These are official results from the referendum in Crimea:
- 96.77% voted for Crimea to join Russia
- 02.51% voted for Crimea to remain a sovereign autonomous republic inside the Ukraine
- 00.72% of the votes were declared invalid
- 83.10% of the eligible voters participated in this referendum (thus:16.9% did not vote)
As a reminder, this is the official ethnic makeup of Crimea (in 2001):
- 58.32% Russians
- 24.32% Ukrainians
- 12.10% Crimean Tatars
Okay, so what does this mean?
First and foremost, the participation was massive and the ‘yes’ to Russia won by a landslide.
Second, this was not a vote along ethnic lines. When we say that are 58.32% Russians in Crimea that does not mean that all of these are eligible voters as children are not allowed to vote. So the real figure of eligible Russian voters in Crimea is probably well under 50%. And yet the results show that 96.77% of the eligible voters voted to join Russia. Where did the rest of the 43.77% (more or less) come from? It had to be from Ukrainian and Tatar voters. Even if we assume that 100% of the Russians in Crimea were eligible voters and that they all showed up to vote and all of them voted for the ‘yes’ to Russia, it still leaves 35.45% of the ‘yes’ vote to non-Russians. Even 100% of the Ukrainians does not fill the gap. In other words, the so-called “Tatar boycott” of this referendum is a complete fabrication of the western media.
Now, this begs the question: why would the Crimean Tatars, who were brutally repressed and massively deported under Stalin and many of whom were seen screaming Allahu Akbar! in clashes with pro-Russian demonstrators suddenly decide to vote for Russia? Did they suddenly change their minds? Did the “Polite Armed Green Men” come to their houses and force them to vote at gunpoint? Of course not. The explanation is much simpler: in 22 years of independence the Ukraine did exactly nothing to help the Crimean Tatar people, language or culture, nevermind compensating them for their suffering. In contrast, Russia passed a law called “Law on the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples“(here in Russian; here in a Bing machine translation) as early as 1991 which basically solves the problem for the Crimean Tatars who will get what they have always hoped for right along their brand new Russian passports. Yes, of course, there are some Crimean-Tatars who would have preferred to remain under Ukrainian sovereignty because they believe that Russians are inherently capable of repeating the actions of Stalin at any time and that Russian nationalism is a threat to them. I don’t mean to suggest that they are smart – only that some of them do really believe that. Some Muslim radicals want to either be part of Turkey or create their own Islamic state. Fair enough – but they are a minority within a minority and thus, frankly, quite irrelevant. The reality is that this entire “Crimean Tatar issue” is a canard cooked up in the West in the desperate hope to find some kind of “ethnic/religious fulcrum” to deny the legitimacy of this referendum and stir up more ethnic trouble. The results show that this plan clearly failed.
So what is going to happen next?
The Ukraine is dead, long live Banderastan?
Some readers have objected to my use of the word “Banderastan” to describe the Ukraine. Had they read with a little more attention they would have understood that I do not equate the Ukraine with Banderastan at all. In fact, the Ukraine is the country which ended its existence in February 2014 and Banderastan is the new national project of the Right Sector and the Liberty Party (yes, the one whose original name was Socialist-National Party). So what is Banderastan exactly?
Banderastan is the Ukraine which Dmitry Iarosh, Andrei Parubii or Oleg Tiagnibok want to create: a “socialist national” state whose founding principle would be “Бий жидів та москалів – Україна для українців” (“beat the Jews and the Russians – the Ukraine for the Ukrainians”). Simple and clear. This state would have one language (Ukrainian), one ethnicity (Ukrainian), one leader (Iarosh) and one founding father (Bandera). The long term political goal of this regime would be to “return” the “rest” of the “Ukrainian land” which now is under Polish or Russian “occupation” and to “punish” the “traitors to the Fatherland”.
You can think of the “Banderites” are the Ukie version of the Taliban, but far more evil and infinitely more stupid. Something like a Ukrainian version of the Interahamwe maybe?
One reader send me this great little video (thanks “JP”!) showing some of these Banderites and what they like to do:
Great stuff, no?
Of course, this project has exactly zero chance to succeed for a few basic reasons:
- After 22 years of oligarchic rule, the previously wealthy Ukraine is now broke. Banderastan is even in a much worse condition.
- Most Ukrainians are not “socialist-nationalists”, not even in the western Ukraine.
- Every time the “Banderites” make a move, the reaction to their actions it is more and more determined.
- Many Russian-speakers and Jews are truly becoming terrified for their future (more about that later)
- The Banderites have no economic program at all.
The bottom line is simple: there is more to governning or, really, re-building a bankrupt and ruined country and nation than parading in wannabe Nazi uniforms, taking US money, fighting cops and screaming “Glory to the Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!!”. For all practical purposes the entire Banderite project is now in free fall, regardless of the fact that western leaders stubbornly pretend not to see this. As for western loans (US, EU, IMF) – they can only delay the inevitable.
So how did we ever get to this crazy situation?
US foreign policy is not run by diplomats, but by politicians.
The main thing to understand about the US foreign policy is that it is basically run by people who have no experience or even understanding of diplomacy and its purposes. It’s not only Mrs Nuland and her famous “fuck the EU!” – it’s also Kerry and his constant lies and zig-zags, it is Mrs Rice with her arrogant and always bellicose threats towards Russia and many other countries, finally, it is also Obama himself who combines imperial hubris with a truly phenomenal level of hypocrisy. The very notion of negotiating anything is profoundly foreign to these Imperial leaders who strongly believe that to truly negotiate is basically a sign of weakness. For them, the only thing which can be negotiated is the other guy’s acceptance of all US terms and conditions. And if that does not happen, the the US will basically threaten to bomb the other side into submission. Long gone are they days of George H.W. Bush and his brilliant Secretary of State James Baker who understood how much careful diplomacy and negotiations can achieve. The Kerry/Rice generation basically believes that they can tell everybody else want they want, and if that does not work, then brute force (whether threatened or actual) will solve the problem anyway. This is why the US never agreed to negotiate with Gaddafi or Assad and this is why all the offers made by the Russians to find a negotiated solution were systematically rejected.
Russia offered to negotiation as far back as last fall, when the first signs of an imminent crisis began to become apparent. Lavrov made an offer to begin trilateral negotiations between the EU, the Ukraine and Russia. The EU, either under US orders of simply acting on its own delusion of grandeur, contemptuously rejected that option under the pretext that the Ukraine was a sovereign nation and that therefore Russia should have no more say in its future than Paraguay or Vanuatu. Worse, the EU pretended to believe that the Ukrainian government would sign on to 1’500 pages long text where terms and conditions of the proposed association between the EU and the Ukraine would be spelled out with no second thought about what Russia might do. Except, of course, that it eventually became gradually clear to Azarov and Yanukovich that Russia really would have no other choice than to shut down its current borders to protect the Russian economy from a deluge of EU products which would inevitably flood the Ukraine. When, at the last second, Yanukovich announced his notorious reversal, Russia again offered to negotiate and again this offer what rejected. Some EU bureaucrats apparently still believed that Yanukovich would cave in at the Vilnius summit. But he did not simply because he could not, at least not without killing the entire Ukrainian economy. This is when the Americans suddenly literally freaked out because they understood that a ‘no’ to the EU, even temporary, meant a ‘yes’ to Russia, and probably a permanent one. So then Uncle Sam got personally involved.
The goal, strategy and tactics of US foreign policy worldwide and the Ukraine
The overall goal of the US foreign policy worldwide is really very simple: to remain the sole superpower on the planet. The fact that there are more and more signs which clearly point to the fact that the US is no more a real global superpower only make the achievement of this goal a higher priority.
In this context, the USA has a equally simple strategy towards Russia: do whatever it takes to prevent Russia from becoming a “new Soviet Union” or any other type of challenger to the US worldwide domination. In practical terms, this means one thing: to do whatever it takes to break away the Ukraine from Russia. There is, indeed, this rather bizarre notion amongst US elites that with the Ukraine Russia would be a superpower while without it it would not. This notion is both counter-factual (Russia is already a superpower as we have seen in Syria) and illogical – Russia doe neither need not want the Ukraine which is basically a failed and wholly artificial state, run by oligarchs, with no foreseeable prospects of contributing much, if anything, to the current Russian wealth. Frankly, and in purely realpolitik terms, the Ukraine is a headache that nobody in Russia really needs. But nevermind that – the US elites are acting not on the basis of facts or Russian perceptions, but on the basis of their own perceptions: the Ukraine must never be allowed to fall back under Russian “domination” least Russia become a superpower again.
In tactical terms, this strategy is implemented with two simple rules:
a) any anti-Russian force, no matter how ugly or insane, gets US support
b) it’s a zero sum game: anything Russia loses the USA wins and vice-versa
The ultimate prize for the US would be to get the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea and put US/NATO bases in the Ukraine, not because there would be much of a military advantage in doing so, but to prevent the Ukraine from ever becoming close to, or part of, Russia again. Short of that, doing anything to keep an anti-Russian regime in power in Kiev is the next best option. And if that regime comes to power in a armed insurrection – that’s ok. And if all the key positions in this regime are given to neo-Nazis, that is fine too. None of that really matters as long as the Russians don’t get the Ukraine back.
