Russia – Page 10 – Oscar Valdes

Fix or Replace the U.N.

Something is wrong with an organization that allows Russia and China to hold veto power in the Security Council, even as they are clearly the offending nations.
Russia, as it carries on with its cruelty in Ukraine, China, as it proceeds with its effort to suppress the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang province.
The two nations work together to render that prestigious organization useless.
While the plight of refugees, the mass killing of people and the destruction of property, clearly establish Russia’s inhumanity, their envoy to the United Nations goes on and on justifying Putin’s invasion, calling it necessary to rid Ukraine of Nazis sponsored by America and intent on destroying Russia.
He goes on and on, in a calm demeanor, unaffected by the widespread evidence of his country’s behavior.
And if any motion is put forward by any dissenting member nation of that council, the Russian envoy can simply use his veto power.
Something is deeply wrong with the design of such organization for it is not doing what it’s supposed to do.
It should be fixed or cease to exist.

The UN has yet to summon the clout to bring the warring parties to the table. The likelihood is that it will not.
So Russia and China’s having veto power over any resolution proposed, renders it irrelevant.
I have no doubt that the United Nations’ many efforts over the years have had considerable impact in many areas, but the plight of Ukraine tells us that it is time to redesign how power is wielded in that body or it must be replaced with a better designed entity.
Is this the time for the nations of the West to initiate a boycott against it? To simply walk out and leave the representatives of Russia and China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and Myanmar, keep blabbering on until the lights are turned off?
I think so.
As we speak, the world is being divided into two opposing camps. One led by the free nations of this earth, the other led by Russia and China.
So, in the face of the impotence of the present United Nations, this is the time to form a different organization, to include all those nations who wish to share in the ideals of democracy and free trade.
Why should we tarry with the pretense that dialogue with the leadership of Russia and China is possible?
There is no indication any attempt to do so makes any difference, so why waste our time?

Let us instead form a United Nations West so we can nurture and cooperate with each other.
I have no doubt who will win in the end.
The story of a divided Germany gives us the answer. Too bad the rest of the world has forgotten that lesson.
Men and women are born to be free.
The task of every government is to facilitate that all of us develop our potential as human beings.
In the West we keep working at it, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, but we keep trying.
In Russia and China, reigning autocracies are the preferred arrangement.
Until one day their subjugated populations rise and demand their freedom. Like we are seeing in Ukraine.
A United Nations West is a necessity.
The spirit of Ukraine lives in all of us.

Oscar Valdes oscarvaldes.net, medium.com, anchor.fm, buzzsprout, apple and google podcasts.

Oh Hungary!

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Oh Hungary!
You disappoint.
You’ve reelected Viktor Orban as your leader for a 5th term as prime minister.
Putin sent a congratulatory message.
He needs friends these days and you obliged.
Of course, the oil and gas he sells you is also helpful.
We understand how difficult it is to deal with Putin,
a small minded man with big weapons,
but for you to be so quiet about his murdering Ukrainians,
your neighbors, is difficult to understand.
It wasn’t that long ago, in 1956,
that the same Russians crushed your revolution, your call for freedom.
But you’ve forgotten.
I know you’ve fought many wars with the Russians and not won any,
but isn’t Ukraine’s fight an inspiration?
Something is happening there that is different.
A new nation is being born.
Ukrainians are tearing themselves apart from an oppressor
that has chosen not to allow them the right to be who they wish.
Oh Hungary,
You’re entitled to your fears,
But face them you must or you’ll forget what matters
and leave it to others to decide for you.
Helping Ukraine arm itself now is critical.
They are not asking you to shed a drop of blood for them.
They will do that.
All they’re asking is for you not to let the fear of Putin
silence your hearts.
There is still time.
Russia will never be the same again.
The dead in Ukraine will never go away, their cities turned to rubble,
the children without parents, the brave combatants offering their lives.
Oh Hungary,
look at the pictures, listen to their cries, it is the sight of a nation being born as it is being crushed.
It is the sight of a nation’s courage changing our world.
Oh Hungary,
Speak out!

To the memory of Mike Kannas

Oscar Valdes oscarvaldes.net, medium.com, anchor.fm, buzzsprout, apple and google podcasts

Putin:’God is with Me!’

