Is Putin's invasion of Ukraine a war of genocide?

The term “genocide” has increasingly been used to describe Putin's war on Ukraine, particularly by the Ukrainians themselves. Is this a case of hyperbole, designed to draw attention to their struggle, or is it an accurate description of what Ukrainians are experiencing?

Mass grave found in Bucha (Credit: Ukrainian Foreign Ministry)

For many people genocide involves the wholesale massacre of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. While the “fog of war” prevents us from knowing, with any accuracy, just how many Ukrainians have been killed so far, it's certainly not yet in those orders of magnitude, and may even be less than the estimated ten thousand Russian military deaths. So, what possible basis exists for calling this a genocide now?

To answer this, we have to look at the definition of “genocide,” because it's not synonymous with “massacre” or “atrocity,” and involves more than just killing a lot of people. Oxford Languages defines genocide as “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” This definition of genocide requires that the act meet two tests:

1. The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group.
2. With the aim of destroying that nation or group.

Hopefully, the number of Ukrainians Putin has killed remains in the low thousands. Even so, that should meet anybody's definition of “a large number of people,” and they are being killed—man, woman, child, combatant, and non-combatant alike, simply because they live in Ukraine. I think the conditions of part one is well and tragically met.

The requirement of part two, is a bit stickier, involving, as it does, a determination of motive. We have to answer the question: What's the real reason Putin is waging this war?

According to Putin, and his supporters, his main concerns with Ukraine are:

1. NATO expansion, and the prospect that Ukraine might join NATO in the future.
2. Nazis are in control of Ukraine, and committing genocide against the Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine. 

Seeing, as yet, no peaceful resolution to these concerns, Putin saw no other option open to him but to launch a special military operation to carry out the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. 

With regards to No. 1, Ukraine's possible NATO membership, given that NATO has yet to offer Ukraine a Membership Action Plan, a road-map to membership—the first concrete step, 14 years after that membership was first suggested, one might ask Putin, “What's the hurry?”  In any case, Putin's invasion has made his NATO problem worst in a number of ways that could have been easily predicted.

As for No. 2, while there are neo-Nazis and right-wing fanatics in Ukraine, and on both sides of the conflict in Donbass, and in Russia, the US, and much of Europe; they are a long way from running Ukraine. The ultra-nationalist Svoboda party got 2.15% of the vote in the 2019 Parliamentary election, and failed to win even a single seat. The infamous Azov Brigade is maybe 1% of the Ukrainian armed forces. Besides, that Jew is certainly no Nazi! 

Putin's encirclement and bombardment of the largely Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Mariupol expose the sheer brutality of the cynical joke that he was coming to save them from genocide. Also why does Ukraine need to be “demilitarized” even after it's been “denazified,” unless it has lost a national right to self-defense for some reason? This points to a darker motive. Denazification can be the stated reason for liquidating anybody and any number of Ukrainians, simply by labeling them and then “disposing” of them accordingly. 

In short, the motives promoted by Putin and his fanboys as the causes for this war don't compute. For greater clarity, we must examine first, the methods used in his war, and finally Putin's views on the nation of Ukraine, and its right to exist.

As we proceed, it's important to remember that actions that further “the aim of destroying that nation” aren't limited to killing large numbers of that nation. In this regard, the more detailed definition of genocide from the United Nations' Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is useful. In Article II, it defines genocide as follows:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Then it gives five examples. Let's see how many apply to Putin's war against Ukraine:

a.  Killing members of the group;

Already covered. That's one.

b.  Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

His wanton and unprovoked attacks on Ukrainian civilians with the likes of cluster bombs and white phosphorus can be guaranteed to cause serious bodily and mental harm to Ukrainians. That's two.

c.  Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Putin's methods of surrounding Ukrainian cities, cutting off power, food, and water, and not allowing people to leave while shelling them into oblivion fulfills that description. Putin's war machine in Ukraine reminds me of that alien spacecraft in “Independence Day” obliterating city after city in its attempt to destroy humanity, or Darth Vader's planet destroying Death Star.  Both share with Putin's war genocidal intent and hubris, and like those fictitious villains, he too will ultimately fail. Three is well covered.

d.  Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

If you are reading this, I'm going to assume you've already heard about Putin's bombing of a maternity hospital, and a theater full of kids that was clearly marked as such. Add to this his bombing of some 23 hospitals or healthcare facilities, and 330 schools. Putin's war on Ukrainian children makes it four.

e.  Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Ukraine has claimed that 400,000 Ukrainians are being held in “ex-filtration camps,” and forcibly deported to various places in Russia. We know that thousands of children are among them. 

So, all of the UN's five examples of genocide can be found in the conduct of Putin's war in Ukraine. In addition to these, I would like to summit for your consideration a few more examples of genocide that I think can be seen in Putin's war on Ukraine:

f. Forcibly transferring territory from the nation to others.

This can already be seen in 2014 in his annexation of Crimea, after an illegal referendum under conditions of Russian military occupation. It was furthered since then by supplying fighters and weapons to a struggle to take the Donbass region away from Ukraine, and especially by his 21 February 2022 recognition of the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) as independent countries. It is being advanced even today by Russian officials who are claiming they will never leave Mariupol, if and when, they get their hands on this Alamo of Ukraine.

g. Destroying the state structure of another nation, even at the lowest level.

Perhaps you've heard about Putin's perchance for kidnapping Ukrainian mayors and replacing them with his people once he's captured a town? The Russian army is also taking down the Ukrainian flag in areas it occupies.

h. Willfully destroying a nation's cultural treasures and historic sites—symbols of the nation's independent development and existence.

Putin's army is going out of its way to destroy Ukrainian heritage & cultural sites. 15 March, Al Jazeera asks "How is war destroying Ukraine’s cultural heritage?":

Russia’s war on Ukraine has killed hundreds of people and displaced over a million more. And as Russian forces move further into the country they are also destroying parts of Ukraine’s cultural heritage – tactics common to war.

