Bottom Lines

Russia cannot relent from its demands here. And it is not simply a matter of national pride, or the political future of Putin and his government.  

The SMO must end with Russian terms being accepted and implemented by ukraine in order to show the entire world the heavy price any country will pay, if they decide to provoke Russia and fight it, and this will discourage any future adventurism against it.

Being lenient and allowing ukrops to stroll out of Kursk unharmed, and agreeing to BS ceasefires will only embolden other cretins to think that they can take on Russia and always get a get out of jail free card when things get bad for them and walk away without consequences. Someone here has to accept loss and plenty of humiliation, and the best candidate is kiev.

If US wants to avoid sharing in this, Trump needs to wake up and distance himself from this.

Nothing in ukraine today is worth saving. The entire place is broken and dysfunctional.  Russia can use this experience as a teachable moment for all those who view it with contempt and think Russia cannot really hold its own. And I'm not only talking about the US, EU and ukrops. Including the supposedly friendly countries who despite their partnerships with Russia still view it as generally inferior to the west, and as a second rate ally.

These countries need a slap in the face, as well. Because even in BRICS, there are those who consider Russia in a lower light than the US. There are at least a few of them that actually wish that the US would do something to put a damper on Russia's successes in ukraine. This is the uncomfortable reality. Russia needs to fear its friends as well, because those friends also have interests somewhere else.

Trump’s tariff temper tantrums are also sanctions in disguise, and a desperate ploy for others to pay for decades of US incompetence and economic mismanagement.

Trump wants others to take on US debt so US doesn’t have to officially default. This is his aim. Anyone who falls for it is stupid, and will be on the hook for debt that isn’t even theirs. The thing for SANE countries to do right now is to call Trump’s bluff. Leave the tariffs alone. Raising them will only feed into Trumps hands. Do not make any deals with Trump. Stop voluntarily buying US products and services, all across the board. This includes individuals, companies, and government institutions the world over.

Simply stop purchasing US goods and services and seek out other sources, or make your own. If most countries do this, it will leave Trump looking very bad, and the US economy looking like a pile of rubble.

What Trump wants to create for the long-term is a self-feeding loop where other countries lend US endless streams of money, AND end up having to pay for doing so, instead of the US. US wants a system where it can create endless debt and get others to pay for it.

Trump's recent minerals deal with zelensky is either a ploy to cotninue to arm ukraine by making it look like it's not a hand-out, or an attempt to stay Russia's hand.

These are both pathetic and amateurish gimmicks through which Russians see through. No deal in urkaine is worth anything unless Russian demands are met and the fighting stops.

The neo-cons have mastered how to manipulate US society. They know what buttons to push. They know how to appeal to Americans sense of patriotism, national pride, narcissism, myths, and have mastered how to harness the ignorance of US society for their own evil purposes.

And even when the neocons plans and wars backfire, they know how to pass it off as a noble and well-meaning endeavor, and find a scapegoat to get themselves off the hook for their insane and sociopathic ideas.

The only real security guarantee that western Europe and EU had, and have to this day, is that Russians are not insane hot-heads like the US. This is what gave Europe true security, not NATO. NATO actually threatens European security and stability. See Yugoslavia in 1990s, Iraq and Afghanistan interventions, and Libya. These interventions created millions of dead, as well as millions of migrants, and angry terrorists who descended onto Europe and started causing problems. If Russia was as violent and bad as the westoids say,  Europe would be a wasteland right now. Russian goodwill and patience is the best guarantor of European security. Europe should fear the US far more than Russia. The last 3 years have been an example of this.

Russia cannot, and must not agree to any deals that give NATO any kind of reprieve whatsoever. Russian aim must be to ensure the continued weakening and dissolution of the EU and NATO, since Europe is Russia’s existential enemy, and has been for a millenium, and Europe will not stop trying to subjugate Russia every chance it gets. This is why Russia must blunt and take away whatever tools and opportunities the west may have at its disposal to ensure this never happens.

