The Russian newspaper ROI Novosti made a mistake and published an article that was written before the invasion of Ukraine, and which was supposed to be published after the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv had been taken in four days. The article posted at the scheduled time and was taken down quickly, but not before it was archived.
It gives us an interesting look into the rationale for the invasion, of which we got a glimpse in Putin’s speech that gave a version of history in which Ukraine was always part of Russia, or the Russian world, which also included Belerus.
The article, titled The Beginning of Russia and the New World, begins with this:
A new world is being born before our eyes. Russia’s military operation in Ukraine has ushered in a new era – in three dimensions at once. And of course, in the fourth, internal Russian. Here begins a new period both in ideology and in the very model of our socio-economic system – but this is worth talking about separately a little later.
Russia is restoring its unity; the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a virtual civil war, because now brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other, but there will be no more Ukraine as anti-Russia. Russia is restoring its historical fullness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together – in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians.
It goes on to say that Putin has taken his place in history by fixing this, which otherwise would have had to be fixed by future generations because such a split was unnatural and would have had to be corrected at some point, both because of the unity of the Russian people, and to prevent the West from taking over Ukraine and perpetuating this unnatural separation.
The analysis of Russia and the West is fascinating. Take this:
Did anyone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kyiv? That the Russians will forever be a divided people? And at the same time when Europe is uniting, when the German and French elites are trying to seize control of European integration from the Anglo-Saxons and assemble a united Europe? Forgetting that the unification of Europe became possible only thanks to the unification of Germany, which took place according to the good Russian (albeit not very smart) will. To swipe after that also on Russian lands is not even the height of ingratitude, but of geopolitical stupidity. The West as a whole, and even more so Europe in particular, did not have the strength to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence, and even more so to take Ukraine for itself. In order not to understand this, they had to be just geopolitical fools.
There is so much in that one paragraph that I find it impossible to summarize. I am no expert on European geopolitics, but didn’t Russia support the withdrawal of the Anglo-Saxons from the European Union? Doesn’t that contradict at least part of this interpretation?
I will close this with the final two paragraphs. Putin clearly expected the non-European, non-North American world to take Russia’s side in this, framing its opposition simply as the West against Russia, further isolating the West.
How embarrassing the actual event must be.
Because the construction of a new world order – and this is the third dimension of current events – is accelerating, and its contours are more and more clearly visible through the spreading cover of Anglo-Saxon globalization. The multipolar world has finally become a reality – the operation in Ukraine is not capable of rallying anyone but the West against Russia. Because the rest of the world sees and understands perfectly well – this is a conflict between Russia and the West, this is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, this is Russia’s return of its historical space and its place in the world.
China and India, Latin America and Africa, the Islamic world and Southeast Asia – no one believes that the West leads the world order, much less sets the rules of the game. Russia has not only challenged the West, it has shown that the era of Western global domination can be considered completely and finally over. The new world will be built by all civilizations and centers of power, naturally, together with the West (united or not) – but not on its terms and not according to its rules.