Of course, the world is much more complex that the primitive representation these ignorant and arrogant politicians have of it. In fact, not only is the USA the sole party responsible for the current chaos in the Ukraine, it is is also solely responsible for achieving the exact polar result of what it set out to do.
How US incompetence resulted in a “patriotic domino effect” in Russia
As far back as in November of last year I wrote the following about the Russian-speaking population of the Ukraine:
They have no vision, no ideology, no identifiable future goal. All they can offer is a message which, in essence, says “we have no other choice than sell out to the rich Russians rather than to the poor European” or “all we can get from the EU is words, the Russians are offering money”. True. But still extremely uninspiring, to say the least.
One month later, I added:
What are these 17 million Russians and several million of Russian oriented Ukrainians doing right now? It’s their country which is driven directly over the cliff, and they are doing nothing at all. How many Russian flags did you see in the demonstrations in the eastern Ukraine, in Donetsk, or in Sevastopol? That’s right – zero! Even the so-called “Russians” and “pro-Russians” are marching under the yellow-blue flags which are west Ukrainian, Galician colors. You speak of moral and spiritual issues at stake – have you ever heard the east Ukrainians raise such issues? Do they ever speak of the thousands of saints which lived in this hallowed land? Do they ever mention the millions of Russians who died freeing this land from the Poles, the Jesuits and the Jewish overseers which they imposed upon the Orthodox Christians? No, never. All the speak about is money, money and money: “we will be poor with the EU, with Russia our business will flourish” – that is their idea of spirituality. Pro-Russians in the Ukraine? Ha! Let me ask you this: when it became known that Ukrainian volunteers fought on the side of the Chechen Wahabis – did you see any protests in the Ukraine? Or when the Ukrainian government was arming Saakashvili to the teeth – did you see any protests in the Ukraine? No, never. Their version of “pro-Russian” means “we like Russian money”. They are not pro-Russian, they are pro-Ruble!
What I wrong then? Not at all: that was the sad reality then. What really happened is that over the past few month these almost totally passive Russian population underwent a brutal “shock-therapy” which woke them up from their silent stupor induced by 22 years of Ukrainian nationalist propaganda combined and a deafening silence about them from Russia. These previously “invisible” Russian speakers suddenly woke up. How did that happen?
First, there was the Nazi freak show around the Maidan square in Kiev which soon escalated into an armed insurrection. Then, when Yanukovich was finally overthrow, the new regime’s very first decision was to pass a law banning the Russian language from official use and another one lifting the ban on Nazi propaganda. Simultaneously, a string of violent attacks against “collaborators” of the Yanukovich regime soon turned into an anti-Russian terror campaign. And for the first time the Russian-speakers really began to fear for their future: they began to rally and protest openly and vocally.
That, in turn, triggered a reassessment of the situation by many Russians in Russia who, up to this point, had accused their compatriots of passivity. For example, on many talk shows Russian-speakers from the Ukraine who were complaining about their plight were told “we are not going to help you if you don’t begin by helping yourself first; you have to speak up and take action against this new regime before we will do anything. We cannot solve your problems for you – you have to act first. Then we will help!“. And when the population in the East and South of the Ukraine finally took to the streets, this time not with Ukrainian flags but with Russian ones, the people in Russia took notice and began to change their outlook on the situation.
For a long list of objective reasons, Crimea was by far the most vocal part of this protest movement and it is of no surprise that the next big development took place there. Russian intelligence services clearly detected some kind of coup about to take place and the Kremlin took the absolutely crucial decision to send in the so-called “Polite Armed Men in Green” (PAMG) normally called “Spetsnaz GRU”. What exactly the Russians detected is still unclear, but what is certain is that the manner in which the PAMGs were deployed into Crimea was not a the way a normal peacetime force is moved, but the way a special force is sent in in a wartime military operation: rapidly, under cover, with heavy fire support and on key objectives to be seized for a subsequent deployment of reinforcements. That overnight deployment of PAMGs apparently did stop the planned coup as only a few clashes were very vaguely reported and soon forgotten. The main effect of this move by Putin was to send a powerful message to Russian-speakers in the rest of the Ukraine: Russia will not let the new neo-Fascist regime attack and terrorize you. What Putin had done was to extend a “psychological shield” over the Russian-speaking East and South of the Ukraine by letting the Banderites know that if they crossed the line they would be engaged and destroyed by the Russian military. That had a huge effect and soon the protest crowd grew bigger and more determined. As for the new regime, all it could do was to use the SBU forces to arrest some political leaders. But beyond that, Kiev has not moved to suppress these regions by military force (at least until now). Finally, upon seeing the sudden surge of Russian protests in the Ukraine, more and more Russians took to the streets in Russia to express their support for their compatriots in the Ukraine. The end result of all this has been to wake up a previously semi-lethargic Russian national identity and a sense of patriotism which the Kremlin could never have even dreamed of inducing in the Russian people.
The western press is doing a truly remarkable job of trying not to notice all of this. Western commentators and politicians are acting as if there was a way to somehow push the genie of Russian patriotism back into the bottle even though they themselves, and not the Kremlin, made him come out of the bottle in the first place. Worse, the western propaganda still tries to represent the issue as being one about the future of the Ukraine. It is not. The Ukraine is now gone, dead, finished, forever relegated to the past. The issue now is not the future of the Ukraine, but the future of the US Empire.
The tectonic faceplant of the US Empire and its policies
By its arrogance, ignorance and total intransigence the US and its EU colonies have completely redefined the terms of the issue for the Russian people. In their immense majority when the Russian people look at what is taking place in Kiev they see a replay of the worst years of World War 2 and they are absolutely determined not to let that happen again. When they see crowds of Ukrainian nationalists marching at night with torches and large photos of Stepan Bandera, Russians (in the Ukraine and Russia) see the rise of an evil which they had to beat down at the costs of millions killed and maimed. This is why I wrote on March 1st “make no mistake about that RUSSIA IS READY FOR WAR“. I meant that literally and I still think that this is true: the Russian people have suffered too much during WWII to let any neo-Nazi thugs terrorize their fellow Russian again. The depth and intensity of this feeling is not something which can be understood in the EU, and even less so in the USA. I suspect that the only place in which the vehemence of this determination could be understood is Israel. In practical terms this means that Russia will not negotiate with any neo-Nazis which threaten the Russian speakers in the Ukraine nor will Russia yield to any western threats or sanctions. Again, Russia, as a nation, is willing to pay the cost, whatever it might be, to choke and defeat the nasty “Banderastan” which is currently getting so much support from the US and EU. If the Ukrainian crazies attack the Russians speakers in the East or South, Russia will intervene militarily – you can be sure of that.
There is even a more important consequence stemming from the current events.
In August of 2008, right after the Russian military defeated the US backed regime of Saakashvili during the 08.08.08 war I wrote a two-part article entitled “The real meaning of the South Ossetian war” (part one; part two) which included the following assessment:
The ugly attack by Washington’s Georgian puppet on the Russian peacekeepers combined with the absolutely amazing hypocrisy of the Western media and politicians who all fully sided with the aggressor turned into something of a “last straw” for Russia. This seemingly marginal development, at least when assessed quantitatively (“what else is new?”) ended up making a huge qualitative difference: it brought up a new Russian resolve to deal with, to use a favorite Neocon expression, an existential threat represented by the Western Empire. It will take a long while for the West to realize what has really happened and the most obtuse of pundits and politicians will probably hang on to their usual self-righteous rhetoric forever, but historians will probably look back at the month of August 2008 as the moment when Russia decided to strike back at the Empire for the first time.
What has happened this Winter is very much a continuation of the 08.08.08 war: yet again Russia did not want that to happen, but the West gave it no other option than to be willing to go to war if needed to protect itself (in 08.08.08 the Kremlin fully understood that there was a risk of US/NATO involvement on the Georgian side and it had conveyed in no unclear terms to US/NATO commanders that any US/NATO force sent to the theater of operation would be attacked). Still, the chances of a UN/NATO intervention in the 08.08.08 war were relatively small, and the Empire could always pretend that it did not care. This time around, however, Putin did not confront Saakashvili and his “operetta army”, but the President of the United States and the combined power of US and NATO military forces. For a few days, the situation appeared every bit as critical as during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the world began to fear that WWIII could begin (hence all the rumors about US/NATO military moves and the oblique or even overt threats of US politicians). The crisis became so acute that The Independent felt that it had to write an editorial entitled “We don’t want a war with Russia” which concluded with the following warning:
The Independent on Sunday is not opposed to all wars, regardless of fashionable talk of living in a “post-interventionist” world. We, like President Obama, are opposed to dumb wars. War with Russia would be a dumb war to end all dumb wars
Soon, however, it began to be clear that the US was not willing to go to war over Crimea or the Ukraine. Predictably, in the confrontation between Barak Obama and Vladimir Putin Obama blinked first. The referendum which the US tried so hard to prevent went ahead, and its results are an absolute disaster for the USA. There are now some pretty good signs that the USA is throwing in the towel (Moon of Alabama has two good pieces on that; see here and here) and that the West is seeking a way out.
This shows that Obama did much more than just “blink first”. This shows that when push comes to shove, Russia has enough military power and political determination to deny the US Empire one of it’s most important strategic objectives: pretending to be the sole superpower. If the collapse of the US policy on Syria was a painful embarrassment, what just took place in the Ukraine is something of an entirely different order of magnitude: Russia slapped down the EU, NATO and the US and came on top of a confrontation in which down to the last minute the West tried to bluff its way to victory and instead only achieved a full-spectrum defeat.
Full spectrum dominance is a thing of the past, and everybody now knows it
Two things are certain now. First, Crimea is now gone, back to Russia, and nothing will change that. Second, the attempt to turn the Ukraine into a “Banderastan” will fail. Though there are regular reports of Bandestastani military forces being moved towards the Donbass, I personally don’t see how the regime in power in Kiev could crush the current protests in the East and South of the Ukraine. Besides, as soon as what is left on paper of the ex-Ukrainian economy officially collapses, the new regime will have much more pressing issues to deal with than protests. At some point I expect that the USA and Russia will get together and agree to discreetly show the way out to the hardcore Bandera crazies currently in power. Some kind of more or less civilized and neutral regime will replace the current one and some kind of more or less civilized and neutral “Ukrainian Confederation” will be created. If the folks in power in Kiev persist and hang on to power, a good part of the east and south Ukraine will follow the example of Crimea and join Russia. A temporary split of the Ukraine into two, like what happened in Cyprus, is also possible. I honestly cannot imagine anybody crazy enough to provoke the Russian military to enter the eastern or southern Ukraine. On the long term, it would be better for everybody that the Ukraine be allowed to split up into two or three different entities: one western, Latin and neo-Fascist one, one Russian one which would probably join the Eurasian Union or even become part of Russia, and possibly one independent one in the South. But the dream of a large united Ukraine ruled by russophobic nationalists will not happen – that option is gone forever.
What is next for the AngoZionist Empire?
Externally, nothing much really. It will be business as usual. Neither Russia nor China will do anything reckless to provoke the USA which, just as the Russia of the 1990s, will remain a nuclear superpower and one of the major military powers on the planet with which no country will dare ignore. But the myth of US omnipotence is now gone, forever. Furthermore, Europe will have to bear the brunt of the consequences of having to manage the gradual transformation of Banderastan into something reasonable and non-threatening. The EU will sink further in its economic and social crisis and some other crisis will replace the Ukraine in the news. Externally, little will be change, but to paraphrase my conclusion about the 08.08.08 war, it will take a long while for the West to realize what has really happened and the most obtuse of pundits and politicians will probably hang on to their usual self-righteous rhetoric forever, but historians will probably look back at the month of February 2014 as the moment when Russia successfully beat back the combined power of the USA and Europe and prevailed.
The Saker
For this to be mathematically possible, approximately every single Catholic and absolutely no one else would have had to stay home on referendum day: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/17/catholics-in-crimea-fear-oppression-under-possible-russian-rule/ “Catholics in Crimea fear oppression under possible Russian rule”
Here’s my libertarian take on the Crimean referendum: http://themonicaperezshow.com/2014/03/17/crimea-self-determination-the-first-principle-of-the-law-of-nations/
I think using the term “Banderistan” might be offensive to the countries that have “stan” in their name. Would you like your fatherland’s (or motherland’s if you’re swinging that way) to be used as pejorative to emphasise the grostesqueness of a illegitimate puppet state dominated by nazi terror? I bet Crimea supporters from TatarSTAN would be with me on this one ;)
Saker, this is an especially fine analysis of yours.
This tectonic change from Western dominance to a multipolar world occurring peacefully is a remarkable gift to all of us. God bless the Russian leadership.
Well, well, you’ve changed to be optimist at last… ;-)
But I wouldn’t. The US was humiliated for the second time. Instead of came to their senses after the first one they bit the lips and they set themselves for a revenge.
This time they were not “given a lesson” but they were punched right between the eyes.
I’m afraid after they come out from the state of punch-drunk they will show their rabid and livid faces once more. But the next time they leave “the finesse a’la US”, they showed in the last years so many times, in drawers and they’ll start to talk ultimatum to Russia “you MUST” backed by their nuke forces put to highest alert to show the world the clout, they think they still have. Yes, they have, at least military one, but to the detriment of our whole world – as for them the end justifies the means.
@US foreign policy is not run by diplomats, but by politicians.
One may say that the policy of US is rather Voodoo policy. More careful observers noticed that all major aggressions or attempts at, of USraell cluster around Jewish feasts, mainly Purim (Irak, Lybia). Purim is the celebration of the massacre in Persia by the Jews of the non-Jews who were planning imaginary massacres against them under the command of the Vezir of the Persian King, Haman. Haman was executed and since then Jews celebrate these victories with revelries. During the fest they eat some cookies called Hamentashen=the ears of Haman. Have a look at the following extract from a Jewish Forum which inadvertedly spills the beans and will understand why some caricatures of Putin show him with oversized ears!
jtf.org › JTF.ORG Forum › General Category › General Discussion
Topic: Dress like Putin for Purim
“Now where does Putin fit in…. Well in my mind he represents the Amalekian ideal, like Haman, and he is a puppet on the stage of Hashem’s creation. I listen to a Rabbi (Rabbi Shafier) who explains this concept very well (and I posted his video in the Torah section previously). The dictators of the world (like Pharoah) are just pawns in Hashems game. They have no power of their own (once we start believing they have power, then they gain power by our granting them it).
On Purim we laugh at the powers in the world which rise up against us. Russia is arming Iran and trying to subvert American interests around the world. I think that the fact that the words Purim and Putin are similar is because it should remind us that Putin is just another puppet on Hashems stage”.
Haman is the quintessential enemy of the Jews, the prototype of Jew-haters. Why is Putin assimilated to Haman?
WizOz
@N4a: I bet Crimea supporters from TatarSTAN would be with me on this one ;)
I very much doubt it. “Stan” is a word for ancient Indo-European word common to most Indo-European languages which just means “place” or “land” or “residence”. When I speak of Banderastan this is no more offensive to folks from “stan countries” than “Banderaland” would offend Greenland or England.
Also, and with all due respect, while my writing is terrible and full of typos, I don’t really need a “editor for political correctness” to make sure that I don’t offend some group or other. I honestly don’t care at all.
Cheers,
The Saker
The number of YES votes is 38,55 times greater than the number of NO votes.
One can thus say that Russia won Crimea by a 40-to-1 margin. This is a truly devastating defeat for NATO!
You must get tired of hearing “Great post,” so I will not say it but it is one of your best ones, in my opinion.
I focus here only on one part: your analysis of how the invisible Ukrainians suddenly woke up after years of “no vision, no ideology, no identifiable future goal.” Their “brutal shock-therepy” began very shortly after the (relatively) peaceful Maiden gathering was taken over by the terrorist neo-nazis supported and inserted by the US. The Ukrainians are extremely fortunate that Putin responded immediately with firmness, correctness, legality and most of all with compassion towards the population, which has (so far) not gone the way of so many other projects begun by the psychopaths.
My own reading of Ukraine is that it was seen by the west as just another weak country (with artificially imposed borders) ripe for the plunder. Of course they could care less about the death and destruction of innocent people. Additionally, if they could perform yet another diabolical action on Russia’s doorstep to weaken their historical enemy, that would be their idea of a win-win game.
The actual events that transpired proved once again two things to me: (1) Putin was waiting for the US and its whores in the EU and totally outmanoeuvred the evil empire, and (2) the powers of light will always overcome the powers of darkness, sooner or later.
I hope someday my own country will receive much needed “brutal shock-therapy” and they will also be forced to choose between order and light or chaos and darkness. I am afraid that Americans have no Putin waiting in wings to save them.
Off topic somewhat, but here is a link describing Obama as a perfect psychopath, which your readers may “enjoy.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/14/obama-the-willing-executioner/
Greetings from Singapore:
In my native language:
Totalmente de acuerdo con su analisis.
In the language of my father:
Potpuno se slazu sa svojim analizama.
***
Dear The Saker,
Thank you for a very good piece.
Rgds,
Veritas
Saker, his is one of your very best analyses yet. Thank you.
As for what the U.S. multinationals have been planning for Ukraine, I would refer your readers to the excellent article at: http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/16/corporate-interests-behind-ukraine-putsch/
and also warn them of the consequences of the TTIP which, like the TTP for the Pacific would strip each of the member nation signatories of important sovereignty rights (e.g., re: environment or worker’s rights) and cede them to the multinational corporations doing business in their country. It would also cede away any power by the national authority to regulate its currency or protect its domestic industry. So, while its negative impact on Intellectual Property has caught the most attention, it would result in a theft of assets and a shifting of costs that would have a tectonic effect. (See, for example: Public Citizen’s examination of TAFTA/TTIP at: http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=6039 and related links.)