Only way that there will be any sort of deal is if Russia gives up on any of its core demands. But if this happens, Russia will weaken its position and ensure that the west will exploit this concession and weaponize it to its full advantage against Russia. This is an opportunity for Russia to consign NATO into the ashes, and it must not do anything to give it any sort of a 2nd life. If Russia falters now, whatever crisis befalls it in the future will be the fault of the Kremlin. There can be no deal just for the sake of a deal because Trump wants it to look good by a certain date. No US-style Korean scenarios and half-ass temporary, tentative measures that leave everything in suspended animation and leave the ukraine post-maidan intact and allow it to be rearmed by the west.


Russia must not 'lean' toward the US and make some surprise deal that will leave us scratching our heads just for the sake of pleasing Trump and some promises whose shelf life doesn't go beyond January 20, 2029.

But the next few weeks could be a dangerous time. Because there are some scenarios that may come to pass with no deal:
1. Trump walks and withdraws aid and lets Russia do whatever (unlikely)
2. Trump will stop negotiating with Russia, ramp up aid to ukraine, and passes more sanctions (most likely)
3. Trump walks away, and directs kiev and EU to amp up terrorism and sabotage against Russia (likely)
4. Trump walks away, withdraws all aid, and in desperation kiev launches a major false flag attack that leaves many dead and wholesale destruction somewhere in ukraine (somewhat likely)
5. Trump ends talks with Russia and threatens NATO protection for ukraine and sending of US/NATO soldiers there (somewhat likely)

Russia must stand its ground and not compromise on its demands, because in the long-run they are good for everyone.
Because the bottom line is this:

The US, including the current Trump regime, want a ceasefire and to freeze the conflict in ukraine along the current front. US and EU want to preserve the Kiev regime, it’s Russia-hating nature, and reconstitute the ukrainian army to use it against Russia later. These are their aims. US and EU don’t want to address the root causes of the conflict and will not agree to Russia’s demands.

Zelensky doesn’t want the war to end. He wants it to continue so he can stay in power, get more weapons from the west, and hope for NATO to join him in fighting Russia.

There is no use for Russia to continue to talk to the US or anybody else. A battlefield victory is the only way Russia will accomplish its quite modest aims.

All Talk, No Action

The last weeks have been a whirlwind of all sorts of happenings in ukraine.

The zelstein regime broke two temporary ceasefires, a 30-day infrastructure ceasefire, and an Easter ceasefire.

Russians were under no illusion that ukrops will honor these, and agreed to these token gestures as a way to show, and prove to everyone that the ukrainian regime is incapable of honoring any agreements, so there is no sense in entering into anything with them.

Violating these agreements played into Russian hands, which has now made a strong case for not having to give anyone anything. And the whole time, Trump and his handlers ignored ukrainian violations as if they never happened.

So ukraine has only made its situation worse, and Trump looks like a chump for thinking that the urkops can keep their word.

It seems like the combined west doesn't care if ukraine breaks any promises to, and agreements with Russia, as long as kiev doesn't cross the west.

Because for all the talk and fluffy rhetoric about 'US understanding this,' or 'Trump respecting that,' the main aim of the Trump regime and the EU is the preservation of the kiev regime, and the reconstitution of its armed forces for another confrontation with Russia later down the line.

US wants a total and indefinite ceasefire in ukraine without agreeing to any permanent terms or agreements with Russia. Trump is incapable of even making any agreement into a law. He just wants an open-ended, ambiguous gentleman's handshake agreement that promises Russia no permanent settlement of the conflict that will be valid until he leaves office, just like the rest of his presidential decrees.

And Trump leaves, the next oddity in the white house will be free to tear up any agreement he made with Russia and throw it away. And then what?

Trump desperately wants a deal by the end of April because he is approaching a May deadline when all aid to ukraine agreed to by the previous Biden regime comes to a stop. 

