The Ukraine Conflict--A French Perspective

The Zhou regime wants Americans to believe that NATO has never been more united. In other words, European nations have never been more committed to doing what they’re told by the US. Of course, the European public isn’t fooled by this blatant propaganda, but many Americans are. For that reason the French perspective that I offer below may prove of interest.

It occurs to me, before we start, that many readers may be puzzled by the reference to the Austro-Hungarian Empire with regard to Western Ukraine, so a brief explanation may be in order. Bear with me—we will get to the French perspective.

As previously explained, Western Ukraine corresponds more or less to Eastern Galicia—the hotbed of fervid Ukrainian nationalism and anti-Russian (as well as anti-Polish, anti-Jewish, and Neo-Nazi) sentiment. Western Galicia corresponds to southeast Poland, including the former Polish capital and cultural center of Kraków.

For three centuries—the 15th to the 18th—give or take a few decades, not only the entirety of Galicia but a good half or more of Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which at its height stretched from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea—an expanse known in Latin as the Intermarium. That included Kiev. During this period the rest of what is now referred to as Ukraine was controlled to varying degrees by the Russian Empire, the Khanate of the Crimea, the Ottoman Empire, and various fractious coalitions of Cossacks. The Polish area was regularly subject to invasions by the Ottomans and wars and rebellions with the Cossacks—who switched allegiances among the various great powers that vied for control of the steppes and access to the Black Sea.

In the 18th century Poland steadily lost ground until, toward the end of that century, the entirety of Poland was partitioned among Prussia, Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. All of Galicia was apportioned to Austria and remained so until 1918. That gets us to the reference in the tweet thread below. The maps, below, give a picture of the political and ethnic situation. Since so much Polish history and culture had taken place in Western Ukraine, and because so much of that centered on the still heavily Polish city of Lemberg/Lwów/Lviv, Poles generally felt that Western Ukraine should be returned to the newly independent Poland. Ukrainians and Russian vehemently disagreed with that assessment.

The Germans set up an independent Ukraine before withdrawing much of their occupation force from Russia to launch their 1918 western offensive. With the Bolshevik Revolution, most of what had previously been the Russian Empire was up for grabs. Poland, in 1919, took advantage of the turmoil—or perhaps to preempt a Red offensive—and launched a war against the new Soviet Union, but also against the Ukrainian forces in Western Ukraine. The Poles got as far as Kiev, before being driven back by the Red Army, at which point the Poles and Ukrainians became “allies”. Ultimately the Poles prevailed against the Soviet Union to the extent that they were able to force a fairly advantageous treaty, including all of Galicia—although it was a compromise from the standpoint of Poland’s original claims. Russians and Ukrainians were left very dissatisfied with this outcome, and suspicious that the Poles had been planning to reestablish an Intermarium—which was quite possibly true. In fact, Ukrainian nationalists soon launched a low level insurgency against the Polish regime, which the Poles were able to largely quash.

That’s the backdrop to WW2, when the Ukrainians in Galicia welcomed the Germans and got payback against the Poles, who were deported westward at the end of the war. At the end of WW2 the USSR was left to deal with the Ukrainian nationalists, whose continuing insurgency was covertly supported by the CIA. However, by the mid 1950s the Soviets had put down the Ukrainian insurgency. And that was the state of affairs when the Soviet Union came apart. By far the region of Ukraine most in favor of independence from Russia was—and is—Eastern Galicia—Western Ukraine. But it’s also in this overall context that 1) George H. W. Bush delivered his Chicken Kiev speech, in which he warned against stirring up ultra nationalist sentiments in Ukraine, and 2) in the 21st century the CIA once again began supporting the descendants of the Neo-Nazis the CIA had supported in the 1950s.

You may recall that I recently commented that the Polish idea of sending Polish “peacekeepers” to Western Ukraine was an incredibly stupid idea. I think you can see why, from this brief history. Poland is now suggesting that they’re open to the the US stationing nukes on Polish soil—which provocatively adds fuel to the fire that they started with talk of “peacekeepers.” It smells to Russians (and probably most Ukrainians) of another Polish scheme to restore their centuries old glory.

-- GEROMAN -- 👀 - @GeromanAT

What could go wrong...

Samuel Ramani @SamRamani2

BREAKING: Poland's Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslav Kaczynski expresses openness to deploying U.S. nuclear weapons on Polish soil

The rabidly anti-Russian Kaczyński isn’t stupid, so this is presumably a deliberate provocation. It’s probably intended to prevent or delay any peaceful settlement, and quite possibly instigated by the US.

How much, if any, of this history do you think all those Americans sporting Ukrainian flags understand?

Now, here are maps showing the situation before WW1, after the partition of Poland:

So, finally, we get to the French perspective!

Arnaud Bertrand

Fascinating interview by @gregtabibian of Alain Juillet, former head of France's intelligence services DGSE (French CIA equivalent) under Chirac:

I'll translate and summarize what he says about Ukraine, and notably on the origins of the war.

