Note that the region now called "Ukraine" was part of the "pale of settlement" during the Tsarist period, and Odessa became the "gateway to Zion" during the Rothschild-sponsored colonization of Palestine. See the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn for a recap of that history, essential to today's conflicts.
For more on the looting of Russia in the 1990s with the "advice" of Jeffrey Sachs and fellow CFR member Larry Summers see "The Harvard Boys Do Russia" (1998): thenation.com/article/world/harvard-boys-do-russia/
I had the opportunity to study the Russian language when I was in boarding school (similar to high school in the US) back in the 1980s and picked it up again after my retirement in 2021. The last time I was in Moscow was last summer. With this background, I have a few comments to make.
My understanding is the word "ukraine" in the Russian language means borderlands. There was never a collective nation state known as "Ukraine" as we now know it. The present Ukrainian nation was created by Lenin after the revolution as a soviet republic and the Donbass and lands east of the Dnieper were added to it to make it viable as a republic. The lands west of the Dnieper especially those in the western most regions used to be parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and were of a different language and culture and that is where Bandera and his ilk originated who collaborated with the Nazis and the CIA after WWII. After WWII, many of the Galician Legion were settled in Canada by the Brits.
You rightly pointed out Crimea was added by Khruschev to Ukraine who was from Ukraine and where his power base was.
The fear of invasion from the west is not only limited to WWI and WWII. They include:-
The Great Northen war when Sweden invaded that lasted for decades.
The invasion by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that led to the time which Russians called "The Troubles" leading to the end of Rurik Dynasty and the beginning of the Romanovs.
The Napoleon invasion containing a coalition of many European sovereign entities.
The Crimean war when Sevastopol was taken, embodied in Tolstoy's work, "The Sevastopol Sketches" which I read in my teens.
The western intervention in the Russian civil war between the Reds and the Whites by the French, Brits and Czechs which I recall from my memory but there may be others.
I am not too sure about the Holodomor in the context you have stated and the consequences thereof bearing in mind the source you cited is from Encyclopedia Brittanica which is not a credible source on matters with a political bent. I have read works that present a more balanced view but I need to dig up and revisit those sources before I can say anything.
Ukraine had no nuclear weapons to give up. Although, nuclear weapons were placed in several Soviet Republics, de facto control, de jurre control and operational control was with Moscow. An analogy is the placing of missiles in Cuba in response to missiles placed in Turkey by USA. Just because nuclear weapons are placed in a territory it does not mean the said territory has legal possession of them.
Since 2000s, Ukraine was already a de facto proxy of NATO. Many offensive NATO exercises were carried out in Ukraine. I remember late 2021 and early 2022 very clearly. USA wanted to place missiles in Ukraine and there was a phone call between Putin and Biden when Biden promised not to do so. Soon thereafter, Blinken walked it back and said they can discuss the number that will be placed. Russia wanted talks for a security architecture under the principle of "indivisibility of security" under the Helsinki Accords and Biden won't even discuss it and told the Russians to take a hike. Soon thereafter, Russia moved troops to the Ukraine border including the 1st Guards Tank Army and that was when I knew this was serious.
Although, I have many other comments, I think I have gone on long enough. The only serious divergence I have is Ukraine had to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for the Budapest Memorandum. The idea that Ukraine had any nuclear weapons to give up is pure fiction and propaganda.
I shall leave the heavy lifting to you, and the younger generation with more vitality and curiosity. And since I shall be travelling this month on holiday to China, I won’t have time to do my own research and contribute meaningfully.
You write very well and do good research. Baud’s book, Operation Z provides a more in depth background to the war. It’s not easy to read but I guess it’s not a surprise since he is French-Swiss. But it is packed with interesting facts, many of which I was unaware of.
There is an OSCE report (an EU organisation) that was made way back before 2022 which detailed and reported on the torture and suppression of Russian speakers by the Ukie nazis. I forgot whether the burning of the Trade Union building leading the deaths of over 40 were also documented in this report.
I do not know whether the report has been deleted but one should read that if it is still available. I would not be surprised if it has been deleted to suit the propaganda. As Goebbels said, “if you repeat a lie enough times, it will become the truth”.
The article definitely needs more work. Especially since these events were documented by the greats of investigative journalism. see last paragraph.
in the exciting turn of events, according to my in-built fact checking department your read is more balanced and historically accurate.
The Neo-Nazi Who Knew Too Much? Kit Klarenberg
Sep 07, 2025 Global Delinquents / The Grayzone
"Sternenko was centrally involved in the May 2014 Odessa massacre, which killed dozens of anti-Maidan activists and injured hundreds more. Another key Right Sector figure implicated in that hideous incident was Demyan Hanul, assassinated in March. The fascist paramilitary group contemporanously described the slaughter as a “bright page of our national history.” In advance, Andriy Parubiy and 500 members of his Maidan Self-Defense were deployed to the city, strongly suggesting the industrial scale incineration of Ukrainian Russian-speakers was a premeditated, intentional act of mass murder."
Hence I put out here what I think I know. And let the arguments fly in. Then I go back to the interwires and see what I can dig up based on the additional context given.
I'm learning that I don't know anything yet! Even after nearly a full week morning to evening spending on reading articles, excerpts etc... Sadly I don't know any Russian, I'm limited to most Western languages only... So my sources are... inadequate I feel.
Do you want me to include you in the chat with Yoni? So we can all work together to bring an update?
I consider the Holodomor to be another fabricated tale to add to the Stalin's black legend and excite the Ukranian nationalists and the global anticommunists. Your article sounds like redacted by Bloomberg and its strange that after the systemic lies of the western fascist empire you still believe their cold war sources. Many Americans I read on the net cannot just get rid of some stone carved fixed ideas after 50 years of relentless brain work. Americans, in general, ignore everything about Marxism Leninism and Maoism. Capitalism is their totalitarian ideology, which they perceive as natural law thanks to the outright extermination of the workers organisations of the country, racial policies and systemic grassroot social violence. I am talking about CIA paid writers like Robert Conquest black book of communism or the allegedlly 100 million deads by communists. I suggest you compare your story with this one https://sputnikglobe.com/20150809/1025560345.html. Maybe you can perceive how biased your take is. There are many more to elaborate on your search. Just type Holodomor Hoax.