He is in his bunker somewhere near Moscow. Various video monitors mounted on the wall are showing footage of the damage done by the attack of two Ukrainian helicopters on Belgorod, Russian territory located just north of Kharkiv.
‘They attacked Russian soil! How dare they!’
The video shows several oil tanks in flames.
‘Attacking my land, my sacred grounds!’
Putin trembles in his rage.
‘What happened to our air defenses? How was this possible? If they did it once, they will do it again!’
He is standing in front of his desk, looking in disbelief at the video of the attack being replayed.
‘Zelensky will pay for this. Once I capture him, because I will do that, I will put him on trial. And he will pay. The world will be clamoring for me to be merciful but I will not.’
Putin slams his fist on the table.
‘What the hell happened to my army? I’ve spent years and years building it up and now they don’t deliver. Who is responsible? I’m having to call up more and more men for military service. I’m having to ask Syrian fighters to join in to kill Ukrainians. I’m having to call up the Wagner group too.’
He shakes his head slowly as he looks down at the table.
‘It doesn’t look good… me… Vladimir Putin… asking Assad for help.’
He rubs his face.

‘Will I even conquer all of Ukraine? How can I live with myself with less than total control over it?’
He sits down, the mood despondent.
‘I was wrong… instead of riding victorious into Kyiv… instead of people calling my name in adoration… throwing flowers at my armored limousine, I’m now looking at the possibility of having to negotiate a peace treaty. With a comedian! Me, a great political leader! Oh, the irony of it all. What a twist of fate!’
He leans forward in his chair, clasping his hands, the anger palpable and a growing sense of self reproach.
‘It’s the fault of the Americans. Yes… Biden. Him. And I made too much of Trump… thinking that he represented America… thinking that he was the epitome of their decline… that the January 6th assault on the capitol was a clear sign they were rotten to the core… weak… morally dissolute… reveling in vice.’

He stands abruptly and walks a few paces then stops for a moment. Something is deeply wrong. He returns to his desk, presses a button on a console and images of him addressing a crowd of adoring fans at a stadium in Moscow appear on the screens.
The sight eases his tension as if hope had returned.
‘No. I’m okay. I’m all right. They still love me. God has not abandoned me. God is with me. And I will redouble my efforts. I will conquer all of Ukraine. And I will force the West to take my rubles for our oil.’
He laughs loudly, feeling victorious.
‘That was a great strategy of mine. How I made Europe dependent on our oil and gas. How I made them kneel for it. Brilliant.’

But his expression now turns somber.
‘Can I recover…? In the eyes of the world… can I redeem myself? In the eyes of China, can I, once again, look strong?’
He shakes his head slowly… in disbelief… as if acknowledging the loss.
‘Is this the beginning of my end… with the whole world watching? No… it can’t be.’
He reaches for the console and switches back on images of his troops and tanks riding into Ukraine on February 24th, the first day of the invasion.
He smiles with relief.
‘There it is… my power… Russia’s power… it’s not gone… I see it… the fullness of my power… everybody sees it… I know it’s still there… it’s not gone away… it’s there… yes… it’s not over… it can’t be… I still have a hand to play… Putin is not gone…’
But he hesitates. Doubtful.
‘If it’s gone… really gone… then… I can still… yes…’
He turns around, away from the cameras, hands clenched into fists.
‘America will not defeat me. They will not. We will both go down in flames… and just who will stop me?’

Oscar Valdes Oscarvaldes.net, medium.com, anchor.fm, buzzsprout, apple and google podcasts.

Straight Talk: Biden and Putin

A few days ago Mr Biden stated, at the end of a speech in Warsaw, that Putin ‘cannot remain in power.’ The statement set off a flurry of commentary, some of which held that he was calling for regime change in Russia. The White House promptly clarified that was not the case.
The Kremlin dismissed the statement.
Mr Biden has called Putin a war criminal. I believe he may have said, also, that the man was a murderer.
Mr Macron, France’s president, quickly put in that saying those things interfered with diplomacy.
Maybe.
But I don’t think so.

All those things Mr Biden has said are true. Putin has targeted residential buildings, schools, theaters, hospitals, people in the streets, women, children. If that doesn’t make him a war criminal, then what does?
He has unleashed his cruelty without provocation. In his defense, he’s told us that he and his beloved Russia are being threatened by Ukraine. Not threatened with weapons but by their desire to emancipate.
It doesn’t take much to threaten Putin. A country next door willing to exercise its right to sovereignty and lean to the West was too much of a provocation. For Putin to sleep well at night, Ukraine needed to continue to live under the shadow of Russia. Under his boot.
But Ukrainians had enough of it and they mounted a fierce resistance that has unified the West. From now on, in our hearts and minds, Ukraine is part of the West.

What troubles Putin is that the rebellious nation is so close to Moscow. And their show of defiance is likely contagious. Other territories under his boot, may want to go their own way.
And so he felt a need to be cruel. To set an example. To oppress. To squash other human beings into submission. The more blood the better.
Mr Biden had finished speaking with refugees from Ukraine when he made his speech in Warsaw. He was obviously moved by their pain, he told us himself. And so he responded, acknowledging their suffering.
Putin, on the other hand, carries on as if it was just another day.
But something is brewing under the surface. He knows his status in the world has been seriously diminished. Young Russians are leaving their land. Slowly, his authority is eroding, and it is doing so because of his inhumanity.

We’re all vulnerable to slide into acts of cruelty. More so if we choose to isolate ourselves. Which is what Putin has done. He’s a one man show in Russia. Everybody else must dance to his tune. Alexei Navalny, a prominent dissenter is now in jail for pointing out Putin’s flaws and just got his sentence extended. Opposition organizations are labelled terrorists and barred from civil discourse.
By contrast, Mr Biden is open to criticism. He may sometimes not like the criticism he gets but he knows he has to work with it. The laws of this country require that he do so. I believe he is open to feedback from his team, a team which quickly came to his aid when he said Putin ‘cannot remain in power.’ No, his team added, the President was not calling for regime change in Russia. And yet, we all knew, that in his heart, that’s exactly what he was doing.

We all understand that it is up to the Russians to depose Putin. But the rest of us, every single one of us, also have a right to join in with Mr Biden and say that he ‘cannot remain in power.’ We have such right because the images of the pain and suffering inflicted by Putin are clear to all of us.
And there may be more to come. In his desperation to push his boot onto the throats of Ukrainians, Putin may wish to use chemical or tactical nuclear weapons so he can finally overcome the courageous people fighting for their right to choose their own destiny.
Perhaps Mr Biden’s views of Putin will damage negotiations for an end to the war.
I don’t think so.
And if the two men were ever to meet again, I believe Mr Biden would sit across him and discuss whatever needed to be discussed. And if Putin were to ask, ‘do you think I’m a war criminal?’, Mr Biden would answer, ‘Yes, I do. You are a war criminal. A murderer. It is a matter of record. The whole world knows it. Now, let’s talk about what we have to talk.’

Oscar Valdes. Oscarvaldes.net, medium.com, anchor.fm, buzzsprout, apple and google podcasts

The New Confidence of The West and The Need for Caution

It took the Ukrainian invasion and the fierce resistance it has prompted, for the nations of Europe to stand firm with America against the barbarism of Putin. The Ukrainian people, long in the shadow of Russia, decided it had seen enough. It would not applaud the invading Russians but fight them. And fight them to the end.
That heroism has elicited a new vigor in the West.

The cruelty Putin has unleashed on the Ukrainian people will not go unpunished. It will not be forgotten.
The lies Putin has used to justify his actions will forever remind us of the lies all autocracies or dictatorships use to justify their oppression.
By virtue of the ubiquity of cameras the invasion and its consequences have been thoroughly documented, making it one of the most public wars. And that evidence will not be buried with the dead but forever stand to remind us of the price of freedom.
Putin, of course, has tried to hide all of it from his people. But his days are numbered.
The Russian people are now asking themselves, ‘is this violence not being inflicted on us too? By denying us freedom of speech and thought?’
And that stark reality will bring unease to their consciences and so move them to assert the fullness of their existences.

