Begin by ½³2reading Michael Hudson’s explanation that the sanctions actually fall on Germany and serve the interests of the three interest groups who rule in Washington. https://www.unz.com/mhudson/america-defeats-germany-for-the-third-time-in-a-century/ The sanctions do far more to serve Washington’s interest than to hurt Russia’s. For Russia the main burden of the sanctions is the insult.

Russia is in position to issue crippling sanctions against the US and Europe, but so far has not done so. The Russians seem determined to prevail with as little force as possible. The Kremlin has not paralyzed Germany by turning off the gas. The Russians have not nationalized US and European assets. The Russians have not disrupted global supply chains by refusing to sell minerals. The Russians have not stopped the export of wheat. The Russians have not issued international arrest orders for American and European war criminals for their crimes against humanity in Serbia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and for their various assassinations.

On the military front, the Ukrainian forces are essentially surrounded and incapable of counterattack or effective resistance except for some Nazi militias that have ensconced their heavy weapons among concentrations of civilians. Under the Kremlin’s current rules, the Russian forces are prohibited from firing heavy weapons into civilian areas. The Russians, of course, get no credit for this. The Western presstitutes continue to repeat fake news of indiscriminate Russian attacks on civilians.

It demonstrates the stupidity of Western people that they believe Russia would waste military resources on non-military targets. As Putin said, the West “is an empire of lies.” Soon we will be reading in the New York Times and hearing on NPR and CNN that Russian troops are throwing premature babies out of incubators and bayonetting children.

The West yells and screams threats and accusations because it can’t do anything else. Western morons threaten to send ISIS jihadists into Ukraine to fight Russians, to send in US veterans as volunteers, of raising a mercenary force in Poland. At the same time we hear Ukraine has stopped the Russian advance and is winning. So why are all of the fanciful outside forces needed?

The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, calls for the UN to “disarm Russia,” an unimaginable feat. One wonders how Kuleba is a foreign minister when the Ukraine government does not control Ukraine. The French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, declares “total economic and financial war on Russia,” and is told by Russian Security Council deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev to “watch his words” or he will end up with a real war. The idiotic European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU is going to send the Ukrainians jet fighters via Poland, and was promptly contradicted by Poland’s president, Andrej Duda: “We are not sending any jets to Ukraine because that would open a military interference in the Ukrainian conflict. We are not joining that conflict. NATO is not a party to that conflict.” https://www.rt.com/news/550955-poland-bulgaria-deny-warplanes-ukraine/

Putin has warned NATO countries about supplying arms. Any such arms shipments would be destroyed in transit. Russia controls Ukrainian air space. The Ukrainian forces are surrounded. How are arms to reach them? Why is the idiot West trying to prolong a lost war? Why hasn’t the White House told Zelensky to surrender and negotiate the best deal he can get with Russia?

Nowhere in the West’s impotent bluster is there any talk of putting Ukraine in NATO. Instead, there is talk of putting Ukraine in the EU. The EU is an economic alliance, not a military one, and it is unclear what it means for a government in exile to be a member. Ukraine’s future depends on Russia pulling out after she achieves her aims.

For years I have written that Russia’s patience with the West would not last forever, and unless the West quit pushing, Russia would push back. I said that the longer Russia waited the more forcibly she would have to push. I said that considering the utter stupidity of the entire Western world, the situation would become dangerous. With Russia and the US on nuclear alert, the situation is dangerous. If the US puppets in Europe who rule their countries in Washington’s interest ignore Putin’s warning not to interfere in the Ukrainian house cleaning operation, they could find themselves under attack, and then impotent NATO would have to put up or shut up. Watch now as the total stupidity of the West–“the empire of lies”– takes it to that point.

The Russians may yet conquer Ukraine. But Ukrainians have shown in the past few days that they will not let them hold it.

