A-Infos (en) Italy, IFA, UCADI #200 - The Arctic Fox (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

On August 15, US President Donald Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir 
Putin met in Anchorage, Alaska. The Russian president behaved like an 
Arctic fox, appearing athletic and affable, cordial and helpful, while 
adopting maximum flexibility in negotiations to address the difficult 
situation. Countering this cordiality was Foreign Minister Lavrov, who 
sported a T-shirt emblazoned with the words CCCP, or Union of Soviet 
Socialist Republics, as if to tell the Americans "we're back!" Indeed, 
the entire ceremony surrounding the visit demonstrated Russia's return 
to the world stage alongside the United States, as a country possessing 
a nuclear arsenal on par with the United States, and therefore capable 
of negotiating on equal terms with the titular empire. For his part, 
Putin treated his interlocutor as a counterpart, not as a servant, as is 
his wont to do with his foolish vassals, such as von der Stupid and 
other European leaders.
After discussing their mutual strategic problems, Putin pointed out that 
the first to violate the principle of the inviolability of borders were 
NATO countries when they treacherously attacked Yugoslavia, causing its 
dismemberment. He also convinced Trump that peace can be made without 
going through a pinstripe and fire, as Ukrainians and eager Westerners 
insistently demand. Trump, for his part, eager to disengage the United 
States from the war in Ukraine, summoned Zelensky and seven dwarves to 
Washington to report the results of the talks.
Although announced at the last minute, the Anchorage meeting was long in 
the making. This is demonstrated by the complexity of the issues 
discussed, including global strategic issues, the management and control 
of nuclear weapons, economic relations between the United States and 
Russia, and the exploitation of the Arctic.
The conclusion of the war in Ukraine was only one point of the 
negotiations, but the parties reached an agreement to continue the 
talks. This agreement consisted of accepting Russia's argument that a 
prior ceasefire was not necessary for the opening of peace negotiations. 
This condition, in particular, defeated Ukrainian claims and the 
expectations of the so-called "willing" parties, who had relied on the 
truce to deploy a joint Anglo-French expeditionary force in Ukraine, 
positioned behind the front lines, thus placing a stake in and deterring 
the conflict. For now, the only result of Washington's negotiations is 
the acceptance, even by Ukraine and those who claim to be willing, that 
the negotiations will take place without a prior ceasefire that would 
have allowed the reorganization of the Ukrainian army, which is in 
serious crisis on the war front. The reluctant acceptance of this 
condition by Ukrainians and Europeans allowed Trump to declare: "I had a 
very positive meeting with respected guests: President Volodymyr 
Zelensky of Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron of France, President 
Alexander Stubb of Finland, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, 
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom, Chancellor of the 
Federal Republic of Germany Friedrich Merz, President of the European 
Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte 
at the White House, which concluded with a further meeting in the Oval 
Office. During the meeting, we discussed the security guarantees for 
Ukraine that will be provided by various European countries in 
coordination with the United States of America. Everyone is very happy 
about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine.

After the meetings, I called President Putin and began preparations for 
a meeting between President Putin and President Zelensky at a location 
to be determined. After this meeting takes place, we will have a 
trilateral meeting with the participation of the two presidents and 
myself." Once upon a time, it was a very positive and early step in a 
war that has been going on for almost four years. Vice President J.D. 
Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the special envoy."
The central issue of the Russian demands remains the elimination of the 
causes that, in the Russian Federation's view, provoked the conflict, 
namely the protection of Ukraine's Russian-speaking population 
(acceptance of the Russian language as an official and indigenous 
language, protection of the religious freedom of the Canonical Ukrainian 
Orthodox Church, on a par with other denominations, protection of 
Russian culture, broad administrative autonomy for the oblasts, and the 
federal structure of the state). To secure immediate peace, Russia is 
also demanding that Ukraine cede Crimea, which has long been Russian 
territory, as well as the four eastern oblasts of Donnesh, Lukask, 
Zaporizhia, and Kerson, withdrawing from territories not yet lost on the 
battlefield. It also demands a drastic reduction in the Ukrainian army 
and its armaments. In exchange, it is willing to offer Ukraine 
guarantees of territorial security and inviolability.
It is willing to accept observers deployed on future borders, but only 
on the condition that they be troops from non-European countries. These 
conditions, taken together, should act as a deterrent and antidote to 
the aggressiveness of Ukrainian nationalism.

Distinctive Characteristics of Ukrainian Nationalism

To understand and address the underlying causes of the Ukrainian crisis, 
it is necessary to clarify the distinctive characteristics of Ukrainian 
nationalism. This is not simply a political movement that places the 
national idea at the center of its actions, exalting the identity, 
culture, history, and interests of the inhabitants of a territory 
politically identified as Ukraine, but also promotes a sense of 
belonging to this territory that seeks to bestow particular 
characteristics on it in order to assert its right to prevail over 
others. Ukrainian nationalism is a weak (and therefore aggressive) 
nationalism, evidence of which is its need to define itself through 
difference and distinction (or perhaps better said, subtraction) from 
Russian identity, given that the common identity of the Slavic peoples 
of which it is a part does not, in itself, allow it to discover and 
identify the indigenous and distinctive characteristics that distinguish 
it. This is why current Ukrainian nationalism seeks to characterize 
itself through the exclusive choice of language (prohibiting that of 
other components of the nation's people, even if historically rooted in 
tradition). This linguistic choice is reflected in the cultural sphere, 
with the exclusion from the literary tradition of any work written in a 
foreign language, especially Russian (a culture from which Ukrainian 
culture seeks to define itself through difference and subtraction). 
Ukrainian nationalism is also distinguished by its preference for a 
state religion, which assumes one and only one confession as the 
nation's own, placing its leaders under the orders of the state.
Ukrainian nationalism takes on an ethnic character, evidence of which is 
its emphasis on a common ethnic and cultural origin, deriving from it a 
supposed superiority over other peoples, disregarding possible 
discrimination against ethnic, religious, and political minorities 
present within the state (be they Polish, Romanian, Magyar, Turkmen, or 
Russian), and the fact that this choice causes xenophobia, conflict, and 
discrimination.
These Banderist elements make Ukrainian nationalism a rotten and fetid 
set of values, which in the past was characterized by anti-Semitism, 
pogroms, and militancy as SS auxiliary troops. Today, it pollutes the 
regions of Europe and the world, effectively interpreting and reworking 
values and principles that were specific to Nazism.
This dimension of Ukrainian nationalism eludes many and has even 
distorted the assessments of the Ukrainian conflict espoused by the 
President of the Italian Republic in his speech at the University of 
Lyon. His reading of European history was characterized by 
superficiality, falsifications, sloppiness, and bias in its assessment 
of historical phenomena such as nationalism, fascism, and Nazism.
The Trumpian strategy of disengagement.
Unlike the previous administration, which had prepared and promoted 
Ukraine's proxy war with Russia, creating the conditions for the 
country's destabilization by organizing, supporting, and financing the 
Maidan protests, the Trump administration has decided to withdraw from 
the Ukrainian war, positioning itself as a third party in the conflict, 
in order to leave the responsibility and burden to the Europeans. To 
achieve this, it has transformed the supply of weapons into a paid-for 
armament sale, forcing European allies and Ukraine itself to pay the 
cost. It has thus achieved the dual purpose of doing business, emptying 
its arsenals of depleted, largely obsolete, or end-of-life weapons, and 
simultaneously avoiding direct involvement in the conflict, claiming 
that the war in Ukraine was a choice of the previous administration, 
Biden's. This has allowed Trump to position himself as a mediator in the 
conflict, shifting the responsibility, costs, and consequences of the 
now certain defeat on the battlefield onto Ukraine and the European 
Union. Although the Western press and analysts are quick to emphasize 
the meagerness of Russia's territorial gains over time, given the 
enormous losses in men and equipment, the defeat of the Ukrainian army 
is now undeniable. The Russian army waged a war of attrition, its 
primary objective being to destroy Ukraine's military potential. Not 
only that, but over the course of the war, the Russian army changed its 
strategy, avoiding mass attacks and implementing tactical operations 
that are dismantling the Ukrainian fortified systems protecting Donbass. 
The fortifications are increasingly depleted due to the difficulty of 
recruiting new soldiers, due to desertions, the high number of draft 
dodgers, and the violent methods with which recruiters force a reluctant 
population to take up arms. Until now, the Russian General Staff's 
strategy has been to engage the Ukrainian army across the entire front, 
forcing it to spread its forces across a front of more than 1,000 
kilometers, then proceed to envelop, besiege, and enclose sectors of the 
front in pockets. Now that the fighting is breaking through the last 
structured defenses in Donbas, the nature of the conflict is changing, 
and the Russian army's objective is the annihilation of those 
ideologically driven Ukrainian army units, which are increasingly being 
engaged in combat aimed at their annihilation. This is a reclamation 
that is not only military but also political.
Disproving Western propaganda that the Russian economy was collapsing 
under the weight of the war effort, Russia has not only increased its 
GDP but, paradoxically, used sanctions to strengthen its economy, while 
at the same time partially converting its economic and industrial 
apparatus to a war economy. Internationally, Russia is far from 
isolated, thanks to its trade and economic relations within the BRICS 
network, although its economy currently suffers from excessive 
dependence on China, both technically and financially.

The Crisis in Western Europe

The war in Ukraine is causing a profound crisis for the European Union 
and its member countries. With their energy supplies cut off due to the 
destruction of Nord Stream II and the US dictate that energy be 
purchased at exorbitant prices, European manufacturing industry is 
experiencing a profound crisis. This is inevitably affecting the budgets 
of individual states, burdened by the burden of the war effort stemming 
from the financing of Ukrainian weapons and the support for the 
activities of the Ukrainian state, which has completely failed and is 
supported by the European budget. This situation is reflected in the 
future EU budget, so much so that the one about to be approved will 
suffer substantial cuts in agriculture and cohesion funds, hitting the 
most disadvantaged areas of the Union and the agricultural sector, which 
has formed the foundation and cohesion of the entire community architecture.
Contrary to the views of the so-called "willing ones," it would be in 
the European Union's interest to immediately end the war in Ukraine, to 
prevent EU citizens from having to pay the price through a drastic 
reduction in welfare, which will inevitably lack resources.
We must be honest and admit that among those least affected by this 
situation is certainly Meloni, who has maintained a moderately 
wait-and-see position, declaring herself open to compromise and hiding 
behind the proposal to create a group of countries willing to defend 
Ukraine in the future but for which Italy will not provide troops. A 
position certainly more acceptable than that of the imbeciles of the 
Democratic Party, who still advocate the need for a just peace, as if it 
could arise from a war. Leaders like Macron and Merz, Starmer and Von 
der Stupid are worn-out leaders, now in their twilight.
One can only hope that the inevitable defeat resulting from the 
Ukrainian war will allow the European people to rid themselves of this 
political class, allowing a new generation of politicians uncompromised 
by the idiocies of the past to take the reins of their countries and 
save them from ruin.

G.C.

MARGINAL NOTE

Journalists and commentators, hacks and pundits, self-styled reporters 
who like to present themselves as objective and independent, have 
exposed all their anger, having to admit, foaming at the mouth, their 
dismay at the red carpet rolled out by the US Marines to allow Punti's 
rapid strides toward Trump. We remind them that this is the customary 
ceremonial at state meetings. Would they have considered it more 
dignified if the carpet had been laid out by a group of servants, 
perhaps black, Asian, or Mexican?
And again, in a letter from a particularly biased journalist who likes 
to call herself objective, on a trip to Kiev from Germany, perhaps to 
collect her propagandist's salary, she described the horrific living 
conditions of Ukrainians living under Russian rule in the occupied 
regions of Donetsk. She extolled the delights of democracy in Ukraine, 
but omitted the fact that today, Ukraine is a country under martial law; 
where forced conscription is practiced, and draft dodgers are beaten, 
captured, and sent to the front; where corruption reigns (paying is 
enough to avoid leaving for the front).
A country where religious freedom is repressed, where ministers and 
faithful of the canonical Orthodox Church are persecuted, and their 
churches and property are seized; Russian speakers are persecuted, even 
if they are Russian native speakers; monuments are demolished, and 
literary works and artistic expressions are banned because they are Russian.
Not even during the Cold War did the conflict between the West and 
Russia reach the scale of incitement to hatred against the Russian 
people, to the point of extending ostracism to the point of demanding 
their exclusion from international relations. Hatred has extended to 
relations between peoples, targeting Russian cultural events, 
performances by conductors, and literary production, heaping ostracism 
and condemnation on the Russian people as a whole, portraying them as an 
aggressor, without any distinction from the actions of their government.
The perpetrators of the Nord Stream II sabotage (Ukrainian and British) 
have been glossed over, interrupting the flow of natural gas and cheap 
oil from Russia to support sanctions against the Russian people, despite 
the exorbitant cost of energy having brought the European economy to its 
knees, producing a serious employment crisis with profound repercussions 
on the well-being of Europeans.
Funding from the European budget has been allowed and is being allowed, 
thus drawing on the finances of individual EU member states to finance 
Ukraine, a failed state with regard to education, pensions, healthcare, 
welfare services, and everything else needed to sustain the war effort, 
including supplying the country with weapons.
Generous subsidies have been provided to Ukrainian refugees, creating a 
disparity in treatment with less well-off native citizens.

The Editorial Staff

https://www.ucadi.org/2025/09/04/la-volpe-artica/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en