Sooner or later, Putin will fall. And it will be the Russian people who will bring him down.
He knows he is losing the war. He knows he has nowhere to go and hide. It is a matter of time before he is set aside by his own people.
China, meanwhile, has refused to condemn the invasion. But their leadership is accustomed to denying their own people their voice. What else could we expect from their autocrats?
The influx of weapons from the West has made a huge difference in the fierce Ukrainian resistance and so, too, the fact that the mighty Russian army has not been all that mighty.
Their advance has proven difficult and the likelihood is that it will need more and more resources to complete the conquest of Ukraine, raising the possibility that Russia will not have the capability of doing so.
A diminished Putin will be tempted to resort to chemical weapons and even nuclear ones.
This would escalate the war with uncertain consequences.

Earlier today, in Brussels for a meeting with NATO partners, a confident president Biden said that if Putin used chemical weapons against the Ukrainian people, NATO would respond.
Putin will likely challenge that position and use such weapons. The same way that Assad in Syria challenged president Obama’s drawing a red line intended to bar the weapons.
In our confidence, we must not forget caution.
Putin is a failed man but as long as his people don’t rebel against him, he can unleash horrible weapons.
So we must watch our language.
Putin has little to lose at this stage. But we do.
With this catastrophic performance, not only Ukraine but other nations now under his influence will turn toward the West. That, we can be confident about.
I say that Belarus is next.

Oscar Valdes, oscarvaldes.net, medium.com, anchor.fm, buzzsprout, apple and google podcasts

Mr Putin’s Fall Has Begun

Photo by Mathias P.R. Reding on Pexels.com

He thought it would be easy. Surround Ukraine with 200,000 soldiers, war planes, tanks and missiles, make threatening noises and gestures, and Ukrainians would look at each other and realize they had no chance. A nuclear superpower was demanding their surrender: give up their government and demilitarize. If not, they would be run over.

Accustomed to most Russians – not all – bowing to him and not protesting, Putin thought Ukrainians would respond the same way. After all, he had already taken Crimea from them in 2014, and they had been pushed back in the Donbas area.
Putin reasoned Ukrainians would be tired of war and would just stand by, perhaps even applaud as his troops rolled into Kyiv, unopposed.
He would then meet with their president, a former comedian, pat him on the back and put him on a bus to Poland.
There would be protests in the West but they would all calm down once they realized he could cut off their oil and gas supplies and hurt their pocketbooks.

But something different happened.
Ukrainians said, hell no! This is our land and we’ll defend it.
So Putin ordered the troops to move in, still hoping the sounds of the tanks and the roar of the jets would bring Ukrainians to their senses.
They did not.
What has followed has been an unbelievable story of courage and determination, with their president, Volodymyr Zelensky, committing to the task of leadership with great valor.
That amazing story has shaken the West out of their complacency and united them in support of Ukraine.

A divided EU-US alliance has found new vigor and a willingness to stand firm against the aggressor. Sanctions that were not enforced when Putin invaded Crimea, now had a devastating effect.
Just yesterday, Putin went on TV to tell Russians who still believe the story that Ukraine is a Nazi threat, to prepare for yet more hardships, as they contend with job losses, inflation and growing scarcities as a result of the sanctions.
Russia is now on the verge of defaulting on their debt.
The assets it holds in foreign banks, American and European, are frozen. They cannot be used to pay down Russia’s debt.

Putin spoke calmly, promising relief to his fellow Russians who believe they are on the right side of history.
But what I didn’t see in his expression was a trace of remorse.
The thousands of casualties, both Ukrainian and Russian, meant nothing to him.
The horror of the carnage doesn’t touch him.
He is, somehow, insulated from it.
Over 3 million Ukrainian refugees have fled to the West in search of safety – mothers with their children – while the men of fighting age stay behind to resist the barbaric Russian onslaught.
The thousands of dead and maimed don’t seem to weigh on Putin’s conscience.
How did that happen?

He first became prime minister in 1999 and has been in power ever since.
How is it possible that all the leaders he’s come in contact with over the years, didn’t get the essence of the man?
The ascent of Putin has been the failure of leadership in the West.
And the failure of the Russian people – not all – to not stand up against him.
But now the end is near.
The unceasing brutality he’s unleashed on Ukrainians has been seen by everybody, except Russians themselves, for they live in a censored bubble.
Where can he go hide?

China, in its remarkable denial of the extent of the savagery, has become his accomplice.
And Putin is counting on them to circumvent the sanctions.
But the West won’t be easily side stepped.
Putin has begun his fall but he remains a dangerous adversary.
Knowing that his end is near, he will not tolerate the defeat of his army and will resort to nuclear weapons if he thought it would spare him the embarrassment.
Will he fire a nuclear weapon on Kyiv? It is possible.
Will he fire several? He may.
Putin will not survive the scorn he has earned from the rest of humanity, but he may yet stay in power a while longer, until Russians choose to retire him.
The world is waiting.

Oscar Valdes oscarvaldes.net, medium.com, anchor.fm, buzzsprout, apple and google podcasts.

How Does This War End?

Putin is holding the threat of nuclear confrontation as his answer to the West’s rallying behind brave Ukraine.
He desperately wants Ukraine and is willing to do anything.
Because he has such control over the Russian people, he believes they will tolerate the effects of the sanctions against him for starting the war.
But the pain he’s inflicting on Ukraine seems unreal.

We have heard of people in pain. In Myanmar, in Xinjiang province in China, in Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen, Venezuela.
But who had thought it would happen right next to Poland and Slovakia, Hungary and Romania?
Who had thought that one man would disrupt or end the lives of so many?
And that not a single shot triggered Putin’s wrath.
He is angry, he says, because the West is getting too close to him.
He is angry, we can discern, because he has been incapable of moving Russia to the top of the nations of this earth. So he falsely concludes that he is not getting his respect.
But what is there to respect?
That he has nuclear weapons capable of destroying millions of lives? Granted.
But what else?
He has a narrow mind and a lust for destruction.

It seems unreal, to see presidents and chancellors, foreign ministers and diplomats, all going to see narrow minded Putin to ask that he engage in substantial negotiations.
But the man does not budge. He wants Ukrainians to bow to him.
This morning he bombed a military installation near the border with Poland, killing 35, prompting the West to say that any hit to Poland or any NATO nation, even if not intentional, will trigger a full response.
Sadly, it could happen.
Meanwhile, the wave of Ukrainian refugees rushing to the West is now greater than 2.5 million and growing.
The number of casualties is probably in the thousands. The destruction of property rampant.

Ukraine is a big country, home to 44 million people. And it is being destroyed by the actions of one man, who makes decisions by himself. One man, who doesn’t have to answer to anyone.
And what use is the United Nations, when Russia’s or China’s vote in the Security council can block any action by it?
What is the point of that body? A pretense of dialogue?
No one seems to listen. Countries go there to parade their viewpoints but not to hear each other.

The sanctions the West is implementing will hurt Putin. Will hurt the Russian people most of all.
But will the Russian people rise against Putin?
Will they see him for who he is?
Putin is not afraid of a nuclear confrontation and that is his advantage.
We in the West, are afraid of a nuclear confrontation, and that is our advantage.
Preserving the collective work of humanity is important to us and not to Putin.

The question we must be asking ourselves is, why does humanity tolerate the rise of tyrants?
Why do we allow it?
Why does the rest of the world permit any tyrant, anywhere, to rule without the consent of the people?
Why can’t the rest of the enlightened nations of this earth act on behalf of humanity and join to depose those who rule through brutality?
What is the point of sovereignty in today’s world, if we must tolerate dictators who force their people into submission, and then use them to attempt to submit another nation?
What is the point of the United Nations today?
What is the point of someone like Assad in Syria, remaining in power (with Russia’s aid), or the generals in Myanmar (with Russia’s and China’s aid), or in any other dictatorship?
Why can’t there be more external pressures from the rest of the world to unseat these people?
Ukraine story is telling us that it must be so.