Last week the UN cultural agency released a statement saying it is “gravely concerned” about the destruction of Ukrainian art and history..

Putin is going after symbols of Ukraine's independence because his intention is to erase its independence.   

i. The mass rape of women and girls in the nation.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Russian soldiers occupying Kherson have been raping and killing women, according to Newsweek and Reuters. Ukrainian MPs have made similar claims of “Russian forces are raping and hanging women who are unable to escape their savage invasion.”

That literal rape should play a significant role in the way Russian soldiers interact with Ukrainian civilians should surprise no one, given how closely Putin's relationship with Ukraine has mimicked that of an abusive spouse. In a Ms. Magazine article titled "Rape Rhetoric and Russia’s War on Ukraine," Bonnie Stable comments on this, saying:

This playbook of bullying and domination is well known to those who study sexual and interpersonal violence, with parallels both implicit and explicit. 

As if to even more explicitly make the point to Ukrainians that he sees them as in an old fashion marriage with Russia, where he's the boss, and there is no divorce, Putin made reference to a crude Russian joke about marital rape weeks before he invaded, telling them, “It’s your duty, my beauty.”

“It’s your duty, my beauty.” President Putin makes crude reference to old “joke” about marital rape to discuss Ukrainian President Zelensky @MarquardtA reports pic.twitter.com/gDOg1cGXSU

— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) February 8, 2022

As we can see, Putin's war on Ukraine meets, not only the simple dictionary definition of genocide, but also the more detailed one used by the UN, and then some. But some might still argue that these are just collateral byproducts of Putin's brutal methods of war, and they don't rise to the level of genocide because he doesn't want to do away with Ukraine as an independent nation. To address that view, we must look at what Putin has said about Ukraine, and its right to exist, in the run up to his war.

Putin's ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“, published 227 days before he invaded Ukraine, tells us a lot about what he thinks of it.  He begins by telling us “[T]hat Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole.” This begs the question: Is that single whole Ukraine or Russia? And I think we know his answer to that.

He then goes on to tell us, “[M]odern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era. We know and remember well that it was shaped – for a significant part – on the lands of historical Russia.” Putin claims Ukraine was created by the Bolsheviks in 1922, so one could see why he would be keen to destroy anything that says otherwise.

Of course, Lenin and the Bolsheviks didn't create Ukraine when they broke up the czar's “prison house of nations,” but they did recognize Ukraine's right to form an independent republic. Putin doesn't see it that way. He complains that they were “so generous in drawing borders and bestowing territorial gifts.” He doesn't understand why “the Bolsheviks' efforts to detach from Russia its historical territories are not considered a crime.” He adds “One fact is crystal clear: Russia was robbed, indeed.” 

Putin also thinks that all the former Soviet Republics, not just Ukraine, owe Russia territory, and makes this demand: “[T]he republics that were founders of the Union, having denounced the 1922 Union Treaty, must return to the boundaries they had had before joining the Soviet Union.”

Of the various national minorities that made up both the Russian Empire and the USSR that followed it, he asks, “[W]hat difference does it make who people consider themselves to be – Russians, Ukrainians, or Belarusians,” when they are all part of the “great common Motherland" ?  Then Putin goes on to make that most terrible threat made by an abusive husband when the object of his “affection” threatens to leave:

[W]e will never allow our historical territories and people close to us living there to be used against Russia. And to those who will undertake such an attempt, I would like to say that this way they will destroy their own country.

In the case of an abusive marriage, there is sometimes a threat like this that is ultimately carried out by an act of murder. In the case of a former colonial possession bent on independence, Putin's remedy is war and genocide. He ends this piece by telling us that an independent Ukraine is simply impossible:

I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia....For we are one people.

Putin repeats these themes again in his 21 February address just days before the invasion. In it he tells us, “Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space,” and “Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land [Ukraine] have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians.”  

He asserts again that "modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia," and complains "Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia – by separating, severing what is historically Russian land...Let me repeat that these territories were transferred along with the population of what was historically Russia.” Putin calls it the “outright pillage of Russia.” Even after his invasion was in full swing with him slaughtering Ukrainian civilians, Putin insisted Ukrainians and Russians are “one people,” and any Ukrainians who disagree are “threatened and brainwashed.”

From this brief survey of Putin's writing and statements about Ukraine, it's clear that he thinks Ukraine has no right to an independent existence. He believes its people, resources, and land were stolen from Russia by the communists, and he is on a mission to fix that. His end game is the liquidation of Ukraine as an independent country and the return of its people, resources, and land to Russia. This explains why he is waging this war with genocidal methods. His end game is genocide.

Clay Claiborne

26 February 2022

See also: Vlad on Vlad: How Putin's views on Lenin shaped his decision to invade Ukraine

 

Does the "anti-imperialist" Left bear some responsibility for Putin's invasion of Ukraine?

It's clear to almost everyone that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a crime against humanity, not to mention, a violation of international law. By now, even Putin must be seeing that he has made a terrible mistake. He expected to have Zelenskyy's head on a post in The Maiden two weeks ago. Things just aren't working out the way he planned.

His invasion has revealed weaknesses in the Russian military that likely, Putin himself, wasn't even aware of:

• The second largest air force on Earth has been unable to establish air dominance over Ukraine after more than two weeks. His planes are still being shot out of the sky with enormous regularity, and although he has thousands of warplanes in reserve, the losses are stacking up.
• Equipment problems are plaguing his air corp. When Russian planes are shot down, in many cases the ejector seats fail, in others, the parachutes fail. Those pilots that make it to the ground, and are captured, are found to be older, over-weight, and out of shape. The image of Tom Cruise's Top Gun, they ain't.