Another thing I am missing in your article is a word about the Donbass militias. I lived that period very closely. I even organised demonstrations and tried to organise an international conference in Donetsk in 2015 !!! Xavier Moreau and Joaquim Flores were invited among others but finally the event didnt took place. It was a true resurrection of the world international brigade antifascist movement. I personally talked to people like Russel Bentley "Texas". A friend of mine joined the Peoples Republic of Donesk militias and sadly died in 21 before Avdivka. He couldnt live to see the long cherished .Russian intervention. Your article doesnt talk.about Motorola, Mozgovoy,.Givi,.Zaharchenko.... The Prizak Brigade, The Somali Brigade.. the true defenders and today honoured and publicly recognized heros of Donbass, not Strelkov, and is proper to a second tier.audience apparently.I am a part of.
Not a word either about the nazi terror, political assassinations, journalist assassinations, racial, cultural and religious laws the nazi Kiev regime carries out since 2014. You are obviously very far from the sources I dig in and ignore everything about the antifascist international brigadists of Donbass. I suggest you read Eva Barlett,.Christelle Neant or look up for the Russell Bentley chronicles from the front in 2014, 2015.and 2016, when Donesk was daily bombed.
Finally, the Ukranian defeats in Iloviansk and Debalsevo - as well as the decisive assault of the Donesk international airport where hundreds of AFUs died and that you dont even mention- were inflicted by the Donesk and Lugansk forces, strong of 30k at that time, and that you dont even mention, giving all the credit to the Russian army which has never admitted to be there. I have serious doubts about your information source policy..It feels like reading the Guardian or Politico.
Thanks Yoni for your input! I have to say, it’s all very far from my bed and yes. I try to piece together with what I can work with. Which probably is polluted along the way. Not as clear cut as stock markets. Easy in comparison!
I tried to cut off where the current war around started, and there were a lot of things happening in the last few years.
Also the article got way too long.
As you seem much closer to the ground here, would you like to write a guest-article fixing/adding to what I’ve put as a foundation? I’d be really happy to learn more!
I have been following these events since 2014 and strongly support the idea of encouraging Yoni Reinón to write about this - as you so ably put it fixing/adding to your article. As I read it, although I could see the huge amount of effort you had put in, it was too close to the western narrative with so much omitted despite its length.
The second is correct, substack doesn't allow direct contact unless the author enables that. As I don't like that you don't have a "chat" indication in the activity log, I didn't enable it. So unless the author (in this case me) contacts you, it is correct.
The former though is not normal? You (and anyone with a substack account) should be able to write any length of content.
Russel Bentley "Texas" God rest his soul was killed in Donbass and not by ukro nazi.
The Prizrak (Ghost) brigade barely has any survivors after the decade of fighting. And something unpleasant went down in the Donetsk airport there was some drama about "a word of honorable officer". Therefore, there is no need to apply marxist-leninism analysis to the story of the Eastern Ukraine, it is still a living and bleeding history, with red lines - crimson rivers on the Donetsk asphalt. When you go to the Donetsk chat on New Year Eve and a woman admin is counting Grad / Hale strikes on her city in real time, that was under fire on and off since summer 2014.
The story goes - orange revolution- nice try, ten years later - maidan - see the pattern here in 34 years of independence they have democratic uprising every 10 years.
Maidan gained its momentum when Pravyi (Right) fascist Sector distributed weapons among "peaceful protesters" some of which had an actual combat experience and then you have it a sacred "Heavenly 100" with sniper wounds sacrificed for the sake of international outrage.
20 000 Russian polite military men in Crimea were actually based there as Sevastopol is a home for the Russian Black Sea fleet, always been, always will be, or else. Like Russians will discover that there is an Odessa, a Russian city, in Texas in dire need of liberation.
May Day in Odessa in 2014 was a very traumatic event for the "Russian World"
"Anti-terrorist operation" ATO started by Kiev regime in early summer the same year - with Ukro nazi warplanes bombing Lugansk and artillery strikes on Gorlovka, Donetsk, Lugansk ever since. Only now they use HIMARS and atacms rockets and drones for deep strikes on Russian Old Lands.
As far as I am concerned, it is utterly exhausting to explain to the Western audience what went down in the second largest European country. Westerners for most part randomly attack other countries for no particular reason whatsoever, at least twenty years ago there was a false flag or some PR campaign to sell the aggression. And some explaining needs to be done as why any military aid or intelligence was provided to the "partner" in the proxy war against the biggest nuclear power in the world. All these questions should make everyone feel safe, warm and fuzzy this festive holiday season.
I hear your frustration. That's basically also what triggered me to starting putting thoughts (and frustrations) into words on this substack. Not only geopolitical, which is a really sensitive subject!, but also monetary. Though the latter people are starting to realize that the crazy aunt ain't that crazy after all!
it's all good. as our fearless leader says I am on the side of "those of the concern troll disposition." Fear not, already got called out in a chat. As if these people never heard about crazy Russians. But this particular subject is as personal for me as it gets and AI really aggravates me. The alternative version of history was already fabricated by the Britannica and by an invisible army of trolls, my estimate could be 200k fake accounts of concerned citizens on X.
You need to take a strategic decision - either you take yourself out of this generation of noise in order to function and use 20 something sources but then just like in my professional field someone else already told the story and did it better. with multiple researched sources, an archive of the print matter.
Also, under no circumstances you should appeal to mother's feelings, since my understanding is that you cannot actively give birth to anyone.
I only disagree about the importance of the communists in this war. Ukraine was between two worlds for 2 decades not only because of the Russian speakers in the country but also because, as in Russia, many people, including Ukranian speakers were actually witnessing how the country was being turned into a brothel. The west utilized, their long bred nazi banderists sheltered in.Canada, the US, Germany... to make the unrest soar. And the persecution was first and mostly against the communists long before the Maidan. So the communists were buffering the total installstion of the dystopian mafia casino Ukraine became. Nobody expected either the depths of the EU and UK engagement with the fascists and how critical it was for them to conquest Ukraine. Thanks to Putins determination they failed miserably, Russia is now another country and we entered a new age in which the EU and the shadowy British empire could well disappear. And the communist internstional brigadists, most of them dead now, had a decisive role in that. So make up your mind up, stop lamenting and do something real. Its up to you.
You are cute. Would you like me to go to the frontline and make an immediate contribution cause we all know once I land there the Russian military will end up in Kiev in three days time?
Again, Grayzone God bless them published a pdf file on CIA declassified activities in 404, the same publication that surfaced on the Russian Telegraph two years ago.
The communist ideology was very much vital in ukraine for quite some time.
There are still discussions among Russians about what happened with that vote cited in the article by the author - a week before Belavezhskaya Pushcha in Belarus.
Nobody knew or expected anything, communists or liberals or whatnot. more like USA conquest - considering 5 bill. by 2014.
Prizrak was not necessarily a communist international brigade, they did have an unfortunate name and some people with PTSD, aren't we all. The communist ideology was unfortunately very unpopular in the 1990s, due to the efforts of liberal intelligentsia, in fact it was sort of state funded - when the monuments were displaced, there was a Levada center that came up with the nickname "sovok", years of liberal arts and crafts production also state funded to promote western values.
anyways, stop yelling at me since now you are under moral obligation to spill all your knowledge to the author and make it all the way better, as if it would fix anything.
Nah, I was just curious. I knew about 50% already before I started digging into this history. I’m an incredibly curious person. I want to know everything. Which is pretty annoying as I simply cannot…
This history was a bit bigger and deeper than I anticipated though. So much animosity there.
Humans are weird animals. All this emotions running amok! 👾
Gidday No1, your energy and good work is always appreciated.
The facts in your report are solid, but I think it's also worth considering them in the wider historical context.
The war in Ukraine didn't begin in 2022, but neither did it begin with the collapse of the USSR.
Bear in mind that Kievan Rus, the USSR and now Russia, always had the largest in ground resources of any nation on earth, and as such, was a very much coveted piece of real estate by Imperialists and their financiers / bankers.
That has not changed to this day.
Considering that, the current conflict may be seen as the 7th attempt by the West to steal this land from it's people, since Napoleon in 1812.
The Russian revolution was incubated and hatched in late 19th century London and Paris, firstly as (the failed) 1905 Communist revolution, followed by the more successful 1917 Bolshevik revolution.
That was the West's 4th attempt and almost 'gotcha' success.
While (western) history records that ogre Stalin was responsible for the Ukrainian Holodomor, the fact is, not even Stalin was an island of control in that sea of subterfuge and chaos.
The 1922 post revolution Soviet 'regime' continued to be dominated by the same ruthless Bolshevik ideology, until Stalin successfully purged these individuals from their powerful positions 1936/38.
Their descendants however, have never forgiven him nor Russia for that.
Apparently our reality has been far more engineered than even thinking people can imagine.
More solid insight can be found at 'The Unz Review - An Alternative Media Selection' which I think you'll appreciate, particularly his outstanding American Pravda series.
Yeah, right, let me take 10 minutes of your time and talk about the 1000 years of The civilization-state with creepy beginning and the Kievan Rus' graphics. Do you know how Belarus' or Russian flag looks like? Or if there is something fundamentally wrong and offensive with the ukro state symbol above all. Or that it is a replica of the Russian Duke' seal from Novgorod? Kiev was called once the father of Russian cities. Just like Russia has the Mother and the Father of all bombs. Ok, I admit I do have anger management issues and I am working on it.
"Let's establish something fundamental" the Russian state originated in Novgorod, in fact it was very much democratic and just until Ivan III showed up, but that will be a story for another time.
AI overview: The "unification of Ukraine and Russia " is a concept rooted in historical ties and a narrative promoted by Russian leadership, but it is fundamentally rejected by modern Ukraine, which is an independent, sovereign🤔 state currently at war with Russia. "
Pereyaslav Agreement - treaty of 1654 - is something to keep in mind. After ten years of correspondence between the cossacks and a Russian Tsar. That "unification " meant a war with Poland. Another oppressed actor, a forever victim of Russian imperialism...the war and a thirty years of ruin did follow. And betrayals by our new brotherly nation from the steppe.
My main issue with this fair depiction is that it leaves out the agency of the Eastern European people who joined NATO. The fact is that NATO was not forced down their throats but their embracing of NATO membership was a result of their experiences of being ruled by Russians. The fates of millions of Eastern Europe people cannot be treated as if they have no say in their legitimate fear of Russian aggression. You speak of hundreds of years of history …. how about the 200 hundred years of almost continuous Russian subjugation of the Poles?
As I try to point out in this depiction: there is blame enough to go around. There are countless parties to the conflict, and we're generally focusing on the immediate past. Quite often forgetting all that came before. I don't say that is what should dominate the argument either. But it should be kept in the back of ones mind in order to understand the position of people.
I'm going to work with Yoni & Lotso as they have much better background in this matter. Whilst writing this article, I understood truly how little I understand of the world. But I think I got the major fault lines there correctly. From the other reactions I think it is mainly interpretation of certain events or events that I skipped over that should receive greater attribution.
So expect in the next month or so an updated view on this.
> ""Those who understand history are condemned to watch other idiots repeat it.""
The war in Ukraine was won by the Russians since 2022 when Ukraine asked for peace and Boris Johnson ran to Kiev to prolong it and to mask through propaganda the stagnation that is plaguing us 10 years from now before the one in the 70s-80s. On the other hand, the Americans are blocking Venezuela, Iran and Russia to induce an oil shock just like in the 70s-80s. Roubini (the economist) has been warning since 2008 that the next crisis will be of sovereign debt. The market is oversaturated with cheap goods, cheap oil and the world economy is over-indebted and risks collapse. The only industry that is still breathing and producing something is the military. Everyone is happy, Russia, the EU, China and the USA produce drone bombs and provide work and collect taxesThe EU, Russia, and the US continue to do business with oil and uranium, launder money through the banks of the Baltic states, and business is booming. The withdrawal of Western companies and banks from Russia is a bad joke. On the front line, if you look, you will see only 2 lost soldiers (homeless people caught in a uniform and sent to the front) filmed with drones to maintain the appearance of war. What does a few thousand deaths matter if we save humanity from the debt crisis? The rest is propaganda from both sides. In the coming years, unemployment will be between 10 and 20%, queues at social canteens, apartment prices will collapse due to lack of money (devalued) and we will have the dilemma of English pensioners from those times. Today, do we eat or keep warm?