He says everyone saw the Ukraine war coming, that "only those who know nothing about this matter can say it was a surprise".

To him, the main reason is because the West "refused since 2014 to tell the Ukrainians to respect the Minsk agreements"

He says "the French, the Germans, the Russians and the Ukrainians signed the Minsk agreements in 2014 but the Ukrainians didn't respect the agreement during the entire period since. And the Russians were telling us all the time to get them to respect the agreement but we didn't."

He says it's unacceptable to invade a country but he also says that "we are co-responsible for it."

The host notes that "former foreign ministers of France like De Villepin or Védrine are accusing the Americans of being responsible".

He replies: "yes, that's what I am saying."

In other words, the Europeans came up with a negotiated solution at Minsk, but the US Deep State persuaded the Ukrainians to blow it off after signing on.

On the promise made to Russia in the early 1990s not to expand NATO he says that former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, who was in the negotiations, is adamant that everyone at the time (including Baker and Kohl) agreed that NATO would not expand East of reunified Germany.

He said the Americans weren't true to their word and pushed for the eastern expansion of NATO "in total contradiction with what was said [to Russia]".

He says the long-term origin of the divide in Ukraine dates back from the opposition between the Austro-Hungarian empire and the Russian tsarist empire.

He adds that since then there's been a divide in Ukraine between those two sides.

He reminds that during WW2 the "Austro-Hungarian side" [Western Ukraine, Galicia] fought alongside the Nazis while the Russian side fought against them.

To him today is "clearly a continuation of this, it's being going on for 300 years."

“Going on for 300 years.” He means, since the partitions of Poland that were completed in 1795:

The host asks him if the Maidan revolution in 2014 was organized by the Americans.

He replies: "One thing that particularly caught my attention is Victoria Nuland, who is currently the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, saying that "...it cost the U.S. $5bio to get into Ukraine and that they weren't going to leave now after that. What does that mean, Madame Nuland? She is by the way the same one who, when told the Europeans weren't happy, said 'f*ck the EU'. So it's pretty clear..."

He adds that what happened before the Maidan revolution was Ukraine forbidding the Russian language:

"You have 40% of the population that speaks Russian.

So you forbid a language that large percentage of the population uses under the pretext that you don't like the Russians."

He states that it's "not serious, it's not possible. That was already a very bad start."

What happened after is that "they took the Azov battalion and the others and told them to go to Donbass to hit pro-Russian Ukrainians on the head."

"What they also did was cut the water supply in Crimea. That was before Putin took it back.

So there was a terrible anti-Russophone/anti-Russian population policy in Ukraine. That's what people don't realize in the West.

It's no wonder the Russian side reacted."

"Putin, seeing that, he isn't stupid. He sees people who are on his side getting oppressed, he's not going to go against them..."

The host asks him why the Americans train and maintain close relations with extreme right groups like the Azov.

He replies that "those militia, given their ideology, we could be very confident that they were going to fight against the people in Donbass."

"They were the perfect representation of the Western side of Ukraine and of course they hated the Russians."

To him it's wrong to think there are no Nazis in Ukraine. "When Hitler invaded Ukraine, Stepan Bandera, who was a Ukrainian nationalist, saw it as an opportunity to be...

...freed from the Russians by siding with the Nazis."

He adds that "the Das Reich Nazi division that committed the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre [a famous massacre in France committed by the Nazis during WW2], they were all Ukrainians, 95% of them were Ukrainians."

He continues: "When they say today 'there are no Nazis in Ukraine', I say 'who are you kidding?'."

He adds: "It's obvious in Ukraine there is a divide between those with pro-Nazi tendencies - not all of them of course, there are also decent people who are neither Nazis nor...

...Russians but simply Ukrainians - but you do have strong tendencies on both sides as well. [...]

He adds that "unfortunately these are things we can't say on mainstream media because if you say something like this on official TV they cut you and never invite you again."

On the interdiction of Russian media like RT in France he says: "I thought we were not at war? If we are at war, it's normal to forbid the enemy's media on our territory but if we're not at war, what allows us to ban some media just because we disagree with their views?"

"This is called a thought crime. That's very serious. In the country of liberty it raises a certain number of issues... I'm not defending RT at all, that's not the issue, it's a question of principle."

That's the gist of it.

Alain Juillet is an old time "Gaulliste", which in foreign policy means he is very attached to an unaligned and independent France, i.e. not blindly following the Americans on their crusades like France has done with our latest presidents since Sarkozy.

His uncle Pierre Juillet was Jacques Chirac's mentor (the last French president faithful to Gaulliste principles in foreign policy, famously refusing the Irak war) and his grandfather was De Gaulle's classmate so you can hardly find anyone more Gaulliste than him!

His views on the origins of the conflict largely correspond with what the immense majority of top strategic thinkers believe

How long can this disconnect between what those "in the know" believe and what the public at large is told continue?