Once the Ukraine joins the EU and the TAFTA/TTIP is signed, it will be a sitting duck twice over, while the rest of the EU nations, including Germany, will find that while the EU already compromises its sovereignty, the TAFTA/TTIP will control the EU.
Saker, his is one of your very best analyses yet. Thank you.
As for what the U.S. multinationals have been planning for Ukraine, I would refer your readers to the excellent article at: http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/16/corporate-interests-behind-ukraine-putsch/
and also warn them of the consequences of the TTIP which, like the TTP for the Pacific would strip each of the member nation signatories of important sovereignty rights (e.g., re: environment or worker’s rights) and cede them to the multinational corporations doing business in their country. It would also cede away any power by the national authority to regulate its currency or protect its domestic industry. So, while its negative impact on Intellectual Property has caught the most attention, it would result in a theft of assets and a shifting of costs that would have a tectonic effect. (See, for example: Public Citizen’s examination of TAFTA/TTIP at: http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=6039 and related links.)
Once the Ukraine joins the EU and the TAFTA/TTIP is signed, it will be a sitting duck twice over, while the rest of the EU nations, including Germany, will find that while the EU already compromises its sovereignty, the TAFTA/TTIP will control the EU.
re: the video “Ukrainsky Patriot”
Catchy tune. Really gets those jackboots tapping.
http://www.amazon.com/Political-Ponerology-Science-Adjusted-Purposes/dp/1897244258/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395100980&sr=8-1&keywords=ponerology
The emergence of Vladimir Putin on the world stage as leader of Russia is predicted for a society subjugated by psychopathic evil for three or four generations. The human mind recognizes, responds, and resists psychopathy for the survival of normal humanity.
Americans will experience the full measure of evil and then normal humanity will reassert itself to protect the long term survival of America, but first the suffering, betrayal and loss of innocence.
It is fascinating to watch the skill, patience, compassion and measured response of the Russian government versus the hubris of the American government when confronted by principled, tough, and intelligence society.
It is not Putin alone, but the longing of normal men and women for empathic and competent leadership which enables the emergence and power of Vladimir Putin. He is a reflection of a strong people who recognize honest principled leadership after being subjugated by evil for too long.
I recommend Political Ponerology(A Science of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes) for a deeper insight into the dynamics of evil, its rise and collapse, when confronted by the power of human reason and empathy sharpened by necessity in the eternal confrontation of the good and the evil.
Analysis of the larger geo-political issues is much appreciated. Thank you for the effort.
Best wishes….bob kay
Saker, I didn’t think you could top your answer to that fifth question this morning, but I should have known better than that. This truly is one of the best analyses I’ve ever read — and “tectonic face-plant” is one for the ages! Otoh, I am seriously wishing I could forget ever having seen that video… and wondering what on earth is to be done with these monsters now that they’ve been unleashed, provided with weapons, some kind of training and brand new clothes.
Good article, a honest appraisal of what is happening.
Just shows how far the USA has fallen, years ago they where seen as the good guys, today not so much. After the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 most people are wondering what the USA did to the plane.
The USA is no longer trusted by the citizens of the world to be the good guys.
I think a likely outcome is that RT will be kicked out of the West. Dissent will not be tolerated!
Excellent article Saker. Your analysis of the larger geopolitical situation seems to be spot on!
Excellent article Saker. Your analysis of the larger geopolitical situation seems to be spot on!
been reading this blog for years and think that this is one of your finest posts. thanks.
Another very interesting sidelight: ExxonMobil and Russia-Rosneft joint partner a variety of ventures:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-exxonmobil-russia-rosneft-partnership-vs-obamas-sanctions-regime-against-russia/5373884
I’m not thinking Obama will sanction these guys.
Saker,
Some won’t take a second defeat by Russian diplomacy and will do anything possible to get their revenge, and that means provoking war. Everything is possible now, like something could happen to PM of Canada when he’ll visit Ukraine this weekend, or the destitution of the president of the United States.
“After the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 most people are wondering what the USA did to the plane.”
I thought of that when I saw FOXNews spend endless hours on it while the real news was in Crimea/Ukraine/Russia.
An excellent analysis.
The US secret government will not however accept this defeat. Puppet master Brzezinski has a pathological hatred of Russia and there can be little doubt he controls the current official US administration.
Keep a look out for what it happening now elsewhere while Russia is now preoccupied with Ukraine. There appears to be some covert activites increasing again in Syria, but I doubt this is the next play. Some rumblings again about North Korea so that could be used as an excuse to focus on China in line with the “pivot to Asia”. Could be something else altogether and the next US false flag operation grows closer by the day as its dollar and economy teeter on the brink of collapse.
The impending collapse gave the realists in the US administration pause for thought regarding the ‘sanctions’ old John “Skull & Bones” Kerry was shouting about. The potential retaliation by Russia for actual economic sanction is likely to have been a critical factor in the current (some might say, non-) developments on the sanctions much lauded by the US/EU puppets.
Merkel has suffered significant damaged from this episode – the German public is not happy about the neverending US interference.
More widely, the people of the EU (this term is used very loosely and apology to citizens of any country that is part of the current farce, but the “EU” reference is for the sake of brevity) will have their say in a few weeks time – the voters’ assessment of the whole EU system will not be good. These developments in Ukraine have not helped to EU cause.
The citizenry of the world can only hope that this exceptional analysis by Saker is correct and that there is once again a counter-balance to the US secret government/corporate/banking global hegemonic intentions.
Those citizens should be warning and alert however – all is not as it seems. Rights are being diminished all around the world right now. Freedoms once taken for granted are being eroded and forfeited in the name of “safety and security”. The end result will be having only the right to do exactly as you are told.
Saker, you nailed it on the Ukrainian military also, such as it is. Here is another site which corroborates the earlier comments by that resident of Kiev, with additional information on their air force and other military units:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/03/is-anyone-really-in-control-in-ukraine.html#more
“It [Ukraine] is absolutely not a combat ready force. It’s sharply underfunded, and they don’t have any real air or surface to air or capacity compared to what Russia can deploy — even though Russia is no paragon of military readiness either,” Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told FoxNews.com.
Saker, when you have a moment – what do make of this claim as redards to the capacity of the Russian military?
@Anonymous:what do make of this claim as redards to the capacity of the Russian military?
Cordesman is full of shit, and he is a long time propagandist of the establishment. Ignore what he has to say.
Cheers,
The Saker
Saker – I think Russia should quietly keep the pressure up and if the East and South provinces want to hold a referendum then it should happen. The evil thugs nazis and oligarch zios need to have their faces rubbed in this. I am hopeful the Banderistans also go after theor oligarch handlers and Blackwater boys.
VS, do you realize that a phishing site is closely imitating your blog’s address? I inadvertently typed in vineyardsaker.blogpot.com (no “s”) rather than vineyardsaker.blogSpot.com and up popped a Christian Zionist website talking about the apocalypse.
Do you think that the similarity is intentional??? At first I thought your website was hacked. Then I discovered my mistake.
@Anonymous: VS, do you realize that a phishing site is closely imitating your blog’s address?
No, I had no idea. Thanks for the warning, I will make it into a post immediately.
Kind regards,
The Saker
The malevolence of the ruling US elite has been marked, since 1776. The genocides against the indigenous were justified by reference to the Old Testament/Torah, with its incessant exhortations by ‘Yahweh’ to exterminate the Canaanites, Moabites, Midianites, Jebusites, Philistines et al, even ‘down to the last suckling babe’, and to wipe out their cattle and crops, too. The ‘Indians’ got to play the Amalekites.
Now, these are the oldest extant exhortations to genocide as a religious imperative. During the attack on Lebanon in 2006, the ‘Yesha Council of Rabbis and Torah Sages’, a group of Judaic authorities linked to the Israeli Right and the settler Judaic Taliban, issued a decree that, during times of war, killing civilians was not just permissible (contrary to International Law, which was contemptuously dismissed as ‘Christian morality’)but was, in fact, a ‘mitzvah’ or religiously sanctioned good deed.
We all know the other manifestations of Judaic fundamentalist hatred of the goyim.The texts that outline the Talmudic laws concerning when to kill goyim, and when to simply refuse aid as they die. The injunctions to kill even children, if they might grow to challenge the Jews. As commonsense tells us, the ‘oldest hatred’ cannot be antisemitism, as the Zionist propaganda machines tells us, but Judaic antigoyism, which came with the Israelites’ self-creation. These are not, of course, the worldviews of every single living Jew, amongst whom there is, like any group, much diversity of opinion, but they plainly are those of the Israeli elite, as the decades of massacres, aggression, assassination, mass torture and barbarism inflicted on the imprisoned Palestinians shows.
And this strain of Judeofascism controls the USA, through the puppet Obama (read The Chicago Jewish News, October 24, 2008, the article Obama and the Jews, by Paula Yearwood, to see why they boast that he is the ‘first Jewish President’)whose Administration is heavily and grotesquely disproportionately dominated by Rightwing Jews and through control of both parties, business (particularly finance) the MSM and entertainment through money power. And the driving force in US aggression for some decades has been the ‘neo-conservative’ movement, almost entirely consisting of Judeofascists, many acolytes of the sinister Leo Strauss. A situation pretty much unparalleled in history, I would say, where such a tiny group, alienated by religion from the host society, drives it on to unceasing aggression around the world.