Draw a parallel between the Vietnam War in the context of stagflation in the 70s-80s and the Ukraine War in the context of current stagflation. Quite a few coincidences, aren't they?
1. "History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes" -- Twain
2. TL;DR : buy silver 🤣🤣
3. You're rightfully pointing to a collapse in house prices, but I don't think it'll be because of money devaluation. It'll be because of demographic collapse (and no, immigrants won't save us from that collapse as they'll leave when the easy money is gone)
4. I completely agree with Roubini in this matter. We're drowning way too much in debt. But I would add: we're also drowning in way too much derivatives which are basically WoMFD (weapons of mass financial destruction).
Precious metals (Platinum, Silver and Gold mainly that I see) are anathema to those WoMFD. Hence the suppression.
I appreciate the work you are doing here, but let me bring up a few issues 1) after the recent military parade in China I doubt that the US would have the courage to provoke the Dragon of the East militarily. The US has maintained a diplomatic ambiguity but has not explicitly said that Taiwan and China are not one nation, and if the unification is not done peacefully it supports Taiwan with weapons, not that it intervenes. So if the US broke its teeth in Iran in the summer, in a confrontation with China it will come out crushed. I would rather see only declarative harassment by the US or its allies in the Pacific against China, but nothing concrete. China may have the patience for another 30-50 years to peacefully unite with Taiwan, when the US will become economically and militarily sick.
2) Buy silver Correct, just for speculation. Gold could exceed $10-12k and silver $100-150, but it will correct not through high interest rates like in the Volker era, but through economic depression and aggregate reduction of the world economy. What I know for sure is that in 10 years or however long stagflation lasts, gold will not return below $3500 where it has support from central bank purchases
3) Here's how I see things regarding real estate. Food, fuel, services will increase between 200 and 400% maybe even more in the next few years while houses will probably double in nominal terms, not real. We are still in the early stages now, but when unemployment reaches between 10 and 20% who do you think will have the courage to take out a loan? Plus those with mortgages and unemployed will send the keys to the bank themselves by mail. Plus there are millions of square feet of office towers intended for tenantless spaces from the Covid period over-indebted to banks that can be transformed into homes. A crisis in the commercial real estate sector will overlap with the stock market crash. Add to all this a possible increase in property taxes and you get a significant reduction. Look for data in the Great Depression of 1933 and the stagflation of the 70s-80s.
4) China does not want to take the place of the US as the world policeman, nor to replace the dollar and run budget deficits. China wants trade, but it is also over-indebted.
On China/Taiwan: Agreed the US won't directly intervene militarily. But watch the semiconductor chokepoints and financial warfare. The real battle isn't kinetic.
On silver/gold: Calling silver "just speculation" misses the supply fundamentals. Industrial demand + monetary demand + inventory stress = different dynamic than past cycles. Gold's central bank floor at $3500 makes sense, but silver's got a tighter physical market. An economic depression might temporarily subdue demand, but I see silver much more positive. And not in a speculative way. That was a year or 2 ago. Not now. At a certain I will change again, but not yet.
On real estate: Thanks for bringing up these points. These will all be contributing factors indeed. But the only thing governments will do (can do) is print money. ANY hard asset will keep its value. People need shelter. However, you make a great point with the tons of empty offices that could be adjusted into appartments. That will suppress the price a lot. However, I don't think that we'll see depression levels just yet. Although in the US, I've started reading stories since a few years back of people living in their cars and trailer parks. So maybe we already arrived there? Then depression levels are apt.
On China's ambitions: Correct, they don't want dollar hegemony's headaches. They want trade dominance without the reserve currency trap. Problem though there is that if they want trade dominance, they need consumers. Either external or internal. Right now most are external. If China retakes the center after a thousand year hiatus, we'd be looking at a much different world, and it's going to be tough for anyone in it (Chinese are hardworking, much more so than westerners).
The US will print massive amounts of money, pay interest and part of the debt, and the economic cycle will resume. There will be neither a collapse of the dollar nor the end of the world.The dollar will be diluted.
Buffett is still sitting on $350 billion in US bonds waiting for blood on the streets, he hasn't bought gold yet
I think you are right up till a certain point. At one point, external parties won't believe anymore in the dollar, sending all back and requesting real stuff in exchange (like gold or silver, or basically anything real). That's when the real depression will hit.
And Buffett's hoard? Might be worth $100B in real terms in a few years. That'll teach him not to invest in silver junior miners! 🤣😂
Step by step we are starting to put things together🤣. I explained to you earlier that the US through tariffs will suppress the price of gold and silver by reducing aggregate demand by reducing trade, and implicitly the profit that could be invested by the population and central banks. If the demand for consumer goods of silver or gold decreases, the price also decreases. Possibly the two metals could have an additional tax on annual holding, either on sale. We also discussed how the price of real estate could decrease and I found this article:
Great overview!
Note that the region now called "Ukraine" was part of the "pale of settlement" during the Tsarist period, and Odessa became the "gateway to Zion" during the Rothschild-sponsored colonization of Palestine. See the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn for a recap of that history, essential to today's conflicts.
For more on the looting of Russia in the 1990s with the "advice" of Jeffrey Sachs and fellow CFR member Larry Summers see "The Harvard Boys Do Russia" (1998): thenation.com/article/world/harvard-boys-do-russia/
Thanks, this is going on my reading list over the holidays!
Thank you for the essay.
I had the opportunity to study the Russian language when I was in boarding school (similar to high school in the US) back in the 1980s and picked it up again after my retirement in 2021. The last time I was in Moscow was last summer. With this background, I have a few comments to make.
My understanding is the word "ukraine" in the Russian language means borderlands. There was never a collective nation state known as "Ukraine" as we now know it. The present Ukrainian nation was created by Lenin after the revolution as a soviet republic and the Donbass and lands east of the Dnieper were added to it to make it viable as a republic. The lands west of the Dnieper especially those in the western most regions used to be parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and were of a different language and culture and that is where Bandera and his ilk originated who collaborated with the Nazis and the CIA after WWII. After WWII, many of the Galician Legion were settled in Canada by the Brits.