So Trump will either have to honor that dealine and stop all aid, or approve more aid. If he does this, and he most likely will if he doesn't get his deal by next month, he will make the ukrainian conflict his own, and Russians will simply stop dealing with the US and roll over what remains of ukraine. 

Trump will also lose face in front of his supporters, and the rest of his years in office will be very uncomfortable.

What has Trump done during all these weeks of talking?

Did Trump allow Russian consulates in the US that were order closed in the past 8 years to reopen? No.

Did Trump allow Russian diplomatic property that was confiscated to be given back to Russians? No.

Did Trump lift restrictions for Russian airliners to fly to the US? No.

Did Trump lift any of the sanctions that were slapped on Russia as part of the RussiaGate hoax that was proven to be untrue? No.

Trump hasn't done anything but talk. Foreign policy is his purview as he is the president. Yet he appears to be incapable of making any independent decisions, even simple ones, to show that he is serious about repairing ties with Russia.

And since the US started this entire mess, it is on its leaders to make the first move toward normalization of relations.

Russians will not agree to some lame, watered-down agreement that settles nothing permanently, and leaves the post-maidan regime in place and allows the west to rearm the ukrop military.

Neither US or EU can afford to individually support ukraine. They cannot even do it together anymore.

If the US pulls the plug, the EU will have to, as well. All the bluster about sending 'peacekeeping forces' to ukraine, and the EU continuing to support ukraine with money and weapons it doesn't have is just futile PR.

The only option Trump has is to walk away from ukraine, stop all aid and assistance, and let Russia handle it.

Exp-cuses

*exp-cuse - to explain and excuse incompetence and failure at the same time in order to save face

 

Whenever the west suffers military defeats and humiliation, as it has in ukraine, or tries to justify and excuse its crimes and mass abuses, it makes up myths to cover these up.

After the US loss in Vietnam, this phenomenon was fully on display with all sorts of bitter war hawks going on about how if Nixon did this, or that, and gave the US military more time, they would have defeated the Vietnamese.

This is also where we get the BS that winter, and not Russian soldiers drove Napoleon from Russia in 1814. How is it that the Russian winter decimated French ranks, but not Russian ones is never explained.

In the 1940s, Nazi Germany also indulged in myths to *exp-cuse their loss to the Soviets. They blamed bad, muddy roads for their predicament. And again, why is it that bad, muddy Russian roads stopped the Germans but not the Soviet Army?

Another myth-this time a Britoid imperialist one- is that the Irish potato blight resulted in mass starvation of Irish peasants. No. The Irish famine was caused by British imperial policy of mass commodity extraction from the Irish countryside. At the time of the Irish famine, Ireland was producing a lot of food other that potatoes. So blaming the starvation on a potato bug is nonsense, and a feeble attempt to cover up what qualifies as ethnic cleansing.

Another myth is that Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul 2 defeated the USSR and ended the cold war. They didn’t. Soviet Union was dissolved by internal agreement from the top. There was no Russian Maidan, as many assume.

A recent myth is that US cutting off of aid from ukraine is responsible for recent Russian successes. This is not true. Russian operations, AD systems, and airstrikes destroyed ukrop capabilities to fight. 

Also, recently the New York Times penned a pathetic screed to basically cover up the abject failure the combined west suffered at the hands of Russia by the *exp-cuse that ukraine’s failures were due to kiev not doing exactly as told by the pentagon and NATO, and that if they did, ukraine would have defeated Russia. 

To the US, EU, and NATO, Russia’s better trained, equipped, and prepared military forces, and good strategic planning had nothing to do with Russian successes. No one in the west will ever admit this was the case. The myth that the US military is the best must be maintained, regardless of how untrue it is.

Another old myth that has been around since the 1980s, is how the US-made Stinger shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles defeated the Soviet air force in Afghanistan and turned the tide of the war in the western-sponsored Afghan Mujahideen rebels favor.

