in the future, and which I touched in the past: the destruction of Yugoslavia by US/NATO.
Other publications in my blog, related to Yugoslavia, are:
Yes, Kosovo is Serbia in the same way as Provence is France, Schleswig-Holstein is Germany, Malorossia is Russia and Oxfordshire is England.
And before I go on with the translation, let us remember hundreds of thousands of Serbs, who were killed or driven away from their heartland of Kosovo, and are now condemned to witness their beloved land being desecrated and turned into a hub of cocaine dealing, human organ trafficking and Islamic terrorism by the US/NATO.
Rostislav Ishchenko’s original article in Russian is published on the 24th of March 2016 at Cont.WS.
Lack of autonomy and prejudice of the ICTY, which on Thursday sentenced Radovan Karadzic, buried the idea of international justice over war criminals.
On Thursday, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), located in The Hague, has sentenced Radovan Karadzic – the former leader of the Bosnian Serbs, the most high-ranking accused the ICTY after the death of former Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to 40 years in prison.
The verdict is obvious
However, the chances that Karadzic would get an indictment were close to absolute.
And not only because without sentencing Karadzic, the validity of the previous convictions of the military leaders of the Bosnian Serbs would be cast under serious doubt. After all, Karadzic was their immediate supervisor, the mastermind and ideologue.
In the end, no one believes the impartiality of the ICTY for quite a long time, and Serbs (not only Bosnian, but also Croatian and Serbian citizens) and Montenegrins are openly called “victims of the tribunal”.
The “guilty” verdict for Karadzic was first and foremost inevitable for the following reason: When he was first arrested and brought to the Hague, he published the details of a secret deal that a UN negotiator for the Bosnian settlement, Richard Holbrooke, concluded on behalf of the USA.
Disclosure of the details of the deal, which the United States failed to comply with, has caused Washington a dual damage.
All potential victims of the American aggression learned that reaching agreements with the United States is meaningless – they will still cheat. This seriously weakened the USA’s ability to solve their problems with the help of secret diplomacy.
No one can say exactly how much Karadzic’s exposure influenced the decision of Gaddafi and Assad to resist until the end, but is definitely contributed to the awareness of the international community of the fact that Washington understands only the language of weapons.
In addition, the Karadzic’s exposure showed that the US diplomats at the UN office use their international status to promote US government interests. And that reduced the possibility for the Department of State to promote its own staff to the posts of United Nations representatives in the important for the US crisis regions.
Of course, the United States continues to work actively at such places, advancing for key positions the diplomats of the friendly countries. But any puppet is not controlled 100%. A puppet has their own government, their own state, and even personal interests. A puppet maybe not be against the Pax Americana, but wishes to take within it a higher position. In general, there are difficulties, which could be avoided in case of direct appointment of the American diplomats to such positions.
Given the not so young age of Karadzic, as well as the fact that some prisoners of ICTY prison (especially those who had the temerity to upset the United States) tend to suddenly leave this world, the 40-year sentence that he received, becomes in fact a sentence for life.
So once this episode’s informational potential connected to the sentencing is used, it is unlikely the MSM will ever again pay attention to this extraordinary politician, whose ups and downs are, however, in the past, in the turbulent 90s of the twentieth century.
The Court Withdraws
But not only Radovan Karadzic leaves the stage of the world political theatre. ICTY also concludes its activities. Karadzic was one of the last four of the accused whose cases remain unfinished.
In 2017, General Ratislav (Ratko) Mladic, who commanded Bosnian Serb army, expects the verdict. Former Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia, Vojislav Seselj and the former President of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (destroyed by the Croatian army in August 1995), Goran Hadzic were conditionally released on health grounds: both diagnosed with cancer (translator note: because of the extensive depleted Uranium use by the US in their bombing of Yugoslavia?).
Once all the cases are completed and the review of the appeals is finished, ICTY should cease to exist. However, the Tribunal is already too long with us. Originally it was planned that it would complete the work in 2010.
Summing up the ICTY activity, one cannot ignore its obvious bias.
More than half of the accused are Serbs and Montenegrins (92 cases). Meanwhile the tribunal considered a total of 60 cases against Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians and Kosovo Albanians together.
ICTY acquitted almost all of the Croatian generals accused of war crimes against Serbs and Muslims. It did not give an answer to the question of whose fault it is that in the Serbian Krajina hundreds of Serbs where killed, and hundreds of thousands of Serbs were exiled.
The tribunal is also not interested in the testimony of its own prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, who, in retirement, has released a book in which she argues that the ICTY had information Kosovo Albanians repeatedly extracted and sold organs from live Serbian prisoners. No one was charged on these accounts by the prosecution. ICTY ignored this information.
Today this terminating its activities tribunal has little respect, and people sentenced by them (especially the Serbs) are treated more as victims rather than as criminals.
World public opinion is inclined to regard the ICTY as nothing more, but a US mechanism for reprisal of the politicians, who prevent the advancement of the American interests in the Balkans.
Bad example is contagious
One could simply ignore the fate of the ICTY. Its work is almost over, there are no new accused, while the sentences have been passed on almost all of the old cases. But the fact is: the lack of independence, the injustice, the prejudice of ICTY practically buried the idea of international justice, which, based on a UN mandate, would pursue people who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity outside of the national jurisdictions.
The jurisdiction of the ICTY extended to the entire territory of the former Yugoslavia, except for Slovenia. However, the Rome Statute was adopted already in 1998, while the International Criminal Court in The Hague began its work in 2002.
