Russia’s Goebbels Solovyev tells his audience to prepare for a long war.

“We need to realize that the West is our existential enemy. There can be no mutual coexistence between Russia and Western Nations” Solovyev

Russia’s empire can never be a trusted friend of Western democracies again. Under its various names, Russia has gotten away with unpunished murder over and over again

The way to stop this repeating cycle is to break the wheel once and for all.

No Empire has caused more death throughout its history than the Russian Empire in its ill begotten 300+ year long existence

The Russian empire is an outdated hyper centralized and inhumane abomination. The Russian empire will soon join the Austrian, the Ottoman, the Bulgarian, the German empire, and all the other empires of the past on the graveyard of empires.

The dissolution of Russia’s tyrannical empire is long overdue. The dissolvement of this multiethnic, bloodthirsty, deviant, untrustworthy, expansionist, and slave driving prison of nations is necessary.

Countless empires and cultures have been devoured by time throughout the ages. The Russian one will be no exception. Someday, the Chinese and American ones will be devoured as well.

“Humans don’t like change because they are afraid of it and still change remains the only constant throughout history.” Yoval Harari

For Ukraine’s sake and for the sake of Russia’s other neighbors, this predatory and extractive colonial relict must be dissolved

Our politicians must face this inconvenient truth. The Russian empire is built upon war and conquest. It can only sustain itself through war and conquest. As long as Russia’s failed imperial state isn’t de colonized, there will be no peace, only more war.

Let me give you a short overview of Russia’s history, and then I will explain why I think that Russia’s rupture is ultimately a necessary event to ensure Ukraine’s safety.

I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction. — Martin Scorsese

Brief historical overview

The Duchy of Muscovy was once only a tiny village and an ice hell. The Mongols burned Moscow down in 1237. Then the Mongols burned down Kyiv, therefore severing all connections to the Byzantine empire.

The Kievan Rus and Russia are not to be confused as the Russians pretend they are descendants of the Kievan Rus, which they aren't

Muscovites are descendants of slave and fur traders. The Mongols smashed the slowly emerging system of checks and balances in the region around Novgorod. Modern Russia is a product of hundreds of years of autocratic/absolutist rule.

Around the same time, a system of checks and balances started to emerge in Europe around the same time. In the beginning, this system was based upon fealty. The church also served as a check and balance.

The Russian story is a very different one. No system of fealty was introduced, no renaissance and no enlightenment

The next part of the incredibly bloody and violent history of the Russian space meant getting enslaved by the Mongol Empire for hundreds of years. The Mongols were introducing a tributary and purely predatory system with no accountability of the small ruling caste.

The system was based upon full extraction of peasants by the princelings who were ruling in the Khan's stead.

These princelings didn’t rule via fealty. This would be a system based on personal relationships between the different strata in society (clergy, king, noblemen, city dwellers, farmers, soldiers)

Instead, the Khan, or rather the tiny elite, ruled the peasants through slavery. The Khan moved the capital towards the Belgorod region and put these former underlings in charge.

Then, when Khan and his golden Horde were no more in 1480, there was a power vacuum.

Ivan, the terrible assumed power to fill this power vacuum

On his orders Novgorod, the only place there with a more sophisticated and not purely predatory system as this city state was part of the Hanse, was burned to the ground and 15.000 of its citizens were murdered.

Ivan was the grand prince of Moscow from 1533 onwards. In 1547, Ivan was declared the first Tsar of Russia. Europe went through the renaissance and enlightenment. None of that had touched Russia. Russia then started expanding eastward massively from 1720 onwards.

The Czars ruled with an iron fist, and they kept the Russians under control by the use of violence, vodka, and ever more wars of territorial expansion

Europe had also tried absolutism. This form of government didn’t work out for them. It had bankrupted the kings of France, and absolutist rule had led to several revolutions in other nations such as Austria or Prussia.

In Russia, absolutism proved to be a feasible long-term solution. Russia managed what no one else had managed: To introduce and maintain a system without any checks and balances on its leader.

These unique circumstances have aided in making their entire political culture so insane

Normally, the conqueror adopts the system of those that he conquers over time. See China, Iran, Roman Empire, and many other examples.

Adversity favors the versatile

In the Eurasian plains, this versatility meant that the Russians didn't have stone castles in the Middle Ages. The castles were instead made of wood. The Russian princelings, who served under the Khan, had dealt with invaders by burning their wooden castles and by chasing the invaders on horseback. The vast steppes of Russia and the cold and harsh winters favored this kind of defense compared to building stone castles.

This absolutism, in Russia under the Tsars and even before the Tsars, was indeed absolute

The relationship between the small nobility and its serfs was purely predatory and extractive. The nobility was ruling over these peasants with an iron fist for centuries. The serfs were tied to the land, and they belonged to its owner.

There was no Renaissance, no parliamentary culture, no Enlightenment, no human rights, no checks and balances, nothing of the sort evolved in the Russian empire. The Industrial Revolution brought some change, albeit it led to the worst and most bloody wars in Russia’s history.

Russian history is one of violence, slaughter, deportations, destruction, and wars after wars.

The political and socio-economic structure of Russia was culminating in the Russo Japanese war and in WW1, which brought even even more slaughter. The slaughter was followed by a bloody revolution. This revolution was replacing a Tsar with a group of mini Tsars.

The Soviets led Russia into a bloody civil war

The results were millions of dead men and women, hunger, typhus, and more war under Stalin (who was a revolutionary in 1917). The years 1917 to 1945 included ethnic cleansings, genocide, epidemics, gulags, more hunger, and more war. By 1945 68 percent of all men born in the Soviet Union in 1923 were dead.

Then, after 1945, the death and slaughter were followed up with more extraction, and a slave driver Moscow centered Soviet Empire

What followed was weakness and chaos in the 90s. The Soviet system never disappeared. It only went dormant for a while. The KGB only needed to re-gain its strength. After the Siloviki had rechained their balance, a new absolutist ruler was installed.

Vladimir Putin immediately went to work by flattening the Chechen capital Grozny and by attacking and occupying parts of Georgia in 2008. Then he continued by occupying Crimea and with the destruction of Homs and Aleppo in Syria.

After Russia was appeased for the past 24 years, Putin and his men unleashed the worst and largest land war that Europe has seen since 1945.

The 21st century was another orgy of violence. Russia has another dictator. It lacks a real parliament. The “strong men” elite has free reign once more just as they had under back in the times of serfdom.

We are seeing a modern version of the hunger games unfolding in front of our eyes

There are no local or federal checks and balances on Putin and his men. Russia has been a colonial absolutist empire for 300 years. This hyper-centralized extractive empire was once again brought into full swing under Putin.

This backward barbaric system is hell-bent on turning its own subjects into 19th-century style serfs.

Even though serfdom was officially abolished in Russia in 1861 under Czar Alexander the II. old habits amongst the elite die hard, it seems.

Putin’s system is stuck in the 1800s or 1900s. There is a growing number of parallels between Putin’s Russia and Stalinist Russia. This system is cruel and resists change. Revolutions in Russia have always eaten their children.

There isn’t much that separates the average Joe in Russia from actual serfdom. Putin hasn’t locked down the borders just yet. Still, the second iron curtain is descending upon Russia as we speak.

“The darkest forces never give up. The French revolution, the Soviet one all the others, appear first as a liberating struggle. However, they soon morph into military dictatorship. The early heroes look like idiots, the thugs show their true faces, and the cycle (which isn’t what revolution means) is complete.” Christian Michel In: Catherine Belton Putin’s people page 50

Our politicians must have the spine, moral vigor, and the necessary courage. We must oppose Russia without any further talk of compromise or appeasement

The Russian empire cheers its onward course of barbarous paganism. