This article was originally published in Danish on February 6, 2022.

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A highly relevant and topical article – also for international readers!

BOOK REVIEW:
Jens Jørgen Nielsen:
Rusland på tværs (Across Russia). Sadly only available in Danish.
Hovedland 2021

By Povl H. Riis-Knudsen

It’s rare to find good current books about Russia. I found this one by chance in a bookstore in Odense. And let it be said right away: It’s a formidably good book. It should be required reading for any journalist or others who write about or otherwise want to form an opinion about Putin’s Russia. It is hardly a coincidence that I have not been able to find a review of the book anywhere, even though it is highly topical.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen has a master’s degree in history and history of ideas. in history and history of ideas and later studied Russian. He is married to a Russian and has spent a long time in Russia. In a way, my relationship with Russia has been very parallel to Jens Jørgen Nielsen’s. Like him, I also visited the Soviet Union in the 80s. And like him, I followed the Yeltsin period in the 90s at close quarters, and like him, I am married to a Russian and now spend as much time in Russia and the former Soviet Union as I possibly can. This is therefore not a traditional review of Jens Jørgen Nielsen’s book, but also part of my account of the Russia I know. My experiences are largely consistent with his, although I may, as usual, turn the screw a bit more. And in some places we put different accents and probably also have different perceptions. But in any case, buy the book!

Jens Jørgen Nielsen begins with a short and excellent introduction to the history of Russia and its changing relationship with the rest of Europe. Let’s not forget that Peter the Great drew his inspiration from Western Europe and wanted to Europeanize the country – or that a large part of the Russian elite was very French-oriented and spoke better French than Russian, and that Frenchmen, Germans – and even a few Danes – have left their indelible mark on Russia. The language has absorbed many German loanwords, German artists and architects have left their mark everywhere, above all, of course, in St. Petersburg, which Peter the Great made the capital of Russia and which today is one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in Europe. The wars of Germany and France against Russia are probably the greatest tragedy in recent European history and one of the seeds of Europe’s downfall – and also of Russia’s natural fear of its western neighbors. This should not be forgotten!

But Russia is undeniably different from the rest of Europe, largely due to the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054, when Russia became part of the Eastern Orthodox Church while most of the rest of Europe became part of the Catholic Church. When some Danish church members dream of being able to be a member of several churches at once, it is a sign of a total lack of historical and religious understanding. For example, the distance between the Russian Church and the Danish National Church is abysmal – yes, the Russian Church does not even recognize the sacraments of the Danish National Church, so I had to be baptized for a second time in order to get married in the Orthodox Church. There is hardly any average Dane who understands the scope of this difference and the depth of the Orthodox Church’s understanding of life or the meaning of its liturgy. I am not saying that the average Russian is more Christian or interested in the Church than the average Dane, but the Russian’s respect for the Church and recognition of its importance not only for the individual but for the whole country is very high, and the Church’s influence on society is accordingly.

To a Dane, the Orthodox Church seems very foreign – and very old-fashioned. The language of the liturgy alone is incomprehensible even to modern Russians – but it has remained unchanged for centuries, because the liturgy represents the divine on earth. It is not to be understood – it is to be felt and honored. The service is man’s praise of God – and not God’s praise of man. A modern Western European simply does not understand the Orthodox Church, and it is precisely the strongly traditional church that may have contributed to the fact that the Russians in Western Europe have almost always been considered old-fashioned, backward and primitive, and their social structure with a serf-like peasantry right up to 1861 has contributed to this impression. The typical caricature of a Russian in the West is violent, drunk and useless. Marx and Engels also had only negative things to say about the Russians, whom they of course knew nothing about.

However, the last years leading up to 1914 were characterized by great economic progress and a strong desire for investment from foreign, including Danish, companies. And of course, with economic development came changes in society.

However, the First World War was a Russian disaster, and the Communist revolution put an end to the social development that was underway. Russia became the Soviet Union, which was dominated by an ideology whose main program was to spread Communism throughout the world. It was an ideological imperialism that the West largely agreed to reject. And when, after the Second World War, it spread by force and violence to the whole of Eastern Europe, this dislike was greatly reinforced and resulted in the formation of NATO. We would not impose the blessings of Communism! It was the Cold War – a struggle between two systems where one system had the declared will to impose the Communist system on the whole world.

The West likes to say that “we” won the Cold War and that Russia is just the loser who has to accept the winner’s terms. However, this is a misconception. The Soviet Union (or Russia) did not ‘lose’ any war, but quietly dismantled a social system that had proven inadequate. Gorbachev was hailed as a hero in the West for dismantling Soviet power – although this dismantling probably went a little further than he imagined. He was outmaneuvered by Boris Yeltsin, who assumed dictatorial powers and, encouraged by Western ‘experts’ with no knowledge of Russia, launched economic reforms that took no account whatsoever of the state of the Russian economy and social structure. Among other things, state property was sold for a song – just like in the former GDR. Whereas under normal conditions the price of a mining company was typically set at the value of 10 years of production, it was now given away for a symbolic amount equivalent to 6 months of production. The Russian people were simply being plundered. It was in this situation that the oligarchs emerged. These people usurped enormous wealth, but throughout the system, they enriched themselves as much as they could at the expense of the community. Russia experienced several supply crises and state bankruptcies, with people losing their entire savings and pensions. Yeltsin was cheered in the West because he made Russia weak, and the West only wants a weak Russia. Yeltsin himself drugged himself with large amounts of vodka while the country was in total disarray.

Of Russia’s 10 richest men, 8, by the way, were Jews. When I mentioned this to my female friend’s son, who pretended not to care about people’s ethnicity, he spontaneously exclaimed, “Which of them is not Jewish?” There were two.

From abroad, especially America, “experts” with strange names flocked to Russia, because now all systems had to be modernized and Americanized. I myself was working in the education sector at the time, and the Russian education sector was simply the best in the world. I felt like I was in paradise at the Gorky Institute in Moscow – and also in mainstream Russian schools. However, private schools in particular embraced “modernization”. The rest of us tried to keep the “experts” at a distance.

Absolute anarchy reigned in the streets. No one paid taxes. The infrastructure suffered and petty corruption was widespread. The police officer’s salary was so miserable that he couldn’t possibly live on it, so he had to help himself in other ways. Cars were stopped, fictitious errors pointed out, “fines” paid directly to the officers. In the administration, it was no different. Even the doctors had to reach out. The Russians generally understood the situation, but they had no money, so heirlooms, rare icons etc. suffered.

Political freedom was widespread. Anything could be bought on any street corner. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in multiple editions along with reprints of anti-Jewish pamphlets of all kinds from Czarist times, Mein Kampf, Rosenberg, Günther, even the crazy Chilean Miguel Serrano, who believes there is a model National Socialist society in Antarctica, had been translated. Other political and religious movements enjoyed the same freedom. Of course, it was very democratic – and I can only say that I thrived in that situation. Every walk was a long running gauntlet between different political and religious groups who wanted to get their message across. I particularly remember a small group that wanted to turn me into an anti-Semite and were very surprised that a foreigner knew it all beforehand. These circles have since been banned. In that sense, it was an intellectually fruitful time – but it was a terrible time for the majority of the Russian population. They had had enough ideas, now they wanted something to eat.

It can be hard for people here to understand what it means when the supermarkets are empty, completely empty, and when petrol is something you can only buy in parking lots all around, where people sell what they have been able to organize at their workplace. When the restaurants simply have no food. At the worst time I experienced in Moscow, there was only Macdonalds on Pushkinskaya, which had some kind of food, but it was beyond the financial reach of many people. Then there was a Pizza Hut. It was also expensive, but you still had to queue for hours to get in. I was happy with the institute canteen, even though the soup was thin and the bread dry. In the provincial towns it was much, much worse.

Then Putin came along, and he did not gain any more power than Yeltsin had had, but he was simply more capable. He inherited a country on its knees and he inherited problems everywhere he looked, including the Chechen conflict, a fire that the West also poured gasoline on. At a recent press conference, Putin, who had briefly been head of the FSB, the Russian security service, told how Russian double agents had been able to report Western infiltration and financial support for the rebels – as early as the 1990s.

People like to call the oligarchs Putin’s friends. They were Yeltsin’s friends. He was the one who created them. Putin called them together and told them they could keep what they had stolen – but they should refrain from politics – Khodorkovsky wanted to see if he really meant it. And he did. Berezovsky, Abramovich, Gusinsky and others transferred the residence, Gusinsky to Israel, from where he could not be extradited for prosecution. If this looks like an excerpt from the Jerusalem phone book, it’s not entirely wrong….

However, the oligarchs are still a power factor – because they have the ability to sabotage or realize some of Putin’s plans, which of course in the long run they will make money from, and they are one of the 3 power bases any Russian leader needs to lean on. The other two are the church and the army. Even Stalin had to rely on the church during the Second World War.

I left Russia in 2007. My female friend fell ill and died a horrible death, the institute had to be reorganized and renovated, I had lost my position in Denmark, and I now had to concentrate on the economic survival of my family. I couldn’t live on a Russian salary, even though I was offered a permanent position.

In 2017, one of my Russian acquaintances wrote to me that it was time for me to come and visit my friends again. I did – and I came to a completely different country. New infrastructure, new metro trains, new trams, new buses, high-speed trains, new highways, clean streets, no chaos, no empty shops, no underground shopping, renovated houses – and very few beggars. Of course, there is a long tradition of criticizing those in power, but there was widespread support for Putin – and there still is, even if various sanctions end up hurting the population. However, the Russian people hate chaos, uncertainty and disorder. They have had enough of it and they don’t want it anymore, and Putin guarantees that they won’t get it.

When I still hear the West referred to as “the free world” – as opposed to Russia, of course – it makes me sick. When you think of Germany, Austria, France etc. with banned political organizations, banned books, banned songs, banned greetings, banned clothes, banned speech – and the omnipresent political police destroying careers, families and people, or all the mechanisms the so-called “democratic” countries use to keep out unwanted competitors for power. Election fraud, complicated nomination rules, political processes, etc. Denmark can play a role here too. Mogens Glistrup and Rasmus Paludan are good examples of how to get rid of unwanted forces. And in practice, we don’t have a free press either. All the newspapers agree on Corona policy, “climate policy” and Russia policy – as if the articles came from the same government office. I would actually rather have a directly government-controlled press than a press that is controlled by an invisible hand. At the time of writing, the German government has just banned the Russian television station Russia Today from broadcasting to Germany. It spreads state propaganda and “false information”, according to the Germans. The response from Moscow was swift. A ban on the German propaganda broadcaster Deutsche Welle and the revocation of its journalists’ work permits. The Germans have the audacity to describe Deutsche Welle as independent. It is anything but independent and disseminates a constant stream of pro-government propaganda. I wish the Russians would expel a bunch of Danish journalists too – I’d be happy to help with a list of the worst warmongers!

There is still far more freedom of public debate in Russia than here. There are many different newspapers, countless loud debate programs on television, where Putin’s critics are certainly heard. And no one gets canceled because they have politically incorrect views. Political correctness has not come to Russia!

It is apparently difficult for the West to understand that freedom is also the freedom to be free from something. Russians don’t want 77+ genders, gay marriage, sex change operations (even on children), or a rewriting of history and literature to fit today’s warped ideas. Putin is a great connoisseur – and admirer – of Germany and he has seen what it means for a society when people suffer from an unnatural, artificially created guilt complex, and he does not want that to happen in Russia. That’s why he has closed the archives and banned criticism of the Red Army. It’s not good for historical research, but it’s certainly good for Russia. A guilt-ridden people is a weak people – that’s why we all have to be guilty of all kinds of oppression of Negroes, Jews, Muslims, gays, women, redheads etc. Putin promotes what unites Russians – and tries to play down everything that could divide them.

The West’s cronies, who characteristically always carry English-language signs at their demonstrations, are little respected in Russia, and Navalny’s various “revelations” lack evidence – but they slip uncritically into the West’s propagandistic media world, where Joseph Goebbels would have been a mere amateur. Or the terrible Pussy Riot figures who desecrated the main altar of the Cathedral of Our Savior in Moscow. I wonder what would have happened to them if they had done the same in St. Peter’s Basilica – let alone Mecca. The Russians would like the freedom to be free of them!

Putin is blamed for surrounding himself with people he knows or has worked with. However, this is a very sensible approach to politics – perhaps especially in a country as complex as Russia. It’s important that you know people and can trust them. When it’s Putin who does it, it has to be made into something suspect – but it’s perfectly fine for Mette Frederiksen to fire or transfer civil servants in central administration in order to hire her own cronies at inflated salaries and then gild them with bonuses in the millions. But that, of course, is something completely different.

They also claim that Russia is full of corruption. Well, it would be bold to claim that there is no corruption. Most state employees are still paid very low salaries – and that includes ministers and civil servants. These are salaries you can’t live on. It’s done in other ways, and the money probably comes from private sources. The question is whether they get anything in return. But what is it like here? Ministers, mayors, city councilors etc. are all placed on the boards of private companies where the public sector is entitled to representation. These jobs are extremely well paid – and what do companies gain from this easy access to decision makers? Retired politicians also find it extremely easy to find their way into the business world, despite their obvious lack of qualifications. Not to mention the sale of vaccine production and Dong. I guess you have to be more naive than the police allow to believe that any minister could be so stupid. There’s plenty of fodder here for a critical press, but we don’t have one.

There are many stories in Russia about alleged corruption. I heard about how the stones along the course of the Moscow River through the capital had been replaced to no avail. Anyone can see that these stones have not been replaced. I asked my source how he knew this. Foreign media, was the answer. Well… When you live in Moscow, you don’t need foreign media to tell you such things. You would be able to see it for yourself.

The small corruption that plagued the Yeltsin era is gone in most areas, such as the police. Raising salaries is the way out of this kind of corruption. On the one hand, people can live off their salaries, and on the other hand, they suddenly have something to lose. Today, the police are incorruptible. I hear about problems in the healthcare system. A chief physician gets DKK 4,500 a month, and even though it goes a bit further in Russia than here, it’s not a lot of money. But there is a high degree of idealism in the healthcare system that you might sometimes miss here.

Today, Putin is mainly attacked on foreign policy. It is said that he wants to re-establish the Soviet Union. He has no plans to do that – Russia is big enough and already has enough non-Russian peoples, some of whom also practice foreign religions such as Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. However, he wants the outside world to respect Russia’s natural demand for a certain security. He is often quoted as saying that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe of the latter half of the last century, but that is not what Putin said on that occasion. He said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the last half of the last century. And it is true. There used to be a balance between the two superpowers. The US could not afford to do anything without serious consequences. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia became weak and the US did what it wanted geopolitically. The geopolitical disaster of this is clearly seen in America’s intervention in the Arab world, where it has turned well-functioning Western-oriented countries into smoking piles of ruins that produce nothing but terrorists and refugees to promote the great replacement of the European peoples and white Americans – without regard to the UN, where Russia has veto power. In Europe, this was seen in Yugoslavia, for example, where the US bombed Serbia in order to secede Kosovo and form an American sound state there. Serbia is an old Russian ally, but Russia was not in a position to intervene. It is not forgotten, however, but the “free” Western press conveniently forgets it when talking about Crimea. Russia was not the first to change Europe’s borders after 1945. It was the US and, before that, NATO country Turkey, which in 1974 occupied a third of Cyprus, chased out the Greek-speaking Christian population and replaced them with Anatolian Muslim shepherds to create a northern Cypriot state that only Turkey recognizes, but which de facto exists as a normal state – a condition that should have prevented Cyprus’ accession to the EU.

When Gorbachev promised to withdraw Soviet troops from Eastern Europe and dissolve the Warsaw Pact, the Western powers promised not to push NATO further towards the Russian border, including the former East Germany. It wasn’t written into any treaty – Gorbachev was too gullible – but the agreement has been confirmed on all sides and was mentioned in the newspapers at the time. The logical thing would have been to dissolve NATO. What was the purpose of the pact supposed to be? The Communism that NATO was supposed to defend us against was gone. However, NATO was not dissolved – on the contrary, five waves of expansion were carried out, so that today NATO stands on the Russian border (and the Serbian border).

And then what? Well, Russia no longer has a security zone. NATO rockets can reach St. Petersburg in less than 5 minutes. There is no time to react. Today, NATO has almost completely surrounded Russia, and NATO is not a peacekeeping institution. Today’s warmongering proves that NATO is a pact of aggression. The table has been turned. Where previously it was the Soviet Union that wanted to export an ideology to the rest of the world, today it is NATO, led by the USA, that wants to spread its warped worldview to the peoples of the world, who, in their ignorance and self-assessment, are supposedly yearning to share it. The Western world today is thoroughly racist and imperialistic. It truly believes it has all the wisdom in the world and knows what is best for all other peoples.

In 1962, the Soviet Union was allowed to deploy nuclear-armed rockets in Cuba. This was unacceptable to the US and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, until Khrushchev decided not to let the war-mad Americans trigger it. They withdrew their rockets – and Khrushchev was fired. Every independent country has the right to choose its alliance partners, Washington declared in the case of Ukraine. But the same apparently did not apply to Cuba. How would the US react if Mexico or Canada formed an alliance with China? Well, you don’t have to guess! Recently, China signed an agreement to establish a naval base in Equatorial Guinea…. Washington immediately protested this encirclement of the US. Equatorial Guinea – that’s in Africa, we’re talking about the South Atlantic. Too close to the US? But nuclear-armed NATO missiles 450 km from Moscow – that’s fine. Russia just has to accept that… It seems a bit of a double standard. Putin has proposed a common mutual security system many times, but the warmongering US has never engaged in real negotiations. I have said it before and I will say it again: The United States is the greatest danger to world peace. It is an imperialist third world country with nuclear weapons and a population so ignorant and uneducated that it would not think twice about using these weapons. The US is the anus of humanity.

Marie Krarup said at a meeting of the Press Freedom Society a few years ago that she had been horrified by the abysmal ignorance revealed by Foreign Ministry officials in their briefings on Russia. They simply knew nothing about Russia – and that’s not the politicians. They obviously know nothing, nor will they have the intelligence to understand anything. It is the officials who are supposed to support the politicians who are completely clueless. It’s frightening! When it looks like this among the officials, it’s no wonder that the journalists don’t understand anything either – or are simply pen-pushers for other forces. Dispatched correspondents mostly only seek out the few Western-inspired and Western-funded “dissidents” whose warped worldview they project onto the big screen as the opinion of the Russian people.

Of course, it doesn’t look any better when it comes to Ukraine. A foreign journalist recently asked Putin if he would refrain from violating Ukraine’s borders. Putin’s answer: “Ukraine’s borders? Who created Ukraine? Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich – no one else!” And that’s kind of true. Ukraine has not existed as an independent state in recent times – well, never really. It was an administrative unit of the Soviet Union – and such administrative units were created at a desk in Moscow – without ethnic considerations. On the contrary, it was desirable not to create ethnically unmixed units. There were plenty of Ukrainians living outside this administrative area – and plenty of Russians living within it. It was just as Lenin wanted it.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, these arbitrary borders suddenly became sacred state borders. Kristeligt Dagblad announced the other day that Putin is stepping on the dreams of 40 million Ukrainians. Hm. Ukraine has 44 million inhabitants – about half speak Russian as their mother tongue – and many of them want to return to Russia. Of course, there is a core Ukrainian population living mainly in the western part of the country, while the easternmost part is Russian and the southern part with the city of Odessa is mixed, though Odessa itself is predominantly Russian.

To say the least, Ukrainians have bad historical experiences with the Russians. Stalin’s inflicted famine has not been forgotten. The Holodomor has its own museum in Kiev, and the National Museum is also confronted with this genocide. And let it be said right away: I am a big supporter of a nation state for Ukrainians. If anything, they deserve it. The problem is that the country has no reasonably defined borders. Independence saw the adoption of Soviet borders, including the inclusion of Crimea, which was never Ukrainian and was simply given to the country as a gift by Khrushchev in 1954, when it had no practical significance whatsoever – without consulting the residents first.

To counter this problem, a constitution was drafted that took into account the Russians’ natural requirements in terms of language, schools, culture etc. This constitution also meant that one day a Russian-minded president, Viktor Yanukovych, suddenly appeared, who worked on a rapprochement between Ukraine and Russia, which would have great economic benefits, as Ukraine’s heavy industry from Soviet times was geared to produce for the Russian military, among other things. Such cooperation was not in the interest of the Western powers, and Yanukovych was suddenly overthrown during the so-called Maidan revolution in 2014, where he – the country’s legally elected president – was chased into exile after allegations of corruption. These accusations were probably true, because Ukraine was Europe’s most corrupt country – and still is. In this respect, the new government was no better than the old one.

Putin initially supported the demonstrations in Kiev, saying it was the people’s right to react against abuses in the country’s leadership, but the demonstrations turned into an outright coup. Suddenly it became all about the EU with banners etc. I wonder where they suddenly came from? In addition, extreme right-wing militaristic groups appeared. Now, I have nothing against extreme nationalists, but I also know that they are usually completely useless and can’t accomplish anything. And nationalists are instinctively opposed to the EU. Of course, the situation in Ukraine may be different, but I doubt it. In elections, these groups have never been able to gather any support, consequently they have never had any money. However, they were heavily armed and more and more weapons appeared. I have no doubt that foreign powers were involved in this development. It ended in a bloodbath. The coup plotters blamed Yanukovych for initiating it – he blamed the protesters, and there is something very strange about this armed struggle. After the coup, it was decided that there would be a full investigation, but as some of the people who were to be investigated were now in government, the investigation was abandoned. Obviously, I am not in a position to say what the ups and downs are, but the fact remains that a legally elected and internationally recognized government was ousted by a mob uprising with or without foreign intervention. Russians never really recognized the new government as legitimate and democratic. The atmosphere was further exacerbated when Ukrainian activists in Odessa chased a large group of young Russians into a building and set it on fire. It was all filmed very thoroughly, but in the West they didn’t show the footage and just talked about the building “catching fire”. Hello! Free, objective press – no. This silence tells me that foreign interests may also have been involved here. There was already Western interest in provoking a war back then.

The same can be said of the Malaysian airliner that was shot down over Ukraine. The pilot wanted to fly south of the combat areas, but was ordered by the Ukrainian control tower in Dnipro to fly directly over the area. The Russians actually supported the investigations into what happened, but the Ukrainians blocked them – and today there has been virtually no progress. The Western press is hiding these facts.

In any case, the Russians began to be slowly stripped of their constitutional rights. Ukrainian is now the only official language. Russian schools are struggling. It was this development that sparked the Donbas uprising (with or without Russian troops or mercenaries). A contributing factor, of course, is that Ukraine is what you could call “a failed state”. Corruption has already been mentioned. Infrastructure and buildings are run down, the standard of living is poor – much lower than in Russia.

