Russian grievances with regard to NATO expansion and Ukraine.

This is a letter I wrote to MG Paul E Vallely US Army (Ret), Chairman of the Patriot International Alliance, regarding the Alliance’s press release about peace in Ukraine.  The Alliance “and the alliance of the defense and intelligence community veterans” are calling for an immediate ceasefire and are asking for a peace summit to take place in Malta in August 2023:

Dear Gen. Vallely:

I write with regard to the press release of The Patriots International Alliance published on Business Game Changers.[1]

The Alliance call for international recognition of Russian grievances in recommendation 4.a is remarkable for its graciousness.  It is rare for active or former US officials (or academics or think tank specialists) to recognize, mirabile dictu  that Russians have legitimate security interests and are justified in entertaining a certain skepticism as to NATO/US intentions and bona fides.

That said, I think Recommendation 4.a needs to read as follows:

International Recognition of the grievances of the Russian Federation on the grounds of –

1.      The relentless expansion of NATO contrary to all assurances given by the US around the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union that NATO would not advance “one inch” beyond its then boundaries.

2.      The inexplicable clinging to NATO itself when it was clearly a creature of the Cold War and no longer needed after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

3.      Crimes committed in Donbas by the AFU and other related agencies during the last decade to include shelling of and sniping at inhabitants causing the deaths of over 14,000 people.

4.      Crimes committed by Ukrainian against civilians in Korsun.[2]

5.      In the months shortly before the Russian Special Military Operation, the massing of AFU forces on the borders of the Donbas with increased shelling in obvious preparation for invasion notwithstanding the wishes of the inhabitants to join the Russian Federation.

6.      The inexplicable installation of US DoD bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine as a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation.

7.      Active intervention by the US and other NATO states in the internal politics of Ukraine to promote anti-Russian sentiments within Ukraine.

8.      NATO/US complete silence on the nutcase Ukrainian government’s doing all in its power to suppress the use of the Russian language and otherwise to transform ethnic Russians into second-class citizens.

9.      NATO/US support for one of the most corrupt nations on the planet infested by if not controlled by thugs with visions of the glory days of the SS dancing in their heads.

10.  NATO/US silence on the Ukrainian regime’s attacks on opposition political parties and the press and its cancellation of elections for the foreseeable future while ceaselessly proclaiming their fealty to “our democratic values.”

11.  US stationing of radar and missile batteries in Poland and Romania complete with dissembling about the purpose of at least one of the batteries being to provide early warning of an Iranian missile attack on Liechtenstein.  (Okay.  I made up the part about Lichtenstein.)

12.  US waging of aggressive war on the sovereign state of Syria, which war is neither constitutionally authorized nor authorized by any AUMF to float down the Potomac.

13.  US support for scum-of-the-earth jihadis in Syria.

14.  The “mistaken” US-supported attack on a unit of the Syrian Arab Army west of Deir ez-Zor, belief in the plausibility of the mistake requiring that it is entirely natural for a field-grade officer of the armed forces of the United States to abandon his post for coffee while tasked with manning the hotline for communication with Russian forces whose purpose is to avoid accidental conflict.

15.  The visit by U/I US officials with members of local investigating team of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons apparently to urge the adoption of a false statement of responsibility with regard to the alleged chlorine attack on Douma, Syria.

16.  The arrogant dismissal of Russian proposals for a new approach to the security of central Europe.

17.  The arrogant, aggressive, and provocative expansion of NATO membership eastward to the very borders of Russia.

18.  US plans to take over Crimea and its Russian strategic military asset, its naval base in Sevastopol,[3] one of only three Russian warm-water naval bases that I know of.  The recklessness of this plan beggars the imagination.

19.  The provocative NATO/US efforts befopre 2022 to train and supply the AFU and achieve “interoperability” with NATO forces and thereby effect a de facto integration of the AFU with NATO.

20.  The illegal and highly destructive bombing of Serbia, a traditional Russian ally,  that was not authorized by the U.N. Security Council or by our Constitution, any AUMF, our fatuous “responsibility to protect,” or our dedication to the “rules-based international order” that are the dishonest and unknowable product of the arrogant knaves at the U.S. Dept. of State, if not the Council on Foreign Relation.

21.  The endless US distortion of the Russian response to Georgian troops firing on Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia as “Russian aggression.”

22.  The timid, but pathetic, “right of passage” foray of HMS Defender in Russian waters.

23.  The arrogant US dabbling in “regime change” hither and yon as though we alone have the divinely-inspired ability to decide what foreign regimes measure up.  E.g., Ukraine, Kosovo, Syria, Russia., Venezuela. 

24.  US hypocrisy in objecting to the accession of Crimea to Russia while blithely delivering Kosovo to the egregious Kosovo Liberation Army (and the Muslim Brotherhood) while decrying the “illegal” annexation by Russia of Crimea.

25.  US complicity in the fraud of the two Minsk Agreements, which France and Germany signed onto with the dishonest intention of buying time to the permit the strengthening of the AFU.

26.  Arrogant US imposition of sanctions on Russia.

27.  The beyond arrogant US theft of Russian reserve funds in non-Russian banks.

28.  Last but not least, the US destruction of the Nordstream pipelines.

These are what come to mind from what I can remember offhand.  Jeffrey Sachs also has a useful chronology of events in or regarding Ukraine.[4]  I have not re-read his article and so perhaps there are additional grievances I could have listed.  However, my list of Russian grievances makes my essential point.

The opportunity presented itself before the start of the SMO to engage in long-overdue negotiations about just what in the world NATO/US is up to in central Europe and what exactly its strategic objectives with regard to the Russian Federation are.  As Pres. Putin said with regard to the expansion of NATO:  “[It] represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?”[5] 

As he indicated quite clearly, Russia had no illusions about the suspicious, if not hostile, nature of the expansion of NATO.  No assurances were given to Russia because none could be forthcoming because of the inexplicable residual hostility toward Russia, which hostility is in fact not residual but possessed a mysterious independent existence not ever revealed to the American people for the last 10, if not 30, years.

So two opportunities to reorder the post-war world came and went: the occasion of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Russian 2021 proposals for new security arrangements in central Europe — and the stark realities remain of NATO troops and US missiles on Russia’s border while US society itself plumbs new depths of the moronic, the absurd and the perverse.

So I think the world has had its fill of the inflated sense of importance of the US.  We ludicrously hold forth about American “exceptionalism” but there is little that is exceptional about our nation when it will not maintain public order, will not seal its borders, pats itself on the back for standing the constitutional scheme on it head (think bloated, all-powerful federal government), implacably pursues censorship, tolerates loathsome creatures like George Soros, tolerates naked prosecutorial abuse, does nothing about massive monopolies, and celebrates all that is contrary to millennia of human experience and wisdom.

The iron laws of arithmetic inexorably are working to expose the full extent of economic, political, social, and monetary stupidity.  The Russians are on the verge of delivering an object lesson in paying attention and we can devote some serious time and energy this time around to working something out with a quite reasonable and patient, though formidable, nation.  That nation has vitally important interests to defend and is no threat to us.  We cannot begin to imagine what it meant to the Russia people to lose 20,000,000 people in WWII.

So the Alliance’s list of grievances is too short, even as refreshing as it is for its magnanimity.  However, there will be no return to the status quo ante and the only things to be negotiated are the removal of AFU troops from the field and the removal of Mr. Zelensky to his Florida or Israeli retirement property. Crimea and eastern Ukraine will remain Russian and the US has zero bargaining power on that.  The grievances listed above will have to be addressed and with significant and far-reaching concessions by the US side.

Best wishes,

Richard Ong

[1] “Patriot International Alliance, Defense and Intelligence Community veterans calling for Russia/Ukraine unconditional Ceasefire and Peace.”  Editor, Business Game Changers, 7/23/23.  (https://sarahwestall.com/patriot-international-alliance-defense-and-intelligence-community-veterans-calling-for-russia-ukraine-unconditional-ceasefire-and-peace/).

[2] “The crimes of Euromaidan Nazis: The pogrom of Korsun on 20/02/2014.”  Ukraine Human Rights, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loKajkXoTBU).

[3] The Obama Regime’s Plan to Seize the Russian Naval Base in Crime.”  By Eric Zuesse, Europe Reloaded, 11/4/19.  (https://www.europereloaded.com/the-obama-regimes-plan-to-seize-the-russian-naval-base-in-crimea/).

[4] “The Real History of the War in Ukraine.  A Chronology of Events and Case for Diplomacy.” The Kennedy Beacon, 7/17/23. (https://thekennedybeacon.substack.com/p/the-real-history-of-the-war-in-ukraine ).

[5] “Did Putin’s 2007 Munich Speech Predict the Ukraine Crisis?”  By Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato Institute, 1/24/22.  (https://www.cato.org/commentary/did-putins-2007-munich-speech-predict-ukraine-crisis).