This war is not our war

This war is not our war

This war is not our war

from

Karl Glanz

introduction

The Economic Impact of the Ukraine War

The history of the Ukrainian war

The Russian dilemma

This war is not our war

Conclusion

introduction

Ukraine is at war with Russia. The conflict began on February 24, 2021. There are currently at least two wars. A war is a military one, fought between the two powers, Russia and Ukraine. Two warring factions face each other, one will win, the other will lose. This is really not a special statement, because one of these warring countries is better equipped. There really is no direct competition unless we are ready for a direct confrontation with Russia. In any case, we are witnessing a war in which one side loses and the other side wins. Even if we supply arms to Ukraine, it would not change the fact, it would only slow down the process.

The West understood this perfectly and opened a second front, the economic war. And so the US, Japan and Europe are waging this economic war.

Essentially it is the same war as military war, it is fought with different weapons, but it is a war nonetheless.

The GDP of Russia is 1.5 billion US dollars, that of the USA 51 billion US dollars. So if we know those numbers, it's a David versus Goliath war, and who's going to win that war should also be clear.

If we now also include the EU, which is also involved in this economic war, we have a 30:1 ratio in terms of economic wealth and this war is just as one-sided as the military war.

US President Biden and EU Council President Ursula von der Leyen had promised that the sanctions would take effect. They said that the ruble would collapse, the economy would be devastated! After more than a year of war in Ukraine, none of this has happened! The reason for this is quite simple: the global economy has changed.

Today there is BRICS. BRICS is a grouping acronym referring to the developing countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China identified as emerging economic powerhouses. The name has since changed to BRICS following the addition of South Africa in 2010.

The initial goal of BRICS was the establishment of a just, democratic and multipolar world order, but later BRICS became a political organisation, particularly after South Africa's accession.

US dominance is over. What this development has clearly shown us. For several decades, everyone can see the decline in this dominance. And now we're in a kind of stalemate.

The world has changed and it will never be the same again. The situation we are in is new and will have an enormous impact.

Sanctions against Russia are not new, we have had them before. There were public sanctions and covert sanctions. With these sanctions, they wanted to learn from the lessons learned from the sanctions against Iran, Cuba and China in order to bundle them and use them together against Russia. Thus, $300 billion in foreign exchange reserves were confiscated to support the ruble. This money was invested in western banks. The Russians were denied access to this money.

What does that mean? It is a precedent. Whether we want to admit it or not, the days of living in a US-run global economy that abides by the rules of private property are over. There are no more rules of private property. It is being trumped by the economic nationalism that has discarded neoliberal globalization as the dominant one.

The Russians understood better than the West, so they have developed trade ties with China and India and established economic ties with other countries, particularly Latin America, Asia and Africa. It is precisely these relationships that allow the Russians to circumvent these sanctions without significant problems.

If we look at Russia's production now, we can see that it is declining, but not as much as production in the USA, as in Western Europe.

US spending on this war, while not at war, is over $100 billion. The effects of war have wreaked havoc around the world.

Russia is a much smaller economy than the West. It is clear that the sanctions are doing harm, after all Russia needs to redirect the production of civilian products to the production of military ones. Only, the collapse predicted by the West has not yet materialized.

If nothing changes, then it will not happen this year (2023) either. What is a far greater threat to the West, however, is the rising cost of living and inflation, which is driving up electricity and gas prices. If we compare now, then the war for Russia is less of a threat than the economic impact of the sanctions for the West.

But yes, Ukraine and Zelenskyy defend our values, our freedom. This argument is really extraordinary! A larger country has invaded a smaller country. Russia attacked Ukraine. Let's leave it at that. And now let's make a comparison. The US invaded Korea, Korea is a small country; USA invaded Vietnam, also Vietnam is a small country; the US invaded Afghanistan and Afghanistan is a small and one of the poorest countries; the US invaded Iraq, Libya... and many other countries. For 75 years, the US has been doing what it wants, sometimes with UN approval, sometimes without. And now a relatively large country is attacking a relatively small country and suddenly everyone is on the barricades! Morality makes itself known to many people,

1

How is this name spelled correctly? There are different opinions. The Salzburger Nachrichten, Wiener Zeitung write Selenski, Die Presse, Kurier, the taz from Germany write him differently. What is the correct spelling now? According to Wikipedia: Volodymyr Oleksandrovich Zelenskyshasch, roughly translated as Zelensky or Zelensky. Who is this Zelenskyj, where all the presidents, chancellors, EU members are shaking hands? We want to get to the bottom of the matter.

Zelenskyj was born into a Ukrainian Jewish family and grew up as an Aaker in Kryvyi Rih, a major city in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine. Before his acting career, he earned a law degree from Kyiv National Economic University. He then pursued a career in comedy and founded the production company Kvartal 95, which produced films, cartoons and television shows, including the television series Servant of the People, in which Zelenskyy played the role of the President of Ukraine. The series aired from 2015 to 2019 and enjoyed great popularity. A political party with the same name as the TV show was founded in March 2018 by Kvartal 95 employees.