The international community made an attempt to move from the practice of establishing tribunals ad hoc, whose work is limited in space and time, to a permanent international court, which does not work under any territorial or time limitations.
By the time of the adoption of the Rome Statute in May 1993, the ICTY had operated for five years. By the time the work of the International Criminal Court started – for nine. Taking ICTY as an example, the international community could just about imagine how and in whose interests the International Criminal Court would work, which was created precisely for the investigation of cases, similar to those considered the ICTY.
The enthusiasm faded pretty quickly. Especially after the United States, which signed the Rome Statute in 2000, not only didn’t ratify it, but withdrew their signature in 2002: President George W. Bush decided that there is no other way for Washington to protect their soldiers from prosecution.
After that, it became clear that the US is ready to use the International Criminal Court, in the same way as they used the ICTY – as a bludgeon against unwanted regimes and politicians. The only difference was that the ICTY could only consider cases involving crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and only in times of war, caused by the collapse of a single state.
The jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court should, on the other hand, have extended to the whole world and to all the crimes committed after the Rome Statute of the approval. Meanwhile the United States themselves wished to remain outside of the international jurisdiction.
Naturally, after that the process of ratification of the Rome Statute was also stopped in Russia. Our country is still involved in the work of the International Criminal Court, but only as an observer. Its jurisdiction does not extend to the territory of Russia. China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and other countries did not even sign the Rome Statute.
As a result, today the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court extends to the EU, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Japan and half of Africa. The world’s leading countries (USA, Russia, China, India), and with them half of the humanity, are not included in this system. It is clear that in such circumstances the activities of the International Criminal Court (even if it was a model of honesty and impartiality) would have been far from perfect – after all, half of the world is unreachable to its jurisdiction.
In fact, the mechanism of a permanent international prosecution throughout the whole territory of the planet of the persons responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes, which do not have a statute of time limitation, has not been enacted.
Much of the blame for this lies with the judges and prosecutors of the ICTY, which turned international judicial body in the mechanism of political and legal violence in the interest of the US.
It is clear that in such circumstances, normal countries are extremely wary of international justice, which is able to find a crime where there is none, and do not notice it where it is to be found. Mankind is not yet mature enough for a permanent international court. This means that, as at Nuremberg, war criminals will be judged by the winners of a war.
In other words, as sad as it is, the war becomes a necessary element, preceding creation of any tribunal leading to the triumph of justice. And as before, the winners are not judged.
As an afterword, I want to present translations of some of the reader comments, which fully reflect the general view of the Russian people on this matter:
Nikolai Kireev:
It’s sad about the Serbs. Sad, that we couldn’t help them in their hour of need, as we ourselves were weakened by treachery and desolation. Bu we retain our memory, and that’s important. Our time will come.
Vladimir Maximenko in reply to Nikolai Kireev:
The Serbs, who following Clinton’s and Albright’s initiative were declared by the West as “genociding people”, will yet raise their heads. Karadzic and General Mladic, convicted by the Western pseudo-justice, are honoured by the Serbs. This people are always looking to the support of the Russians, and Russians do not give up.
What Nikolai is referring to in his comment is the fact that Russia was de-facto under foreign – American – rule from the coup d-etat of 1993 and until 2000. For more, read the second part of my post The ”Wild 90s” in Russia, as reflected in people’s memory.
Vladimir Leonov:
What is sad, is that practically all international organisations are drowning in the political machinations, playing only one side of the field. This lead to the increase of chaos in the worlds and further destabilisation.
Mikhai. V.:
Interesting, are there Russian judges in this tribunal?
Andrei Karataev:
Russia is only an observer.
Mikhai. V.:
Then who the hell called it for an “international”?
Vladimir Maximenko:
The whole of the so-called international justice, starting with the ICTY, is nothing more than a system of unjust courts, set to crack down on political opponents of the West. And this machine is running very smoothly.
And a very good conclusion:
Vladimir Maximenko:
Before he headed the resistance of the Serbian people and became the President of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic was renowned as a poet. The patriotic Serbs know well his poem “Inferno”:
Have you understood already?
Hell broke through
To our side.
Cerberus roam the streets,
Intercepting our delicate glances.
And there is little point
To be afraid of death
And the eternal darkness:
All that awaits us there,
Has already happened to us here.
Hell broke free,
It is visible to anyone who wants to see.
Cerberus growl at our thoughts.
Do not be afraid, my dear, of the old age,
Nor of the death.
The tomb will become a safe haven for us:
There the saving light will be born.
And our souls will break out of there,
To tame a raging inferno,
That broke through
To our side
And as a post scriptum, since one of the real war criminals – Hillary Clinton – was mentioned in the comments. Her role in enticing the discord leading to the destruction of Yugoslavia and the genocide of Serbs is comparable to that of Victoria Nudelman (aka Nuland) and her hallucinogenic-laced cookies in enticing discord in 2014 Kiev, leading to the destruction of Ukraine and the genocide of Russians in Novorossia and Malorossia. Here is Hillary Clinton, in her element – lying about “dodging sniper fire”:
The reports are worrying, with Ukrainian forces executing one provocation after. A few days ago a 5-year-old child was killed when Ukro-nazis dropped an explosive charge on a residential house from a drone.
This post is a translation of an article by a Ukrainian politolog and historian in exile Rostislav Ischenko. The translation will be supplemented with commentary, references and images added by yours truly. This is an important reading to understand the symbolism and history of St.George ribbon – “Georgievskaja lentochka” in Russian.