Undoubtedly, with the only obstacles left to a global US Imperium with Jews pulling the strings and Israel free to seize ‘Eretz Yisrael”From the Nile to the Euphrates’, being Russia and China, these two are marked for destruction. That it would precipitate nuclear war hardly matters to maniacs driven by the ‘Samson Option’ of taking down a ‘Jew-hating world’, or their Christian Zionist stooges (real antisemites and merely allies of convenience)who are lusting for ‘The Rapture’. As long as Israel is ruled by Judeofascists like the current crew of psychopaths, the world is in deadly danger, and Israel is too.
FYI, you may be amused by this propaganda piece in Forbes magazine:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2014/01/23/go-ahead-say-it-putin-destabiliized-ukraine/
Why Is Nobody Saying The Obvious: Putin Destabilized Ukraine
“Putin has spent the last 15 years shamelessly berating America for destabilizing interventions around the world. Look at his record: Chechnya, Georgia, Moldavia, Ukraine, Syria. And all those Russian journalists and whistleblowers who paid with their lives. For some reason nobody holds Putin to account for the cumulative horrors of his rule. An American President with that record would be driven to derangement by his own media, let alone by global opinion.
You have to wonder why the Russians allow Putin to commit such misdeeds as their leader. If they don’t feel inspired by Euromaidan, they should at least feel ashamed. How often during the last century have they watched a neighbor being subjugated by Kremlin-controlled tanks? No no these are Yanukovych’s tanks, and he’s just restoring order in his own country, comes the reply. To which one must respond by,, well there’s no point in responding.
There’s always an excuse for it, but the picture remains the same, and the outcome too. Power to the Kremlin.
For a large chunk of the Russian populace apparently it doesn’t matter what is being done to them, or to other countries in their name, so long as America and Europe aren’t winning. That’s the way Putin has successfully framed his actions and far too many Russians, because he hasn’t given them any other cause for pride, take pride in it.”
I am honestly puzzled how the American media can be so uniformly bad at covering world events. We allegedly have a free press rather than a state controlled media, but there is no way anyone accessing the American media could ever gain an understanding of what is going on.
I listened to NPR on a long drive this weekend, (like the NYTimes or the NewYorker or Atlantic Monthly claims to be aimed at an audience who thinks of itself as wordly and informed) and all the propaganda was this crude. You would have NO inkling that the US provoked the destabilisation in Ukraine. And they brought on “expert” after “expert” to mock the plebiscite in Crimea. One such expert repeatedly claimed that the people of Crimea were “under the gun” and could not possibly vote their conscience in this plebiscite. Coverage was the same on Al Jazeera English too.
When I was in grade school and in university I often heard my professors claim that Americans know little of the world, but these people implied that it was because Americans lacked any intellectual curiosity. That’s only partly true. The fact is that all of the media, including the “prestige media” like NYTimes, WaPo, PBS, NPR, etc seeks to conceal the truth from their readers.
@ “PM of Canada when he’ll visit Ukraine this weekend”
Harper has absolutely no business to be there, this or any other weekend for that matter. It is so pathetic how Canada pretends to be a player on the international stage when frankly it shouldn’t even be allowed anywhere close to the G8 as it is not an “industrialized” nation by any stretch of imagination. Harper and his cronies (Baird, etc.) are so not getting my vote during the next federal elections, it isn’t even funny. Cheers
I just want to say this very loudly
Long live independent state Crimea
Congratulations to Vlad the hammer.
From Croatia
Zivijela nezavisna drzava Krim. Cestitke Vladimiru Velikome.
Mnogo pozdrava Rusima iz porobljene i okupirane Hrvatske od strane NATO pakta i EU koja je tamnica naroda.
“The situation seems to me to be thus: An immense democracy, mostly ignorant and completely secluded from foreign influences and without any knowledge of other states of society, with great contempt for history and experience, finds itself in possession of enormous power and is eager to use it in brutal fashion against any one who comes along without knowing how to do it, [emphasis in the original], and is therefore constantly on the brink of some frightful catastrophe…”
E.L. Godkin, Irish-born editor of the Evening Post, writing in 1895, quoted in THE MARTIAL SPIRIT, Walter Millis, Literary Guild of America, 1931, p. 38.
Saker
I think you underestimate Israeli-American tenacity. They lost this round, Russia wasn’t sucked into another “Afghanistan” debacle, so like with their failure to get another “Russian Afghanistan” from their invasion of South Ossetia, zionazi-nazistan is moving on to “plan b”. The Israeli-American poligarchy is still quite a ways away from defeat in the Ukraine and think their “diplomacy” moves, backdoor and otherwise, will be to cover an increased amount of covert ops.
The “great game” marches on.
вот так
Watching these Reuter photos
I rolled on the floor laughing
The photos show Bandiera army
Fantastic article
this is the article I have been waiting for to copy and paste into word – so as to email to contacts here in NZ. NZ’s (all 90+% of them) believe Crimea was invaded and people voted with a gun in their left ear.
This article is not only well balanced but has depth,that “hopefully” may sway a few into seeing a different light on this Former Soviet country and the big bad Bear of Russia.
Ukrainian government refuses to remove troops from Crimea, prepares for war
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/ukrainian-government-refuses-to-remove-troops-from-crimea-prepares-for-war-339724.html
This could get interesting. My first thought is this military leader quoted, has been promised NATO support if he actually tries to attack the Russian troops inside Crimea, or even elsewhere, say, Eastern Ukraine. Klitchko even piped up on this, as if he is a legitimate spokesman for anything. He got knocked out in the first round.
I agree with the overwhelming opinion that this is one of your best pieces ever, Saker. A coherent and well-assembled analysis that punches through the Russophobic nonsense like a runaway bullet train. Sure to become one of the benchmark references on the Ukrainian debacle, and certainly one of my favourites. Well done.
Ukraine turmoil LIVE UPDATES http://rt.com/news/kiev-clashes-rioters-police-571/
“23:41 GMT: The head of Ukraine’s Donetsk regional administration Sergey Taruta along with his brother used their own finances to dig a trench on the border with Russia to reportedly ensure security in the area, Interfax Ukraine reported.”
A Russian source with a little more detail:
Губернатор Донецка оплатил защитную траншею на границе с Россией http://www.vz.ru/news/2014/3/17/677520.html
This lot is seriously deranged. That is a fairly consistent factor among the Israeli-American quislings, including those they select to run their “1st world” colonies, as well. It’s quite obvious these people are selected because they are childish and dim, and thus easily manipulated and controlled.
вот так
Even though I don’t deny the existence of ethnicities, i really hate this kind of ethnical polling. It gives the false impression of an apartheid world where there are a set number of ethnicities that can’t mix. I wonder how many of the so called ethnic ukrainians have russian, polish, jewish and other ancesters. The same to russian and tatars.
So, I ask…What good comes from such a poll?
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR3HHIY#a=1
Here is the link – sorry, very much sorry
Watching these Reuter photos
I rolled on the floor laughing
The photos show Bandiera army
Turkey Warns Russia it Will Blockade Bosphorus if Violence Occurs
http://ukrainianpolicy.com/turkey-warns-russia-it-will-blockade-bosphorus/
I’m guessing this magazine is like the American mag. Foreign Policy, a print arm of the Council on Foreign Relations.
I’ll say that this is unconfirmed at this point, but it should get posted.
If Erdogan actually blocks this strait, this will be clearly an act of war, and NATO will likely get involved.
What suprises and worries me is the coordinated sanctions even from countries unheard of doing things like taht so swift like Switzerland and Japan…
My impression is that there is an enormous amount of arm twisting from the US behind all this. Thing in Europa are going down day by day because elected politicans are not representing the will of the people anymore. They represent what the US wants… and this is being done against what many Europeans want…
Together with a really massive wave of propaganda and outright lies, also from media and countries which did not do this before in such a coordinated and massive way. For example swiss media are full every day with really bad and demeaning publicitiy about Russia…
It is unbelievable und unspeakable disgusting what is being done here… in the name of Democracy and Freedom for Corporations just waiting to be able to plunder another country and its people and infrastructre. To steal what belongs to them, what has been paid by them, what is their right to own. Pure and simple primitve lootig…
A region and people and a popular vote which goes against US and EU interests, a vote for their own future are being demonised and democracy is being ridiculed… while the people of Venice do the same thing as the people of the crimea, the media are quiet about Venice…
my english is unfortunately not good enough to express in more detailed and fine ways what i think and feel, observe and want to critise…
disgusting and unbelievable is what i can say, for my as a European i can say that this is not the Europe i would choose (if there would be a system of democracy implemented here which is not the case anyway) if a could. What they do specific in the Ukraine and against Russia is not in my name…
Saker, congratulations on a great blog. Thruth has a way of getting to people who are ready to see. You are part of a global awakening of sorts.
Very interesting take from a european think tank. It is the US that benefits from spoiling EU-RUSSIA links.
http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-83-is-available-Global-systemic-crisis-escalation-in-the-US-reaction-for-survival-trigger-a-cold-war-to-make-it_a15801.html
Saker, do you think that this crisis was created to re-erect the iron curtain? a convenient reason to avoid deep cuts in the pentagon’s budget? a way to ram through the odious trade deal the US wants to impose on europen people?
Mike from Ecuador
Hi The Saker,
Thanks for your involvment in discussing these important topics in such an interesting way.
I think that the posted video is irrelevant in describing ukrainian state of mind in the sense these very folks are quite a minority. Only about 2k people went to the commemoration 2013 of the Galicia division in Lvov which hosts 700k people. Among them, some see this division as simply as liberators (exactly like some French people see Americans as liberators), some others adhere to the nazi ideologies more deeply. As you described it well in one of your previous posts, ukrainian people suffered very much of invasions and oppression for generations. Hence almost all of them have more or less nationalist ideas, especially in the west.
Regarding to who’s ruling now there, I’m confused. It was told that Yarosh ruled the NCS as a deputy but it appears not to be the case since an ukaz was published at the end of February appointing a cute journalist to this function. Yarosh seems to do stupid things like promoting Russian revolution and calling for preventive war against Russia.
However, if we stick to the facts, it remains that :
– They cancelled the russian (among others) language status immediately after having overthrown Yanuk :
– Would Timo, Yats & co do that ?
– Did they know that it would lead to Russians do what they did and are doing ?
– When it started to divide Ukraine, why not having do sme step backwards to calm things down ?
– They want to sign the EU agreement soon
– Would Yarosh do that according to his protective views ?
– Jews seem not to be especially threatened.
– Why not if nazis are ruling ?
– They incorporated the armed revolutionaries into the freshly created National Guard
– This may be just to manage them more easily once the job done.
– A very few days after the coup, the oligarch Akhmetov published a nice letter inviting everybody to go back to work in a pure propaganda style.
– What about these oligarchs ?
– Yats announced ultraliberal steps.
– Would these nationalists/nazis/fashists/… do that ?
– The kievian press now talks all the time about russian invasion and imminence of war. People are really scared there too.
– Both sides seem to use the sames techniques of disinformation and destabilisation which divide people and rises the level of hate and violence.
In short, the picture is very unclear to me… Any help ? :) Thanks
A Great analysis. Hope you are correct. The US has gone into a corrupt mode because of the perceived power that it thought it had. We badly need a multi-polar world. Here are a few other considerations, as I believe that the real battles lay ahead.
I believe that the Lemonosov Ridge, and its 43 Trillion dollar oil and natural gas stash is just one of the prizes if Brzezinski’s wish of carving up Russia into 3 or 4 smaller entities can be done. I did not realize how paramount this was until I read some oil industry expert’s estimates on what the resources are in the world and what is left. To state an obvious fact, most of it is in Russia. So the West will still pursue command and control through whatever devious methods it can while keeping their own people in the dark and doing all it can through NED and other so-called “democracy” groups to destabilize the Caucasus and Russia itself. The demonstrations against the Crimea re-acquisition are only the first of many scheduled examples. The Russian people should know who their enemies are. All of this really started back in 1901, when Russian International oil output exceeded that of the United States and the Rockefeller interests. This is where it all started and it will not end until the Untied States is defeated as a world power and accepts multi-polar existence instead. Until then, we all remain under threat of a nuclear war at any time. After all, the 5 Billion spent on destabilization was admitted by Ms Nuland of the US was what started the newest crises. So until the US leaves other countries alone and stops pushing NATO expansion we are all staring at the barrel of the gun.
Mr. Saker,
Although your observation that the vote was a landslide is certainly correct, your arithmetic has me scratching my head. You say:
“These are official results from the referendum in Crimea:
96.77% voted for Crimea to join Russia
02.51% voted for Crimea to remain a sovereign autonomous republic inside the Ukraine
00.72% of the votes were declared invalid
83.10% of the eligible voters participated in this referendum (thus:16.9% did not vote)
As a reminder, this is the official ethnic makeup of Crimea:
58.32% Russians
24.32% Ukrainians
12.10% Crimean Tatars
When we say that are 58.32% Russians in Crimea that does not mean that all of these are eligible voters as children are not allowed to vote. So the real figure of eligible Russian voters in Crimea is probably well under 50%.”
Are you suggesting that of all the people in Crimea, the Russians are the only ones that have children, or that they have children in disproportionate numbers? Lacking statistics to the contrary, it seems more reasonable to assume that the overall population, and the list of eligible voters both have the same ethnic proportions.
Furthermore:
83.10% of the eligible voters participated, and 96.77% of those voted to join Russia, therefore .8310 x .9677 = 80.42% of the eligible voters voted to join Russia.
2.51% voted for autonomy, therefore .8310 x .0251 = 2.09% of the eligible voters voted for autonomy.
16.90% + 2.09% = 18.99% of the eligible voters did not vote to join Russia.
Since 18.99% > 12.10% it certainly is possible that the vote was strongly along ethnic lines, contrary to your assertion. Exactly who voted how, we don’t know.
But really, so what? The important statistic is that more than 80% of the eligible voters showed up and voted to join Russia. A consensus like this is compelling.
The Crimean referendum and subsequent integration into the Russian Federation is just one victory. There is a larger battle ahead and that is the deconstruction of the “Banderistan” planned country. The neo-fscists in Kiev still have many allies and supporters, internally and externally. Federalization of the Regions with significant legislative and judicial authority are crucial steps in this direction. The oligarch are regrouping and already acting in self defense, particularly in Donetsk. The drafting of the new constitution will be a battleground. The oligarchs along with local corrupt forces and neo-fascists will put up a battle to retain constitutional provisions which favor the in the long term. Also the ideological battle will be a long and persistent struggle because it involves the concepts of education, free press, participation of non-govermental institutions, interpretation of history and political ideas. Ethnic Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainians, in my view, will need support from Russia to offset an army of ideological agents (Western NGO’s, oligarchs, corrupt politicians, and neo-fascists). One of the challenges is to revert 20+ years of anti-Russian indoctrination in public schools and western-sponsored mass media. A significant victory indeed just took place, but a long battle is in the horizon.
This excellent analysis of the geopolitical significance of recent events in the Ukraine has now been republished (with typos corrected) at
How the US Dream of World Supremacy
was Buried in Crimea
Apparently, there where a demo in Moscow AGAINST the wishes of the Crimeans and very much in line with the US and their local clients, at a time when Obombah & Nudelman has managed to unify Russians more than ever..
Are these Muppet´s the Bolotnaya 5th column? McFaul´s and NED´s people?
Saker,
Great post as usual.
I’d like to add two cents to the idea you mentioned in passing about resurging Russian self-identity in Eastern Ukraine. Over the past 2-3 weeks I have witnessed a remarkbale awakening of Russian national concience, which has been asleep for as long as I can remember. Events in the Ukraine, and moreso the independent analysis and commentary by blogs such as yours, have been instrumental in rekindling the nation’s patriotic feelings. Further, Putin’s measured response, appearing in stark contrast to western hysteria, has gathered massive support among the population for his foreign policy, for his leadership skills and for him personally as a leader. I would dare say that almost ovenright he has catapulted to a position of almost-reverence, where any charges against him of corruption and whatnot (typically by the so called fifth column) fade into irreverence. They dont matter in the common concience, because the common man suddenly realized he is not alone, that there is a massive, powerful state that will look after him, support him and keep him safe. Younger Russians may be forgiven for not having any recollections of a sense of “belonging” and “being a part of” something great, and of “being proud” of their country – but those of us growing up in the 70s and 80s have sorely missed this feeling. It seems the Russian bear finally smelled spring and has awoken. Indeed, we should be genuinely grateful for everything the US/EU have done in the Ukraine in this respect. It is good to be finaly awake!
Having said that, I would like to advise western readers from harboring any feelings of being threatened by a resurgence of Russian Imperialism, as that is absolutely not the case. While one may infinitely argue about Putin being hellbent on restoring the USSR to its pre 1991 borders, this is simply not the case. We do not want or need to possess or be in control of any other country than our own, be it in Europe or Asia. 1/6 of the world’s landmass is more than enough. All we want is friendship, some understanding of our culture knowing some history helps), and most of all, repsect for who we are.
Sorry for the ramble… patriotism is contagious :)
Peace!
“So the real figure of eligible Russian voters in Crimea is probably well under 50%.”
Sorry, here I have to object. With no additional information, available, the part of the Russians eligible to vote would be the same as the part of the other nations, so there would be no difference.
One additional guess would be higher fertility rates among Crimean tatars (at least a possibility). In this case, there would be a higher percentage of children, thus, non-voters, among the tatars, thus, an even higher percentage of Russians among the voters.
And, in theory, it would be possible that not a single tatar has participated. With all others voting, there would be 100%-12.1%=87.9% participation. Highly improbable, but possible in theory.
Great analysis, but I must question your wild mathematics at the beginning of the article:
When we say that are 58.32% Russians in Crimea that does not mean that all of these are eligible voters as children are not allowed to vote. So the real figure of eligible Russian voters in Crimea is probably well under 50%.