You rightly pointed out Crimea was added by Khruschev to Ukraine who was from Ukraine and where his power base was.
The fear of invasion from the west is not only limited to WWI and WWII. They include:-
The Great Northen war when Sweden invaded that lasted for decades.
The invasion by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that led to the time which Russians called "The Troubles" leading to the end of Rurik Dynasty and the beginning of the Romanovs.
The Napoleon invasion containing a coalition of many European sovereign entities.
The Crimean war when Sevastopol was taken, embodied in Tolstoy's work, "The Sevastopol Sketches" which I read in my teens.
The western intervention in the Russian civil war between the Reds and the Whites by the French, Brits and Czechs which I recall from my memory but there may be others.
I am not too sure about the Holodomor in the context you have stated and the consequences thereof bearing in mind the source you cited is from Encyclopedia Brittanica which is not a credible source on matters with a political bent. I have read works that present a more balanced view but I need to dig up and revisit those sources before I can say anything.
Ukraine had no nuclear weapons to give up. Although, nuclear weapons were placed in several Soviet Republics, de facto control, de jurre control and operational control was with Moscow. An analogy is the placing of missiles in Cuba in response to missiles placed in Turkey by USA. Just because nuclear weapons are placed in a territory it does not mean the said territory has legal possession of them.
Since 2000s, Ukraine was already a de facto proxy of NATO. Many offensive NATO exercises were carried out in Ukraine. I remember late 2021 and early 2022 very clearly. USA wanted to place missiles in Ukraine and there was a phone call between Putin and Biden when Biden promised not to do so. Soon thereafter, Blinken walked it back and said they can discuss the number that will be placed. Russia wanted talks for a security architecture under the principle of "indivisibility of security" under the Helsinki Accords and Biden won't even discuss it and told the Russians to take a hike. Soon thereafter, Russia moved troops to the Ukraine border including the 1st Guards Tank Army and that was when I knew this was serious.
Although, I have many other comments, I think I have gone on long enough. The only serious divergence I have is Ukraine had to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for the Budapest Memorandum. The idea that Ukraine had any nuclear weapons to give up is pure fiction and propaganda.
Thank you for your kind response.
I shall leave the heavy lifting to you, and the younger generation with more vitality and curiosity. And since I shall be travelling this month on holiday to China, I won’t have time to do my own research and contribute meaningfully.
You write very well and do good research. Baud’s book, Operation Z provides a more in depth background to the war. It’s not easy to read but I guess it’s not a surprise since he is French-Swiss. But it is packed with interesting facts, many of which I was unaware of.
Keep up the good work.
Too much books, too little time 😉
I will see if I can work your insights in the @Yoni Reinón‘s article.
Thanks again!
There is an OSCE report (an EU organisation) that was made way back before 2022 which detailed and reported on the torture and suppression of Russian speakers by the Ukie nazis. I forgot whether the burning of the Trade Union building leading the deaths of over 40 were also documented in this report.
I do not know whether the report has been deleted but one should read that if it is still available. I would not be surprised if it has been deleted to suit the propaganda. As Goebbels said, “if you repeat a lie enough times, it will become the truth”.
The article definitely needs more work. Especially since these events were documented by the greats of investigative journalism. see last paragraph.
in the exciting turn of events, according to my in-built fact checking department your read is more balanced and historically accurate.
The Neo-Nazi Who Knew Too Much? Kit Klarenberg
Sep 07, 2025 Global Delinquents / The Grayzone
"Sternenko was centrally involved in the May 2014 Odessa massacre, which killed dozens of anti-Maidan activists and injured hundreds more. Another key Right Sector figure implicated in that hideous incident was Demyan Hanul, assassinated in March. The fascist paramilitary group contemporanously described the slaughter as a “bright page of our national history.” In advance, Andriy Parubiy and 500 members of his Maidan Self-Defense were deployed to the city, strongly suggesting the industrial scale incineration of Ukrainian Russian-speakers was a premeditated, intentional act of mass murder."
The only way to improve is through iteration 😉.
Hence I put out here what I think I know. And let the arguments fly in. Then I go back to the interwires and see what I can dig up based on the additional context given.
Thanks for your input!
Thanks a lot for your insights!
I'm learning that I don't know anything yet! Even after nearly a full week morning to evening spending on reading articles, excerpts etc... Sadly I don't know any Russian, I'm limited to most Western languages only... So my sources are... inadequate I feel.
Do you want me to include you in the chat with Yoni? So we can all work together to bring an update?
I consider the Holodomor to be another fabricated tale to add to the Stalin's black legend and excite the Ukranian nationalists and the global anticommunists. Your article sounds like redacted by Bloomberg and its strange that after the systemic lies of the western fascist empire you still believe their cold war sources. Many Americans I read on the net cannot just get rid of some stone carved fixed ideas after 50 years of relentless brain work. Americans, in general, ignore everything about Marxism Leninism and Maoism. Capitalism is their totalitarian ideology, which they perceive as natural law thanks to the outright extermination of the workers organisations of the country, racial policies and systemic grassroot social violence. I am talking about CIA paid writers like Robert Conquest black book of communism or the allegedlly 100 million deads by communists. I suggest you compare your story with this one https://sputnikglobe.com/20150809/1025560345.html. Maybe you can perceive how biased your take is. There are many more to elaborate on your search. Just type Holodomor Hoax.
Another thing I am missing in your article is a word about the Donbass militias. I lived that period very closely. I even organised demonstrations and tried to organise an international conference in Donetsk in 2015 !!! Xavier Moreau and Joaquim Flores were invited among others but finally the event didnt took place. It was a true resurrection of the world international brigade antifascist movement. I personally talked to people like Russel Bentley "Texas". A friend of mine joined the Peoples Republic of Donesk militias and sadly died in 21 before Avdivka. He couldnt live to see the long cherished .Russian intervention. Your article doesnt talk.about Motorola, Mozgovoy,.Givi,.Zaharchenko.... The Prizak Brigade, The Somali Brigade.. the true defenders and today honoured and publicly recognized heros of Donbass, not Strelkov, and is proper to a second tier.audience apparently.I am a part of.
