War & Peace - Ukraine Talks; Dresden's Anniversary

Eurasia note #106 - On the normalisation of brutality

Feb 13, 2025

∙ Paid

Trump speaks to Putin: no NATO membership, no restitution for Ukraine
European leaders demand a seat at the table; threaten strong words
Ukraine offers ‘Contract 18-24’ to send youth to the front
Europe's biggest war since the one that ended in 1945 has parallels
A battle begun over ethnic minority rights and the defence of borders
Germany’s peaceful drive eastwards in 1991 was stopped as surely as 1941
Germany goes to the polls amid economic and governmental collapse
Now threatening the whole of Europe’s economic viability
The memory of Dresden is not enough, it seems, to dissuade some from their path

Tbilisi, Feb 13, 2025

Just after 10 p.m. on a chilly night, 80 years ago, the bombs began to fall.

High explosives first demolished roofs and walls, creating a channel for oxygen to feed the incendiary devices that followed.

If it is hard to summon pathos, that's because it's through numbers that we interact with the world nowadays, in digital binary code.

Dresden has been reduced to a dispute over the numbers killed. (Images at your discretion).

In January 2024 the inscription was removed from the Dresden memorial to those who were incinerated — 30,000 people; some historians say many more.

Bilt newspaper reported that unnamed bureaucrats had removed the inscription because the “day of remembrance has been repeatedly used for political purposes.”

That includes historical revisionists, nationalist politicians and those who draw comparisons both to justify and condemn mass bombings today, such as Gaza.

See Germany May Ban Opposition Party - Globalists desperate as their narrative Babel breaks down (Jan 21, 2024)

In the West it has become common to tear down statues; to try to obliterate history. The process began in Germany, as the story of the Alt-Nickern memorial tells.

The bone of contention has for a long time been, as with the mass killings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that the adversary had already been defeated.

Today we confront the scrubbing of the record.

Revenge, retaliation, the righteous punishment of the other: many explanations are put forward but where does it end?

Likewise the Soviet Union would be defeated in the Cold War in 1991. Yet NATO would press on, seeking to impose a further humiliation. One could even argue that Ukraine, as part of the USSR, is being punished for its defeat.

War has its own logic and momentum. It stops only when it meets a greater force.

In Europe of 1945 the combatants had exhausted themselves. The Europeans were bankrupt and could no longer afford the maintenance of their colonies. U.S financial might exacted a usurous price.

And yet we see, in real time a Europe no longer vigorous, spent of its energies, attempting to fight the last war one more time, to punish and humiliate its own.

If the skeletons of Dresden had not been carbonised, they would rattle and warn us: take not that path.

Historical perspective

Germany's economy is being destroyed again, this time from within.

This 80th anniversary embraces a few days later the German election on February 23, brought about by the collapse of Olaf Scholz's coalition over its failure to pass a budget, and the shuddering halt of Germany's post-war economic miracle.

Europe's innovative, industrial behemoth was held hostage, first by the expansion of NATO in defiance of a commitment not to encroach on Russia's borders, and then by the detonation of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, a joint venture that allowed Germany to profit by selling its high tech to the Russian producers of raw materials and energy.

So, in a very real way, this was a parallel to Germany's drive eastwards in 1941, first as military aggression and, after the fall of the Soviet Union, as a business joint venture.

The peaceful approach was destroyed as surely as the earlier armed attack.

Dresden's anniversary coincides with an attempt to end the biggest war on European soil since WW2 which began, as in 1939, as the response of one country to the treatment of its minorities across the border.

Peace talks

President Donald Trump spoke to his Russian counterpart yesterday and “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.” They will meet face-to-face later.

President Vladimir Putin insisted on the need to remove the root causes of the conflict (meaning NATO's presence in Ukraine) and agreed with Trump that a lasting settlement could be reached through peace talks.

Also discussed were the Middle East settlement, the Iranian nuclear program and Russian-US economic relations, energy, artificial intelligence, and the status of the dollar.

We don't know if they discussed the fate of Ukraine's youth.

Contract 18-24

The day before the leaders spoke, Kyiv began offering one-year voluntary contracts to 18-24 year-olds, starting February 11. Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy has resisted lowering the age of the draft to 18 but he is under pressure to do so.

The lure is higher pay than soldiers currently receive. The contract includes basic military training for a one-time payment of hryvnia 1 million ($24,000) and a monthly allowance of up to Hr 120,000 ($3,000), followed by vocational training.

Brussels response

Newspaper headlines captured the European mood:

Britain's Daily Telegraph opines: "America is no longer interested in underwriting Ukrainian and European security and it’s time for Britain to face this reality."

The Guardian put lipstick on the Hogwarts that is the Brussels headquarters of Europe's warlocks: "No lasting peace in Ukraine without European role in talks."

Before the phone call, Ian Brzezinski, son of Zbiginiew, said the window for Europe to shape Trump's actions was closing. He called for a “correlation of forces” decisively against Russia. He meant European forces on the ground in Ukraine, with the U.S. as a backstop.

European leaders held an emergency meeting on Thursday, attended by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Kyiv and its European allies demanded they be included in any peace talks. European foreign policy chief, the Estonian Kaja Kallas, said "any quick fix is a dirty deal," accusing the U.S. of appeasement.

The EC promised frank and demanding dialogue with U.S. representatives at the Munich Security Conference on February 14 -16.

On course

Neocons like John Bolton are twitching with fury, blinded by hatred of what they still perceive to be the USSR. They are slow to turn course, like seagoing tankers.

Any settlement to the war is going to have to recognise Russia's conquest of territory. Ukraine has lost most of its mineral resources, which are in the Donbas, which is largely under Russia control.

The danger is that if Europeans don't like the deal, they may resort to a guerrilla-style insurgency, increasing the assassinations and bombings of military staff in Moscow and drone attacks on civilians.

British and U.S. intelligence supported the Ukrainian Banderites — those who had sided with the invading SS against other ethnicities — from WW2 to the present day.

The British and Americans also promoted jihadist militants — originally al Qaeda, against the same target, Russian, in Afghanistan — and recently brought them to power in Syria, ousting the Russia-aligned Assad government.

See Eurasia note #32 - Ukraine May Meet Its Gladio - Insurgents may drag Russia into a version of Italy's 'Years of Lead' or Greece's 'Z' (Mar 09, 2022)

It has never been clear what Europe wants. We got a clue from British prime minister Keir Starmer's 100 Year Partnership with Ukraine, announced last month. This 10 point plan is the most transparent document that we have on the corporate plan for Ukraine.

If Britain does not pursue it, U.S. companies likely will. American corporations are already on the ground: the likes of Monsanto, BlackRock, Cargill.

Tripartite solution

The Russophile commentariat is also misguided. This is not a competition between the dollar and BRICS - or unipolar versus multipolar free-for-all.

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