But how does this war end?
This war ends with Putin conquering all of Ukraine after a campaign that will leave hundreds of thousands dead and maimed. A nation scorched.
It ends with Europe being flooded with refugees but becoming stronger because of it.
This war ends with Russia becoming weaker and forcing their citizens to look at themselves and choose between remaining servile to Putin or daring to join with other nations in the march to freedom.
It ends with the world economy going into recession and Russia’s loss being the greater.
A stronger West would then have to look ahead and continue preparing for the inevitable confrontation with China, both economic and military.
Russia’s stated aims at the start of the invasion were two: regime change in Ukraine and the country’s demilitarization. They have not changed.
Given Putin’s behavior, I don’t see any point in the West’s continuing to reach out to him for a diplomatic solution. But it is up to the Ukrainian people, whose lives are being lost, to make that choice.
Meanwhile, we will continue to assist.
Is there a risk of a nuclear confrontation? Yes. For Putin is growing desperate.
But the West is ready.
So let us stick with the sanctions, and Ukraine’s heroic resistance will have marked a new beginning for the free world.

Oscar Valdes Oscarvaldes.net, medium.com, anchor.fm, buzzsprout, apple and google podcasts.

The War and Increasing Venezuela’s Oil Production

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has significantly altered the politics of oil worldwide.
With western sanctions being set to squeeze Russia, its price has jumped.
Now there’s an American willingness to lift sanctions on Venezuela’s main export product.
Mr Maduro, Venezuela’s dictator, ceased to be recognized by the US after his reelection in 2018 was deemed to be fraudulent by international observers.

In 2019, the Trump administration imposed harsh sanctions on Venezuela’s oil production and Maduro turned to Russia, China and Iran for help selling it.
However, as a result of the continuing political repression, a large portion of the talent required to maintain the oil industry fled the country.
Oil production took a dive and the country is now extracting a fraction of the output in years past, which averaged 2.3 million barrels per day over the previous 50 years, and was down to an estimated 760,000 barrels in 2021.
All sectors of the economy in Venezuela have been deeply affected by Maduro’s policies and approximately 6 million people have emigrated to neighboring countries. The suffering he’s inflicted on his compatriots is enormous.

Sobered, perhaps, by the extent of his atrocities, or simply in his attempt to survive their repercussions, Mr Maduro, even before the Ukrainian tragedy, had signaled to the US that he was willing to do business in exchange for the lifting of their sanctions.
And so the Biden administration recently sent a delegation to Caracas to meet with Maduro’s representatives.

There are obstacles to overcome.
Venezuela, which had been defaulting on a $60 billion debt for the last few years, has now offered assets, including oil reserves, to restructure such debt.
But it will take time for Venezuela to increase production.
One such obstacle is that their oil producing infrastructure is in a state of disrepair and would require considerable outside investments over several years to get it back to working order.
On the plus side, American companies have shown an interest in investing, though they would want legal safeguards, a tough issue in a country with the lack of an independent judiciary.
We can also anticipate that there will be political opposition to a deal. As part of the sanctions imposed in 2019, control of Citgo, the US operating refining subsidiary owned by Venezuela, was transferred to representatives of the opposition. They will likely want assurances, such as Maduro agreeing to the release of political prisoners and to holding free elections in 2024.

Venezuela needs to get back to producing oil. Their oil is heavy in sulfur and high in emissions, so it is a major contributor to global warming, which limits its attractiveness to investors.
The world still needs oil but there is a rush to improve the technologies to make solar, wind and hydrogen power our main sources, and to accept nuclear power as a transitional source.
So time is running out for oil.

It is sad to see how a country as rich as Venezuela has wasted the opportunities it was given.
I am reminded of the distinguished Venezuelan writer and thinker, Arturo Uslar Pietri, who once said, ‘We have to sow our oil’. As in, let’s use this precious but finite resource, to diversify and grow other industries.
Venezuela has plenty of human talent.
Its politics, however, have wasted it.

Oscar Valdes. Oscarvaldes.net, medium.com, anchor.fm, buzzsprout, apple and google podcasts

Afghanistan, Ukraine and Biden

He’s been widely criticized, for having pulled out of Afghanistan as he did.
He’s been blamed for signaling to Putin that the US would not commit to long term tasks. That America was eager to isolate.
If it hadn’t been for Afghanistan, they say, there wouldn’t have been the invasion of Ukraine.
Wrong.