Now, one week into the war, it seems increasingly likely that Vladimir Putin is heading towards a historic defeat. He may win all the battles but still lose the war. Putin’s dream of rebuilding the Russian empire has always rested on the lie that Ukraine isn’t a real nation, that Ukrainians aren’t a real people, and that the inhabitants of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv yearn for Moscow’s rule. That’s a complete lie – Ukraine is a nation with more than a thousand years of history, and Kyiv was already a major metropolis when Moscow was not even a village. But the Russian despot has told his lie so many times that he apparently believes it himself.

When planning his invasion of Ukraine, Putin could count on many known facts. He knew that militarily Russia dwarfs Ukraine. He knew that Nato would not send troops to help Ukraine. He knew that European dependence on Russian oil and gas would make countries like Germany hesitate about imposing stiff sanctions. Based on these known facts, his plan was to hit Ukraine hard and fast, decapitate its government, establish a puppet regime in Kyiv, and ride out the western sanctions.

But there was one big unknown about this plan. As the Americans learned in Iraq and the Soviets learned in Afghanistan, it is much easier to conquer a country than to hold it. Putin knew he had the power to conquer Ukraine. But would the Ukrainian people just accept Moscow’s puppet regime? Putin gambled that they would. After all, as he repeatedly explained to anyone willing to listen, Ukraine isn’t a real nation, and the Ukrainians aren’t a real people. In 2014, people in Crimea hardly resisted the Russian invaders. Why should 2022 be any different?

With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that Putin’s gamble is failing. The Ukrainian people are resisting with all their heart, winning the admiration of the entire world – and winning the war. Many dark days lie ahead. The Russians may still conquer the whole of Ukraine. But to win the war, the Russians would have to hold Ukraine, and they can do that only if the Ukrainian people let them. This seems increasingly unlikely to happen.

Each Russian tank destroyed and each Russian soldier killed increases the Ukrainians’ courage to resist. And each Ukrainian killed deepens the Ukrainians’ hatred of the invaders. Hatred is the ugliest of emotions. But for oppressed nations, hatred is a hidden treasure. Buried deep in the heart, it can sustain resistance for generations. To reestablish the Russian empire, Putin needs a relatively bloodless victory that will lead to a relatively hateless occupation. By spilling more and more Ukrainian blood, Putin is making sure his dream will never be realised. It won’t be Mikhail Gorbachev’s name written on the death certificate of the Russian empire: it will be Putin’s. Gorbachev left Russians and Ukrainians feeling like siblings; Putin has turned them into enemies, and has ensured that the Ukrainian nation will henceforth define itself in opposition to Russia.

Nations are ultimately built on stories. Each passing day adds more stories that Ukrainians will tell not only in the dark days ahead, but in the decades and generations to come. The president who refused to flee the capital, telling the US that he needs ammunition, not a ride; the soldiers from Snake Island who told a Russian warship to “go fuck yourself”; the civilians who tried to stop Russian tanks by sitting in their path. This is the stuff nations are built from. In the long run, these stories count for more than tanks.

The Russian despot should know this as well as anyone. As a child, he grew up on a diet of stories about German atrocities and Russian bravery in the siege of Leningrad. He is now producing similar stories, but casting himself in the role of Hitler.

The stories of Ukrainian bravery give resolve not only to the Ukrainians, but to the whole world. They give courage to the governments of European nations, to the US administration, and even to the oppressed citizens of Russia. If Ukrainians dare to stop a tank with their bare hands, the German government can dare to supply them with some anti-tank missiles, the US government can dare to cut Russia off Swift, and Russian citizens can dare to demonstrate their opposition to this senseless war.

We can all be inspired to dare to do something, whether it is make a donation, welcome refugees, or help with the struggle online. The war in Ukraine will shape the future of the entire world. If tyranny and aggression are allowed to win, we will all suffer the consequences. There is no point to remain just observers. It’s time to stand up and be counted.

Unfortunately, this war is likely to be long-lasting. Taking different forms, it may well continue for years. But the most important issue has already been decided. The last few days have proved to the entire world that Ukraine is a very real nation, that Ukrainians are a very real people, and that they definitely don’t want to live under a new Russian empire. The main question left open is how long it will take for this message to penetrate the Kremlin’s thick walls.

• Yuval Noah Harari is a historian and author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind