80 years on

The last time around, Mother Russia saved the world.

On May 9, 1945, the armed forces of Nazi Germany surrendered to the red army, ending the largest and most destructive war in history. So far.

The Russians decided to make a special effort to mark the occasion. It was not the most imaginative celebration. It was much like the usual Russian celebration of victory day, but bigger.

So, May 9 2025 has come and gone. I spent limited time watching the gear roll over red square. It seems even many of the bigwigs in attendance grew impatient with the military focus, with few cultural elements.

What I really would like to see is the victory parade for the war they have going on now, in Ukraine. Even many Russians are thinking it is about time that got wrapped up. So, while I am generally a supporter of Mother Russia, I can still be skeptical.

The Russian government says it is not going to be anyone’s saviors. They are right. They are not presently anyone’s saviors.

They were for awhile drawn into being the saviors of the corrupt Assad regime. They got tired of Assad and his people whining that Russia was not really protecting them. This while flatly refusing to carry out any political, economic, or military reforms.

Assad is now living luxuriously in Moscow, still complaining that Russia abandoned him. The mystery is why they propped him up in the first place. Had they not gone into Syria in 2015, we would all be a decade further ahead.

Assad was notably not seen in the anniversary celebrations. Twenty nine current heads of state were seen. Their governments all want something from Russia.

Many come from former constituent states of the old Soviet Union. They still depend greatly on Russian markets, investment, and technology. Others are old Soviet allies.

Many are newer allies of Russia, who are under attack from the Atlantic empire. They know they need technical and military assistance from Russia if they are going to survive. They also know that they will have to be able to stand on their own.

Russia does not have limitless wealth. It is under attack itself from the Western empire. It is fighting a war.

Russia can send technical and military advice. It can sell some equipment to those who can pay for it. It has learned since Soviet times that there is no point propping up governments which cannot set up a viable political and economic system.

The Cubans have got that message since Castro’s times. They have a more effective economic system now, which can resist American sanctions and blockades. President Diaz Canal still wants an alliance with Russia to insure against aggression from across the straits of Florida.

Leaders of other countries which are successfully resisting Globalist siege, such as Venezuela and Slovakia, were there. Some government entities who hypocritically try to be on both sides of the great conflict, send their heads there; the Palestine Authority, the Congo. Some countries are on the verge of shifting sides in the great conflict between the Atlanticists and Eurasianists; Egypt, Vietnam.

The guest of honor at the celebration was Ibrahim Traore, president of Burka Fasso. This landlocked country is the lynchpin of the resistance to western imperialism which is building in the Sahel of Africa. The globalists desperately need the resources of that region, dirt cheap, and are desperate to stop Traore.

He has survived several assassination attempts already and has the scars on his face to show for it. Mercenaries are now being sent into Burkina to start a ‘revolution’ against his ‘tyrannical rule’. This because Burkinans dare to mine their country’s gold and other resources themselves, and use it to develop their own economy.

Russians are sending security experts into Burkino Fasso to train its army. Also, to train a security force to deal with the campaign of destabilization, intimidation, and assassinations being directed at its government. Some deals are being signed with Russian companies on equitable terms.

Recently western intelligence services have been inclined to force down aircraft carrying officials of those governments out of favor with globalists. Thus, Traore flew in a Russian air force plane, with a strong fighter escort through the most dangerous leg of his trip.

The president of Slovakia has also endured an assassination attempt, instigated by forces of the European Union. These people really do not like EU member states getting out of their control. They will effectively bar officials of such countries from European airspace. Fico had to practically circle Europe and come in from the north pole to get to Moscow.

There was a great effort made to intimidate foreign leaders from attending the big parade. No doubt many more would have showed up, otherwise. The lunatic president of Ukraine announced that he could not guarantee the safety of any public figure attending the event.

It seems the Ukraine armed forces made several attempts to launch missiles at Moscow during the event. However, Russia was able to stifle them all. All the heads of state returned home safely.

Some heads of state were notable by their absence. This was likely not due simply to fear of the global hegemony. To reiterate, Russia no longer has much patience for dependency relationships with incompetent regimes.

The Armenians are annoyed with Russia now. During the breakup of the Soviet Union, they had imposed an unjust border settlement on a disorganized Azerbaijan. Thirty years on, the balance of forces had reversed, but Armenia refused to negotiate a more just arrangement.

The regime which had developed in Armenia was not much interested in having an equipped army. They had done nothing to build an economy, and so could not afford that, along with feeding a large grafter class which had developed. The Russians would save them if the Azerbaijanis attacked.

Except that Russia did not. In year 2021, a now unified and armed Azerbaijan retook its territories, reconnecting its scattered territories. Only Iran was interested in putting some limits on Azerbaijan.

