As US 'threatens' Ukraine, Putin whips up national chauvinism to confront domination

By Harsh Thakor* 
The world is on the brink of another round of cold war, as hostility around Ukraine intensifies. The Western powers led by America are breaking every brick in the wall to endanger the security of the world in order to consolidate their hegemony in the world.
Russia may have been an aggressor in Chechyna, but America and its Western allies are on the offensive. This is happening at a time when the people of Ukraine are being tormented by the autocratic policies of their rulers.
Russia has heavily piled up its army on the border of Ukraine in retaliation to the Western powers' encirclement of Ukraine. All this is happening at a time when Russia is seeking to be the key contender for world hegemony. When its economy is facing grave crisis, its rulers are whipping up nation chauvinism to win electoral credibility. It supported the Palestinian cause or Taliban only to sharpen its hegemony.
The manner Putin is projecting rearguard action is manifestation of a nation seeking supremacy. Meanwhile, Russia and China have formed an alliance to give serious contention to the Western powers and act as a bully towards other nations, abusing their territorial rights.
For Russia, the essence of the pressure on Ukraine concerns the "security guarantees" it wants to obtain, that is, the removal of NATO and its missiles from its borders. The US on its part is sending troops and weapons to Ukraine, forcing its membership of NATO (so far, 14 former Eastern countries have been incorporated into the Pentagon-led military alliance).
Russia has said, it has no intention of attacking Ukraine; however, it is clear that it is increasing its military presence in the area and in the Baltic. The US is taking advantage of this and, while affirming that "Russia will invade Ukraine", is pushing the Ukrainian government into military action, thus covering up Kiev's failure to respect the Minsk agreements.
Developments show that the US is escalating war tension for fully conquering the regions and countries that were previously under Russian influence, and include them in NATO. It wants to encircle Russia militarily, weaken it economically to prevent it from participating as a powerful actor in the struggle for the division of the world.
The US wants to inflict a blow on the trade and energy relations of European countries, primarily Germany, with Russia, including through sanctions to be taken in the event of a conflict; reaffirm US leadership by strengthening discipline within NATO, putting in line the countries that have winked at Russia (Turkey, Hungary ...); and confront European countries with a fait accompli and push them against Russia, so as to concentrate its forces in the Asia-Pacific and against China.
The US wants to create the conditions for the US monopolies of the military-industrial complex to supply more weapons to European countries (F-35 etc.). It says it wants to work in unison with the the European Union, but it is clear that there are differences.
Business interests in some European countries do not want US-Russia confrontation. But several European NATO countries, starting with Great Britain, the Netherlands, Poland and the Baltic countries, support the Biden-Blinken plan and are in favour of an escalation of tension.
As tensions rise, intentions of US policy will become more evident and will affect many countries, particularly those which are traditionally subordinate to Washington. The pressures and interference will rapidly increasing.
The main demands of the December 17 document, which the Kremlin made public, are the non-extension of NATO, including a guarantee that Ukraine would not be admitted as a member; a return to its borders as agreed upon in the 1997 NATO-Russia agreement; and a guarantee that it would not station missiles in Eastern Europe and withdraw those that already exist.
NATO has nuclear missiles stationed in Romania, just 1,000 kilometers away from Moscow. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has systematically encircled Russia, with all countries near its borders -- with the exceptions of Ukraine and Belarus -- now members of the military alliance.
Putin has stated that, for the US, “Ukraine is just a tool…They can drag Ukraine into NATO, they can deploy their strike weapons and instigate an offensive to retake Donbass or Crimea with military force and drag us into an armed conflict again.”
The war cries around Ukraine has seen the comeback of the cold war situation between Russia and the United States. Both countries show no flexibility in their stand on Ukraine, which has been in the grip of severe cold, surrounded by arms and ammunition, and mostly uncertain future.

Representing thoroughly corrupt oligarchs Putin refuses to make any popular appeal to antiwar sentiment in US, Europe, Ukraine and Russia

In comparison to US invasions of West Asian countries, the approach of the West this time appears different. There was fast and furious military action in the past without giving any heed to appeals for a peaceful resolution. Even the concerns of the United Nations or the non-European international community were ignored. It was not only the war fought inside several of the countries: their leaderships were eliminated and large number of people were killed.
There is little to disagree with Vasily Nebenzya, Russian Federation representative to the United Nations, who has sought to indict the hypocrisy of the US and its allies, who criticized Russia’s movement of troops on its own soil, while remaining silent about American military operations all over the world.
“The Americans hold the record for having troop presence outside their territory,” he said. “American troops, advisers and weapons including nuclear weapons are frequently deployed thousands of kilometers, and we’re not even talking about the fact that the military centers of the US have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in places where they were supposed to be bringing peace.”
He cited the routine US use of force against other countries without the authorization of the Security Council and widespread deployment of American military forces around the world: “There is incontrovertible evidence on the internet that there are 750 US bases in more than 80 countries of the world. The overall number of US troops deployed abroad is 175,000.”
Despite the blistering indictment of US hypocrisy and lies delivered by its UN ambassador, the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin has no other policy than seeking some sort of accommodation with western powers, to play off France and Germany against the US.
Representing the interests of the thoroughly corrupt Russian billionaire oligarchs who built their personal fortunes out of the collapse of the Soviet Union, through massive theft of state resources, Putin refuses to make any popular appeal to antiwar sentiment either in the US, Europe, or for that matter, within Ukraine and Russia.
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*Freelance journalist based in Mumbai