I BELIEVE there is an important difference between siding with Russia and siding with Ukraine. Whilst offering one’s support for the former amounts to nothing more than an unjustifiable defence of open aggression and territorial expansion, defending the latter is more ambiguous in the sense that opposing the designs of Moscow does not mean that one is necessarily endorsing NATO and Zelinsky’s puppet-government. It is possible to break this down into two parts:

(a) being Ukrainian and physically defending one’s own land, which I consider wholly justifiable, and

(b) simply posting Ukrainian flags on social media, which, from my ultra-decentralist perspective, means offering one’s tacit support to the Ukrainian nation-state. It simply doesn’t say enough, although for those who blindly support NATO and the West it perhaps says it all.

However, we must not speak of the powers behind Russia and Ukraine as though they are two separate entities, or Putin as a man who makes all of the decisions in Russia. Whilst this former intelligence officer is certainly fronting the war in a managerial capacity, he is as ultimately accountable to the chiefs of high finance and corporate power as any Western politician. I would also say that the only real difference lies in the myth that has been created to suit (or rather contain) the Russian mentality. Some countries are governed with an iron fist and the power behind each national throne will simply do whatever it needs to get what it wants. ‘Democracy’ here, ‘fascism’ there.

As it stands, it would not surprise me if we saw the installation of a second ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ and the transformation of at least East Ukraine into something resembling Soviet-controlled East Berlin. A new Cold War, however illusory, would certainly explain the extent of the unwarranted vilification of ordinary Russian people. As writers such as Antony C. Sutton (Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution) and Charles Levinson (Vodka-Cola) have demonstrated, there has always been plenty of secret collusion between Russia and the West. The same powers govern the world in slightly different ways, it is a question of horses for courses.