Iran was concerned about Azerbaijan having full control of the border, cutting off transport up into Russia. They also did not want the Turks, lead by someone with expansionist pretensions, to have a corridor to the Caspian. The Azerbaijanis seem to partially buy into the silly “pan Turkism” idea, of some sort of federation among people who speak Turkic languages but often have little else in common.

Iran expressed bafflement at the Russian attitude toward the Armenia/Azerbaijan conflict. Iran is baffled by a lot of Russian behavior, and with good reason. So are some other countries.

So, it could be understood why the president of Azerbaijan was on the VIP review stand, but the president of Armenia was not. But it was distinctive that the supreme leader of Iran was not there.

Theoretically, Iran and Russia are the strongest of allies. Yet Russia has recently been doing things which confused Iran and undermined its security. There are several countries which ally with Russia but are bewildered by some of its actions.

Russia wants to project an image of being a reliable partner and ally. It is strongly committed to international law. The Russians pride themselves in being superb diplomats.

Yet they often do things which do not seem logical. They remain committed to states which are clearly not their friends. Then they will suddenly, inexplicably, betray allies.

This behavior seems to be due to some internal contradictions in Russian society. This will be discussed below.

Being on good terms with all actors, able to speak with all of them, and be a mediator for any conflict, is a beautiful ideal. It does not work well in reality. It assumes that everyone is acting in good faith.

When some party is acting in bad faith, attempting to achieve illegitimate aims by illegitimate means, to refuse to take sides means you choose the wrong side. You are inevitably forced into double bind situations. You become an unreliable ally and people look for ones who are clear and coherent in their aims and practices.

The Putin government’s legalistic and liberal psychology means they have had a very hard time learning this. This did them a lot of harm in Ukraine. They are fighting a very destructive war which they could easily have prevented.

This same attitude has created a mess in West Asia. Russia has the capacity to stop most of the trouble there if it acted decisively. If they were not willing to do that, it would have been better if they had stayed completely out of the area.

The Putin government has had the idea that it needs to support Iran for geostrategic reasons. It has needed to be on good terms with whoever rules Syria, because it needs bases there. Or this is what they appear to think.

No government in the region really knows where it stands with Russia. Russia does not seem to have a good grasp of the dynamics of the region. It tries to be friends with Israel and Iran at the same time and cannot understand why that does not work.

The Putin people cannot understand that Israel is not Russia’s ally. It is the epitome of a rogue state. It is by far the biggest cause of instability in the region.

What is really sick about it is that the Israeli secret services tried to organize a coup in Russia during Yeltsin’s time, to put Jewish, Zionist oriented oligarchs in control. This was modelled on what they had already pulled off in Ukraine. This laid the basis for the Neonazi coup of 2014.

What really disturbs Iran is that they seem to have acted to undermine the resistance front against Israel. The Assad government in Syria, despite its flaws, was an important link allowing Hezbollah forces in Lebanon to be resupplied. It has become known that Russia did not just stand aside while the Assad regime was taken down, but actively assisted this.

Russia and the Erdogan government in Turkiye connived to overthrow Assad. They used the Islamist proxy forces Erdogan had under his control. Or, that he thought were under his control.

Russia never told Iran about this intention. They seem not to have even told their own forces on the ground. From the perspective of Iran and the anti Israel alliance, this was the worst thing at the worst time.

Then, to the great surprise of Russia and Turkiye, the Israeli secret services and their friends in British intelligence got control of this new government in Syria. Everyone on the street in those countries, the ‘Levant’, knows that the leader of these forces, Jolani, is an Israeli agent. Somehow, Putin and Erdogan were unaware of this.

The Russian government was briefly in a panic over this failure. It started an emergency evacuation of its bases in Syria, then changed its mind and moved some of its men back in. It is no wonder that Russian soldiers on the ground in Syria were spitting furious with their bosses in the Kremlin.

Thus it is no mystery why the Iranian leadership has become so dismayed with Russia. It has become clear to them that for the war with Zionism to come to a conclusion, the resistance front needs a better source of weapons. It has found that in China.

China is what is really needed by countries resisting hegemony. It just sells them the weapons with which to fight and lets them make their own decisions about how to fight. It does not use control of weapons supply to restrict resistance states, keeping everything from “getting out of control”.

In other words, China has a much more practical approach to being the leader against Globalist hegemony. It will be the arsenal, but will not bankrupt itself propping up everyone else, as with the old Soviet Union. It will not make other people’s judgements for them.

Chinese weapons are proving to be excellent. They are as good as, or superior to, Russian gear. This week, Pakistani pilots in Chinese planes blew out of the air Indian pilots in Russian and European planes.