His ground forces are suffering from similar equipment problems, as well as serious short-comings in logistical support:

• Russian soldiers have been captured with MREs (meal, ready to eat) that expired two decades ago.
• In Ukraine, his soldiers are foraging in local supermarkets and civilian homes, simply to find enough to eat.
• Tanks and other armored vehicles are being abandoned simply because they have run out of gas. 
• His soldiers have been going AWOL in increasing numbers, taking to the forest, or becoming bandits, taking over civilian homes. There are tremendous morale problems. They'd been told they were on an exercise. Now they find they are invading a comrade country where they're definitely not wanted. 

Russia is also looking like the amateur-hour on a tactical level:

• Sending in armor without infantry support, making for easy targets for Ukrainian dismounted infantry with Javelins.
• The daylight madness of leaving that armored column north of Kiev strung-out over 30 miles and bogged down. They found this out as soon as Ukraine got TB2 Bayraktar drones from Turkey.

In a vein effort to compensate for his army's inability to carry out military operations in a professional and effective manner, Putin has resorted to trying to pound all of Ukraine into the dust with wide-area weapons like artillery and indirect rocket fire. 

There's an old Stalin-era military doctrine that Putin likes: “Why send a soldier where a shell can go?” Well, because a soldier can distinguish between an enemy solider and a civilian, whereas as shell can't, might be the humane answer. Never mind that. His Ukrainian civilian causalities can't properly be called “collateral damage.” He is directly targeting them.

On Saturday, The Times reported that Putin had a number of his FSB intelligence officers arrested:

Sergey Beseda, head of the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch, was arrested with Anatoly Bolyukh, his deputy, according to a leading expert on the Russian security services, who said that sources from within FSB had confirmed the detention of both men.

This may be just the beginning of the Putin purges. He is going to need a lot of people to blame for this debacle. He may rightly suspect that military preparedness isn't up to snuff because state funds earmarked for the military have been going into the now-frozen foreign bank accounts of oligarchs. He may find logistics failed him because his top generals were more concerned about the welfare of their mistresses, than the soldiers under their command. Probably, also these same generals failed to given Putin the bad news about what their exercises in Belarus and Russia told them about their lack of readiness. It's not good to give Putin bad news.

Keep in mind, not only is the Russian military much bigger, they had years of planning and months of practice! The Ukrainians did not. They really didn't believe Putin would mount a full-on invasion. Maybe he was about to up the ante in Dombass, but they've blocked that approach before. Almost nobody believed Putin would do what he did. True, Biden's warnings were spot-on, but nobody believed him. US intelligence has cried “wolf” far too many times to expect to be believed. 

Putin is probably starting with his intelligence chiefs because for months—years, they have been confirming everything he said about genocide in Dombass, how Nazis-riddled the Ukrainian government was, how they expected to have things wrapped up in three days and would be welcomed as liberators, especially in the Russian-speaking areas where they would start.

Putin knows he's the boss, and ultimately, he gave the orders, but he also now knows he was deluded. Putin also knows he did not become so deluded on his own—he had help, and he needs people to blame for his debacle in Ukraine. 

In Putin's search for people to share his responsibility for this war, may I suggest that there are some outside of Russia that may have contributed to the delusional state he was in on 24 February when he declared war on Ukraine. These would include people on the “anti-imperialist” Left, not paid agents, that nevertheless, drank his Kool-Aid and made it “gospel” for so many Western Leftists. 

There were at least two major casus belli, pitched by Putin before he invaded Ukraine, that were widely purchased by the “anti-imperialist” Left. How much did their ready acceptance and their promotion of these Putin falsehoods contribute to his delusion that they represented “good and sufficient causes” for his rape of Ukraine? These two “articles-of-faith” on the “anti-imperialist” Left with regards to the “crisis” in Ukraine, are, of course:

1.) The main problem is NATO expansion eastward to be right on Russia's border.

2.) The Maiden was a US-orchestrated coup, and now Ukraine is dominated by neo-Nazis.

The strengthen and unity of Ukrainians we see now is a direct result of the people's revolution that took place on The Maiden in 2014. It was no coup. These people haven't been the “pawns” of Victoria Nuland, or anybody else.

I know a lot of people have been spreading this for free. Putin owes them a pay check. Now, let's look at each in more detail:

Was NATO “expansion” the real reason Putin started this war?

In just two short weeks, this war has made Putin's professed problems with NATO much, much worst:

• NATO has a new reason to exist—mutual defense against Russian military aggression. Better it would be the United Nations, but for structural reasons, the UN can't do it. 
• In taking Ukraine, he will be adding Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Hungary to the list of NATO countries on his border, increasing the number from three to seven.
• NATO is now more united, and its members can be expected to spend more on their militaries in coming years.
• There is new pressure on NATO to expand even closer to Russia's borders. Now, neutral Sweden and Finland are considering NATO membership.

Putin would have to be stupid not to see any of this coming, and Putin's not stupid. So, it strains credulity to believe he initiated this conflict because he was afraid Ukraine was going to join NATO anytime soon. Let us probe further for a better reason. 

It would be hard to read Putin's ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“, 12 July 2021, without concluding that he's on a mission to build a new Russian Empire, and not just on the territory of the USSR, but all that of the old Russian empire of the Czars. That being the case, the extension of NATO Article 5 protections to countries on his list certainly is a problem for him. They know that as well, which is why they flocked to join NATO—to gain its protection from him. Thus, the push for this notorious NATO expansion came from them, and not the US and its Western European allies. That's why the Putin-fanboys can quote CIA director William Burns on how he tried to throw cold water on it at the time.

