Piero Scaruffi on the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Summary of the talk:
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Putin claims that Ukraine never existed before.
* True, but that doesn’t mean that Ukraine has no right to exist.
* All countries were born at one point or another, and most countries were born out of the implosion of an empire.
* It depends on how you feel about the right of the Palestinians, the Kurds, the Tibetans and even the Catalans in Spain to have their own country.
* Putin fundamentally does not understand Ukraine.
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Putin claims that Crimea was always Russian.
* Russia annexed Crimea in 1783 after centuries of war against the Tatars and then colonized it.
* Ukraine is better off without Crimea and Donbass because it may help solve its two biggest problems: internal divisions and rampant corruption
* Crimea will come back to haunt Russia because Russia occupies regions that have traditionally belonged to other countries.
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Putin complains that NATO repeatedly broke its agreements with Russia.
* True, NATO did it repeatedly, but it doesn’t mean that Ukraine must obey agreements between NATO and Russia that were done without asking the Ukrainian people.
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Putin claims that his invasion of Ukraine is to prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO
* Hard to believe that this was Putin’s main reason: there was no chance of Ukraine being accepted in NATO (or in the European Union)
* On the other hand, NATO may expand precisely because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine (Sweden, Finland)
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Putin claims that NATO has deployed missiles near Russia whereas Russia does not have any missiles near Western countries.
* False, Russia has deployed lethal weapons near Alaska, Japan, Poland, etc.
* There's a difference between defensive missiles and offensive missiles.
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The relationship between Europe and Russia
* Russia views Europe as a hostage (it feels secure only if Europe is insecure).
* The ultimate cause of Russia's insecurity is that everybody is afraid of Russia
* Putin's real concern was not NATO expansion but a prosperous and free Ukraine, and in general that’s his real concern: rich countries next door to poor Russia
* The European Union is finally waking up that it is vulnerable to Russian cyberwarfare, oil/gas, and military
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The timing of the invasion
* Trump lost (Trump was working to destroy NATO)
* Ukraine arrested Viktor Medvedchuk, the leader of Ukraine's pro-Russia party
* Angela Merkel retired
* The withdrawal of the USA from the Islamic world
* It's intriguing how well the USA knew the timing of the invasion
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Putin’s mental health.
* Putin could be increasingly isolated even within his own Russia
* Putin could be afraid of ending like Qaddafi
* Putin didn’t just invade Ukraine: he also invaded Kazakhstan and Belarus for the same reason, to stop popular revolutions
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The West’s response.
* The West just invented a new weapon of mass destruction: "econo-cide".
* The culture war against all Russians is wrong
* Old enemies look like opportunities (Iran and Venezuela)
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China’s response.
* China has no defense pact with Russia, and Russia sells weapons to China’s enemies (India and Vietnam)
* China is a net beneficiary of the Western sanctions against Russia
* China also benefits if Russia is weakened in Central Asia
* China's long-term goal could be Siberia, not Taiwan
* In the long run, China may fear that Russia moves closer to the West when Putin dies or is deposed
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This invasion in the historical context.
* There is continuity between tzarist Russia, communist Soviet Union and neofascist Russia.
* The conflict between Western Europe and Russia was not ideological
* Russia is the last remaining colonial empire of Europe
* Yet again, a nuclear power has invaded a country that gave up weapons of mass destruction, a lesson that many countries are learning

[faustopioli]

Thanks🙏🙏🙏you provided many details that are missing on tv debates and on newspapers articles.

[kskslslslsoooao]

Maybe *cough* you should have *cough* switched the size of both screens. That would *cough* have been *cough* more *cough* interesting.

[RickTheGreatestPosterEver]

Bro you need to quit smoking or learn to use Audacity or something. And stop calling him _"Pew-teen"_ You're a hell of a writer, but as a speaker...This is unlistenable.

[luca]

Scaruffi also seems to believe that the human rights abuses committed by Russia in this war are somehow comparable to human right abuses committed by the US army, ignoring the fact that the scale and nature of such abuses is completely different, and in no way comparable to what's being perpetrated by the Russian army.

[luca]

Scaruffi is not an expert on Ukraine and he clearly misses the point. When Putin says that Ukraine is not a country, he means it is not a nation, too. This is clearly not the case. The claim that Crimea has always been Russian is also entirely false. If the goal is to understand Ukraine, I'd rather listen to people like Timothy Snyder, who spent his whole life doing research on the topic. A good starting point is the episode no. 301 on Sam Harris' podcast.

[talasattila]

Well Yugoslavia didn't exist before either, still it has a right to oh wait... oups

[maxosini]

It's not silly to ban russian athlets and artists from competitions or performances. It's a way to send a message to ordinary russians who don't have a free press to make them understand they should get rid of their leader.