Igor Zaytsev's blog

The situation on the Russo-Ukrainian War front went from stable to stagnant. The death and sufferings of Eastern Slaves continues in service of the Russian and Western elites. Yet, the self-inflicted damage the West has done by pursuing a goal of a military and economic destruction of the main opponents to the unipolar world, is starting to show up.

Identifying the main players

On the US side we have two large groups: the wealth holders and the ideologists. Wealth holders are represented by large private banks, while the ideologists (neocons, neoliberals) are represented by the media, current occupants of the White House, large portion of US Congress, Academia, etc.

Both groups seemed to be aligned on issues like the pandemic, promotion of the unipolar world, expansion of NATO and detachment of Europe from cheap Russian fossil fuel. Yet while the wealth holders are the “new money”, which is competing with the “old money” based or connected to Europe. The ideologist group which can be described as a neocon-neoliberal amalgamation, are aligned with European globalists.

On the European side there are the “old money” people, whose core apparently consists of old banking families. They nurtured, or at least supported the globalism ideology which resulted in a social-political club that took control of European political landscape. The globalists are elitists, influencing the European culture, academy and media. They prepare to degrade their own economies and destroy their own industrial capabilities in order to promote their destructional “post-traditional” values to the world.’

The “old money” people don’t care for their domestic economies and industry as long as they can continue to make profits on the global scale. The European domestic business and industries where overwhelmed by the globalists in European governments and ignored, it seems, by the bankers.

Another group is a purely ideological one, united under the Russophobic agenda. It serves the current US neocons-neoliberals, it was the reason for creation of the Anti-Russian axis of UK, Poland and Ukraine, and it has its support in Baltic states. While not directly representing the globalists or neocons-neoliberals, they influenced the paradigm and spearheaded the Western anti-Russian agenda.

The goals

The US regime’s goal, in addition to the global military-based dominance, was to cut Europe from cheap Russian natural resources and damage its industry. This, in order to make it reliable on much more expensive US energy and to subjugate the European military-industrial complex, creating US MIC monopoly in the “Western Democraties”.

European goal in joining the US-led fight against Russia was just an ideological reflex against a country which stopped at its borders the new, “post-traditional” values, supplemented by the need to demonstrate “unity” among the “Free World” nations. The industrial and banking sectors were probably placated by promises of quick Russian capitulation due to economic collapse and maybe more profitable deals with Kremlin in the future.

Some other minor players, like Turkey, Romania or Hungary have their own agendas, which sometimes align and sometimes are in conflict with those of the main Western powers. But non of them are pro-Russian.

A summary of events

As it was obvious from the start, the so-much talked-about “unity” is a fiction. EU core nations (mainly Germany and France) accepted anti-Russian military and economic measures with some reluctance, realizing the potential risks to some extent. They also must still remember the outcome of their wars against Russia in the past (though a great effort went into rewriting the European history while zombifying and dumbifying the new generations of its citizens — some memory must still remain). Simply put, they were forced to adopt the US-UK approach of a shooting proxy-war and all-out sanctions.

This is largely because they were made to believe NATO held an overwhelming military superiority over Russian military, so Russia will have to swallow the NATO expansion, creation of the US “anti-ballistic-missiles” bases and unfolding of additional US units in Eastern Europe, and, most importantly, the preparation of the strike force in Ukraine, tasked with direct military conflict against Crimea and Donbass. This is why none believed the US-promoted narrative of the Russian invasion into Ukraine — the Russia was expected to swallow it like it used to do.

And Russia, under its current eternal leader, only acted to cultivate this paradigm. Since 2014, Russia allowed itself to be humiliated and deceived time after time. Moreover, Russian MoD was allowed to castrate the military-industrial complex and the Army for more than a decade. The Russian diplomacy lacked any teeth and allowed Russia to remain alone in this fight, only supported by the “rogue states” like Iran and Syria. Its head of state himself is a notorious long-time Europhile, and Russian political, intellectual and business elites were worshiping the West.

The Russian friendly reminders to its “Western partners” time and time again to refrain from attacking territories (or actively and demonstratively preparing such attacks) Russia recognized as its own, as well as oppressing or even cleansing Ethnical Russians, is unacceptable. It was mostly unacceptable because it would destroy the public image of the Russian leadership, thus practically bringing a regime change in Russia, with its current leadership dethroned.

Unlike the West, Russia still lacks the “deep state”, which can change its public figures while continuing to hold the actual power. Russian “deep state” is its government. In a sense, Russia is a more democratic country, on account of its actual decision makers having to be periodically re-elected in presidential vote. Eliminating (systematically, not physically) any viable opposition can only take you so far. Eventually, people could start voting “against”, i.e. for anyone except for the current eternal leader. And if left without such options, the voting percentage would plummet, thus destroying the apparent legitimacy of elections entirely.

So, the Kremlin in fact had no choice but to respond with force. They could have done it latter, after the Ukrainian offensive had started on Donbass. But, for some reason, the eternal leader acted unexpectedly. On the fateful Russian security council meeting the diplomates were taken aback by the leader’s patriotic rage. Maybe it was a rear moment of old man’s clear-mindness, or it was intended to prepare ground for the current Minister of Defence to take the reigns of power from the eternal leader. A repeat of the Russ-Georgian War (also known as the “888” or “Five day” war) against Georgia, then the Russian 58-th combined arms army, fresh from the annual exercises, entered the fight and defeated the Western-trained and equipped enemy in only five days.

In any case, the Russian plan of quickly forcing the Ukraine to surrender of overthrow the current regime has failed spectacularly. Instead, the Russian Army imploded. While some of the units, like the paratroopers corps, performed their duties admirably, others, like the 1-st Guards Tank Army or the Black Sea Fleet turned out to be hollow structures, rotted out inside by the policies of the Minister of Defence, leaving only shiny exterior.

While initial shock of large scale Russian invasion terrified the Ukrainian leadership, the US-UK acted to harden their hearts and prevent any ceasefire agreements. The plan was to hold to the Western Ukraine, while bleeding out Russia in a massive hybrid (proxy) war. In their mind, Ukraine was already written off as a collateral that served its purpose (I hope I’m not confusing financial terms here, since it’s not my area). I believe that was intended to remind the EU that their peace and security depends entirely on the US, so any economic concessions and sacrifices they make to US are worth it, and allow the US to farther expand its military presence there.

Current state of affairs

But the war stagnated to a standstill. Now the West has to constantly infuse Ukraine with money and weapons. The shocks of the unproportional, all-out sanctions war against Russia and demonization of Russians have caused third countries, governments and private capital to reconsider their trust in the West. Additionally, Russia is the largest country in the world, meaning it is the top exporter of raw natural resources which include fossils. It also affects the logistics between Europe and Asia. And the so-called Russian “oligarchs” are notorious for extracting money from Russia and investing or storing it in the Western countries. Thus, the West has inflicted a number of injuries on itself. Those wounds are still bleeding, weakening the bubble of Western economy.

The war against Russia, trade war against China, Western initiated civil unrests and regime changes in many other countries — all this makes the available financial gains from the “Global South” became scarcer. The sharks from the Old Europe and the New World are now forced to compete against themselves for the profits, or at least to maintain their wealth and the influence they already have. The competition which previously was in the form of the “Global North” against “Global South” now becomes internal to the “Global North”, after the “Global South” is being continuously cut-off from the West. The Western “Zero Game” paradigm leaves it without alternatives.

According to Economics analyst Tom Luongo, the US FED which represents the “New money” in US is waging a quiet war against the “Old money” in Europe. As far as I can see, for now European bankers are mostly defending, trying to keep their heads above the surface. After all, they followed the US into this debacle in order to prove their loyalty. But sooner or later they will have to take more forceful measures in order to survive. As the financial war in the shadows intensifies, it would spill out into policies of their respective governments, eventually breaking the US-EU alliance.