Not a word either about the nazi terror, political assassinations, journalist assassinations, racial, cultural and religious laws the nazi Kiev regime carries out since 2014. You are obviously very far from the sources I dig in and ignore everything about the antifascist international brigadists of Donbass. I suggest you read Eva Barlett,.Christelle Neant or look up for the Russell Bentley chronicles from the front in 2014, 2015.and 2016, when Donesk was daily bombed.
Finally, the Ukranian defeats in Iloviansk and Debalsevo - as well as the decisive assault of the Donesk international airport where hundreds of AFUs died and that you dont even mention- were inflicted by the Donesk and Lugansk forces, strong of 30k at that time, and that you dont even mention, giving all the credit to the Russian army which has never admitted to be there. I have serious doubts about your information source policy..It feels like reading the Guardian or Politico.
Thanks Yoni for your input! I have to say, it’s all very far from my bed and yes. I try to piece together with what I can work with. Which probably is polluted along the way. Not as clear cut as stock markets. Easy in comparison!
I tried to cut off where the current war around started, and there were a lot of things happening in the last few years.
Also the article got way too long.
As you seem much closer to the ground here, would you like to write a guest-article fixing/adding to what I’ve put as a foundation? I’d be really happy to learn more!
I have been following these events since 2014 and strongly support the idea of encouraging Yoni Reinón to write about this - as you so ably put it fixing/adding to your article. As I read it, although I could see the huge amount of effort you had put in, it was too close to the western narrative with so much omitted despite its length.
Definitely, I will coordinate with @Yoni Reinón in order to balance my more western sources.
So expect a great writeup some time in the future.
thanks for the offer. It will take me some time but I can try.
I would need your email to send you some of the images of that years. Send me a private message please.
I sent you one earlier today (substack does not indicate you have a chat message, so you'll have to explicitly click on chat to see it).
strange. This confirms my suspicions I am being shadow banned by Substack. I cannot post long articles nor direct chat messages…
The second is correct, substack doesn't allow direct contact unless the author enables that. As I don't like that you don't have a "chat" indication in the activity log, I didn't enable it. So unless the author (in this case me) contacts you, it is correct.
The former though is not normal? You (and anyone with a substack account) should be able to write any length of content.
Russel Bentley "Texas" God rest his soul was killed in Donbass and not by ukro nazi.
The Prizrak (Ghost) brigade barely has any survivors after the decade of fighting. And something unpleasant went down in the Donetsk airport there was some drama about "a word of honorable officer". Therefore, there is no need to apply marxist-leninism analysis to the story of the Eastern Ukraine, it is still a living and bleeding history, with red lines - crimson rivers on the Donetsk asphalt. When you go to the Donetsk chat on New Year Eve and a woman admin is counting Grad / Hale strikes on her city in real time, that was under fire on and off since summer 2014.
The story goes - orange revolution- nice try, ten years later - maidan - see the pattern here in 34 years of independence they have democratic uprising every 10 years.
Maidan gained its momentum when Pravyi (Right) fascist Sector distributed weapons among "peaceful protesters" some of which had an actual combat experience and then you have it a sacred "Heavenly 100" with sniper wounds sacrificed for the sake of international outrage.
20 000 Russian polite military men in Crimea were actually based there as Sevastopol is a home for the Russian Black Sea fleet, always been, always will be, or else. Like Russians will discover that there is an Odessa, a Russian city, in Texas in dire need of liberation.
May Day in Odessa in 2014 was a very traumatic event for the "Russian World"
"Anti-terrorist operation" ATO started by Kiev regime in early summer the same year - with Ukro nazi warplanes bombing Lugansk and artillery strikes on Gorlovka, Donetsk, Lugansk ever since. Only now they use HIMARS and atacms rockets and drones for deep strikes on Russian Old Lands.
As far as I am concerned, it is utterly exhausting to explain to the Western audience what went down in the second largest European country. Westerners for most part randomly attack other countries for no particular reason whatsoever, at least twenty years ago there was a false flag or some PR campaign to sell the aggression. And some explaining needs to be done as why any military aid or intelligence was provided to the "partner" in the proxy war against the biggest nuclear power in the world. All these questions should make everyone feel safe, warm and fuzzy this festive holiday season.
I hear your frustration. That's basically also what triggered me to starting putting thoughts (and frustrations) into words on this substack. Not only geopolitical, which is a really sensitive subject!, but also monetary. Though the latter people are starting to realize that the crazy aunt ain't that crazy after all!
it's all good. as our fearless leader says I am on the side of "those of the concern troll disposition." Fear not, already got called out in a chat. As if these people never heard about crazy Russians. But this particular subject is as personal for me as it gets and AI really aggravates me. The alternative version of history was already fabricated by the Britannica and by an invisible army of trolls, my estimate could be 200k fake accounts of concerned citizens on X.
You need to take a strategic decision - either you take yourself out of this generation of noise in order to function and use 20 something sources but then just like in my professional field someone else already told the story and did it better. with multiple researched sources, an archive of the print matter.
Also, under no circumstances you should appeal to mother's feelings, since my understanding is that you cannot actively give birth to anyone.
I only disagree about the importance of the communists in this war. Ukraine was between two worlds for 2 decades not only because of the Russian speakers in the country but also because, as in Russia, many people, including Ukranian speakers were actually witnessing how the country was being turned into a brothel. The west utilized, their long bred nazi banderists sheltered in.Canada, the US, Germany... to make the unrest soar. And the persecution was first and mostly against the communists long before the Maidan. So the communists were buffering the total installstion of the dystopian mafia casino Ukraine became. Nobody expected either the depths of the EU and UK engagement with the fascists and how critical it was for them to conquest Ukraine. Thanks to Putins determination they failed miserably, Russia is now another country and we entered a new age in which the EU and the shadowy British empire could well disappear. And the communist internstional brigadists, most of them dead now, had a decisive role in that. So make up your mind up, stop lamenting and do something real. Its up to you.
You are cute. Would you like me to go to the frontline and make an immediate contribution cause we all know once I land there the Russian military will end up in Kiev in three days time?
Again, Grayzone God bless them published a pdf file on CIA declassified activities in 404, the same publication that surfaced on the Russian Telegraph two years ago.
