"Russia is blackmailing us,” so declared the EU Commissioner Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen in defense of EU sanctions against Russia. She's fuming at Putin's decision to reduce the flow of gas into Europe but also at his demand for payments in Roubles! This was Putin's retaliation to a Western coordinated attack against Russia for the war in Ukraine. Yet, those ill-designed sanctions have produced the opposite effect; they boomerang and are causing chaos throughout the energy-hungry Eurozone!
In fact, if the EU were a democratically elected institution or a private corporation, those responsible for such irrational sanctions would have been sacked for bad decisions and for bringing calamity to industries and hardship to millions of European citizens! Now they are trying their hardest to justify the goldfish syndrome by introducing more and much harsher sanctions.
Without a coherent plan in place the EU has in fact ensnared itself in a dilemma. The economic web they have woven to punish Putin has gone badly wrong and is out of control. Their hasty fixation to ignore Russia's legitimate concerns about NATO's military expansion along the Russian borders has ricocheted and triggered the ugly war in Ukraine.
The West's decision to ignore pragmatism is hurting their economies and bringing the worse recession Europe has seen for years. The G-7 decision to adopt price capping on gas and oil to further hurt Russia seems just another one of those ill-advised decisions that will add further hardship on citizens and industry; all Russia has to do is to shut off the supply lines to the latest G-7 sanctions! Sanctions are meant to hurt those intended for and not for those that impose them!
Putin will obviously redirect the flow of gas and oil to China, India and the Iran markets of 3.7 billion — half the world populations - including other Russia-friendly countries where networks of pipelines are already in place! In this case, who is actually hurting whom? Russia's decision to reduce — even shut down — the flow of energy to Europe's 445 million population has sent the EU governments scrambling to secure supplies while the prices for energy are skyrocketing and boosting the Russian coffers.
EU member states are now seriously worried about how to cope with the immediate energy crisis during the cold winter months. Confronted by a barrage EU punitive policies the trapped citizens are bracing themselves for a miserable winter.
Meanwhile, there is a public outcry and citizens are starting to spill onto the streets of EU capitals demanding an end to the sanctions that are hurting their livelihood. In Germany demonstrators have already taken to the streets with slogans we refuse to pay for the war in Ukraine. As expected, a similar sentiment is developing right across Europe!
No sane person supports the ugly war in Ukraine! If President Trump or Chancellor Merkel were in government the conflict could have been avoided and certainly not escalated to the current war madness. Instead, Western leaders ignored Russia's security concerns and forced Putin's hand to mobilize his troops against Ukraine.
NATO's delusion that Ukraine can win the war by providing a limitless supply of weapons and sanctions that would weaken Russia by hurting Moscow more than Europe has proven to be a fantasy. The mistake that somehow the world would also line up in support of EU-NATO's proxy war has been totally miscalculated.
The war fatigue grows by the day and some EU states have started to resist further sanctions. They'd rather protect their own interests rather than NATO's ambitions for enlargement! Turkey for example, refused to go along with sanctions while the small island of Cyprus did not resist but rather obeyed EU instructions to the detriment of its own economy.
The pretext that the Ukraine war is intended to "protect democracy” and repel "foreign aggression” and "autocracy” has been a strategic lie for years. The NATO alliance has used a similar ploy on numerous occasions by sending troops to:
The killing fields of duplicity endure to this very day!
Yet, when Turkey — a long-standing NATO member — invaded Cyprus in 1974, NATO did nothing to stop the military invasion but turned a blind eye of convenience. It allowed Turkey to occupy 40% of the island; the displacement of more than 220.000 Greek refugees in their own country and the killing of 6.500 civilians. After 64 years of occupation the US including the UK — contrary to UN resolutions — have never officially recognized Turkey's military attack as an invasion and occupation. Political double standards have become the norm!
NATO's proxy war against Russia is now well established. The new UK Prime Minister Liz Truss publicly vowed that she would support Ukraine until Putin and Russia are destroyed and all land gains are taken back! Such rhetoric helps no one but simply escalates the war. Meanwhile the same rhetoric it's being repeated by Zelenskiy and The Pentagon.
America's appetite for conflict has also reached China! President Biden has in fact blatantly provoked China by sending Congress House Speaker Pelosi to Taiwan on a mission of solidarity to "protect democracy!” Such cheap slogans have now become a cliché and can no longer fool the world!
Pelosi's visit triggered China's retaliation with full-scale military exercises using live ammunition across Taiwan's waters and air space. The situation is certainly volatile! If not defused, the incident can spark an all out war between Taiwan and China with NATO rushing to support Taiwan. In this bleak doomsday scenario, Russia would most certainly side with China!
Yet, for the past twenty-five years there has been peace, stability and a thriving trade between the two countries. That relationship has now gone up in smoke due to Washington's plans to exploit Pelosi's clandestine meddling.
As always, citizens are the last to know the real reasons governments decide to get involved in war conflicts. In this particular case misinformation and slick propaganda dictate the turn of events. Hidden agendas void of transparency seem to move in the dark corridors of power. Lies and bending the truth to suit has nowadays become an acceptable behaviour in politics.
Joseph Goebbels and Hitler's Big Lie is applied today more than any other time before:
The Ukraine/Russian conflict of half-truths intended to persuade world opinion actually forms a bigger part of a misinformation for convenience. However, win or lose the people in Ukraine are ensnared! Wars never destroy nations but debts do and the Ukrainian people are using blood for currency to continue a war of insanity.
Ironically, NATO and the EU have never admitted they are actually at war with Russia and prefer to "wash their hands” of employing actual troops on the ground. The reasons are quite obvious:
They are nervous of Putin's response in the event he may use nuclear weapons against NATO member-states! Instead, they provide money, weapons and "advisors” including "military trainers” to help the armed forces of Ukraine continue a proxy war of attrition.
Meanwhile, President Biden has recently given a stern warning to Putin not to be so stupid as to use any chemicals or weapons of mass destruction against Ukraine; if so the US will retaliate decisively!
In such cases, it is often questioned who is actually at war: the one that provides financing and weaponry to kill or the one that pulls the trigger? Determined to provide more "defensive weapons” to cripple Russia, the Western allies have in fact lost sight of the human tragedy unfolding in the very heart of Europe.
The fixation to punish Putin has now opened up Pandora's cataclysmic box full of tragic consequences. In fact, they have unleashed Chimera with no idea on how to put an end to the conflict before it escalates into a pan-European chaos that would last for a very long time!