Thus, Putin and Chinese President Xi had much to discuss, after the big parade. Xi spent four days in Moscow. That is unusual.

China knows that it has to stick together with Russia against western hostility. However, it is known that China is concerned about many aspects of Russian foreign policy. In particular, China is concerned about the Ukraine war.

There is no reason why it should take longer to defeat the Ukronazis than it did for Russia to beat Hitler’s Nazis. There is no comparison. The endless grind is having negative consequences on the global economy and on international stability.

Yes, the risks of things accelerating into a nuclear war is there. However, excessive caution will not reduce this risk and at some point the possibility must be faced. Mister Xi would like Mister Putin to finish the job in Ukraine so that the world can move on to other things.

Russian people are often said to have a passion for order and certainty. At the same time, they are the “Mad Russians” who came up with ideas like Russian roulette. Perhaps these are different aspects to their national character which manifest in different ways at different times.

The present Russian government is extremely conflict averse. Much of the Russian public is impatient with this, especially since the Ukraine war. However, they still have a great regard for Putin.

Putin restored order in Russia after the chaos of the Yeltsin years, and attempts by foreign capital to conquer the country from within. In twenty five years, he has build a very efficient government system, better than what the Soviet Union achieved. An effective tax system provides revenue for continuously improving public services.

However, Putin will not be around forever. He is in his seventies and clearly tired. He has not built a particularly good political system. That is, one which will insure continuity of government and succession by top officials at least as competent as he and his cabinet.

No one knows what will happen once Putin is gone. Some of his ministers admit that the Yeltsin era oligarchy is still there, biding its time. Putin has never done anything to get rid of these people.

If the oligarchs try to take over they will face strong opposition from two other elements of the Russian polity. Both have solid support in the Russian public. Putin and his faction tend to play these off against each other.

The paradox is that, while Putin is very popular, he is very committed to liberal economic and political philosophy. After the debacle of the Yeltsin years, most Russians are not. The Chinese system is much admired in Russia.

The communist party never went away. It is the largest party in the Duma after Putin’s own “United Russia” party. It is no longer the party of old people who want the Soviet Union back. It is attracting young people who resent the inequality in Russian society.

Conservative religious nationalism exists in every society. Modernity, with social programs and economic progress, undermines the dominance of religious organizations. In Russia, the establishment party works to coopt and defuse this tendency, not to feed it as in the ‘west’.

Russia is really not the country to lead a global resistance to the Atlanticist hegemony. They seem willing to give that role to China. Russia would like to be left alone to build their economy and standard of living, and not be bled dry in rivalry with the NATO countries.

Once they have secured their western borders, they will restrict themselves to foreign operations which protect their own interests. Right now, their adventures in Africa seem intended to hold open markets for their grain and fertilizers. China, on the other hand, is there with the manufactured goods, the expertise, the capital, and increasingly, the weapons.

Eventually, mother Russia will do what it does whenever the world leaves her alone for awhile. The Russians will live within their own territory, off their own resources. They will adopt innovations from abroad which serve their needs.

The Russians celebrate victory day on May 9. That is when most of the Nazi forces surrendered to Russia. That is because Russia took on and defeated most of the Nazi forces.

In the west, we celebrate it on May 8. That is when the smaller part of Nazi forces which were facing west surrendered to the smaller Anglo-British force which opposed them. While Russia played up the 80th anniversary, the western powers seemed to play it down.

They refused any joint celebrations with Russia. That would have drawn attention to the fact that it was the Soviet Union, led by Russia, and its Red Army, which defeated the Nazi power. Otherwise, Hitler and company would have won, and reordered the world according to their vision.

They also do not want it understood that the Nazis were the Atlanticist powers own creation. The plan was that they would get the two countries they found difficult to control, Germany and Russia, to destroy each other.

However, the German Nazis turned on them first. They knocked out France and neutralized Britain. But then, when they finally got around to Soviet Russia, the Nazis found that they and the Atlanticists had underestimated its strength.

The Red army ground up Nazi forces. The Americans got into the war. Britain was able to get back into the fight.

However, this invasion was hugely destructive to Soviet Russia. One in eight of its citizens died. This trauma is very deeply rooted in the Russian consciousness.

This is why they were so concerned to advertise that they will never allow anyone to invade them again. They will never allow a Nazi regime to sit on their borders. Especially, they will not allow one to rule over and suppress their fellow Russian speakers.

Thus the Russians are a threat to the western elite, and to people with a Neonazi ideology. They are no threat to the people of Europe or anywhere else.

Thus, the war in Ukraine will go to its logical conclusion, and end there. It will be very hard for the western hegemonists to attack Russia further. They no longer have means to generate large military forces.

After this, mother Russia will just want the world to leave her alone.