The Ruination of the Ukraine

by Hans Vogel

Hans Vogel presents a concise overview of the destruction of what once seemed a nation full of hope and promise.

When in 1991 for the second time in the 20^th century the Ukraine became independent, it seemed to possess all the requirements for being a successful, happy and prosperous nation. Of the fifteen sovereign states that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine was seemingly the most privileged. Its vast stretches of highly fertile farmland, the so-called Black Earth, produced great quantities of wheat, corn and potatoes. At the same time, the Ukraine was an industrial powerhouse, with manufacturing concentrated in cities like Donetsk and Kharkov (home of the famous Antonov aircraft plant). In 1975, Ukrainian steel output equaled that of West Germany, Europe’s industrial powerhouse. In 1988, when it was still a Soviet republic, Ukrainian GDP would make it the word’s eleventh-biggest economy.

Today, it ranks forty-fifth. On account of its per capita GDP (PPP), the Ukraine is one of the poorest European nations. It has lost more than half of the 52 million inhabitants it boasted at independence, since there are at most only an estimated 25 million left in the area controlled by the Kiev regime. Quite an impressive achievement in a mere thirty-five years of independence.

Yet independence seemed to hold so much promise! The US government and many Americans with Ukrainian antecedents and roots immediately took a lively interest in the new sovereign nation. These included descendants of Slavic immigrants from the Ukraine, or Little Russia, as it was still called a little over a century ago, but mostly descendants of Jews who left that part of Russia for a better life in the New World.

The Americans arrived with their full arsenal, including the usual panoply of NGOs and above all “international” financial entities such as the World Bank and the IMF. These instruments had proven extremely effective in subjecting and keeping US control over Latin American nations.

The US thus began the dismantling of the Ukrainian economy, taking away what appeared most valuable and disposing of the rest, chaining the country to the US and US-dominated international organizations while taking control over its finances. In the process, Ukrainian manufacturing industry, employing millions, was gutted and eventually taken apart. Ukrainian politicians were only too eager to play along and not to miss the golden opportunity to stuff their pockets. According to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), the Ukraine is one of Europe’s most corrupt countries, among notorious places like Moldova. In other words, one might say the Ukraine was being made a European clone of a classical Latin American banana republic such as Nicaragua or Honduras.

In 1994, the Ukraine became completely subjected to the banksters of Wall Street, the IMF and the World Bank, when Victor Yuschenko was appointed head of the nation’s central bank. As American looters and advisers, followed by eager profiteers from Europe, swarmed over the country, another great robbery began.

Ten years later, in 2004, through its NGOs and other instruments such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the US organized a local Color Revolution, the “Orange Revolution,” which led to the election of Yuschenko as president. By that time, the Ukraine had already given proof (in 2003) of its loyalty to the US by sending 1,600 troops for the occupation of Iraq after the US had conquered it.

One could say the Ukraine was being transformed into the European equivalent of Cuba in the 1960s: a superpower’s stronghold on another superpower’s very doorstep, such as Cuba had been for the Soviet Union on America’s doorstep. The difference was just that the Ukraine was ruled precisely the same way as Cuba from 1902 to 1959: as a mere US protectorate, with the local US ambassador as a proconsul.

Another decade later, in 2014, after President Victor Yanukovitch, yielding to common sense and Russian pressure, reneged on signing a free trade and association agreement with the European Union (the political arm of NATO), the US engineered the “Revolution of Dignity,” also known as Euromaidan. The intervention was successful, leading to the election of a new president: chocolate czar Petro Poroshenko. Proceeding to enact a series of anti-Russian decrees, the new regime provoked a rebellion in the regions (oblasts) of Donetsk and Lugansk, each with a majority of Russian speakers. The two regions went on to declare autonomy, whereupon the Kiev regime unleashed a wave of retributive violence against the local civilian population, resulting until 2022 in the deaths of more than 14,000 residents.

The Americans, now firmly in control of the Ukraine, had set their eyes on taking over the naval base in Sebastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. This region was also overwhelmingly inhabited by Russian speakers. A US takeover of the base would have deprived the Russian navy of its strategic southern base, which was absolutely essential. Within days of the end of the “Revolution of Dignity,” Russian army units were sent to the Crimea so as to secure it for Russia and prevent the US from seizing the Sebastopol base. On 11 March, the Crimean regional assembly and the Sebastopol City Council proclaimed the region’s independence, which was approved by a referendum a few days later. A month later the Crimea joined the Russian Federation.