The communist ideology was very much vital in ukraine for quite some time.
There are still discussions among Russians about what happened with that vote cited in the article by the author - a week before Belavezhskaya Pushcha in Belarus.
Nobody knew or expected anything, communists or liberals or whatnot. more like USA conquest - considering 5 bill. by 2014.
Prizrak was not necessarily a communist international brigade, they did have an unfortunate name and some people with PTSD, aren't we all. The communist ideology was unfortunately very unpopular in the 1990s, due to the efforts of liberal intelligentsia, in fact it was sort of state funded - when the monuments were displaced, there was a Levada center that came up with the nickname "sovok", years of liberal arts and crafts production also state funded to promote western values.
anyways, stop yelling at me since now you are under moral obligation to spill all your knowledge to the author and make it all the way better, as if it would fix anything.
Ok... You do enjoy wasting Time! You need to realize that for the current herds of modern moron slaves there is NO HISTORY much less HISTORICAL FACTS.
https://voza0db.substack.com/p/morons-just-dont-get-it-1c2
USofT & U.K. & some in the E.U needed a replacement for the utter collapse of PROFITS that started on 30 AUGUST 2021...
Best candidate for generating Trillions in PROFIT? UKRAINISTAN.
And so they had time to prepare a proper provocation in early 2022
https://voza0db.substack.com/p/morons-just-dont-get-it-4bc
Nah, I was just curious. I knew about 50% already before I started digging into this history. I’m an incredibly curious person. I want to know everything. Which is pretty annoying as I simply cannot…
This history was a bit bigger and deeper than I anticipated though. So much animosity there.
Humans are weird animals. All this emotions running amok! 👾
Great summary of the situation.
+++++++++++++++++
Gidday No1, your energy and good work is always appreciated.
The facts in your report are solid, but I think it's also worth considering them in the wider historical context.
The war in Ukraine didn't begin in 2022, but neither did it begin with the collapse of the USSR.
Bear in mind that Kievan Rus, the USSR and now Russia, always had the largest in ground resources of any nation on earth, and as such, was a very much coveted piece of real estate by Imperialists and their financiers / bankers.
That has not changed to this day.
Considering that, the current conflict may be seen as the 7th attempt by the West to steal this land from it's people, since Napoleon in 1812.
The Russian revolution was incubated and hatched in late 19th century London and Paris, firstly as (the failed) 1905 Communist revolution, followed by the more successful 1917 Bolshevik revolution.
That was the West's 4th attempt and almost 'gotcha' success.
While (western) history records that ogre Stalin was responsible for the Ukrainian Holodomor, the fact is, not even Stalin was an island of control in that sea of subterfuge and chaos.
The 1922 post revolution Soviet 'regime' continued to be dominated by the same ruthless Bolshevik ideology, until Stalin successfully purged these individuals from their powerful positions 1936/38.
Their descendants however, have never forgiven him nor Russia for that.
Apparently our reality has been far more engineered than even thinking people can imagine.
More solid insight can be found at 'The Unz Review - An Alternative Media Selection' which I think you'll appreciate, particularly his outstanding American Pravda series.
We live in interesting times.
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-six-unknown-books-and-their-dangerous-jewish-secrets/
Yeah, right, let me take 10 minutes of your time and talk about the 1000 years of The civilization-state with creepy beginning and the Kievan Rus' graphics. Do you know how Belarus' or Russian flag looks like? Or if there is something fundamentally wrong and offensive with the ukro state symbol above all. Or that it is a replica of the Russian Duke' seal from Novgorod? Kiev was called once the father of Russian cities. Just like Russia has the Mother and the Father of all bombs. Ok, I admit I do have anger management issues and I am working on it.
"Let's establish something fundamental" the Russian state originated in Novgorod, in fact it was very much democratic and just until Ivan III showed up, but that will be a story for another time.
AI overview: The "unification of Ukraine and Russia " is a concept rooted in historical ties and a narrative promoted by Russian leadership, but it is fundamentally rejected by modern Ukraine, which is an independent, sovereign🤔 state currently at war with Russia. "
Pereyaslav Agreement - treaty of 1654 - is something to keep in mind. After ten years of correspondence between the cossacks and a Russian Tsar. That "unification " meant a war with Poland. Another oppressed actor, a forever victim of Russian imperialism...the war and a thirty years of ruin did follow. And betrayals by our new brotherly nation from the steppe.
Thank you
Excellent article.
My main issue with this fair depiction is that it leaves out the agency of the Eastern European people who joined NATO. The fact is that NATO was not forced down their throats but their embracing of NATO membership was a result of their experiences of being ruled by Russians. The fates of millions of Eastern Europe people cannot be treated as if they have no say in their legitimate fear of Russian aggression. You speak of hundreds of years of history …. how about the 200 hundred years of almost continuous Russian subjugation of the Poles?
As I try to point out in this depiction: there is blame enough to go around. There are countless parties to the conflict, and we're generally focusing on the immediate past. Quite often forgetting all that came before. I don't say that is what should dominate the argument either. But it should be kept in the back of ones mind in order to understand the position of people.
I'm going to work with Yoni & Lotso as they have much better background in this matter. Whilst writing this article, I understood truly how little I understand of the world. But I think I got the major fault lines there correctly. From the other reactions I think it is mainly interpretation of certain events or events that I skipped over that should receive greater attribution.
So expect in the next month or so an updated view on this.
> ""Those who understand history are condemned to watch other idiots repeat it.""
The war in Ukraine was won by the Russians since 2022 when Ukraine asked for peace and Boris Johnson ran to Kiev to prolong it and to mask through propaganda the stagnation that is plaguing us 10 years from now before the one in the 70s-80s. On the other hand, the Americans are blocking Venezuela, Iran and Russia to induce an oil shock just like in the 70s-80s. Roubini (the economist) has been warning since 2008 that the next crisis will be of sovereign debt. The market is oversaturated with cheap goods, cheap oil and the world economy is over-indebted and risks collapse. The only industry that is still breathing and producing something is the military. Everyone is happy, Russia, the EU, China and the USA produce drone bombs and provide work and collect taxesThe EU, Russia, and the US continue to do business with oil and uranium, launder money through the banks of the Baltic states, and business is booming. The withdrawal of Western companies and banks from Russia is a bad joke. On the front line, if you look, you will see only 2 lost soldiers (homeless people caught in a uniform and sent to the front) filmed with drones to maintain the appearance of war. What does a few thousand deaths matter if we save humanity from the debt crisis? The rest is propaganda from both sides. In the coming years, unemployment will be between 10 and 20%, queues at social canteens, apartment prices will collapse due to lack of money (devalued) and we will have the dilemma of English pensioners from those times. Today, do we eat or keep warm?
