By Larry Johnson, GATEWAY 17.7.23
To answer the question in my title you need only look at two numbers —
1) Ukraine’s rank in terms of natural resources and
2) the size of Ukraine’s Army in February 2022.
Since the end of World War II the West has viewed Ukraine as a critical piece on the global chess board for attacking and defeating Russia. The joint CIA/MI-6 effort to destabilize the Soviet Union, which started in 1947 with the provision of funds, weapons and training to Stefan Bandera’s organization, was crushed by the Soviets by 1952. It was shortly after that, following the death of Stalin in 1953, that Khrushchev gifted Crimea to Ukraine (1954). Was it a reward for Ukrainian assistance in wiping out the CIA-backed OUN uprising?
How is it that on the eve of the Russian Special Military Operation in February 2022 that Ukraine was the poorest country in Europe but was ranked number four in the world in terms of natural resources?
The country [Ukraine] ranks fourth globally in terms of total assessed value of natural resources, with roughly $15 billion in annual output and a potential “assessed value [that] could be as high as $7.5 trillion,” according to the report.
Beyond that, Ukraine is thought to have the largest supply of recoverable rare earth resources in Europe, although much of it is undeveloped. Rare earth minerals (cerium, yttrium, lanthanum and neodymium) and alloys are used in many devices people use every day, such as computer memory, rechargeable batteries, cellphones and much more.
The answer is simple — the Western oligarchs who fund the political leaders of the NATO countries were busy cutting deals with Ukrainian oligarchs to get control of those rare earth minerals and energy resources. Do you think that putting Hunter Biden on the Board of Burisma, along with former CIA Counter Terrorism Chief Cofer Black, was just a coincidence? But note — the plan to pillage Ukraine of its natural wealth did not include a plan to ensure the economic development of the Ukrainian people. Only those closely tied to Western oligarchs would profit.
Simply compare what Russia achieved since Vladimir Putin took the reins of government in August 1999 with Ukraine’s national squalor. Russia is number one in the world in terms of natural resources and Putin put a stop to the oligarchs plan, along with Western partners in the 1990s who gleefully raped Russia for their own enrichment. During the last 23 years Putin has resurrected Russia from the ashes of economic ruin, restored the military, rebuilt infrastructure throughout the 11 time zones that comprise Russia and created a vibrant, modern economy. Oh yeah, almost forgot. Russia’s space program surpasses that of all Western countries, including the United States.
Ukraine by contrast, thanks to a clown parade of incompetent, corrupt leaders, sold their country and their souls to the West. That is why Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe instead of one of the wealthiest.
The West had zero interest in fostering a genuine, legitimate democracy in Ukraine. Ukraine was nothing more than a proxy for weakening Russia and carving it up into pieces the West could readily devour to sustain faltering economies. Prior to the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation, Ukraine was treated as a de facto member of NATO. There were NATO training bases in Ukraine. The U.S. Department of Defense set up dozens of bio-research labs across Ukraine. And NATO and the U.S. European Command conducted annual military training exercises in Ukraine with Ukrainian forces.
The numbers tell the story. Ukraine’s Army (according to data from February 2022) had 700,000 active duty forces and a million men in reserve. That made Ukraine, as a de facto member, the second largest army in NATO. The United States provides the largest share of troops to NATO — 2,307,630. Coming in third, behind Ukraine, is Turkey with 1,069,900. Ukraine’s force is larger than France, Great Britain and Germany combined. We now know that NATO envisaged using Ukraine as the shock troops to weaken Russia so that NATO could finish off Putin and his military.
After 18 months of combat Ukraine has at least 600,000 military casualties (killed and wounded). That represents over 30% of its manpower at the start of the war in February 2022. NATO does not have the stomach, the resources nor the political support in their respective countries to send their troops into the maw of death and destruction that is Ukraine. NATO will not admit it publicly, but without Ukraine and Turkey, it has zero chance of defeating Russia.
Larry C. Johnson is an American blogger and former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. He is the co-owner and CEO of BERG Associates, LLC (Business Exposure Reduction Group).
Wikipedia has a very detailed report on the Russian Economy
Mr. Peloni 1986, I’ll tell you a terrible thing. The economy was even better under Brezhnev. Factories were built, and the country produced its own products. Let it be primitive, outdated, but its own. Examples: refrigerators, cars (Zhiguli, then Lada), household appliances, even had their own color TVs. The term “own industry” means that all machine parts were made in the USSR, and not imported it. Not a single plant has been built under Putin. Parts are imported from Germany, China, South Korea, Vietnam and other countries. Russia only collects products from them. Such an industry is called an assembly-screwdriver industry. As soon as the brands left, the industry collapsed, as I wrote about earlier.
I’m flattered that you consider me an expert in economics. Unfortunately, there is a limit of 400 words here, and the topic is very large. In short, my country is selling our natural resources right and left. We sell oil, but we buy motor oil, we sell minerals, we buy fertilizers, we sell raw wood, but we buy paper. We sell metal, but we buy medical equipment, medicines, all electronics – TVs, phones and various gadgets, household appliances, even clothes. We do not sell sophisticated machinery, machinery and equipment. Our tanks are from the 80s (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2-80), there are no new ones, and we generally buy drones from Iran. According to Russian customs statistics, imports from non-CIS countries amounted to 89.3% in 2021
I would advise you to get off the couch and enter any university in the economics department. There’s a lot to tell about the economy of Russia.
And for starters, I advise you to read the Forbs article: “We built a consumer paradise, but it turned out that they knew how to build a tank.”
https://www.forbes.ru/biznes/381379-itogi-dvadcatiletki-putina-kak-gosudarstvo-zavoevalo-svoyu-sobstvennuyu-ekonomiku. Google will gladly translate its content.
Further, you can continue your education here https://ru-stat.com. There are data on import-export for 21-22 years. This is the official website of the Federal State Statistics Service – Rosstat. They say that there is lie, but there is big lie – these is statistics. But no matter how much one would like to underestimate or exaggerate the data, all the same, the absolute figures correctly reflect the state of the Russian economy.
@Galina
@Potapova
You think the Russian economy has not been restored under Putin? Really? Perhaps you are right, since it had never before been as good as it has been under Putin. You are Russian and I am not, and I would defer to you on a good many issues, this one included, but your statement here seems quite fantastical. Is it truly your position that Russia’s economy is not better under Putin than it was under Yeltsin?
The economy can be assessed on a great many independent measures, so I would ask you, if your assertion about the economy is true, what economic measure is it that leads you to state the economy is not better under Putin than it was under Yeltsin, or any other Russian before him? This is NOT a rhetorical question. I really would like to know how you support this claim.
The author brazenly lies, juggles the facts and simply does not know the history.
Khrushchev did not “gift” Crimea to Ukraine. The decision was made by the Supreme Council of the USSR.
“LAW OF THE USSR On the transfer of the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics decides. April 26, 1954 Khrushchev’s signature was neither in the decree nor in the law.
The motivation for the transfer of the peninsula did not contain a single mention of a “gift” to Ukraine for the 300th anniversary or the strengthening of friendship between Ukraine and Russia (this is a myth). It was about pragmatic things: “Given the territorial attraction of the Crimean region to the Ukrainian SSR, the common economy and close economic and cultural ties between the Crimean region and the Ukrainian SSR.”
For 23 years, Putin has not been able to restore either the army, or the economy, or space. This is clearly seen thanks to the sanctions.
Russia keeps its civil aviation afloat by dispossessing part of the Western aircraft stuck in our airports. The auto industry collapsed by 70%, they did not make their own cars, but imported them. In electronics, chips were literally ripped out of washing machines or unused credit cards to power the electronics. In a country rich in gas, 43 million apartments and households have been gasified by 2021. This is approximately 1.5-2%. Russia’s place in the space race is still higher than India, but lower than the US and China. Since the late 1980s, Russia has not had a single independent scientific automatic interplanetary mission. The two stations launched to Mars ingloriously died in near-Earth orbit (“Mars-96” and “Phobos-Grunt”).
Where did the author get the figures for losses in the Ukrainian army? Ukraine does not bring them. Does the author have spies in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry? According to the Russian website News.ru, as of 04/14/23, the loss of the APU killed can be up to 220 thousand people. You understand that the Minister of Defense of the RF Shoigu will not belittle these data. On the contrary, he constantly exaggerates them.
Hello, retired22
I assume this is in response to the OP title statement that “NATO is now in a panic”. You further say, supporting the “panic” narrative,
“But now they no longer have their colonial empire.
So,in a desperate effort for dominance they use a different tactic – instead of capturing colonies outright they seek to financially capture the government of nations by controlling the credit of these nations from behind the curtains.”
This change of tactics was pointed out to me by my English room-mate in 1966/67, so I wouldn’t say this was any sort of “panic”; and it certainly has had nothing to do with the Ukraine.
If anyone is running around panicking nowadays, it is simply because they have no anchor for their soul; so they take flight at trifles. We are in a war right now, against Russia, China, Iran and their allies. The conflict will probably continue to escalate; and it will probably involve Israel, America and nuclear weapons. It will certainly be with us for some time; and this is not a reasonable time for anyone to “panic”.
The long term reason is that Global financial dominance has moved out of the small resource poor nations of western Europe & now resides in the large,resource rich BRIC nations.
The prime mover in all of this resides in London.Perfidious Albion
the London Bankers,& the Monarchy, have grown rich over the last 3 hundred years milking these colonies of their wealth.
But now they no longer have their colonial empire.
So,in a desperate effort for dominance they use a different tactic
instead of capturing colonies outright they seek to financially capture the government of nations by controlling the credit of these nations from behind the curtains.This is what they are doing now using Ukraine as their tool.They want to financially control Russia from behind the scenes by deposing Putin.Depose Putin & putting in place a Russian version of Joe Biden who will allow the Bankers to loot Russia’s Wealth
This what they did in the USA back in 1913 thru their agents in the Democrat Party
Raw propaganda, as usual.
There is very little movement by either side, anywhere along the front, because this is dug-in trench warfare. Russian manpower and material losses have outnumbered Ukrainian (otherwise, the side on the offensive generally loses 3:1).
The biggest movement lately, has been of successful Ukrainian attacks on Russian MILITARY targets and Russian attacks on Ukrainian CIVILIAN targets. Nothing new here.
I’ve seen so many of these baseless false reports. The Russian performance in this war has been laughable. Face it: They are unable to budge a country one-third of their size, their top brass has been parading against Moscow, their generals are falling like flies on the front lines, potential recruits are fleeing the country, their Black Sea Fleet is getting decimated, they have lost half their tanks and are pulling WWII units out of mothballs…
Ukraine has lost 600,000 troops??? Where did those figures come from? Dominion voting machines?
@Raphael
The chart has been truncated by my system.
Go to the original article which shows the whole chart. The first column of numbers is the number of men under arms in each country.
What is the chart in the article supposed to show? I don’t see any column headings, nor a link to the original chart. Did I miss something?
GATEWAY PUBLISHED THIS. THAT IS HUGE.