Of course, the Goebbels in Putin knew better than to say that NATO “containment” of Russia was only a problem because he intended to expand Russia to include Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary Czech Rep, Slovakia, Belarus, Finland, and Azerbaijan. So, Putin became defensive. He said he was concerned for Russia's safety. Given the atrocities the Nazis committed against Russia in WW2, there might seem good reason for that concern, especially inside Russia, where every enemy, be they Ukraine or NATO or whoever, are branded “Nazi.”

I don't know how many on the “anti-imperialist” Left seriously think Russia is threatened with unprovoked military invasion from NATO—meaning the kind of thing Russia has just done to Ukraine—tanks across the border WW2 style. Personally, I've always thought there was about a nano chance of that, both sides having nukes and all. Things are handled with a bit more finesse between superpowers these days. Since WW2, the kind of blunt force Russia is exercising in Ukraine has been reserved for use by imperialist powers on smaller countries. 

Also, what's up with all Putin's nuclear saber rattling? Only two countries have tried to use their nuclear shields to deter outside interference with their genocidal operations, Israel and Russia. These new threats are much more serious. Putin has a lot more nukes.

What is Putin's real goal in Ukraine: denazification or genocide?

The black-hood blinding the mayor of Mariupol as he was dragged out of office by Russian soldiers presages the terrible fate awaiting patriotic Ukrainians should Russia fully conquer the country and is able to advance Putin's “denazification” program with all the fury that name implies. 

The “united front” of far-right parties garnered only 2.3% of the vote in Ukraine's last parliamentary election, and out of a Ukrainian armed forces of 200,000, the neo-Nazis Azov Battalion is estimated at between 900 and 2500, although it probably has grown now due to the war. Putin's war will probably make Ukraine's neo-Nazi problem worst—war favors the development of such trends.

Given this low level of fascist influence, the United States, with one of its two major parties firmly in the grips of white Christian authoritarianism, almost certainly has a deeper fascism infestation than Ukraine. The pentagon also has a big problem with white supremacists and neo-Nazis in its ranks.

I don't know how good of an actor Volodymyr Zelenskyy is, but he's a very good president, and one hell of a wartime leader. I'm certain that Jew is no Nazi. He is also very astute. Not being in a position to do away with the Azov Battalion just yet, he probably decided it was better to have them inside the tent, pissing out, rather than the other way around, and put them in the national guard where he could exercise a modicum of control over them.     

The US, on the other hand, may well be between Trump and Trump—a white Christian authoritarian with great affection for Vladimir Putin. And BTW, as this war reveals what a sick, sadistic, and perverted person Putin is, it should give us a new window into what Trump may have in store for us if re-elected, and cause us to redouble our efforts to insure that never happens. 

Of course, the US isn't the only country with a growing ultra-right, i.e., fascist infestation. This is a problem for many nations now, one that Putin has done more than any other world leader to promote.

This reality goes to show what a cynical sham Putin's claim that the Nazis problem in Ukraine is so bad he finds it necessary to invade, at tremendous cost of lives, both Russian and Ukrainian, but especially Ukrainian, so that his “Oprichniki” can carry out his “denazification” program. Having lost 27 million to Nazis in the last world war, Putin the Terrible knows this is a trigger for the Russian people. That's why they have to be branded as “Nazi,” and not just fascist or ultra-right. His Goebbels-like control over all Russian media allows him to create a convincing alternate reality for most Russian citizens. One can understand why so many Russians believe this garbage.

But what are we to say about those in the West that have been parroting Putin's propaganda about the “Nazi" danger in Ukraine ever since he first sent his tanks across its border in 2014? Did their loud and persistent echo chamber help convince Putin that this lie had the legs to support an invasion? 

As his war on Ukraine proceeds, it's becoming clearer every day that his end game is genocide—the complete liquidation of Ukraine as an independent nation and people. As I describe in some detail in “Vlad on Vlad:..”, he thinks the Bolsheviks were wrong, and Ukraine as a nation separate from Russia is impossible.

Moreover, his very methods of war against Ukrainians show a genocidal edge, and this time “genocidal” in the worst sense, not the purely legal one. He's targeting civilians. He doesn't care who he kills as long as they are Ukrainians. Combatant, non-combatant, man, women, child—it makes no difference. And he doesn't care how many. He'll allow Ukrainians to escape to safety, but only if they are willing go to Russia or Belarus. He's already disappeared two mayors, and put in his own mayor in Mariupol, showing his intention to replace the Ukrainian state even at the lowest level. He's cutting off food and water to surrounded communities—while babies die of dehydration, and threatening chemical and biological attacks. All these point to an intention of genocide, and it will be done under the banner of “denazification.”

As Ukrainian blood spills in coming months, some of it will drip from the hands of those on the pro-Putin “anti-imperialist” Left that have been peddling his propaganda on Ukraine for years.

In Solidarity with the Ukrainian people, and all those who fight imperialism,

Clay Claiborne

14 March 2022

How to join the Ukrainian IT Army

I first started supporting national liberation struggles back in the 1960s when Vietnam was fighting for its freedom. In those days, there was little you could do to directly support their struggle beyond protesting it here, and organizing draft resistance to limit the US supply of cannon fodder, unless you were willing to travel to the region.

Today, things are different. Internet Technology (IT) has made a big difference in how wars are fought, and dominating that "battle space" can ultimately help determine who wins.  There are two major fronts in this cyber war.

The first is the on-line propaganda war. This is the front I have been most involved in. It basically involves combating the mountain of misinformation posted on social media by Putin fanboys, trolls & bots with the truth. The fields of struggle are the popular social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogger and Instagram, to name a few. While I try to use this blog constructively in that struggle, this post isn't about that front in the cyber wars.

The second front in the cyber war involves either gathering information from opposition Internet traffic, or shutting down opposition Internet traffic. This can be loosely defined as "hacking." That's what this post is about.