The Americans were boiling with impotent rage when their plan to take over Sebastopol fell through. They assuaged it somewhat by having their “international community” refuse to recognize the legality of the Crimea joining the Russian Federation. But what next? The Obama regime, in which the neocons of the PNAC played a key role, opted for a false flag incident to bring about an armed confrontation with Russia, which they were fully confident the US and NATO would win hands down. On July 17, 2014, the Americans, with the connivance if not the assistance of the Dutch Rutte government, organized the shooting down, by Ukrainian air force fighters, of a Malaysian jetliner carrying two hundred Dutch citizens. The MH-17 was shot down and crashed in the breakaway region of Donetsk. Immediately, the Russians, accused of covertly aiding the rebels in Donetsk, were blamed for downing the jetliner. Needless to say, there is no evidence whatsoever to support that claim. Incidentally, one may presume that Rutte’s appointment as NATO Gensec is the reward for his loyal cooperation in the MH-17 scam.

Although the “Russo-Ukrainian War” started in 2014, it was being fought in a very low-key fashion, especially on the Russian side. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, aided and abetted, often led even, by the Americans and their NATO vassals (especially the English), embarked on a vast armament program in preparation of a major confrontation with Russia.

In late 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an effort to end the bloodshed in Donetsk and Lugansk and to settle the issue in a permanent manner, sent repeated proposals to the US Biden regime and to NATO. However, since no one cared to answer, in February 2022 Russia launched the Special Military Operation (SMO).

Once again, the US and its European vassals shrieked with rage at another violation of their “rules-based” order. As a matter of fact, under these rules only the US and Israel are permitted to do the thing Russia had then just done. However, it created exactly the situation the US and NATO had been preparing for all along. Thus the NATO proxy war against Russia began, which was supposed to result in the collapse and partition of the Russian Federation.

In their decades-long conceitedness and hubris, Western ruling elites and their media outlets and assorted “experts” were convinced their superior Western arms would easily prevail. To their utter shock, however, those Western weapons proved inferior to the Russian ones. Moreover, the Ukrainian armed forces had been trained according to NATO standards, which in themselves are inferior to those of the Russian armed forces. Although individual Ukrainian soldiers certainly did not lack courage and commitment, they turned out to be cannon fodder for the Russian army and its superior weaponry.

At the moment, three years after the SMO began, the defeat of the Ukrainian military can no longer be hidden from the public by means of fake news and daily doses of disinformation. More than one million Ukrainian soldiers have died on the battlefield, which means that at least two million others have been wounded, many of whom will remain crippled for life.

Although thanks to Russian tactics, civilian losses are very low, it is no exaggeration to say that the war has aggravated the Ukraine’s demographic collapse. Millions of Ukrainians, including numerous men of military age, have fled to other European countries. More than two million have found refuge in Poland, where Ukrainian doctors and nurses have taken over wide swaths of the medical system. Over one million are now in Germany, almost a million in the Czech Republic. Big colonies of Ukrainians are to be found (in descending order) in Italy, Romania, Slovakia and the Netherlands. Before the war started, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians had already left their beloved homeland to find better lives in the Americas, but also in Russia, where there is a high demand for all imaginable kinds of work. So much for the patriotism of Ukrainians!

With the eventual defeat of the Ukrainian armed forces and their NATO and US sponsors in sight, it is understandable that movements are being made in both camps to reach a formal understanding. The newly elected US President Donald Trump is presently acting like a catalyst in this delicate process.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the not untalented comedian who was carefully selected and prepared for the office, remains faithful to his role of steadfast war leader against overwhelming odds and puts up a show of resilience and determination. Yet it looks increasingly like he is the leader of a mere empty shell. The Ukrainian economy has suffered tremendously from the war. The electrical grid needs to be completely rebuilt and other elements of the infrastructure also require enormous investments and effort to be brought back up to standard.

Zelensky’s recent performance in the White House in the row with Trump and Vice President Vance should not distract attention from what has likely already been decided by Trump and Putin. Both want an end to the military operation in the Ukraine, but it is Russia that dictates the terms. Zelensky and Trump want to save face and Putin will surely allow Trump to do that.

The Ukraine will emerge amputated and scarred, mourning its dead and resenting the millions of Ukrainians who have left and are unlikely to return. It will be sort of a miracle if a rump Ukraine around Kiev, securely tied to Russia, will survive.

History has few examples in which a nation possessing all sorts of advantages was destroyed within a mere four decades. The Ukraine constitutes a unique case from this point of view.

It is extremely sad that the Ukraine was not destroyed by the common Ukrainian people. All they want is what most people in the world truly want: to lead healthy, happy lives with their family and friends, to be safe and to eat decent food. The country has been destroyed by the US and its NATO vassals and a clique of banksters, aided by a small clique of ruthless Ukrainian politicians.

Actually, the Ukraine is just another failed state, propped up with tremendous amounts of money that chiefly finds its way to the pockets of legions of corrupt politicians and businessmen in the US, Europe, Israel and the Ukraine.

Buy Hans Vogel’s How Europe Became American here.