Draw a parallel between the Vietnam War in the context of stagflation in the 70s-80s and the Ukraine War in the context of current stagflation. Quite a few coincidences, aren't they?
1. "History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes" -- Twain
2. TL;DR : buy silver 🤣🤣
3. You're rightfully pointing to a collapse in house prices, but I don't think it'll be because of money devaluation. It'll be because of demographic collapse (and no, immigrants won't save us from that collapse as they'll leave when the easy money is gone)
4. I completely agree with Roubini in this matter. We're drowning way too much in debt. But I would add: we're also drowning in way too much derivatives which are basically WoMFD (weapons of mass financial destruction).
Precious metals (Platinum, Silver and Gold mainly that I see) are anathema to those WoMFD. Hence the suppression.
I appreciate the work you are doing here, but let me bring up a few issues 1) after the recent military parade in China I doubt that the US would have the courage to provoke the Dragon of the East militarily. The US has maintained a diplomatic ambiguity but has not explicitly said that Taiwan and China are not one nation, and if the unification is not done peacefully it supports Taiwan with weapons, not that it intervenes. So if the US broke its teeth in Iran in the summer, in a confrontation with China it will come out crushed. I would rather see only declarative harassment by the US or its allies in the Pacific against China, but nothing concrete. China may have the patience for another 30-50 years to peacefully unite with Taiwan, when the US will become economically and militarily sick.
2) Buy silver Correct, just for speculation. Gold could exceed $10-12k and silver $100-150, but it will correct not through high interest rates like in the Volker era, but through economic depression and aggregate reduction of the world economy. What I know for sure is that in 10 years or however long stagflation lasts, gold will not return below $3500 where it has support from central bank purchases
3) Here's how I see things regarding real estate. Food, fuel, services will increase between 200 and 400% maybe even more in the next few years while houses will probably double in nominal terms, not real. We are still in the early stages now, but when unemployment reaches between 10 and 20% who do you think will have the courage to take out a loan? Plus those with mortgages and unemployed will send the keys to the bank themselves by mail. Plus there are millions of square feet of office towers intended for tenantless spaces from the Covid period over-indebted to banks that can be transformed into homes. A crisis in the commercial real estate sector will overlap with the stock market crash. Add to all this a possible increase in property taxes and you get a significant reduction. Look for data in the Great Depression of 1933 and the stagflation of the 70s-80s.
4) China does not want to take the place of the US as the world policeman, nor to replace the dollar and run budget deficits. China wants trade, but it is also over-indebted.
On China/Taiwan: Agreed the US won't directly intervene militarily. But watch the semiconductor chokepoints and financial warfare. The real battle isn't kinetic.
On silver/gold: Calling silver "just speculation" misses the supply fundamentals. Industrial demand + monetary demand + inventory stress = different dynamic than past cycles. Gold's central bank floor at $3500 makes sense, but silver's got a tighter physical market. An economic depression might temporarily subdue demand, but I see silver much more positive. And not in a speculative way. That was a year or 2 ago. Not now. At a certain I will change again, but not yet.
On real estate: Thanks for bringing up these points. These will all be contributing factors indeed. But the only thing governments will do (can do) is print money. ANY hard asset will keep its value. People need shelter. However, you make a great point with the tons of empty offices that could be adjusted into appartments. That will suppress the price a lot. However, I don't think that we'll see depression levels just yet. Although in the US, I've started reading stories since a few years back of people living in their cars and trailer parks. So maybe we already arrived there? Then depression levels are apt.
On China's ambitions: Correct, they don't want dollar hegemony's headaches. They want trade dominance without the reserve currency trap. Problem though there is that if they want trade dominance, they need consumers. Either external or internal. Right now most are external. If China retakes the center after a thousand year hiatus, we'd be looking at a much different world, and it's going to be tough for anyone in it (Chinese are hardworking, much more so than westerners).
The US will print massive amounts of money, pay interest and part of the debt, and the economic cycle will resume. There will be neither a collapse of the dollar nor the end of the world.The dollar will be diluted.
Buffett is still sitting on $350 billion in US bonds waiting for blood on the streets, he hasn't bought gold yet
https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0?si=QsGSmqbE3sl4eKLV
I think you are right up till a certain point. At one point, external parties won't believe anymore in the dollar, sending all back and requesting real stuff in exchange (like gold or silver, or basically anything real). That's when the real depression will hit.
And Buffett's hoard? Might be worth $100B in real terms in a few years. That'll teach him not to invest in silver junior miners! 🤣😂
Step by step we are starting to put things together🤣. I explained to you earlier that the US through tariffs will suppress the price of gold and silver by reducing aggregate demand by reducing trade, and implicitly the profit that could be invested by the population and central banks. If the demand for consumer goods of silver or gold decreases, the price also decreases. Possibly the two metals could have an additional tax on annual holding, either on sale. We also discussed how the price of real estate could decrease and I found this article:
https://fortune.com/2025/11/29/national-debt-crisis-private-debt-bonds-tax-great-wealth-transfer/
It is Fred Harrison's Georgist theory which will be applied in my opinion in countries with high debt
https://youtu.be/GZ_41dwDvXc?si=ZLRTYGW84aFJdSoJ
https://youtube.com/shorts/Cqusfm0TT40?si=EwDsQaeE5WP6qQDF
Why do you think millionaires in the US and UK are abandoning the ship?
https://youtu.be/AGEfBY0fXPg?si=lBstCPo1yesNoRTs
Property taxation will reduce the appetite of real estate investors by sucking the wealth out of the middle class, making renting unprofitable.😏
In this case, Buffet's treasure could grow if you measure it in real estate 🤣🤣