Both after the 2016 US election, and in the run up to Russia's war on Ukraine, much has been made of the Russian GRU cyber warfare capabilities, which has included hacking email accounts, and government websites, and then "leaking" the results, to shutting down major infrastructure like the Colonial Pipeline. To this I say:

Cyber war? Cyber war? We'll give Putin a cyber war he wasn't looking for!

The best hackers don't work for the GRU. They don't work for the US government, or any government, for that matter. They work for themselves. Governments don't pay enough.

During the Arab Spring, and Occupy Movements of 2011, a mysterious group that goes by the handle "Anonymous" showed what could be done by hacking MENA government websites, and gathering data, or posting counter-messages. They also helped activists maintain Internet access when authoritarian regimes tried to shut it down. They also created "Survival Guides" of useful information and techniques for those fighting tyranny on the ground. Since the Ukraine war broke out, they have been at it again.

Even Google got into this struggle in 2011. When Mubarak tried to shutdown Twitter in Egypt, Google engineers worked with Twitter to create a work-around that allowed anyone with telephone access to post a tweet. Google wrote on its official 

blog, 31 January 2011:

Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection. ...More

Now Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Ukrainian government has created a way people around the world can support their struggle over the Internet. They call it the Ukrainian IT Army, and you can join!

Here are a few MSM articles that will tell you more about it from Wired, Venture Beat, and the Wall St. Journal.

Because of the sensitive nature of what they are doing, the Ukrainian IT Army communicates via the encrypted app Telegram. So, the first thing to you need to do, if you want to get involved, or even find out more about it, is download the Telegram app, and set up an account. There are desktop apps for the MacOS, Windows, and Linux, but you need to start with a smartphone app. They are available for both the Android and Iphone. You can also download it from Google Play.

Once logged into the app, search for "IT ARMY OF UKRAINE(English)," and join that channel. You will be joining over four thousand subscribers to this channel. Ukraine says there are over 390,000 involved in this effort already, both in Ukraine and elsewhere.  The  The channel description says:

This channel is for people who don't speak Russian and only speak English so we can translate videos audios and posts from original channel. 

There is a 11-page pdf Getting Started Manual you can download once on Telegram.

There are also a lot of posts about dot ru websites being taken down, so there is likely much more going on below the surface, and while these activities aren't necessarily illegal, they are in opposition to powerful authoritarian actors that may not care much about your free speak rights. So there are a couple of other tools that are vital for this work.

The first is a good Virtual Private Network to protect your identity and location. There are many available. I recommend NordVPN, at $11.99/month or a 2-year plan $95.76 ($3.99/month). The other thing you will need is the Tor Browser. This will cost you nothing! Tor protects both your privacy and that of the websites you visit. Wikileaks used this extensively for gathering and distributing files.

Welcome to the dark web. Good luck.

Clay Claiborne

6 March 2022

Vlad on Vlad: How Putin's views on Lenin shaped his decision to invade Ukraine

My bike lights now

We know that Truth is the first Casualty of War, but it can also deliver a quick Death to some Lies. In this case the Lies are that NATO expansion was the root cause of the crisis between Russia and Ukraine, or that Russia had to intervene because innocent civilians were being shelled in Dombass. These Lies, spread far and wide by Putin and his hand-puppets, are now officially dead! They may rest in war. His prosecution of this war has revealed the naked truth that Putin is trying to conquer Ukraine because he feels it belongs to Russia.

Putin on Ukraine

Vladimir Putin's article ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“ [way back machine] of 12 July 2021 may be the best place to start to understand what is motivating his current invasion and attempt to conquer Ukraine. Early military plans and preparations for this invasion were probably already underway when he penned it; this war was clearly many months in the making.

It's a massive piece on his problems with Ukraine, and curiously in this 6,979-word tome, NATO doesn't even come up 'til word 6,184. Clearly it wasn't top of mind. It's a long history of mother Russia, and how all this, meaning Ukraine, the Baltic republics, parts of modern Poland, Austria, etc. were once hers, and how it was all taken away by the western imperialists, or given away by the Bolsheviks—Vladimir Lenin's Communist Party.  Its main theme, expressed clearly in the first paragraph is “that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole.”

But Putin doesn't just seek a reunification of Russia and Ukraine, as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, he longs for what he calls “Ancient Rus.” He tells us:

Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe. Slavic and other tribes across the vast territory – from Ladoga, Novgorod, and Pskov to Kiev and Chernigov – were bound together by one language (which we now refer to as Old Russian), economic ties, the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty, and – after the baptism of Rus – the Orthodox faith.

He tells us that “both the nobility and the common people perceived Rus as a common territory, as their homeland.” He recalls the “tradition of ancient Russian statehood.” How “Moscow princes...cast off the foreign yoke and began gathering the Russian lands.” He tells us how, in 1654 “dozens of cities, including Kiev...swore allegiance to the Russian tsar,” and after 1686 “The Russian state incorporated the city of Kiev and the lands on the left bank of the Dnieper River, including Poltava region, Chernigov region, and Zaporozhye.” He claims “the word ”Ukrainian“, judging by archival documents, originally referred to frontier guards who protected the external borders.” 

I don't know enough Russian history to confirm or dispute Putin's telling of it, but his main point comes through clear enough—that the Russian and Ukrainian people represent one indivisible whole, and that Ukrainian lands have always been a part of Russia.

He continues:

In the second half of the 18th century, following the wars with the Ottoman Empire, Russia incorporated Crimea and the lands of the Black Sea region, which became known as Novorossiya...the Russian Empire regained the western Old Russian lands, with the exception of Galicia and Transcarpathia, which became part of the Austrian – and later Austro-Hungarian – Empire.

The incorporation of the western Russian lands into the single state was not merely the result of political and diplomatic decisions. It was underlain by the common faith, shared cultural traditions, and – I would like to emphasize it once again – language similarity.