Crimea was annexed, partly in return for Kosovo. How was it possible to take Kosovo from Serbia but not return Crimea to Russia? Elections and referendums that do not suit Western interests and media are always labeled as “disputed”, but there is hardly anyone in Crimea today who wants to return to Ukraine, and Crimea will never be Ukrainian again. Live with it! Finally, there is the twist that the Russian Black Sea Fleet has always been based in Crimea. Russia had leased the area on a long-term contract, which the Ukrainians now wanted to terminate unilaterally. This was of course unacceptable to Russia. It would take a long time and be very expensive to move the naval base. It was out of the question, and it didn’t get any better when it was reported that the Ukrainians were in negotiations with the Chinese to let them take it over.

It is hardly in Putin’s interest to annex all of Ukraine. It would entail significant losses and high costs. No, his interest lies in securing the rights of Russians in a united Ukraine by restoring the original guarantees to the Russian population. And this state can – of course – no more be a member of NATO than Canada can ally itself with Russia or China. Russia and Ukraine are natural partners, both historically and culturally. If Russia cannot achieve this now, it can recognize the two united People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and thus freeze the conflict ad infinitum. It can also increase their area. As a last resort, Russia could annex large parts of Ukraine, such as the entire area east of the Dnieper.

Former Minister of Defense Trine Bramsen believes it is important to defend “democratic values”, whatever they are – which apparently do not exist in Russia, but probably in Ukraine. This attitude is rooted in not unexpected ignorance. And when Denmark and Sweden talk about securing our borders against a Russian attack, well, they speak in a feverish frenzy that echoes the “Cold War”. There is no longer a Communist Soviet Union that wants to spread world revolution. Russia has absolutely no interest in attacking either Denmark or Sweden – but if I were the Finnish Prime Minister, I would probably also give up any thoughts of Finnish NATO membership. Such a move might well make it necessary to move the capital to the Åland Islands. But then again, she’s just a little schoolgirl who has forgotten Finland’s historical experience.

The demented Biden, the party-loving Johnson and the arrogant Macron badly need a war to distract from their domestic ineptitude, but if they think a war with Russia will be a Sunday school outing, they are wrong. The Russians are well practiced in warfare and they are building on historical experience. As Alexander Nevsky said: “He who comes to Russia with a sword will die by the sword!”

And Ukraine? Do you think Ukraine (and the Baltic States) would survive such a war as independent nations? Hardly! Of course, you could turn the entire planet into a radioactive desert, but I can guarantee that the US would become the center of such a desert. The US has fought wars all over the world over the years, but has never really felt the consequences of war at home since the Civil War. A nuclear war would change that! And even in such a war, Russia would have the best chance of survival – simply because of its size.

The current crisis only serves to drive the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. And that is not in Europe’s interest. Quite the contrary. Our interest must be to unite with Russia against China, which we ourselves have helped to turn into an economic and military superpower because it was in the interests of big business. And against the United States, which today is just a rotting corpse.

If the West were to do Ukraine a favor, it would dampen the Ukrainians’ desire for war and encourage the country to find an understanding with Russia – for the benefit of all of Europe. You don’t want to be at war with your neighbors. Every homeowner knows that!

***

Other important literature on Russia today

Gabriele Krone-Schmalz: Russland verstehen: Der Kampf um die Ukraine und die Arroganz des Westens, (Beck Paperback), 2017

Владимир Путин: Патриотизм – национальная ндея россии, Книжный мир, 2017

Pieter Waterdrinker: Tsjaikovskistraat 40, Een autobiografische vertelling uit Rusland, Nijgh & Van Ditmar 2017. This is an autobiographical account in novel form, but it is a fantastic account of the fall of the Soviet Union and the time after. Translated into both English and German. Really worth reading!

Og et enkelt historisk værk: Bent Jensen: Ruslands undergang. Revolutioner og sammenbrud 1917-1921 Gyldendal 2017. (The book is only in Danish.)