By RUBEN BAUER NAVEIRA*

The Ukraine Crisis Serves the US Goal of Imposing Its Agenda and Sabotaging Russia's

The world has been apprehensive about a possible new war in Europe, and even more so about a possible direct war between the United States and Russia. If such fears are grounded or not, the future will tell, meanwhile, what can be done is to seek to better understand this mess.

That it is a mess there is no doubt, but “Ukraine mess” is debatable – because it goes far beyond that. Reducing all current controversy to the question “Is Putin going to invade Ukraine after all?” is to embark on the game on one side (in this case, the American).

What is actually happening is a clash between two distinct agendas, that of the Russians and that of the Americans. However, only one narrative prevails, that of the Americans. Only six major media conglomerates own more than 1.500 newspapers, 1.100 magazines, 9.000 radio stations and 1.500 television channels – and they operate in unison, making only one “truth” (theirs) echo. Thus, the “America's agenda” has this ubiquitous brainwashing machine at its service, while the “Russian's agenda” remains largely unknown, leading us to believe that the only interest of the Russians would be… to invade Ukraine.

Let's look at these two agendas briefly. The Americans' agenda is to isolate Russia from the rest of the world, thus seeking to weaken (and crash) its economy. The strategy to achieve this goal is to demonize Russia, making it look like an expansionist, imperialist and aggressor country, which would aim to restore the late “Soviet empire”. This Russian expansionism would be directed against Europe, and so what is sought is to break the ties between Russia and European countries, for example to prevent the entry into operation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline (between Russia and Germany), so as to deprive Russia of revenue from gas sales to Europe while making Europe dependent on gas exports from the United States.

The Russians' agenda is to keep NATO missiles (read, the United States) away from their borders, and thus avoid the risk of a fulminating and surprise attack that would liquidate the country without giving it time to react (the Americans also are developing their hypersonic missiles, which could fly ten times faster than current Tomahawks, and would reach Moscow in less than five minutes). At the end of last year, the Russians presented an ultimatum to the Americans in this regard (and they did so in public), making it clear that if their claims are not considered, they will resort to unilateral measures of a military nature. For a better understanding see the article published on the site the earth is round.

So, to understand all this talk about “Putin wants to invade Ukraine”, it is necessary to bear in mind that the Americans' objective is twofold: to enforce their agenda, but, at the same time, to sabotage the Russians' agenda so that it does not avenge.

Now, the chant of the “invasion of Ukraine” is not new, as in April of last year it was suggested. It took, however, the proportion it did, of planetary uproar, right after the… ultimatum of the Russians.

The Americans are not going to give in to the Russians' demands (and the Russians have always known this; they know, therefore, that they need to obtain their "security guarantees" by force, not by diplomacy, seen by them in this case only as a stage that cannot even be must be skipped). The Americans, however, have not stopped taking the Russians' threat seriously, and will not passively wait until the Russians carry it out – that's why they pulled the “invasion of Ukraine” card.

What did the Russians threaten (and publicly)? The adoption of “unilateral measures of a military nature”. Well, this is what the Americans expect from the Russians (and fear): military action (which can be anything, not necessarily against Ukraine; in fact, the Russians have been choking on the neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian government since 2014, and not even that's why they attacked them until now). So, denouncing in advance that the Russians will commit a specific military action (an invasion of Ukraine) has the knock-on effect of predisposing the rest of the world against any military action the Russians may take.

Why do Americans need Russia to invade Ukraine? First, because it would confirm the narrative, which would be a tremendous injection of prestige for the faltering Biden government; second, because it would demonize Russia to the world, isolating it; third, because it would drag Russia into the fray of a war it neither needs nor wants; fourth, because it would divert Russia from its own agenda, that of forcing NATO back from its borders. Since the Russians will obviously not want to play into the hands of the Americans, they will somehow have to be forced to attack Ukraine – for example as a reaction to an attack by Ukraine on the breakaway republics of Donbass.

It so happens that the Ukrainians have already understood that the role reserved for them is that of cannon fodder, and they have been refusing. Because of this, Washington has been exerting immense pressure on the Ukrainian president Zelensky, and may, at the limit, seek to overthrow him to put in his place someone who is more willing to commit suicide in his own country.

It also happens that the Americans (and the western media) ended up creating a trap for themselves, by having gone too far in this hysteria inflation against a Russia that would be, for months, on the verge of invading Ukraine between today and tomorrow – if there is no such invasion, what will happen will be the erosion of the little credibility they still have. If it is difficult for them to coerce the Ukrainians to the slaughterhouse, there is always the well-worn recourse to false flag, that is, to commit some large-scale atrocity against Ukrainian civilians to attribute it to the Russians in a version to be instantly trumpeted by all the mainstream media. The Russians have been denouncing that a false flag against them, obviously without greater repercussions in the same media.

If you are going to resort to false flag (to be carried out by the CIA in association with the British MI-6, according to Russian counterintelligence), the Americans will need to be very careful with the staging, at the risk of demoralization. The Russians, on the other hand, preventively threw the block out, with joint exercises in Belarus (from where they could attack not only Ukraine, but Poland – where a NATO missile base is being finalized – as well as the Baltic countries) and with the sending of a powerful fleet to the Black Sea (from where they could attack not only Ukraine, but Romania – where another missile base is already installed).

The new fact of the last few days is the change in timing of Russian initiatives. It was already certain that the Russians would not adopt any military action (on their own initiative; a military reaction to aggression or provocation would be another story) during the Winter Olympics in Beijing so as not to tarnish their shine (by the way, according to media reports western region seems to be no olympics taking place). But the Russians had demanded a written response from the Americans to their ultimatum, which detailed the denial of their claims for security guarantees (this response has already been delivered, and made public by the Russians, to the annoyance of the Americans).

Now placed on the defensive in the face of the campaign denouncing the “imminent invasion” of Ukraine, the Russians have announced that they will produce a “reply of the answer” (which they will certainly also make public), indicating what their position will be from now on, and it is clear that no Russian military action will take place before this new document is released and, again, responded to by the West. As much as it is known that the content of this new document will be of crucial importance for the unfolding of the crisis, it is evident that the hegemonic media will hide it, however as soon as it becomes public we will return to the The Earth is Round to talk about it.

Finally, the question: will there be war? Americans (and Brits) can make their false flag, but they cannot predict how the Russians will react to it, and such uncertainty is sure to exasperate them (and hopefully make them give up). In strictly military terms, the Americans have military superiority over the Russians globally, but not in the European theater, where they know they would be defeated in any direct confrontation (apart from nuclear, but then both sides – and the rest of the world – would be liquidated. ).

The dance between Russians and Americans begins to compose a discernible pattern, which could be called a tighten-and-release-the-rope: the Russians, who threatened the Americans with some military action (without, however, indicating neither what nor when they would do ) to force NATO to retreat from its borders, they position their forces for a possible attack, under the pretext of “mere routine exercises within their own territory”; the Americans, fearful of what the Russians might do, shout “wolf!” (“Russia is going to attack Ukraine!”), so that any military action that the Russians might commit stigmatizes the country as an “enemy of Peace”; inside establishment american (which is not monolithic) the pro-war (pro-any war) hawks start plotting for war to happen; the Russians, to avoid being dragged into a war that would only interest the Americans, make appeasing statements and begin to demobilize their troops; the Americans make aggressive statements (aimed at the domestic public) while, behind the scenes, they wave to the Russians with new rounds of negotiations on “security guarantees”; confirmed the return to the barracks of the Russian soldiers, the Americans try to capitalize that it was their firm stance that made the Russians “thrive” – and things calm down until the next mobilization of Russian troops, when the stretching of the rope starts again .

The dance seems to have joined the ease-the-rope movement, as on February 14 Putin televised a meeting with Lavrov in which the motto was “we want negotiations”, and then Defense Minister Shoigu announced the return of troops. from Belarus (originally scheduled to take place only after February 20). On the 15th, Joe Biden went on TV talking thick in the best John Wayne style, while Blinken phoned Lavrov asking… for the scheduling of new rounds of negotiations.

The “relief on the rope”, however, did not last even 24 hours. Apparently, given the high risk of a false flag own, the Americans switched to a “false flag reverse”: Joe Biden announced that, according to his intelligence sources (sic), the Russians were about to commit some atrocity against civilians in the breakaway republics of Donbass (like dropping artillery on a kindergarten), to attribute it to the government of Kiev, and thus justify an invasion as a "reaction".

It turns out that in the last 24 hours Ukraine has considerably increased artillery fire over urban areas of the Donbass, so things like bombing kindergartens or hospitals tend to end up happening anyway. At the same time, the information sites of the separatist republics have been shut down or are operating with great difficulty (to curb any conflict with the “official” versions).

Russia has made public its “reply response” (to its ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of NATO forces from its borders). The website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also taken down, so the source available so far is TASS agency with translations into english by independent websites.

The new text basically repeats the original, but in a harsher tone and with a more developed argument, that is, it seems to have been written more for public opinion than for diplomatic channels (the length is ten pages, also much larger than the of the original ultimatum). An excerpt that summarizes what is at stake is “In the absence of the readiness of the American side to agree on firm, legally binding guarantees of ensuring our security by the United States and its allies, Russia will be forced to respond, including through the implementation of military-technical measures” (In the absence of willingness on the American side to agree on firm and legally binding guarantees safeguarding our security by the United States and its allies, Russia will be forced to react, including by implementing military-technical measures) (Apparently, the expression “technical-military” was intended as a euphemism to spare the use of the word “military” purely).

*Ruben Bauer Naveira is a retired civil servant and activist. Book author A new utopia for Brazil: three guides to get out of chaos, available for download at http://www.brasilutopia.com.br.