Putin sees the nationalism of the national minorities in the Soviet Union, and before that, in Czarist Russia, as a tool used by outside forces to divide the Russian people. Already, in the second paragraph he complains about “attempts to play on the ”national question“ and sow discord among people,” and here again to “the desire of the leaders of the Polish national movement to exploit the ”Ukrainian issue“ to their own advantage” in the late 19th century.

As to “the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians...there was no historical basis – and could not have been any.” He blames the Bolsheviks for creating Ukraine:

On 15 March 1918, the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) directly ordered that delegates be sent to the Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, including from the Donetsk Basin, and that ”one government for all of Ukraine“ be created at the congress.
....
In 1922, when the USSR was created, with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic becoming one of its founders, a rather fierce debate among the Bolshevik leaders resulted in the implementation of Lenin's plan to form a union state as a federation of equal republics. The right for the republics to freely secede from the Union was included in the text of the Declaration on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and, subsequently, in the 1924 USSR Constitution. By doing so, the authors planted in the foundation of our statehood the most dangerous time bomb, which exploded the moment the safety mechanism provided by the leading role of the CPSU was gone, the party itself collapsing from within. A ”parade of sovereignties“ followed.

Putin considers this the great tragedy of the 20th century. He goes on to tell us that “modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era. We know and remember well that it was shaped – for a significant part – on the lands of historical Russia.” He is outraged that “the Bolsheviks' efforts to detach from Russia its historical territories are not considered a crime,” saying "One fact is crystal clear: Russia was robbed, indeed.”

Of course, the Bolsheviks didn't create the Ukrainian nation, they merely recognized its existence. They didn't “rob” Russia; they gave Ukraine its due. All the world can now see that Putin is wrong; there is definitely a Ukrainian national identity that is distinct from Russian. His attempt at genocide will fail!

Putin goes on to argue that the republics that left Russia after the fall of the USSR in 1991 “must return to the boundaries they had had before joining the Soviet Union," in 1922. He opposes the way Lenin and the Bolsheviks freed the national minorities and constituted their republics. He considers it a theft of Russian lands.

Lenin often referred to Czarist Russia as “a prison house of nations.” Even though it was Russian authoritarian rule, he realized that it oppressed the Russian people along with everybody else. When they broke the chains of Czarist Russia in 1917, they sought to free all the inmates of the prison, not just themselves. Putin seems to think they should have kept the others in prison, and made them work for the new boss.

Putin thinks any reference to national minorities unhelpful, “if you are talking about a single large nation, a triune nation, then what difference does it make who people consider themselves to be – Russians, Ukrainians, or Belarusians.” He considered what was happening in Ukraine before his invasion “a forced change of identity.” Now he's exercising his kind of “forced change” with tanks and artillery.

After many references to their “great common Motherland,” multiple complaints about “blatant aggressive Russophobia,” and “the anti-Russia project,” he gets to the threat he's currently carrying out:

[W]e will never allow our historical territories and people close to us living there to be used against Russia. And to those who will undertake such an attempt, I would like to say that this way they will destroy their own country.

Then he ends with “I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia...we are one people.”

Putin doesn't think Donbass should have been given to Ukraine in the first place. He blames the Ukrainian government for the civil war in the region, a civil war that most likely would not be going on without Russian support and connivance. Finally, he gets to complaints about the “deployment of NATO infrastructure.” 

It must be noted that Putin hasn't always been so stridently anti-NATO, as this 2012 Sputnik News headline attests:

Russia Approves Ulyanovsk NATO Hub

12:35 GMT 29.06.2012

The Russian government has given approval for the United States and its NATO allies to use a Russian air base in the Volga city of Ulyanovsk as a hub for transits to and from Afghanistan...More

Only later did NATO become his mortal enemy, as he pursued his drive to reclaim the Russian Empire, and faced the reality that many of those 'little nations' had flocked to NATO for protection. His big problem with Ukraine is not that someday it might join them, but that it isn't part of Russia anymore.

He doesn't just want to reclaim the territory occupied by the Soviet Union, he wants the Czar's “prison house of nations” back under Russian, meaning his, control. All of this could have been known about Putin's motives for creating a crisis about Ukraine more than six months ago by anyone who cared to look. 

😉😉😉😉😉

In his 21 February 2022 address about his plans for Ukraine, Putin gives what I think is a pretty decent one-paragraph description of Bolshevik policy, saying Lenin:

[S]uggested making concessions to the nationalists, whom he called “independents” at that time. Lenin’s ideas of what amounted in essence to a confederative state arrangement and a slogan about the right of nations to self-determination, up to secession, were laid in the foundation of Soviet statehood. Initially they were confirmed in the Declaration on the Formation of the USSR in 1922, and later on, after Lenin’s death, were enshrined in the 1924 Soviet Constitution.

Then Putin asks: “[W]hy was it necessary to appease the nationalists[?]” “[W]hy was it necessary to make such generous gifts, beyond the wildest dreams of the most zealous nationalists and, on top of all that, give the republics the right to secede from the unified state without any conditions?” He calls it “absolutely incomprehensible,” and so there can be no doubt that he opposes Marxist-Leninist principles on the right of nations to self-determination, he exclaims:

When it comes to the historical destiny of Russia and its peoples, Lenin’s principles of state development were not just a mistake; they were worse than a mistake, as the saying goes.

Make no mistake; Putin doesn't want the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics back. His vision of the future is much darker. He wants the old Czarist Russian Empire back. He wants the “prison house of nations” back! 