Biden did what other presidents before him had not been willing to do. Face reality.
Afghanistan was unwinnable.
It could not be won with neighboring Pakistan sheltering and supporting the Taliban.
Previous administrations, both Republican and Democratic, had not made the choice. Demand that Pakistan cease supporting the Taliban or will not support you.
And so the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the man who ordered the 9/11 attack, took much longer that it should have.
The pullout from Afghanistan was messy but not messier than from Vietnam. But it had to be done. Biden deserves credit for it.

For one reason or another, during our 20 years in Afghanistan, we failed to elicit in Afghanistanis the will to build their nation. Over 2500 Americans died in that country, alongside others from allied forces.
It was very sad to see the country’s undoing, and the difficulties they’re now enduring.
But we had to leave. For now.

Ukraine is a vastly different story. Ukrainian nationals who had left the country to live elsewhere are returning to fight for their land.
President Biden has acted vigorously to pull together the EU-US alliance and Europe has responded.
The Ukrainian people are bearing the brunt of the struggle, fighting valiantly to defend their homeland. Volodymyr Zelensky, their leader, is fully committed to the task and will not surrender.

The Ukrainian bravery has awakened Europe from the denial they were living in, the false belief that they could somehow, through trade, dissuade the brutality of Russia.
Europe had seen it before – in Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 68, twice in Chechnya, in the 1990’s and in early 2000s, then in Georgia in 2008 – and still they held out hope that Russian leaders could be depended upon. That it would be okay to rely on them for their oil and gas, their wheat, fertilizers and valued minerals. That the moneys from such purchases wouldn’t be used to finance the massacre of a neighbor’s people.
Even one of their former chancellors, Gerhard Schroder (1998-2005), became a Putin ally, the chairman of the Russian energy company Rosneft and a proponent of the Nord Stream pipeline to supply Germany with 40% of their energy needs.
Such denial was shared by subsequent German leaders with the consent of their people.

But now the Ukrainian nation has awakened Germans and all of Europe from their stupor and so they are owed a debt of gratitude.
The struggle for Europe and the West will not be over until Russia and its vassal nations become democratic countries.
It has fallen to Ukraine to shed the heroic blood that will mark the path to follow.
And then there will be China – for many sectors in the West are still in denial of that nation’s quest for supremacy.

Oscar Valdes. Oscarvaldes.net, medium.com, anchor.fm, buzzsprout, apple and google podcasts

Will There Be a Cease fire in Ukraine?

No.
Putin wants all of Ukraine.
The West will not send troops in to aid Ukraine, so for Putin it is only a matter of time.
And of adding up more casualties, mainly Ukrainian but also Russian.
He has made up his mind.
Bombing residences in Ukraine is part of the price. Killing men, women and children.
I’ve read he’s ordered that the relatives of fallen Russians receive a payment of $ 50,000.
How’s that supposed to make up for the loss of a life? When the reason for the fighting was something he invented owing to his fragile ego and dreams of empire.

He believes that Russia is being threatened, he tells us.
That other people’s quest for freedom is too unsettling for him to tolerate.
So he must act to squash the possibilities.
No matter the cost.
Meanwhile, there are nations in our world that see nothing wrong with the invasion.
Nations that are afraid to speak against it. Notably China, who instead blames the US for threatening Putin through NATO’s expansion.
India and Israel, also, have chosen to not upset Putin. And other nations in the Middle East which have business deals with Russia.
Geopolitical reasons they call it.
I am sure you can think of better words to describe such behavior.

The question now is, in the absence of a cease fire, and of the West sending in troops, what will happen on the ground?
At present Russian troops have advanced from the south as Kyiv, the capital and seat of government, is still holding.
But as stiff a resistance as the Ukrainians have mounted, and thousands of volunteers returning from abroad to fight for their land, the likelihood is that the Russian army will eventually prevail.

Advancing from the south and from the north Russians are likely to converge and make their way west to seal the border with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania and so close off the entryway for weapons sent in from the western alliance. Unless a section of the Ukrainian army – while there is still time – changes strategy and relocates West before the Russian army gets there. That way they would be able to have the border with NATO members at their back – with their supplies flowing – and help them make a final stand against the invaders.
It could be they may hold that position longer than any other one in the country.
It could even lead to a divided Ukraine, which would be better than no Ukraine at all.

Oscar Valdes oscarvaldes.net, medium.com, anchor.fm, buzzsprout, apple and google podcasts