Folks,
I this increasingly Pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian climate in Europe and probably also in the USA it is hard to think about a Post-war time in which Ukraine, the Russian Federation, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia must live side by side as neighbours, trade partners, with good diplomatic relations and a balance between East and West again.
In the long term Ukraine and Russia must find a way to coexist, because they share long borders, a mutual history, an lot of mixed heritage, cultural, genes, and people. Russians live and work in Ukraine (also the present day Pro-Ukrainian Russians which were bombed, shelled, shot at by snipers, killed, wounded by the Russians, Separatist armed forces of Novarussia -the Donbas- and Luhansk Peoples Republics, Chechen Kadyrov fighters and some other foreign fighters at the Russian side, like the Serb Četnici - Chetniks - and others) like Ukrainians work and live in the Russian Federation.
Despite this war Ukrainians delivered their contribution to the Tsarist Empire, the SovietUnion and the Russian Federation as scientists, workers, business people, entrepreneurs and in other functions and professions. Many of these Ukrainians in the Russian Federation will be tore between their life in Russia and their connection with Ukraine 🇺🇦. Maybe some of them will keep silent being surrounded by Russian state propaganda and the Z sigh all around them on buildings, advertisements and even on clothes (Russian fashion of June 2022).
In Ukraine Russians will be tore between their ties and relationship with family and friends in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Vladivostok, Rostov-on-Don, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnoyarsk, Voronezh, Irkutsk, Volgograd and Kazan. They are attacked and lost familymembers, colleagues and friends, but Russian family and friends in Russia don’t believe them due to Russian propaganda which is on their television, tv, Russian websites and blogs, in their newspapers, magazines and on their streets, boulevards, squares, bus and train stations, shopping malls, Airports on large billboards, murals, posters, foto’s on walls and windows, and in Waiting rooms of various institutions where state propaganda will likely be spread.
For these Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine and Russia directly effected by the war this connection with the other country is an extra burden on their plate. They are literary split between 2 nations. Some breake off all relations with the other side. Some stay in contact with relatives on the other side with great tensions, because the Ukrainian and Russian opinions and stances hinder a warm and friendly relationship. As a result of that (cause and affect) there are a lot of misunderstandings, irritations, frustrations, anger and quarrels between these people in their family relations. Which is both understandable and deeply tragic.
Back to the subject Ron started. Ron started with the Der Spiegel interview (Q&A), with the Indian Author Pankaj Mishra on the War in Ukraine, "Have You Really Thought This Through?”. About the political assertiveness of nuclear-armed countries like Russia and China and the ambiguous role of countries like India.
In my opinion Pankaj Mishra worry that this whole policy of imposing severe sanctions will ultimately destroy Russia’s economy is not unreasonable nor unjust or illogical. I think for instance about the World War I reparations Germany and Austria had to pay to France, the United Kingdom and the USA, which caused huge misery in Germany and Austria, recession, extreme inflation of the Deutschmark and extreme poverty and hunger in Germany and Austria with millions of people unemployed and humiliated. This was one of the head causes of the strong growth of the Far right (SA Brownshirt street Terror, the growth of Adolf Hitlers NSDAP, and later the establishment of the ideological totalitarian police SS state of Gestapo, SD -Sicherheitsdienst- and Nazi Ordnungspolizei) and Extreme Left (Der Rote Frontkämpferbund (RFB) street terror -
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blutmai - and the establishment of the German Democratic Republic with it’s SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, English; Socialist Unity Party of Germany), the Stasi and Volkspolizei oppression of the East-Germans). If you look at Russia you see that elements of the Weimarer Republic are present. On one side you have the Communist Party of the Russian Federation of Gennady Zyuganov and on the other side you have to the far right of Putin Russian (White) Monarchist (Pro-Tsar), extreme-right Neo-Fascist and Neo-Nazi forces like the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia of former Vladimir Zhirinovsky ((1946-2022), Rodina, and the 2 far right movements National Patriotic Front and The Russian National Unity with their roots in the ultranationalist Pamyat, National Patriotic Front "Memory" (NPF "Memory"; Russian: Национально-патриотический фронт «Память»; НПФ «Память»; Natsionalno-patrioticheskiy front «Pamyat», NPF «Pamyat»).
Back to the Weimarer Republic ( Following the ratification of article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles at the conclusion of World War I, the Central Powers were compelled to give war reparations to the Allied Powers.
The Treaty of Versailles (signed in 1919) and the 1921 London Schedule of Payments required Germany to pay 132 billion gold marks (US$33 billion [all values are contemporary, unless otherwise stated]) in reparations to cover civilian damage caused during the war. This figure was divided into three categories of bonds: A, B, and C. Of these, Germany was required to pay towards 'A' and 'B' bonds totaling 50 billion marks (US$12.5 billion) unconditionally. The payment of the remaining 'C' bonds was interest free and contingent on the Weimar Republic's ability to pay, as was to be assessed by an Allied committee.
The German people saw reparations as a national humiliation; the German Government worked to undermine the validity of the Treaty of Versailles and the requirement to pay. British economist John Maynard Keynes called the treaty a Carthaginian peace that would economically destroy Germany. His arguments had a profound effect on historians, politicians, and the public at large. Despite Keynes' arguments and those by later historians supporting or reinforcing Keynes' views, the consensus of contemporary historians is that reparations were not as intolerable as the Germans or Keynes had suggested and were within Germany's capacity to pay had there been the political will to do so. Following the Second World War, West Germany took up payments. The 1953 London Agreement on German External Debts resulted in an agreement to pay 50 per cent of the remaining balance. The final payment was made on 3 October 2010, settling German loan debts in regard to reparations.
In February 1919, Foreign Minister Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau informed the Weimar National Assembly that Germany would have to pay reparations for the devastation caused by the war, but would not pay for actual war costs. After the drafting of the Treaty of Versailles on 7 May that year, the German and Allied delegations met and the treaty was handed over to be translated and for a response to be issued. At this meeting Brockdorff-Rantzau stated, "We know the intensity of the hatred which meets us, and we have heard the victors' passionate demand that as the vanquished we shall be made to pay, and as the guilty we shall be punished". However, he proceeded to deny that Germany was solely responsible for the war.
Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles was not correctly translated. Instead of stating "... Germany accepts responsibility of Germany and her allies causing all the loss and damage ...", the German Government's edition reads, "Germany admits it, that Germany and her allies, as authors of the war, are responsible for all losses and damages ...". This resulted in a prevailing belief of humiliation among Germans; the article was seen as an injustice and there was a view that Germany had signed "away her honor". Despite the public outrage, German government officials were aware "that Germany's position on this matter was not nearly so favorable as the imperial government had led the German public to believe during the war". Politicians seeking international sympathy would continue to use the article for its propaganda value, persuading many who had not read the treaties that the article implied full war guilt. German revisionist historians who later tried to ignore the validity of the clause found a ready audience among revisionist writers in France, Britain, and the US. The objective of both the politicians and historians was to prove that Germany was not solely guilty for causing the war; if that guilt could be disproved the legal requirement to pay reparations would disappear.
So I compare sanctions today with the World War I reparations of Germany and Austria after WW II. The West and Ukraine should think about an imploding Russian economy, recession, mass unemploymemt, isolation, poverty, the creation of a Russian victim hood myth, Russian revenge thoughts, a Russian version of the German Stab-in-the-back myth (Dolchstoßlegende, Legenda o ciosie w plecy) if Russia is abandoned by former allies and driven in a corner (of course from the Russian point of view), about a Russia 🇷🇺 in which misery, poverty, unemployment and hunger drives people to absolutism, supporting authoritarian despots and hatred of Ukraine and the West.
The present day situation is a very difficult one for responsible, sensible, rational, Democratic, human and Realpolitiker leaders who understand the short term and long term consequences of decisions, their rule, orders, measures and implementing their policies. What is wise to do in tactical and strategic military sense, what is wise in Foreign policy sense, in geopolitical sense, in the sense of a lasting victory and peace, in the interest of your economy, Financial Affairs, agriculture (Food production and Food security), Energy, the survival of your culture, people, nation, sovereignty, Rechtsstaat, Freedom & Democracy (Democratic institutions and structures), rule of law, safety & security, protection of property, Separation of Powers (Trias Politica), Checks and Balances and thus a Free, Independent and Democratic society and country.
Cheers,
Pieter