The bulk of this address is a diatribe about how Ukraine is nothing without Russia. “[M]odern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia.” How Ukraine “has historically been Russian land,” and “historically Russian land.” What “Lenin and his associates did...was extremely harsh on Russia." Putin also complains about what he calls “Lenin’s harsh instructions regarding Donbass." Putin is quite pleased that “what Stalin fully implemented was not Lenin’s but his own principles of government” which gave few rights to the minority republics as a practical matter, but thinks it a problem that Stalin never changed the Soviet constitution, saying “it is a great pity that the fundamental and formally legal foundations of our state were not promptly cleansed of the odious and utopian fantasies inspired by the revolution.” Meaning the “fantasy” that the minority republics could ever be free of the Russian yoke. Putin complains “The virus of nationalist ambitions is still with us." Great Russian nationalism excepted. Putin is outraged that upon the breakup of the USSR, the leadership actually followed the constitution, and allowed the republics to exercise their right of self-determination. He calls it the “outright pillage of Russia.”

In many ways, Putin's narrative on Ukraine reminds me of an abusive husband, the kind that would rather kill his woman than set her free. First, it's, “We're inseparable, babe. Look at all we've been through together.” Then it's “I made you! You'd be nothing without me! Look at all I've done for you. Look at all the gifts I've given you." And when the answer is still No! The gun comes out.

Even Putin's remarks about how any republic leaving the union should have been forced to return to its pre-1922 borders, reminds me of the angry ex, “Just leave your bank book and car keys on the counter before you go!”

The whole world can now see that he has little concern for “the interests of the Ukrainian people,” or the security and welfare of “our Ukrainian colleagues." Putin's war “is not aimed at creating better conditions in the interests of people’s well-being,” to send his own phrase back at him.

Still, one can't help but admire the brazen hypocrisy of Putin's complaint about the Ukrainian government:

[I]ts electoral and other political procedures just serve as a cover, a screen for the redistribution of power and property between various oligarchic clans.

I don't know about the rest of the government, but one thing I know for sure, they have a much better president than Russia!

To justify his planned invasion, he continues his complaint about how badly the Ukrainian government has mismanaged things:

Many people simply do not have the money to pay for utilities. They literally struggle to survive.

No! Mr. Putin! That is a struggle many people face in capitalist countries, and we often use hyperbole to describe it. You, Mr. Putin, are showing the whole world what it really means to “literally struggle to survive.” One day, you're worried about how you're going to pay a utility bill. The next day, you don't have any utilities. You don't have a home. You are hiding from Russian bombs in a basement, or running for the border with what's left of your life in a back pack. That is “literally” the struggle to survive you have made reality for millions.

Since this address is being made on the eve of the invasion, Putin's NATO subterfuge gets a lot more attention, and comes up sooner. Still, he's more than 60% through this 7,566-word tirade before he gets to it. But before he gets to NATO, he accuses Ukraine of “preparation for hostilities against our country, Russia.” Like it's about to attack Russia? Right. He also says “Ukraine intends to create its own nuclear weapons.” Oh, WMD! That's always a handy charge for a nuclear country to throw against a non-nuclear adversary. I wonder whatever gave Putin that idea? 

Finally, he gets to NATO:

Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises.

Putin goes on about Ukraine's involvement with NATO for five paragraphs, before he moves on to a subject dear to the hearts of Trump Republicans in the US—the destruction of monuments—I kid you not:

A monument to Alexander Suvorov was recently demolished in Poltava. What is there to say? Are you renouncing your own past? The so-called colonial heritage of the Russian Empire?

Then he gets back to the problem of NATO expansion, and his often-repeated story that:

In 1990, when German unification was discussed, the United States promised the Soviet leadership that NATO jurisdiction or military presence will not expand one inch to the east and that the unification of Germany will not lead to the spread of NATO's military organisation to the east. This is a quote.

Many others have disputed Putin's recollection of what was said, and Putin cites no treaty or official document. Putin just says “They issued lots of verbal assurances.” Well, Mr. Diplomat, Mr. KGB, you didn't get it in writing?

Timothy Snyder spoke about this on Democracy Now, Monday:

So, when Germany was unified, the Americans and the Soviets did make an arrangement about West Germany and East Germany. That arrangement, however, did not foresee and had nothing to do with the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. We’re talking about something that happened in 1990. In 1991, to everyone’s surprise, the Soviet Union no longer existed. And after that point, it’s very important to remember that the world isn’t just about Washington and Moscow. It’s also about other sovereign states and other peoples, who can express their desires and have their own foreign policies.

So, when we speak of NATO enlargement, I mean, that’s a bit of a misnomer. NATO was not there to enlarge. There wasn’t much willingness on the part of Western Europe or the U.S. to enlarge. It was the East Europeans themselves who pushed the process forward. I mean, we can decide that they didn’t understand their own national interests, but that’s how the process unfolded. It came from the East Europeans. And there was never an understanding between the United States and Russia after 1991 that this wasn’t going to happen.

So much for the so-called broken promise about NATO expansion. Not that such a broken promise could ever justify a full-on invasion, but just such drastic escalation is in keeping with the rejected-abuser metaphor: You broke your promise (never to leave me, never to go with him, whatever), so now I'm going to kill you.

Putin complains that NATO has “a policy of containing Russia,” and, in so much as he has the goal of absorbing Ukraine and other neighboring countries into Russia, in this he is correct. Putin see's Ukraine membership as an existential threat to Russia because he considers Ukraine to rightfully belong to Russia. That is the short story. Now he is trying to take it by force. The foreseeable results of his actions put the lie to his reasons:

• He complained that NATO was getting too close. By occupying Ukraine, he will have put four new NATO countries on his border, more than double the current three.
• He complains about the influence of far-right and neo-Nazis elements in Ukraine. His attack on Ukraine will very likely make them stronger. War favors the growth of such elements.
• He objects to the militarization and rising military budgets of the West. Thanks to his invasion of Ukraine, calls for increased defense spending will be heard in capitals around the world.

Without delving into all the back and forth about what really happened in the Maiden, or who's really responsible for the civil war in Donbass, all the charges and counter charges, I think it's safe to say, after the lies about not invading Ukraine and about not targeting civilians, that one side can't be trusted. That side has shown, by its actions, that it has little concern for truth or humanity, therefore, every claim they have made is suspect, and must be disregarded without independent proof.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian people have shown, though the unity and courage with which they are facing Putin's horrific war machine, that they are a nation of the first caliber, and further, their president is nobody's puppet. He's a leader, in the truest sense of the word, and enjoys broad support from his people. That is what democracy looks like!

Anti-war and pro-Putin?

Before the invasion, the loudest voices in the western Left and peace movement were uncritically echoing the Kremlin line on Ukraine. This has been most unhelpful. 

When Code Pink called for a Peace with Russia Day of Action, 5 Feb., they were involved in a bit of Putin-friendly misdirection.  Their main demand was “No War with Russia” over Ukraine. In the face of the growing threat of invasion, they demanded “not a single bullet or gun be sent to Ukraine.” They were even going to Nancy Pelosi's house to demand no weapons be sent to Ukraine. 

The page for this event has mysteriously gone missing from codepink.org, but it still can be found by the wayback machine. The co-sponsors read like a who's-who of the US Left, and includes CODEPINK, Answer Coalition, Black Alliance for Peace, Popular Resistance, World Beyond War, Veterans for Peace, and ADDICTED To WAR. It featured the now seemingly bizarre opinion that "the US is reaping what it sowed in Ukraine." This is also the name of a 13 Jan 2022 piece by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davis which takes Putin's narrative on Ukraine as truth:

If the United States and NATO are not prepared to negotiate new disarmament treaties, remove U.S. missiles from countries bordering Russia and dial back NATO expansion, Russian officials say they will have no option but to respond with “appropriate military-technical reciprocal measures.” 

That is how they framed Putin's threat to invade Ukraine. The main point of unity for all these groups seems to be that whatever trouble Ukraine was in, the US and NATO were to blame. “Hands Off Russia!” By spreading his disinformation, and running interference against anyone who might intervene, they were rendering practical support to Putin's Ukraine project. The problem isn't NATO “expansion” disturbing “peace with Russia.” It is being disturbed by Russia wanting a piece of Ukraine.

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Just about a month has gone by. How things have changed! Code Pink and all have come over to the side of the Ukrainian people suddenly. They are planning “Stop the War in Ukraine” rallies for this Sunday. Their main demands now are “Russian Troops Out! No to NATO Expansion.” Never mind that last goes against the wishes of most Ukrainians. They want membership in NATO. Especially now!

The US anti-war movement has not been helpful in preventing this war of Russia against Ukraine because they have been too busy carrying water for Vladimir Putin.

• They promoted every Kremlin conspiracy theory about how the 2013 popular uprising that became known as the Maiden was the product of western puppet masters; how the revolt that sent Putin's puppet packing was a coup d'état led by neo-Nazis. They never had much to say about the Ukrainian president, Zelenskyy, until now.
• They pretty much ignored the blaring horns that Putin's threats against Ukraine were based on plain old imperialist domination, and trumpeted far and wide Putin's claim that this was all happening because of NATO aggressiveness and expansion. They protested NATO and their main demand was “No War Against Russia.” It never occurred to them to protest Russia, and demand “No War Against Ukraine.” 
• When the Biden administration took the unprecedented step of making public US intelligence to alert the world of what was coming in an effort to stop a war, they reminded everyone of the times fabricated US intelligence was used to start a war, accused the messenger of warmongering, and repeated, uncritically, Putin's denials.

Putin seems to never tired of threatening the world with nuclear weapons. He is seeking to dissuade anyone from coming to the aid of Ukraine militarily. In the beginning of the crisis, he made a point of scheduling, and personally overseeing, military exercises of his nuclear forces. In his 24 February declaration of war on Ukraine, Putin warned that any country that attempted to “interfere in these developments” will be met “immediately” with consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history,” and on Sunday, Putin bragged that he had ordered Russia's nuclear forces be put on “combat alert” because of “aggressive comments” made by some leaders in NATO countries.

These “anti-war” activists from Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, and such, never seem to tire of backing Putin's play by reminding us that Russia has nukes, so we dare not oppose his aggressive use of military power with our own lest WW3 breakout. They have been using this logic to oppose a no-fly zone to protect Syrian civilians from Russian bombs for the better part of a decade now, but Syria tells us another story.

On 24 November 2015, a Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24 warplane near Syria. Turkey is a NATO member. Did WW3 break out? No. What did Russia do in response? Moscow immediately deployed its most advanced anti-aircraft missiles, the S-400, to Hmeimim airbase in Syria. Later, in 2017 when Trump's Tomahawks skirted Hmeimim on their way to striking Shayrat airbase in respond to Assad's sarin attack in Khan Sheikhoun, those Russian S-400s didn't intercept any of them.

Russia having nukes is a big deal, but it can't be allowed to mean that Putin can commit genocide with immunity.

Now that the horrors of Putin's plan is being visited on Ukraine, all of these same pro-Putin “anti-war” activists are scrambling to present themselves as being on the right side of the struggle, but they still aren't. While they all claim to support the Ukrainians in their struggle against Russia, as a practical matter, they don't:

1. They oppose sanctions, saying sanctions will only hurt ordinary Russians.
2. They oppose sending weapons to the Ukrainians, even though this is their number one demand. They say more weapons will only make things worse. yeah, tell that to Putin.
3. They oppose a no-fly zone, even while the Ukrainians are demanding the protection. They argue Putin will start WW3 if he is denied his targets. 
4. They oppose Ukraine joining NATO. In a post invasion poll 76% of Ukrainians want to join NATO, according to Pravda.

They need to stop kowtowing to imperialism, and re-think their whole approach to the people's struggles.

Clay Claiborne, 2 March 2022