This would be true only if Russians were the only ethnic group with children, but that’s obviously not the case. The ethnic composition of electorate will be close to composition of whole population. If anything, I would expect Tatars as a lower class with higher unemployment to have more children and thus lower number of voters.
And yet the results show that 96.77% of the eligible voters voted to join Russia.
In fact “only” some 80.4% (83.1 x 0.9677) eligible voters voted to
join Russia. Which is still well above percentage of Russians in population.
A well versed, perceptive, and hard-hitting analysis, Saker — thank you.
As regards the video, it shows convincingly that the Ukros are bound to become a huge, powerful army of toilet cleaners for the Greater Good of their much revered European Union. I mean, imbeciles in need of plain toilet training are quite apt for aforesaid profession. Sincerely, I don’t believe our “Ukrainskie Patrioty” would mind doing toilet cleaning for free as long as there is a loudspeaker accompanying their workingday yelling “Holodomor” and suchlike crap (and no Russian colleagues disturbing the peace and harmony, of course).
Humour aside, what really fuels the entire stinking swamp of petty bourgeois brownshirts — Golden Dawners, Banderistas, Tea Partiers and what-have-you — is the demise of Western imperialism. Especially in Western Europe and the US, the whole thing much boils down to a perception of unrequited love / feeling of neglect on the part of the petty bourgeoisie. Indeed, this stratum notes 100% correctly that the big bourgeoisie is deceiving them with ever more boldness, bluntness, and outright contempt. In the heyday of the Welfare State, the spoils of Western imperialist plunder were used to buy social peace, ensuring the system a rock-solid chauvinist mass base in the West. This mass base — pacified, deluded, arrogant, and reactionary — was very happy to take up the masters’ neoliberal platitudes in the 1980ies and become showered in private debt while the productive base of the economy was destroyed. Now, the rot has taken such a toll on the West that, except for the most gullible, nobody believes in “universal Western values” anymore, unless one interprets this concept as meaning “uninterrupted chaos and genocide across the planet”.
To get back to the Ukros again, one could say that the Banderistas still have this die-hard faith in the West. After all, fascist imbeciles usually depend on it for their mere survival.
Saker thanks again for your excellent work describing this situation. Commenting from Australia I can vouch that most people in the antipodes are absolute sheep when it comes to an analysis of this, or any other issue that doesn’t toe the “party line”.
For everyday working class people this is understandable, but when so-called intelligent types spew completely illogical, regurgitated crap – even in the face of the facts, I consider them to be complete intellectual and moral failures. Sadly, almost to a “man”, my university educated friends, family and colleagues fall into this category.
Regards,
John Theodorou
Excellent work.
Basically, Putin is playing by the rules to reinforce the concept of the Rule of Law (a) as a demonstration to his own peoples of the way forward in the 21st century; and (b) as a strategy to undermine the US’s self-ascribed ‘Exceptionalism’ and folly for all the world to see.
He gave them fair warning in his NYT op-ed (Sept 11, 2013) “A Plea for Caution From Russia: What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria” so they cannot grumble.
And that video clip … yes, ‘Tomorrow’? … reminded me of this old gem of whom tomorrow belongs to “… if good men (& women) do nothing” — here we are again: Cabaret!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Mg6Gfh9Co
After an admittedly quick read, I think the main point in the last two paragraphs of Saker’s article is confirmed by the linked article below.
Listening to a debate this morning 18/3 on a leading news radio station in Italy (Sole24ore) hosting calls from listeners, the main sentiments expressed were that if the Crimean referendum results are pro split with Ukraine – so be it. Other listeners noted double standards, comparing this situation to Kosovo. The calls reflected an encouraging disconnect between public opinion and the MSM (eg Sole24ore). Establishment egghead (professor of international relations and op-ed writer) Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, guested by the programme, replied to pro-separatist listeners saying that in Kosovo the Serbs had been actually killing civilians (by the thousand or tens of thousands? – unsurprisingly, he was extremely vague on that) whereas in Crimean nothing of the kind has happened – ergo no comparison can be made between Crimea and Kosovo in this regard, adding that international law therefore can’t accept the results of the Crimea referendum as valid (Parsi also bared his teeth and disparagingly called the Crimean referendum a form of ‘exotic’ democracy, or words to that effect). I was surprised, instead, at the mildness of the comments of a member of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (Pino Arlacchi), also guested by the show. Arlacchi (a fairly out-of-box-thinking MEP) stressed the need for it to be understood that there is no enmity between Russia and the EU, while also expressing a certain preoccupation over the fascist/neofascist/extremist rightwing members of the new gov in Kiev who had reached their posts by taking over a peaceful Maidan Square (Parsi was irritated at these remarks and said, if I heard correctly, that involvement of the fascist element in the Maidan developments has yet to be proven…).
I think Arlacchi’s remarks may reflect a certain amount of EU backtracking – also high up, since the EU risks being left holding rather a large crying baby (btw the German business community has been vocal in its criticism of the way the developments in Kiev have been handled by the West).
Dawn breaking? The news which comes through indicates that Moon of Alabama’s analysis (here relayed by Voltaire.net) has some substance, i.e. the EU/West has to reach or has reached some kind of agreement, the form being a new federal constitution in Ukraine. While the idea was apparently first put out by Putin during a telephone call with Obama, who agreed, the task for the media and the politicos now seems to be to filter this new development high-up through to public opinion GRADUALLY and rebrand the idea as Western. The West will say any delays in its implementation are to be ascribed largely to those nasty Russians, as the reluctant recipient of the proposal from West. Etc. Russia will be happy with that. Fresh from its diplomatic victory over Syria, Russia knows that in diplomacy one must refrain from crowing victory or the like – or, in other words, from rubbing the puppy’s nose in the mess it has made. So if the West say they’re the ones who brokered the deal – that’s fine.
Ukraine: U.S. Pulls Back, Agrees To Russian Demands
http://www.voltairenet.org/article182746.html
(check out the Kerry-Lavrov body language in the photo)
After the three steps forward on the part of both sides it may be time for both sides to take at least two steps back, and count their wins and losses.
A solution on ‘mainland’ Ukraine at least toward avoiding (considerable) bloodshed may have emerged.
If the likes of Parsi’s masters can be held at bay.
After an admittedly quick read, I think the main point in the last two paragraphs of Saker’s article is confirmed by the linked article below.
Listening to a debate this morning 18/3 on a leading news radio station in Italy (Sole24ore) hosting calls from listeners, the main sentiments expressed were that if the Crimean referendum results are pro split with Ukraine – so be it. Other listeners noted double standards, comparing this situation to Kosovo. The calls reflected an encouraging disconnect between public opinion and the MSM (eg Sole24ore). Establishment egghead (professor of international relations and op-ed writer) Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, guested by the programme, replied to pro-separatist listeners saying that in Kosovo the Serbs had been actually killing civilians (by the thousand or tens of thousands? – unsurprisingly, he was extremely vague on that) whereas in Crimean nothing of the kind has happened – ergo no comparison can be made between Crimea and Kosovo in this regard, adding that international law therefore can’t accept the results of the Crimea referendum as valid (Parsi also bared his teeth and disparagingly called the Crimean referendum a form of ‘exotic’ democracy, or words to that effect). I was surprised, instead, at the mildness of the comments of a member of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (Pino Arlacchi), also guested by the show. Arlacchi (a fairly out-of-box-thinking MEP) stressed the need for it to be understood that there is no enmity between Russia and the EU, while also expressing a certain preoccupation over the fascist/neofascist/extremist rightwing members of the new gov in Kiev who had reached their posts by taking over a peaceful Maidan Square (Parsi was irritated at these remarks and said, if I heard correctly, that involvement of the fascist element in the Maidan developments has yet to be proven…).
I think Arlacchi’s remarks may reflect a certain amount of EU backtracking – also high up, since the EU risks being left holding rather a large crying baby (btw the German business community has been vocal in its criticism of the way the developments in Kiev have been handled by the West).
Dawn breaking? The news which comes through indicates that Moon of Alabama’s analysis (here relayed by Voltaire.net) has some substance, i.e. the EU/West has to reach or has reached some kind of agreement, the form being a new federal constitution in Ukraine. While the idea was apparently first put out by Putin during a telephone call with Obama, who agreed, the task for the media and the politicos now seems to be to filter this new development high-up through to public opinion GRADUALLY and rebrand the idea as Western. The West will say any delays in its implementation are to be ascribed largely to those nasty Russians, as the reluctant recipient of the proposal from West. Etc. Russia will be happy with that. Fresh from its diplomatic victory over Syria, Russia knows that in diplomacy one must refrain from crowing victory or the like – or, in other words, from rubbing the puppy’s nose in the mess it has made. So if the West say they’re the ones who brokered the deal – that’s fine.
Ukraine: U.S. Pulls Back, Agrees To Russian Demands
http://www.voltairenet.org/article182746.html
(check out the Kerry-Lavrov body language in the photo)
After the three steps forward on the part of both sides it may be time for both sides to take at least two steps back, and count their wins and losses.
A solution on ‘mainland’ Ukraine at least toward avoiding (considerable) bloodshed may have emerged.
If the likes of Parsi’s masters can be held at bay.
Thank you, Saker for all the valuable info about the Ukrainian conflict, and congratulations to the people of the Krim!
It seems that president Maduro followed your advice about CIA sponsored riots:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-26608432
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.nl/2014/02/dealing-with-urban-armed-insurrection.html
He should throw all NGOs out and put up a checkpoint around the US embassy, to check if money or other contraband is being smuggled out by agents of the white fascists.
And he could offer Russia a fleet base!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>For this to be mathematically possible, approximately every single Catholic and absolutely no one else would have had to stay home on referendum day.
“Catholics” (so-called) have nothing to do with Crimea. They’re an extreme minority. The followers of the pope in the entire Ukraine are but 6% of the country, mostly in the far West (esp. Lviv, though even Lviv is still 32% Orthodox).
In Crimea, “Catholics” are very few–lucky if 1%–because Crimea is Orthodox heartland. That FoxNews article also appeared in NCOnline, and is completely false.
One piece of the puzzle I missed: where was Killary Clinton?
Is she getting old or is she hiding?
Unfortunately, it is not only about Banderistan lunacy and the dumbness of US policy. It is much more sinister.
The core is a furious attack on an emerging multipolar world order with an independent and constructive Europe. Ukraine is abused for intentionally starting a new Cold War, a new Iron Curtain, and a catastrophy which should drive Europe into US and English dependency.
http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-83-is-available-Global-systemic-crisis-escalation-in-the-US-reaction-for-survival-trigger-a-cold-war-to-make-it_a15801.html
All Russian MPs volunteer to be subject to US, EU sanctions
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_18/All-Russian-MPs-volunteer-to-be-subject-to-US-EU-sanctions-7889/
“The Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, has unanimously passed a statement in which they volunteered to be subject to the US and EU sanctions imposed on individual Russian officials and lawmakers due to the referendum in Crimea. “We suggest that Mr. Obama [US President Barack Obama] and EU bureaucrats put all of the Duma deputies who voted for Crimea’s accession to Russia and for this resolution on the ‘black list’ of persons subject to the US and EU sanctions,” the statement says.”
Meanwhile Fabius the Fairy is threatening to suspend the Mistral contract (oh no! ;) ) and Russia has been booted from the G8 Israeli-American colonial country club. Also, NATO is saying Russia will be prevented from participation in the destruction of Syrian CW. That latter is potentially omninous, and should be kept under watch as it implies that zionazi-nazistan is planning more dirty tricks against Syria, centred around another false CW pretext.
вот так
Saker, I remember that time ago I read some posts of yours on ATO, and want to tell you, that, the concise and excellent analyses apart, that, overall, your English and writing skills improved a lot.
v. yugo
So, Saker, you think the Great Game between the US and Russia on the Ukrainian chessboard is over, and that the absence of US full spectrum dominance/nuclear primacy is now clear for all to see. And you think that the US has been decisively check-mated in its global hegemonist designs.
We shall see. In my view, the biggest obstacle facing the US global hegemonists is not any foreign nation – not Russia, not China, not Iran – but public opinion in the US as well as Europe. It was the overwhelming force of public opinion that led Obama to stand down in the Syrian crisis, not Russia. Russia merely offered Obama a convenient means of appeasing the unexpectedly powerful groundswell of public opinion against the Syrian invasion – a groundswell so powerful that it even infected factions of the US press, who are normally slavish presstitutes to whatever the official US line is.
But the US global hegemonists care less and less about public opinion as time goes on. Accordingly, they are becoming more and more ruthless in pressing forward their globalist designs.
As such, I think you are wrong: Phase 1 of the Ukrainian situation has now ended with the chessboard more or less as you describe it. However, the US hegemonists are not done with Ukraine, not by a long shot. They grow more desperate, more determined, and more unified in the face of both the world at large and their own publics by the day. Under Obama, the Rockefeller faction (represented by Zbig, Kiss-my-Assinger, CFR, Trilateralists, etc.) has overcome its long-standing feuding with the Neocons.
Thus united, the US global hegemonists will continue to provoke Russia in coming months, to the point of either initiating all-out US-Russian war, or getting Putin to capitulate and cease being an independent player on the world stage.
You may think I am a fool, but mark my words this day anyhow.
[Don’t know if this went through first time; please delete if duplicate:]
So, Saker, you think the Great Game between the US and Russia on the Ukrainian chessboard is over, and that the absence of US full spectrum dominance/nuclear primacy is now clear for all to see. And you think that the US has been decisively check-mated in its global hegemonist designs.
We shall see. In my view, the biggest obstacle facing the US global hegemonists is not any foreign nation – not Russia, not China, not Iran – but public opinion in the US as well as Europe. It was the overwhelming force of public opinion that led Obama to stand down in the Syrian crisis, not Russia. Russia merely offered Obama a convenient means of appeasing the unexpectedly powerful groundswell of public opinion against the Syrian invasion – a groundswell so powerful that it even infected factions of the US press, who are normally slavish presstitutes to whatever the official US line is.
But the US global hegemonists care less and less about public opinion as time goes on. Accordingly, they are becoming more and more ruthless in pressing forward their globalist designs.
As such, I think you are wrong: Phase 1 of the Ukrainian situation has now ended with the chessboard more or less as you describe it. However, the US hegemonists are not done with Ukraine, not by a long shot. They grow more desperate, more determined, and more unified in the face of both the world at large and their own publics by the day.
Under Obama, the Rockefeller faction (represented by Zbig, Kiss-my-Assinger, CFR, Trilateralists, etc.) has overcome its long-standing feuding with the Neocons. Thus united, the US global hegemonists will continue to provoke Russia in coming months, to the point of either initiating all-out US-Russian war, or getting Putin to capitulate and cease being an independent player on the world stage.
You may think I am a fool, but mark my words this day anyhow.
A general philosophical/political question is raised by the Ukrainian situation. Is it possible to have a healthy, sane nationalism or not? On the one hand we have the forces of internationalism and globalization pushing an homogenized, commercialized and quite vulgar “culture” (if you can call it that.)
On the other hand, whenever indigenous culture resists this force it seems to easily drift into the kind of thuggish jackbooted intolerance we see in the Ukrainsky Patriot video. This is a world-wide phenomenon. Check out Hindu nationalism, for instance.
I really don’t have an answer to this dilemma. Both options are completely distasteful to me.
Anybody got any ideas?
I think that the so-called “Ukrainian Crisis” began on March 2, 1918 when the Kaiser’s army marched into Kyiv.
Argentine president condemns Western policy on situation in Crimea
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_18/Argentine-president-condemns-Western-policy-on-situation-in-Crimea-7680/
“Argentine leader Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner recalled that the UN Charter stipulates the right of people to self-determination, which means that this rule should be applied to all countries without any exception.
“Many of the major powers, which have secured the Falklands’ people right to self-determination, do not want to do the same in relation to the Crimea now. How can you call yourselves guarantors of world stability, if you do not apply the same standards for everyone? It looks like the Crimeans cannot express their will, but the residents of the Falklands can. There is zero logic in that,” she said.”
вот так
Google apologizes for RT’s YouTube channel ‘suspension’ due to tech bug
http://rt.com/news/rt-youtube-suspended-glitch-534/
Sure, just another one of those convenient coincidental accidents zionazis are continually (by innocent coincidence, of course) responsible for.
вот так
@EVERYBODY:
I am following the amazing events in Moscow and I cannot answer post by post. I will say this:
The math at the top of my article was botched and those who noticed that are 100% correct (That’s what happens when I am too exhausted to even-reread myself to make things worse, blogger had a crash yesterday which lost several hours of my work). Thanks to them for pointing this out, and sorry to the rest of you.
The point I was trying to make is, however, confirmed by exit polls: many (most?) Tatars did vote. Either way – it was a landslide.
I will be back with lots of news about the current situation.
Cheers,
The Saker
These are the 2 options I see for the rest-Ukraine government
* Yats will turn more right OR
* the right will get rid of the likes of Yats in a second coup, and turn even more right
Why? The right is in a minority alright, but in addition to their concrete racist vision – i.e. get rid of non-Ukrainians, they have arms, after looting that seems to include even such weapons as MANPADs, they get to form the new national guards, and they are furious, see evil Russia eating chopping off “their” Crimea.
And the new government is putting the little money they have into building up the military! That doesn’t sound like a productive thing to do that you can eat, or export and get something in exchange.
After Putin’s acknowledging the referendum, before annexing Crimea, Yats made very un-statesmenlike threats like “no place is safe for secessionist, not even in Crimea – the earth will burn, …”
The government is in a totally irrational one-way road to hell mode and beyond hope – unless they get more radical and dictatorial and turn Ukraine into a fratricidal mess. It remains to be seen if Russia can stabilize it.
N.B. the anti-Syrians get money from the West, but no MANPADs yet; the Ukrainian right has MANPADs, but desperately needs money – is this a win-win?
Honk
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around a 96 percent vote on anything…Can people ever agree to such an extent?