For much of last year Western ‘experts’ and media anchors were dreaming about Russia’s imminent defeat, Kiev’s taking back of Crimea, and/or a popular uprising or coup in Russia causing “regime collapse”. I say dreaming. Many were openly salivating.
Such dreams are hard to give up. Here is Mark Galleoti doing his bit to keep the dream going on for a while. (Incidentally – it is not true that everyone who opposes the war is “sent to jail if they are lucky”. That is a propaganda lie. Most people receive fines or a short administrative detention sentences for the first offense. In fact – according to this information sourced to an “anti-regime” NGO most people arrested at rallies are released without charge. [1] ). Galleoti does his best to paint a picture of a crumbling economy. Certainly inflation is high and people feel it. And real incomes are falling. [2] But the economy has not collapsed and Russians are quite resilient. It is surprising that Galeotti manages to get through this interview without mentioning that as of today Ukraine is already experiencing a serious shortage of material of war and that both US and EU funding is currently blocked.
This article in Al-Jazeera is more objective, probably because it is not an exercise in wish-fulfilment. Of note in this article is the report that at the negotiations in March 2022 which broke down, Russia’s key demand related to Ukraine not joining NATO. This ‘leak’ is consistent with Professor John Mearsheimer’s analysis that it was the drive to bring Ukraine into NATO which was the absolute trigger for the war. It is very hard to see how Ukraine could possibly join NATO now; yet still leaders in the West discuss how this will happen.
I agree with the author of the Al-Jazeera article. In the end Ukraine will most likely have to accept most of the demands of Russia – demands which could have been accepted in 2021, or even 2015, without all this killing. The Western media will, in such a case, automatically find a way to sell it as some kind of victory.
Notes
- https://advox.globalvoices.org/2023/01/11/rights-organization-ovd-info-gives-an-overview-of-repression-in-russia-in-2022/
- https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/russia