Khuilo’s first anniversary – Thoughts of russia’s war on Ukraine

The Kremlin dictator vladimir putin, like the Soviet rulers before him, loves anniversaries and “sacral” dates. Well, he has one now, on 24 February 2023 a year will have passed since putler started his “Special Military Operation” – a genocidal war of aggression, which openly declared purpose is to kill everyone who feels Ukrainian and to enslave the rest.

As a brief reminder: russia’s war on Ukraine did not begin on 24 February 2022. That’s when a full-scale invasion started. The war began already in 2014, when russia occupied and annexed Crimea, and then invaded eastern Ukraine, taking Donetsk and Luhansk areas under its control. Yes, yes, we all pretended that Crimea was ALWAYS russian, and that Donbass region was ALWAYS russian, at least since the last ice age or so. We were convinced that Ukrainian nation, culture and language never really existed, and all those eastern Europeans wedged between Germany and russia are paranoid russophobic crypto-Nazis. The 24 February 2022 was a big shock to our colonial attitude.

One of the lessons we can safely draw now is that most of the our overqualified and overpaid experts whom we used to trust were just plain wrong about almost anything. Of course, it is possible they knew it better but instead lied to us to push their own agenda (and some certainly did this), but I prefer the simpler version about most of these experts being incompetent. Because the competent people often did not qualify for those jobs the pushy bullshitters got. You know, this is how it works in academia and everywhere else.

So, looking back on one year of russia’s total war on Ukraine, what unexpected facts did we learn?

1. The russian army is by far not as mighty as the experts assured us (world’s second after USA!). The rascist military is actually a total mess of Soviet tyranny and mafia-state kleptocracy: its analo-govnet modern weapons utterly unimpressive in combat (yet still very efficient for murdering civilians), ridiculously inferior to NATO technology (help, HIMERS!) or simply fake and dysfunctional (hello T-14 Armata tanks, where are you?). The main battle tactics haven’t changed since Field-Marshal Zhukov in WW2: using your own troops as cannon fodder, while everyone trying to retreat or surrender gets shot on the spot. All this to try and conquer a patch of land before a certain date (often an anniversary of something) set by the Kremlin dictator.
2. Ukraine did not fall in 3 days unlike almost everyone agreed it will. It didn’t fall it all, the president didn’t flee, and Ukrainians even conquered back large swathes of occupied territories. Now of course same experts explain that Ukraine is only able to fight back because of NATO arms, but before summer 2022 Ukraine was denied all heavy weaponry (because Germany, France, but also USA and UK trusted that russia will soon win), and still Ukrainian army managed to liberate Kyiv and much of the north of the country.
3. The genius strategy of Change Through Trade, once invented by Germans and picked up by the rest of western Europe, just doesn’t work. All that money totalitarian regimes make by trading fossil fuels, natural resources or cheap labour with the West, is invested in arms, oppression, terror and warmongering. Not just against their own people, which we still are perfectly prepared to accept, but globally. Fascism and totalitarianism are not just alternative forms of government, efficient to do business with- they lead straight into war and genocide.

Some things we are slowly learning, for example:

1. russia is actually totally evil. All these years we thought the putin and his circle were smart, educated, cultural and rational people, simply by virtue of being russian. Turned out, they are just bloodthirsty fascists who only use and understand the language of violence. Then we thought that the russian nation was certainly not like them, and if putin dared to call for mobilisation, the masses will sure rise in protest. Well, many are actually happy to go to war and die while killing Ukrainians because the TV told them to and because there’s good money being promised. Maybe the real russian culture is not about poetry and singing, but about violence and hatred?
2. Ukraine is actually not a failed state populated by thieves who can be neatly divided into Bandera-Nazis and oppressed russians (with the Jewish president Zelensky being the former of course). We had to absorb the shock that just because someone speaks a certain imperial language (e.g., russian) it doesn’t mean they want to be ruled by a murderous empire where this language is state official. And as for the famous Ukrainian corruption: if Ukraine was really as corrupt as experts say (even now worse than Belarus!), Ukraine would really have fallen in 3 days. Instead, it is winning the war against russia which is militarily supported by Iran, North Korea and possibly even China.
3. Nuclear war doesn’t seem to be about to happen. We were repeatedly assured that if NATO gives Ukrainians even a shovel to defend themselves against russian aggression, putin will retaliate with nuclear war because of red lines. Right from the start, the russian regime understood that this red line talk and nuclear threats are great for scaring Scholz and Macron, so it is deployed on every occasion. In reality, Ukrainian winning makes a nuclear conflict less and less likely. Read Timothy Snyder’s take.

Things we haven’t understood yet.

1. Ukrainians are fighting for all of us. Not just for the Europeans who are still not sure where exactly putin wants to see the borders of his new russian empire. The whole world is being spared a World War III because Ukrainians haven’t surrendered. If russia had won in Ukraine, China would have attacked Taiwan the next day, which means nothing less but a direct war between two nuclear superpowers, China and USA. If you have “enough of Ukraine”, it means you have enough of democracy and peace.
2. Pacifism only works during peace time, as a policy to prevent wars. Once a war has began, false pacifism only serves to appease and to reward the aggressor. All these “peace now” campaigns for cessation of arms deliveries and immediate negotiations ignore the actual reality which is russia’s unwavering refusal for all negotiations except about Ukrainian unconditional surrender and division of Europe. Of course it’s more convenient for the joint force of western fascists and caviar communists to blame NATO, USA, EU, Soros, CIA-sponsored Ukrainian-Nazi-Jewish cabal, everyone except putin and russia, but really, people without totalitarian or colonial fantasies in their heads should not support such “peace” initiatives.
3. Green energy transformation is not just the only way to prevent a climate change disaster, but also the only path to peace. Sure, we now figured out that russian fossil fuels are a bit of a problem. Many countries, especially in Europe, especially Germany became too dependent on cheap russian gas, oil and coal, while russia still uses the immense cash flow to buy arms and wage war. But the solution is of course not to turn to Middle Eastern autocracies as alternative sources for fossil fuels. If the higher prices and market shortages aren’t an argument enough: Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and of course Iran sponsor global terrorism. Neither is nuclear energy a solution. All other reasons aside: European nuclear power plants not only keep buying uranium from russia, they are increasing the purchases to compensate for lost gas and oil. And another major seller of uranium is China. The only way out is wind, solar and other green energies.

Naturally, the very same experts who have been wrong about russia’s war on Ukraine before and after 24 February 2022, continue issuing their expert predictions. They keep telling us that russia is so mighty it cannot lose, Ukraine is so corrupt, backwards and feeble, it has no chance long term, the only way to peace is to give putin what is hysterically historically russian anyway, and move on. After all, it worked great with Hitler in 1939, oh wait, never mind. Anyway, Ukraine is not really a nation, while russia has nukes. And nuclear powers never lose a war, experts say. Except when they do lose them, like USSR lost in Afghanistan, but again, history is boring and irrelevant.

So how will this war end? Well, as every war, it can only end with the aggressor being defeated. Or do you have any examples when a war ended after an aggressor won and got rewarded?

We should not be afraid of russia losing. It is the last remaining colonial empire in the world. Unlike other European colonial empires, russia has never been punched on the nose hard enough to end its colonial ambitions. In fact, in the last hundred years, russia was always rewarded, or at least not sanctioned, whenever it strived to expand and to conquer. Now we must do everything for Ukraine to win. We must provide every weapon Ukraine needs to defeat russia, not just to prevent a genocide of Ukrainians, but to prevent China, Iran, North Korea and other totalitarian states from implementing the deadly ideas they already have. To arm Ukraine is not to risk a nuclear World War 3, but exactly the opposite. It is our investment into world peace.

I know, it is difficult. We must drop our favourite colonial certainties. There is indeed a civilisation between Germany and russia, and it’s time we learn to respect the unique histories, cultures, languages, and independence of these nations.

In this regard, I strongly recommend the lecture series by Timothy Snyder on the history of Ukraine.

Слава Україні! Героям слава!

Please find charities to donate here at taz. Prof Timothy Snyder lists ways to help Ukrainian army and civilian help charities here. Or donate to a humanitarian charity project of your choice. Ukrainians are fighting for all of us.

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