Today Zelenskyj is a hero and not only that, he is also a sex symbol. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has become a sex symbol after he shared a clip of himself rallying his troops against Russian forces on his Facebook page. Screenshots of the president in his battle gear have been shared by millions as women - and men - rave about his boyish looks, which in the video are paired with bravery and sheer bravery. One thing that was not expected of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was that President Zelenskyy became a sex symbol. The New York Times writes: "Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Zelensky has become a Churchill-like figure, the personal embodiment of his country's refusal to

But maybe that wasn't just a mistake in the script, but a weakness of the story itself. There was a scene in Brussels that gives food for thought. Zelenskyj addressed the round of EU heads of state and government and actually went through all 27 states in turn and gave out grades for good or bad behavior in the Ukraine crisis: From the nerd France - "Emmanuel, I really think that you too will keep us” – up to the bottom of the class Hungary: “Listen, Viktor, do you actually know what’s going on in Mariupol?” Foreign politicians called "assholes" because they don't meet the required solidarity target.

It's the same when you're in the spiral of war. Then there are no more rules and no more considerations. The FAZ emblazoned the headline "It's your war too." There is no better way to describe the essence of the Ukrainian strategy: the Ukrainian fate should be linked to ours. It worked very well for EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, she said promised the country accession to the EU, even though Ukraine was a European disappointment: first the European Court of Auditors criticized the ongoing corruption and oligarchic power in Ukraine, which even the president had hardly changed, then it came out that Zelenskyj himself had the money, earned in show business through a Caribbean offshore company in real estate in London.

The fact that Ukraine will be admitted to the EU will hopefully remain just a pious wish.

His two key campaign promises were to fight corruption and end the military conflict with Russia in the country's eastern provinces.

Since Russia invaded, Zelenskyy has remained in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, rallying the country through videotaped speeches.

Anne Applebaum, a journalist and Ukraine expert, said she thought Zelenskyy would never flee the country. "He's an actor, and he understands he has a role to play, and he's going to play the role," Applebaum said. He knows he represents his country, she added, and even if he wishes he had never run for president, he understands that he now symbolizes something bigger than himself.

He is an actor, he knows his way around and he can also put himself in the limelight. Photos were published in which he visited wounded soldiers in a hospital and presented them with medals. That gets under your skin.

"Zelensky deserves awe and praise, and the comparisons to Winston Churchill come from left, right and the media. The thought is that Zelensky traded Churchill's wireless radio and bowler hat for his own smartphone and green t-shirt," writes CNN.

Speaking to the British House of Commons via video, Zelenskyy compared Ukraine's struggle today to Britain's then. England under Churchill would not bow to the fascists. Ukraine under Zelenskyy will not be overrun by Vladimir Putin.

“We will not give up and we will not lose. We will fight to the end at sea, in the air. We will continue to fight for our country, no matter what the cost," he said, echoing some of Churchill's words.

The House of Commons cheered Zelensky and gave him a standing ovation.

There are some differences between Churchill and Zelensky.

Churchill hoped the US would join World War II, which it eventually did. Zelensky was definitely told that the US will not take up arms against nuclear-armed Russia because it could trigger World War III. And there are also differences in life experience. By the time Churchill took office as Prime Minister in 1940, he had already been a war leader, a war hero, a scandal survivor and a prolific writer. He was more of an imperialist than a pure supporter of democracy.

Zelensky will go down in history. The Ukrainian president's bravery in the face of impossible odds – Putin's invasion may have been clumsy so far, but Russia has a massive army and resources – also has a David and Goliath element. It's like the lone protester in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, George Washington at Valley Forge, or Davy Crockett at the Alamo.

"It's the stuff of real determination and courage, and I think Zelenskyy will go down in history as one of those democratic martyrs [...], a martyr for democracy."

"He's holed up, surrounded by enemy forces, and able to communicate with the world in such a smart, charismatic, passionate, and instinctive way."

One can also make an entirely different argument, namely that powerful interests in the United States are working to prevent a negotiated peace and to spread the simplistic "narrative that Zelensky is a hero and Putin is a monster". We must not lose sight of the essentials lose, which is exactly what the New York Times and CNN don't write, and that's the Panama Papers, and they suggest that Zelenskyy, like many Ukrainian politicians, has some interesting deals, not to mention that she has the Minsk Agreement refused, and there was a peace deal on the table, and the West lobbied for Zelenskyy not to enter into that peace deal, the former Israeli Prime Minister said.

NATO had been taking over former Soviet territory for years, and it must be said that the Western-backed coup that removed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014. It is "naïve" to accept a purely "humanitarian" explanation of the war

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Karl Glanz
Bildmaterialien: Karl Glanz
Cover: Karl Glanz
Lektorat: Karl Glanz
Korrektorat: Karl Glanz
Übersetzung: Karl Glanz
Satz: Karl Glanz
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 21.04.2023
ISBN: 978-3-7554-3981-3

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Widmung:
All human beings naturally seek knowledge.” When writing this, Aristotle was declaring that what distinguishes humans from other living beings, what defines us, is the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge. He doesn't just want to express that we humans are curious creatures. It means that our ability to perceive and act in the world around us is linked to our ability to comprehend it. To be alive as a human is to know, just as it is to have a beating heart. We all recognize this in everyday ways. For example, we understand that learning about the world around us and making decisions based on that learning is part of living as an independent adult. The Book of Proverbs says: "By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is maintained. By understanding its chambers are filled with rare and beautiful treasures