But the Stingers were only briefly effective against low-flying aircraft, like helicopters. They could not target jets because they were out of range. Also, after a brief period of the Afghan rebels scoring hits, Soviet helicopter pilots adapted their flying tactics to those missiles and the Stinger lost its effectiveness.

The US runs on myths. And it is the belief in those myths that is the source of its miscalculations and blunders.  

When those myths are exposed, new myths are made up to cover up all the contradictions and failures.

This will only cause the US, and the combined west to fail even more.

 

Trump's U-Turn

The US has recently offered Russia a 30-day ceasefire deal.

The US got the ukrops to agree to it at their meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and now the US wants to impose this ceasefire on Russia.

This will not work, as Russians have already stated that no temporary pauses are acceptable.

Only the acceptance of Russian demands, and addressing the root causes of the conflict will satisfy Russian demands.

Ukrops and the US want a ceasefire because they are on the losing end. US never wants ceasefires when it is winning.

And how can the US want a ceasefire, while at the same time it continues to send aid to Kiev, and allows ukrops to launch terrorist attacks using drones against Russian civilian targets?

A ceasefire offer from the US and ukrops would seem more genuine, if they did not engage in thee hostile acts against Russia.

This exposes the last few weeks of Trump’s supposed putting zelensky and EU in their place as a charade, as an act.

This was a possibility mentioned in the previous essay on this blog, and it turned out to be correct.

The US never meant to reconcile with Russia. The US is addicted to domination, and it is just trying to trick Russians into accepting a bad deal, and also to sweet-talk them into distancing from China.

These are juvenile schoolyard lunch-break tactics that will not work on Russia.
After Russia rejects it, the western regimes, and their media sewer rats, will most likely launch a media campaign to smear Russia as a country that does not want peace.

The US establishment wants to have it all its way, and every which way, regardless of the contradictions and hypocrisy involved. They want Russia to basically allow kiev and US to lose on their own terms, and at Russians expense. The US also wants Russia to give up its deterrent capability while ignorant scum from all over the declining and degenerate west openly pontificates about breaking up and defeating Russia.

Russia does want peace, just not a temporary one that does not address the root causes of the conflict.

US simply wants a temporary ceasefire that will be used to rearm and regroup ukrops and commence the war against Russia at a later date.

Russians know this and will not allow it, especially since the ukrop army is nearing collapse.

The recent Kursk operations have seen thousands of ukrops killed or captured. Their entire defense has collapsed, and the ukrops are days away from being pushed out of the Kursk region.

Many neo-nazi banderites and their foreign war criminal NATO helpers have been ‘dealt with’ on the spot.

Ukraine was simply taken over by the west to be exploited as a proxy to fight Russia. That was their plan. This is why the US did not give ukraine any so-called security guarantees between 2014 and 2022, and stalled on NATO membership. Because the US wanted to push ukraine into a war with Russia.

Trump regime's U-turn to be more friendly and accommodating toward Russia was always difficult  to accept. There was always a good chance that Trump will regress back to hegemon mode. And regress he did.

Two months is supposed to change US establishment's mentality and bad habits that have existed for 80 years? Old imperial habits are hard to break.

Both Trump and Marco Rubio have admitted during their speeches that the conflict in ukraine is a proxy war between the US and Russia. But it is a war that the US wanted, and provoked using ukrops as proxies. US planned this confrontation for years, and this cannot be stressed enough.

At the same time Trump and Rubio admit this, yet they are continuing to arm ukraine, and want to negotiate with Russia. This is a schitzophrenic policy.

This proves that Trump is not negotiating in good faith, and is engaging in PR and gimmickry. He does not understand that this war is going to bury him, if he does not walk away from it.

Trump and his officials can pretend like this is all Biden’s fault all they want, but the fact is that the US has always wanted to subdue Russia, and Trump is no different. He is carrying on with this conflict because it is in the interest of the US. So he cannot accommodate Russia here.

Russians have stated that either their demands will be accepted at the negotiating table, or on the battlefield. US seems to feel the same way about Russia, and will issue threats to force it to relent, and if not, US will continue to arm kiev. But this will end badly for kiev.

