The Point of No Return

Dmitry Medvedev (Дмитрий Медведев)

Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev — about the causes of the current geopolitical crisis and the guarantee of preserving the future for the whole world.

Last year's anniversary — the 100th anniversary of the formation of the USSR - was held against the background of tectonic processes that originated three decades ago and provoked powerful, destructive shocks in 2022. With a metallic crash, the foundations of the post-Soviet world order collapsed, which until recently was considered not the best, but still more or less familiar. The international airbags did not work, and now the cracks go wide and deep into the entire system of maintaining peace on the planet.

The reasons for what is happening are sought in the legacy of a long and relatively new history. After all, what we are witnessing now has happened more than once — at the moment when another world empire was coming to the end of its existence.

The beginning of the tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine today goes back in time; to the end of the last century. But let us rather turn to the events of the relatively recent past, which many of us have witnessed, specifically to the moment when the Soviet Union collapsed. Our powerful country has seen confrontations between the blocks and disagreement about nuclear missiles, but has after World War II nevertheless largely based itself on agreements and the mutual interests between participating countries, on food supplies to its satellites, on tractors and tanks, on "socialist realism," although the communist regime lasted much less than the centuries-old Russian Empire it defeated.

I will not delve into what motivated the political leaders who caused the USSR to collapse so quickly. As in the arguments about who undermined the Soviet Union: the machinations of external enemies, an uncompetitive economy or an arms race. It is likely that its last leader, who passed away in the year of the centenary of the Union, sincerely believed that he was acting for the benefit of the multinational people of the great state, of which he became the head after the notorious "carriage race."¹ At the same time, the leaders of the Union republics cynically cared only about becoming the heads of independent states created on the still smoking remains of a large country. Anyway, then there was Foros and the August putsch.² And this was the end of the USSR, which has remained, for the older generation, a beloved Fatherland and a wonderful dream of justice.

The Western world looked down on all this, with the arrogant squint of a winner and a sense of obvious superiority, thinking only about how to satisfy their selfish interests, and by all means continuing to push our country into the abyss for the complete elimination of its long-time competitor. All the sweet talk about equal partnership, a brave new world without dividing lines and other beautiful nonsense, all this was done only to distract. And all of it turned out to be just meaningless formulas that masked the perverted intentions of our eternal opponents.

The assorted politicians who took power in the new Russia could not cope with the threat that arose. Some of them were just thoughtless, some lacked political culture and experience and some were sincere but mistaken about the real intentions of our "new friends." Hard times came: people were rapidly slipping into poverty, and the system-forming sectors of the economy, which had fallen under the avalanche of privatization, were falling into decline. Separatism flourished, hot spots formed inside the country, the Caucasus flared up.

It was often put to the credit of the then authorities — the presidents of the USSR and the RSFSR Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin — that after the death of the "communist monster" they managed to prevent anything like a civil war, as after the coup of October 24, 1917. This is both so and not so. A critical mass of discontent could turn into a full-fledged civil confrontation, on the threshold of which we found ourselves in 1993. But then the fire of the conflict had not yet been actively fanned from abroad, because the Western world was satisfied with a weak, defeated, submissive Russia. All this will begin a little later, in the mid-90s. And our multinational people then showed wisdom, not allowing the country to be "rocked" and provoke destructive internal aggression.

The main thing that can be added to the plus side of the leadership of the collapsed USSR and the first head of its successor Russia is that they did not make the most terrible mistake: they did not allow its most powerful nuclear potential to be pulled apart by the newly formed patchwork quilt on the site of a great country.

At the cost of incredible efforts, Russia gradually overcame the most difficult of times. She was forced to rely on herself at the international level. She fully paid off her external debt, and internally, engaged in the restoration of the economy and civil society. She regained respect for her armed forces, continued to pursue a policy of nuclear deterrence and did not allow any provocations.

But history is inexorable. Rome and Constantinople. Arab caliphs and Genghis Khan. The rise and inglorious death of Napoleon. "Sunset" in the colonies of powerful Britain. Europe of Charlemagne. Incas and Persians. The Ottoman Empire and Tsarist Russia. Irrespective of which page you open in the volumes of the chronicles of the world, you will find the same thing. After the heyday of the empire and its golden age, the ending is always the same: disintegration and war, or war and disintegration. This is a world law. So it happened to us, with the USSR, only in a delayed version. The war could have happened earlier — in the 90s of the last century, in the first two decades of the XXI century, but it has flared up now. This development of events is connected with the inexorable and cruel course of world history. A big country dies — a war begins. Sooner or later. The accumulated internal contradictions and resentments are too strong. Intense nationalism, primitive envy and greed arise. And, of course, the strongest catalyst for war after the death of the empire is always the countries around it, that want to further divide the collapsed power. In our case, it was the frostbitten and cynical position of the Western world. The Anglo-Saxon civilization, which has completely lost its head from its impunity, which has simply gone crazy on the basis of ideas of exclusivity and fictional Messianism.

Two dates can be considered as points of no return, actually. The first one was in the autumn of 2008, when the Western world supported Georgia's aggression against the Ossetian people, and exalted to heaven a jerk, a drug addict and an adventurer, who later was rejected not only by his own country, but also by another one, which he cowardly fled from. The aggressor was then given a quick and firm rebuff.

The second turning point is the spring of 2014, when the people of Crimea expressed their will in a legitimate referendum, having returned to their historical homeland. In the Western world, this caused a frenzied, impotent hysteria, which continues to this day. Their convulsions are fueled by caveman Russophobia and the desire to create a new Frankenstein (Ukraine this time) — a special "anti-Russia" monster, the one about which the president of our country has written. What else can I say? Only one thing: a wise Athenian, quite the antithesis of the current brainless Western politicians, once said: Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat — whoever God wants to punish, he first deprives of reason.³ It was this insane hysteria, an obsessive desire to tear apart our country, that ultimately led to a special military operation.

History also demonstrates something else: any collapsed empire buries half the world, or even more, under its rubble. It seems that those who first destroyed the USSR, and now are trying to destroy the Russian Federation, do not want to understand this. They still have delusional ideas that because they sent the Soviet Union to the next world without a single shot, they now will be able to bury the current Russia without significant problems for themselves, throwing the lives of thousands of people involved in the conflict into the furnace. These are extremely dangerous misconceptions. As with the USSR it will not work. If the question of the existence of Russia itself seriously arises, it will not be resolved on the Ukrainian front at all. And along with the question of the further existence of the entire human civilization. And there should be no ambiguities here. We don't need a world without Russia.

Of course, it is possible to continue pumping weapons into the neo-fascist Kiev regime, and prevent any possibility of reviving negotiations. Our enemies are doing just that, not wanting to see that this obviously will lead to a total fiasco. Everyone looses. A loss for everyone. A crash. The apocalypse. Then you have to forget about your former life for centuries, until the smoky debris stops radiating.

Russia will not allow this. And we are not alone. Western countries with satellites account for only 15% of the world's population. Russia and her friends are much stronger. The calm power of our big country and the authority of its partners are the keys to preserving the future for our world.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

¹ ГОНКИ НА ЛАФЕТАХ
² Foros and the August putsch (Coup vs Putsch - What's the difference?)
³ Antigone, play by Sophocles (620)

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Source: iz.ru. Translation: yandex.ru & DeepL.com. Language wash: English Check Online. IMG: © N/A
AWIP: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2023/02/27/point-of-no-return