Maxim Shevchenko
Nazi war criminal Hermann Göering said at the beginning of the Second World War: “Not one bomb will pass over the Ruhr!” As it happened, millions of bombs of all kinds would soon pass the over Ruhr, on their way to land on Germany, razing to the ground nearly all their major cities and killing at least 600,000 civilians.
The modern not-war is revealing its very strange character. Increasing rocket attacks on Russian cities can only be regarded as an escalation of the war. The Ukrainian side has been soundly defeated (all its aviation and missile units have long since been destroyed, according to the reports of the Russian Defense Ministry), yet it has lately increased the range and power of its missile and air attacks.
At the same time, prisoner exchanges are carried out according to their own rules and through a variety of different channels. (I understand, of course, that the war has not been officially declared by either side, so therefore there can be no official prisoners of war. The detained, the displaced, the arrested, whatever, but not prisoners of war. Prisoners of a special operation? What to call them?) Can you recall, in any of the wars recorded in the history of mankind, an incident of belligerents sending home combatants - captured in the theatre of battle with weapons in their hands - before the close of hostilities?
No, because it can’t be. The return of prisoners to the other side (especially those who fought to the end, like the “Azovites”) during the fighting will only strengthen that side.
The arrival of prisoners home ought to be a sign of the end of the war. After the end comes either victory or a peace agreement. Increasing rocket fire on cities, meanwhile, is a sign of escalation. Belgorod, Kursk, Kramatorsk, Odessa - what’s next?
It is as if there are two realities, two wars. And, in fact, if you observe beyond the battlefield, you will find several of them.
On the one hand, Russia is under terrible Western sanctions; on the other hand, these sanctions allow Russia to strangle the West in the noose of inflated energy prices and to earn even more money on world markets in concert with with global speculators. On the one hand, Putin is an outcast; on the other, he remains a guest of the G-20 summit.
Do you still have no understanding that influential world powers are simply sacrificing both Russians and Ukrainians to further tighten their grip on power? That while you are killing each other in the ruins of Lysychansk, someone is staking their claim in the oil and gas markets, taking successful advantage of exchange rates? That someone has created a territory of constant but controlled war in order to further their own pursuit of power and wealth?
Another such territory already exists on Earth - this is the zone of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in which for decades people have been conditioned to hate and kill each other. There, too, rockets fly back and forth. There also they have seen dozens of attempts at a peaceful solution, and endless “Shalit deals.”
The transformation of Donbass, eastern Ukraine and the western regions of the Russian Federation into a constantly bleeding enclave of interethnic and interstate violence, which affects world markets and communications much more drastically than does the conflict on the borders of Gaza and the city of Ashkelon, is a great success for the masters of the world.
But do we agree to continue to be expendable in their games and projects?
This generation of aging leaders grew up in the 60's smoking dope and dreaming of changing the world. Now as they nurse their geriatric decay and fading into obscurity, they are desperately trying to find some noble purpose for their squandering of the greatest period of human prosperity the world has ever known. Like the incoherent ramblings of your old grandfather imprisoned in his living room easy chair, they mutter on with their insanity. Unfortunately, they have the power to shit in their pants and make the world pretend that it smells like roses...
Thanks for a great article. The contradictions you point out serve to highlight Russia's attempts to control the narrative. Controlling the language used to speak about it is a fundamental part of this. The descriptions of the wider economic and political forces in play are absolutely relevant and remind me of the picture painted by Naomi Klein in "The Shock Doctrine", expanding on arguments made by Chomsky.
There is something that makes me wonder though, that if we soley focus (which I am sure you are not) on the machinations of currency speculators etc, are we not in danger of going down the road to nihilism?
The thing for me is the question of "what can be done?" And, having lived in Russia in the 90s and 00s, I think a big part of the solution is maintaining dialogue between ordinary Russians and their western counterparts - I mean a cultural, social, political and philosophical dialogue. This is what I'm going to be trying to do anyway...