The powerful oligarchs and criminal dons who actually ran pre-1991 Ukraine were kept in the wings by their American benefactors.
by Eric Margolis
The civil war between Ukraine and Russia is one of the most poorly reported conflicts that I’ve ever witnessed. Western media has shown how much it has become an arm of big government.
Much of our media and the British media have faithfully parroted Washington’s official party line on the war: saintly little Ukraine versus evil Goliath Russia. Not since the US invasion of Iraq has the American media so blatantly promoted a war or so vilified a foreign leader, President Vladimir Putin.
Today, he is an ogre. But two decades ago, when his army was laying waste to the tiny Caucasian republic of Chechnya, the US government secretly financed Russia’s brutal repression of the independence-seeking Chechens.
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| A Ukrainian soldier prepares 155mm artillery shells in his fighting position as Ukrainian Army conduct operation to target trenches of Russian forces through the Donetsk Oblast amid Russia-Ukraine war, on Aug. 6, 2023. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) |
Why? Because the Chechens were Muslims.
Washington thought it would turn then Russian leader Boris Yeltsin into a US client and bring Russia into America’s geopolitical orbit. US intelligence even supplied Moscow with a telephone system provided to Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev supposedly for ‘peace talks’ that was used to assassinate him.
Another tragic example: another third world leader. Gen. Jonas Savimbi, head of Angola’s UNITA anti-communist movement. During the 1980’s, I was with his guerilla army in southern Angola battling Angolan Marxists and their Cuban and East German allies.
Washington initially supported the charismatic Savimbi, one of Africa’s most capable, intelligent leaders – until the Marxist regime in Luanda found even more oil and did a deal with the US to supply US markets.
After that, the faithful Savimbi became a hinderance to US imperial oil plans in Africa. The CIA hired an Israeli hit squad that ambushed and murdered Savimbi – a fact confirmed to me by a former US ambassador.
The US then made allies of the oil-rich Angolan Marxists. As Henry Kissinger said, being America’s ally can be more dangerous than being its enemy.
Ukraine should take this grim lesson to heart. President Joe Biden clearly aims to finish off Putin’s Russia and Balkanize the former Soviet state. Few know how the US and its allies will deal with the manifest dangers of an imploded Russia. Collapsed Yugoslavia in 1990 would be a possible analogy.
With high intensity US media support and British machinations, the US neocons overthrew the pro-Moscow regime in Kiev and brought in the current US ‘guided’ regime of President Zelensky, a former TV actor.
The powerful oligarchs and criminal dons who actually ran pre-1991 Ukraine were kept in the wings by their American benefactors.
Having abandoned Afghanistan’s drug barons, who supplied 90% of the world’s heroin supplies, the US now took over as unofficial godfather of powerful Ukraine’s underworld. Call it payback for the collapse of the US-installed puppet regime in Afghanistan.
Now, media hysteria has focused on the issue of armed drones. These are little more than adult toys. Their military effect has been minor, aside from reconnaissance. Artillery has become the real decisive arm on the battlefield.
During World War I it took an average 1,600 – 1,800 artillery shells to kill a single enemy soldier. The NATO members are down to near empty when it comes to stores of artillery shells over 120mm. Germany has admitted it is almost out of spare parts and backup munitions. At one point, Germany had only 15 operational tanks.
155mm shells, such as those lavishly supplied to Ukraine by the US, Britain and Germany cost from US $300 to $1,800 depending on if they have an internal guidance system. Rate of fire is 1-4 rounds a minute. A few barrages of 155’s can quickly amount to a huge amount of money. So far, the Biden administration has poured $95 billion into Ukraine’s war effort. US European allies have added about $50 billion to Kiev’s military.
This dreary war is likely to drag on for years. Both sides face the risk of internal collapse or insurrection. Ironically, Putin announced that Russia would cut back on military spending shortly before Ukraine’s US-installed government decided to become an ally of US-run NATO. At that time, Putin had declared Russia would cut way back on its formerly powerful conventional forces and increasingly rely on tactical nuclear weapons. Funds saved would go into the civilian economy.
The result: Russia’s conventional forces were seriously weakened. Russia’s armored forces, navy and air forces suffered severe cuts – just as the Ukraine War exploded. War stocks were run down and not replenished. Interestingly, the same process of gradual but largely hidden disarmament occurred among NATO members, notably Germany, whose military had become a laughingstock. Neither side would admit they had seriously depleted military forces.
If NATO’s proxy army in Ukraine breaks through and begins to advance into Crimea and southern Russia, Moscow could be forced to use nuclear weapons or call on China’s large armed forces for help. President Biden and his neocon allies are so enthralled by the prospect of a pre-election military victory that they ignore the manifest dangers such a development would bring.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2023
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