Sunday, February 20, 2022
The False Flag Tripwire
In the face of 200,000Russian troops encircling Ukraine, many western former notable government officialsincluding the Ukrainian president Zelensky have called for the issuance of draconiansanctions on Russia to discourage it from invading.
However thepre-bellicose initiation of sanctions is a tripwire that gives Russiajustification to invade because from its perspective, it’s not being threatened,rather attacked preemptively without having placed one military boot onUkrainian territory. Furthermore, Russia can falsely claim that sanctions were imposed as justification.
Post-Invasion/Occupation
I believe that Putinwill go “all in” with respect to invading at least the key governmental andinfrastructure areas of Ukraine which include Kyiv and the six major ports inthe south. It’s debatable whether he’ll cut off the corridor to western Ukraine,the gateway to freedom for Ukrainians to Poland, Hungary and Romania.
The Ukrainian Gulag
Here’s how thepost-invasion and occupation ritual might play out. Harking back to Putin’s imaginary“good old days” of the Soviet Union, an aggressive roundup of the “UsualSuspects”, already identified and targeted by Russia’s security services alsoknown as siloviki,, will begin. This operation will include theinevitable arrest and indefinite detention of real and imagined politicalenemies and sympathizers of the Kremlin.
Putin may feelcompelled to arrest and detain indefinitely all influential anti-Russianelements to silence or at least limit Ukrainian resistance. In a kangaroo courtatmosphere Putin will use the autocratic judicial playbook by accusing them ofbeing western collaborators and sentencing them to house arrest for theleadership and prison for lower-level refusniks.
In prison these lowerlevel enemies of Russia might be tortured or disappear as have many of them inthe Donbas region since 2014 under pro-Russian separatists.
Shredding the GenevaConvention Protocols
Another disturbingissue is how will the Russian military handle the inevitable partisan attacks;not only against captured partisans but also their friends and family.
The Geneva Conventionis made up of four treaties and three protocols. Interestingly in late 2019Russia revoked Additional Protocol I signed by the Soviet Union in 1989. Thepurpose of this protocol was to incorporate non-internationalarmed conflicts vs. the originally stated international armed conflicts. Althoughthe US and other countries have not ratified it, Russia revoked it altogether.
This brings up theissue as to how will Russia behave post-Ukraine invasion as a signatory to theGeneva Convention? International investigations confirmed that Russia was in violationof the Geneva Convention protocols during 2014 battles in the Donbas regions andannexation of Crimea by utilizing “little green men” who did not wear anyidentifiable insignia.
In hindsight the timingof this revocation in 2019 was a red flag because it coincided with Russia’saggressive de-dollarisation the same year that created an “economic fortress”.
One creative way forRussia to implement occupation security services that are neither officially orlegally connected to the Kremlin, and skirt Geneva Convention protocols completely,would be the utilization of the Wagner Group consisting of ethnic Russian mercenaries.Their reputation already precedes them with recent accusations by theinternational community of severe human rights abuses in former French coloniesin the Sahel while combatting terrorists.
Belarus | Russia’s ReluctantCo-Conspirator
Paraphrasing thesaying, “With neighbors like these, who needs enemies?” Ukraine has themisfortune of sharing the border with Belarus whose government is cooperatingfully with Russia in allowing the menacing military buildup on their southernborder which is a mere 200-250 miles from Kyiv.
To be fair, Belarus presidentAlexander Lukashenko, the strongman for the past 28 years, is the unwillingco-conspirator to Putin in “hosting” Russian armed forces and using his countryas a staging ground to capture Kyiv. For the past several years internalproblems forced Lukashenko to call upon Putin several times for various typesof assistance to maintain control. For this reason, Lukashenko is compelled tosupport Putin’s revised historical saga and present-day ambitions.
In the followingself-explanatory chart entitled International ReportsHighlight Scale of Problems in Belarus provided by Respective Reports gives a litanyof measurements by independent international sources as to the extent of deepcorruption and lack of freedoms, the perfect governmental “personality” andenvironment for collaboration with a powerful mafia state.
Ukraine | The Best of theImperfect Post-Soviet DemocraciesUndoubtedly Ukraine hasstruggled with its relatively new status as a democracy after decades of Naziand Soviet occupation and domination. Nonetheless it ranks # 1 with respect toapproaching that of a functioning democracy since its independence in 1991 asindicated by the following comparative chart entitled The State ofPost-Soviet Democracyprovided by the Bertelsmann Transformation Index.
Russia developed ataste for consuming Ukrainian democracy with the annexation of Crimea in 2014as the appetizer and has developed a more voracious appetite to consumerUkraine as the main course.The New Jewish Question
This topic is perhapshas been ignored or overlooked in the immediate larger picture of a Russianinvasion.
According to Israel thereare an estimated 48,000 Ukrainian Jews with upwards of 75,000 additionalUkrainian citizens eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Israeli Law of Return.With respect to emigration to Israel 2,971 emigrated in 2020 and 3,080 emigratedin 2021.
Though Ukrainian Jews representa tiny percent of the population of 44 million, this still brings up the ubersensitive question of whether Russia will permit the exodus of up to 75,000Ukrainians eligible to return to Israel particularly if some are on Russiansecurity’s detainee list.
The main person ofinterest for the Russians would be Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish and whosegrandfather served in the Red Army during WW II. Zelenskyy’s high-profile as aJewish leader makes this matter quite personal for the Jewish State.
Although Israel isprepared to accept many Ukrainian Jews there’s the issue whether the Russianswill permit a post-invasion large scale airlift operation. Furthermore, willthe remaining Ukrainian Jews be openly identified and/or treated anydifferently than their Christian Ukrainians neighbors?
Conclusion
Russia’s conduct duringits occupation of Ukraine, whether officially sanctioned or not, will burnish itsglobal image for generations to come just like it did to post-WW II.
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