How Russia Lost Ukraine Before the War Even Started
Moscow simply couldn't be bothered.
Back when I was in Kiev, I took the opportunity to speak with a handful of pro-Russian journalists still stuck in the country. Most of them affectionately referred to themselves as “vatniks” as a way of owning the insult thrown at them by Liberals. This was an important learning moment for me as it opened my eyes to just how much Russia’s actual policies differed from the narrative that was being fed to Westerners by both alarmist neocons trying to drum up anti-Russia hysteria and 5D Russia apologists, trying to excuse Russian inaction.
One of the journalists that I spoke with then, Dmitriy Skvortsov, was arrested again by the SBU recently.
The SBU arrested Orthodox columnist Dmitry Skvortsov, known for his materials that defend the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to Skvortsov's colleague, head of the video editorial office Ukraina.ru, Tatyana Chugayenko, he was arrested yesterday. He was hunted for a long time, and was in hiding for almost a year. He is suspected of treason. Today there was a court session, according to the results, it was decided to leave Skvortsov in custody for 53 days. He was taken to the Lukyanovka pre-trial detention center. He's holding on. Dmitry Skvortsov has been on the wanted list since August, when the SBU conducted a search at his place of residence. According to information from the journalistic community, now they will try to include Skvortsov in the exchange lists. The Kiev regime is completely clearing the information field, there can no longer be any talk of freedom of speech, any statements and dissatisfaction with the authorities are regarded as an attempt to overthrow the current Zelensky regime.
Back in his apartment, after we ate, Skvortsov told me that Russia had never supported pro-Russian journalists or media/cultural efforts or provided any sort of support for pro-Russians being persecuted in Ukraine. If anything, unpleasant news and worrying developments were always brushed under the table because it was bad for business.
I asked Skvortsov about the situation of pro-Russians in the country. His assessment was incredibly bleak. “We can only hold to our faith in God,” he said. The apartment was adorned with Orthodox iconography and Skvortsov struck me as a man who took his faith very seriously. For what it is worth, I did too at the time as well.
But we will talk some more about his story on the other side of the paywall.
Another story was brought to my attention recently which confirms what I had long ago independently concluded: Moscow’s Liberal elites had deliberately pursued a policy off non-interference in Ukraine. This, in effect, sold all the pro-Russians in the country down the river. And, needless to say, it benefitted NATO interests enormously.
This anecdotal story of mine is now being confirmed by the Strategic Culture Foundation people. From what I can tell, this is an extremely poorly-funded GRU outreach project aimed at right-wingers in the West. All the big money goes to the Armenian mafia and Margarita Simonyan’s RT project in Moscow, unfortunately. Seeing as the GRU are the only guys who seem to be consistently fighting for Russia’s interests both outside and within the country, we ought to take their word seriously.
Without further ado, this is the account of another pro-Russian “vatnik” journalist who lived and worked in Ukraine.
SCF:
"Why did it take so long?" many of our fellow citizens ask in connection with the first anniversary of the SMO. The question itself suggests that the expectations were somewhat different. Russian society as a whole did not expect that the military events would take on such a scale, and that the hostilities would be so fierce. This did not fit with the image of fraternal Ukraine, fixed in our minds since Soviet times.
Someone hastened to lay the blame on the Russian army: it, they say, was not ready and showed itself not in the best way.
In the minds of many civilians, the army is a self-sufficient entity. However, this is not the case. The armed forces of the state are an instrument of state policy in the same way that war, according to Clausewitz, is a continuation of politics by other means. The army solves the tasks determined by the political leadership.
With regard to the SMO, this meant that the RF Armed Forces planned the parameters of their participation in this operation, based on the assessment of the situation, which was developed by non-army structures, according to the conclusions made by the competent state bodies of the Russian Federation. If these conclusions had been different, the leadership of the RF Armed Forces would have made adjustments to the issues of operational-strategic planning as well.
Yes, and although the author doesn’t name the state body in question, I think we can all guess who he is referring to.
However, the directives were exactly what they were, and on a number of important points they turned out to be at odds with reality. This is not about the fallacy of general political conclusions concerning the world situation as a whole. Just in this part, the state leadership assessed the situation entirely adequately. This, by the way, explains the eight-year pause before the start of the SMO, which was made by Moscow and which caused almost general bewilderment.
Worse than that, it caused many in Russian to lose all faith in the government. Many prominent Russian patriots alleged that the government stuck a knife in the back of the Donbass cause. In some cases, quite literally, with pretty much all of the original militia commanders being killed off. We still don’t know who killed them, exactly.
But, one thing is for sure, there are no monuments or statues being dedicated to Givi, Motorola, Mozgovoi and others in Moscow.
The pause was justified by the need for strategic preparation not so much for the SMO itself, but for the inevitable confrontation with the West, including a military confrontation. These eight years were necessary, among other things, to create military reserves adequate to the scale of the future confrontation. That is why Russia will never run out of missiles, although the West has been counting for a year how many days they will last.
However, there was a misfire. Why? The answer to this question is quite obvious. In any case, for the author of these lines, who had the opportunity for decades to observe the strengthening of negative trends in Russian-Ukrainian relations, so to speak, from within, from the territory of Ukraine.
Without going into details, I will say that the common denominator of these relations was the ever-increasing mutual estrangement. At the same time, if on the Ukrainian side there was at least an interest in cheap Russian energy resources, due to which the Kiev elite arranged a sweet life for themselves, then for Moscow the Ukrainian topic was something like an unpleasant reminder of what you want to forget as soon as possible.
So, in other words, if the 8-year pause was to better prepare for the SMO, then the author did not see any such preparations within the pro-Russian community in Ukraine. It would be strange to prepare a hearts and minds type strategy and a quick overthrow without at least preparing the population for it, no?
In the capital of the former USSR, two opposing views on Ukraine prevailed for many years. Oddly enough, they coincided in their unwillingness to pay this territory any permanent attention. Some believed that Ukraine is the same Russia, there simply cannot be any special problems worthy of careful study. Others, on the contrary, said that it was a “cut off piece”, which should be forgotten as soon as possible and let it float where it wants.
Supporters of opposite positions considered it completely unnecessary to know Ukraine and delve into the nature of the processes taking place there.
Once again, either incompetence or treachery is the only explanation for such a hands-off policy for Ukraine.
And since in Moscow since the beginning of the 1990s pro-Western liberalism has prevailed, the attitude towards Ukraine as something alien was deliberately cultivated by those circles that carried out the task of the “Washington regional committee” to consolidate the results of the collapse of the USSR and prevent the reunification of its fragments.
Mic drop.
[The story continues below. It’s worth the sub, believe me.]