But Trump’s recent U-turn back to being an arrogant bully at least clears the air, and removes any ambiguity as to US intentions, which aren’t good for Russia.

Putin now can see this, and SMO will continue, as temporary ceasefires are a no-go since they will benefit kiev primarily in return for nothing for Russia, as kiev has refused Russian terms up to now, and most likely will never accept them unless it is forced to do so. Trump isn’t inclined to do so, no matter how much he says that he put zelstein in his place.

And if the Trump regime wants to force Russia into a bad deal, and threaten more sanctions if it does not accept it, Russia will intensify pressure on kiev and US won’t be able to do anything else, as sanctions will not work.

The US first tried to trick Russia into agreeing to a bad deal by appearing to cut its aid and ties to kiev. Now that Russia has not fallen for it, the US will try to force Russia to accept it under threats. These are futile strategies.

Russia’s security concerns, and any security guarantees, must be tied to ukrainian ones, and Russia must be a part of any security guarantees for ukraine. This will effectively preclude US, EU, and NATO from militarizing ukraine under the guise of ‘peacekeeping’ and setting it off against Russia later on after its forces have been reconstituted, rearmed, and backed up by NATO armies.

There also cannot be US, EU, NATO or allied peacekeepers anywhere in ukraine because this is just a gateway to de facto NATO membership and future problems.

After all, security  guarantees for ukraine + NATO peacekeepers + rearmament of ukraine = NATO membership. Pure and simple.

Any peacekeeper and security guarantee schemes that aim to keep ukraine as an anti-Russian base of operations for US, EU, and NATO cannot be accepted and allowed under any circumstances.

Russia cannot be left at the mercy and whims of what the US, EU, and NATO want in ukraine, with Russia left outside to fend for itself security-wise.

No security guarantees for Russia? No security guarantees for ukraine.

The only real guarantee of security that ukraine needs is to accept neutrality and non-alignment, as existed in ukraine before 2014.

And it will accept it the easy way, or the hard way. Russia will make sure of that.

Showdown at the White House

The recent meeting between Trump and zelstein did not go according to plan.

Everything that could go wrong did, and then some.

What was supposed to be a routine genuflection by zelstein in front of his Lord and Master, who in return was supposed to just blow smoke up zelstein's ass and engage in mutual flattery and buttering up, turned into a long-winded verbal spat between them, with JD Vance joining in.

Zelstein talked over Trump, contradicted him, interrupted him, lied, and made a complete jack-ass out of himself.

Trump tried to put zelstein in his place, with results that left people cringing.

Mutual recrimination and insults were there, and in the end, Trump was very unhappy with zelstein.

The meeting ended without any statements, and the post-meeting luncheon was canceled.

Zelstein was shooed out and away from the White House, until, in Trump's words, 'He is ready to make peace.'

The western MSM and blogosphere, as well as the degenerate EU and UK regimes, have been left speechless.

Macron's and Starmer's earlier visits were all a coordinated effort with zelstein to get the US to keep supporting this lost and failed war, triple tag-team style.

But whatever the plan was, it did not work. Whether zelstein went off-script, or the UK and France gave him this bad script with equally bad negotiating advice, remains a question.

Many commentators have now announced that this is the end of zelstein, and that he will be ushered out of the presidency because he is an impediment to a peace agreement.

There is also talk that Trump is fuming, and may stop US aid to the zelstein regime.

It could be that this verbal spat was just a clever act by two actors to cajole Russia, although Russians would not be fooled by this.

But if it was all real, it seems that both Trump and zelstein managed to poke and pop each others' inflated egos at the same time, which was funny to watch.

But perhaps now, Trump sees what a terrible bet the US made on ukraine. 

Hopefully, this incident in the oval office made him now completely awake to the mess the Biden regime got the country involved in, and to the scummy composition of the ukrainian regime itself, and that he must walk away from this nonsense ASAP before it ruins his presidency any further.

For 3 years, zelstein and Biden tickled each others assholes every time they met. zelstein had the run of the house. He could lie, steal, and murder his black heart out, and was blindly cheered on by the sordid EU, UK and US regimes and their slimy criminal media hacks. Wherever he went in the west, he was guaranteed an adoring audience and lots of funds.

All that was undone in one sitting with Trump. Neither he, or zelstein got what they wanted out of this.

The winners here are the Russians, who are laughing their asses off from the very well-deserved verbal drubbing zelstein finally got.

Even Lousy Graham, the head cheerleader of this conflict, who happily announced that Russians are getting killed and US soldiers are not, has thrown zelstein under the bus over this argument. Maybe Mr. Graham has seen his money vein from all the corrupt giveaways via USAID and NED cut, so there is no point anymore of him pretending that he likes ukraine.

Ukrainians are a corrupt lot. The US should have never, ever gotten involved there at all. Americans are ignorant of ukraine, and don't understand its history.

But this was never about ukraine. It was all about Russia.

The ultimate plan of the US and EU was to subdue Russia using ukrainians as proxies. That's what Maidan was about; getting the people in power that would make this happen for the west.

This plan has failed, and the US is washing its hands of this mess, and is handing the ukraine problem that it created to the hopeless morons in Brussels, who have neither the resources or the means to continue aiding Kiev without US backing.

The EU regimes and media are engaging in very predicable defense of zelstein, and are accusing Trump of bullying him, and not treating him as a victim--instead of the murdering and lying sack of dictatorial shit that zelstein is. 

Because in the minds of the EU freaks, its okay for zelstein to get his way each and every time. To the EU, he is a saintly figure anointed to fight some holy war.

Now, zelstein is cussing out Trump and insulting him in front of the cameras.

The US and ukraine have engaged in  mutual betrayals against each other, for which both look bad, along withe everyone else who fell for this mission impossible against Russia.

US got ukrops into this mess, and ukrops are now angry that the US is no longer interested in supporting them. 

When, and how did it all go so wrong? 

Because it was all wrong since day one.

It remains to be seen what the results of this scandalous meeting will be, but hopefully it will lead to a US aid cut-off for ukraine, and to the settlement of this conflict on terms acceptable to Russia. This is the only way this conflict will end.

But more likely, lots of back-channel calls and bargaining will be used to smooth things out, and by early next week Trump and zelstein will be buddies again.  

Plus, there are many influential people making fortunes from this ukraine debacle, and they will not relent easily. So everything will be done to keep some semblance of the fake and stale illusion of 'Trans-Atlantic unity' intact.

Because this entire oval office argument looks very bad, and makes the US look weak. And that is one of the things US is deathly afraid of: looking weak.

But it would also be nice if Trump repeated his conversation the same way with Bibi, though.

Useless Schmoozing

There has been more news recently about how Putin or some other Russian officials are talking about making some business deals with the US and letting EU businesses back into Russia.

Hopefully, this is more BS sensationalism, or Russian trolling, and isn't true. There must be no deals, no business, and no letting any western businesses back into Russia under any circumstances.

No sweetheart deals, no inducements, no business, no partnerships. West cannot be trusted.

Business deals will not resolve the problems Russia has with anyone in the west.

Fuck Trump and his schmoozing. 

Do others not see what these US scumbags are trying to do? They are trying to lose on their own terms, and are using all sorts of psychological tricks, flim-FLATTERY to get Russia to give them lots of something for a whole lot of nothing.

Don't let western businesses back in. 

Russia must continue making its own stuff, and advancing its own producers, service providers, and technologies. 

Why should these warmongers who cheer on the killing of Russians be given any chances and opportunities for profit? Why should Russia reward vile western behavior?

Russia needs to forget about making any deals with, or letting any western companies back into Russia. 

Russia must demand reparations, and that ALL Russia's core security demands are enacted. No exceptions. 

And even if Trump agrees to everything Russia wants, Russia will still owe the US ZERO.

Is this the new strategy of US and EU? They lost this war, so now they will try to sucker Russia and go back to business as usual? 

After all the evil shit US and EU and their vassals have done during the last 3 years, it will be a total betrayal of all those Russians who fought and died at the hands of the Kiev junta and its western backers. 

And for those who see Trump and his regime as a ray of hope, it must be asked: Where have they been for the past 8 years?

Look back 40-50 years. 

How many times did the west break its promises and trample on treaties? They do this each and every time as soon as they sense weakness, or even the willingness to compromise-which they see as weakness.

Since Russia will not agree to any ceasefires, the US is entering into talks that will be endless and hopefully buy US and EU time to keep on hurting Russia any way they can.
 

Russians idea of taking their time to grind down the ukrops is now being weaponized against them by the west, which is trying to now set the pace and decide how long this will last. 

This is unacceptable and must stop. Russia cannot allow anyone in the US and EU to control what happens, and how.

Hopefully, there should be no deals. Russia must drop the hammer on the heads of the Kiev junta and their NATOid helpers and gets what it wants by force. This is the ONLY way Russia will be respected and left alone. If it lets itself be talked into some agreement, there will be another war later because US and EU will never abide by it.

Peace? 

No one in the west wants peace with Russia, unless it's 100% on their terms, with a pro-western regime sitting in the Kremlin.

So everyone needs to wake the hell up.

Unfinished Business

It’s been almost 34 years since the Soviet Union was dissolved.

After that happened, the US declared victory in the cold war, and since then, US went on to disintegrate and fight Yugoslavia, expand NATO in Europe, invade Afghanistan, Iraq and some other countries which all today are worse off because of what the US did.

The US, along with the combined west thought that this so-called victory over the Soviet Union proved that they were the most powerful force on earth, and that their ideology, theories, and actions for the past 40 years or so have been validated and proven correct and good.

Those who thought this after 1991 were either dummies, or liars who saw the dissolution of the USSR as an opportunity to claim victory and expand US influence.

They became drunk on succor of success and victory that the rest of the world became just a bunch of doormats to them, to be used however the US wished.

The US managed to convince too many people in the world that it won the cold war, and many still believe this to be the case today.

But all this was delusion.

The belief that the west won the cold war was always wrong.

There was no cold war victory. There was no success. US ideologies and theories have proven to be unmitigated disasters. There were no successes. It just took a while for this to become clear.

The USSR disintegrated not because of US sanctions, propaganda, or because the US won the arms race (USSR/Russia actually won that).

The dissolution of the Soviet Union was a top-down revolution. It was not the result of people power, led by Boris Yeltsin, as it has been portrayed.

The dissolution of the Soviet union was presided over by the political top, who saw advantages for themselves in doing away with the Soviet socialist model and enrich themselves on the spoils and make deals with the west to enrich themselves even further.

That’s basically what happened.

From this traitorous political class, Russia got the future oligarchs, the mafia problems, and the poverty, misery, and chronic governmental corruption that characterized Russian life throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

So the fact that the end of the Soviet Union was a top-down, agreed-upon dissolution of the USSR, means that the US/west did not win the cold war. It also meant that the cold war did not truly end, as western views of Russia hardly changed.

Even after 1991, until now, the west continued to view Russia with suspicion, distrust, saw it as inferior, and as a threat. Granted, this was all covered up with lots of legerdemain by the west toward Russia to make it seem as if there was a thaw, but in reality key issues and complexes remained buried.

The US, which saw itself as a victor of the cold war, proceeded to treat Russia as a vanquished foe, rather than an equal partner after the cold war supposedly ended.

This rough treatment of Russia in itself is proof that the cold war never really ended.

It lectured the Russians, and directed a lot of their affairs under the guise of necessary economic reforms that favored the west most of all, at the expense of Russian society.

The west saw Russia as a vanquished foe, and gave itself the right to siphon off tribute from the Russian state in the form of billions of dollars through all sorts of crooked and shady investment schemes by unscrupulous western investors such as Bill Browder, and their Russian co-conspirators like Mikhail Khodorovsky, along with other corrupt and criminal Russian Jews who also spearheaded the so-called ‘Russian mafia.’

The US saw Russia as a defeated enemy who was inferior in every way, and that didn’t deserve full equality and consideration.

To the west, Russia was to play the role of a subordinate resource colony, under US political and economic control, with a degraded military.

Meanwhile, the NATO military alliance was not only allowed to continue to exist, but to expand up to Russia’s post-Soviet borders.

Add to this the west’s constant maligning of Russia by using nearby countries such as Georgia and ukraine to provoke Russia into taking military actions, and the situation only got worse.

The combined west, by its unfriendly actions toward Russia since 1991, has by itself proven that the cold war never ended. Because if it did, the west would have treated Russia much better, and with respect. It would not have exploited Russia’s willingness to work with the west as weakness and proceeded to rob it in any way it could.

That NATO still exists shows that the cold war isn’t over.

All these realities have caused tensions and problems between Russia and the west to mount to the point where they finally exploded in 2022 in ukraine.

But it must be asked, where it all went wrong, and who was responsible?

The answer is: Both parties were.

First, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, as well as the Russian communist party are to blame by willingly agreeing to dissolve the USSR in return for ‘western favors.’

They all gave away too much for too little, and consigned Russia to penury throughout the 1990s.

Post-communist Russian governments agreed to harmful and destructive western economic shock therapy which caused social chaos and set Russia back years, if not decades.

Russia actually allowed the US to treat it as a vanquished foe, whether it realized it, or not.

Gorbachev gave the west what it wanted in return for a pat on the head. Yeltsin gave the west what it wanted in return for bottles of vodka.

Neither leader demanded that NATO be dissolved, as it should have been, since this organization is a legacy relic of the cold war.

They did not demand permanent neutrality of all former communist states and binding pledges from them not to join any military alliances directed against Russia. Not doing this allowed NATO to expand, undermine Russia’s security, and become one of the main causes of the conflict in ukraine, and to cause trouble in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere.

US and western Europe should have dissolved NATO voluntarily in the early 1990s.

Since they thought that they ‘won’ the cold war, then there was no longer a need for NATO.

A new security structure should have been formed back then that included everyone, and gave them all equal consideration, without military alignments and threats.

Trusting the west was a fatal flaw of the Russian leadership after 1991.

And after everything that has happened since then until today, none of that trust will ever be restored unless the combined west realizes that Russia is a world power worthy of respect and existence on its own terms.

The west must stop trying to treat it as a vanquished foe which it never was, and an inferior thing to be subdued and controlled.

Russia does not need to be told what to do, how to do it, and have its hand held by anyone in the west.

Russia has been around for over a thousand years, and can manage its own affairs just fine.

And viewing Russia as a threat, even when it is not, just to keep NATO and legions of western ‘security experts’ careers and paychecks alive is disastrous and counter-productive.

Both will eventually - and hopefully soon - have to go because neither have a good future, and are liabilities to peace and normalcy.

The recent negotiations with the US in Saudi Arabia to address the ukrainian conflict, as well as other festering issues in relations, are not driven by any Russian fear, desperation, and loss. They are a voluntary courtesy that Russia is giving to the new Trump regime.

Russians agreed to attend these talks as a last ditch attempt to settle outstanding problems at the negotiating table.

But if this does not work, Russia will settle things its own way on the battlefield. The SMO continues and Russia’s demand and terms still stand.

No. The cold war did not end in 1991.

It is still going on and the west did not win it. In fact, it is losing it.

The west will have to accept reality, and finally leave Russia alone.

Maybe the US master plan all along was to make the EU so disgusting and unpalatable to Russia, that it would not want to touch it. Only then can the US safely disengage from EU. In this, the US has actually succeeded.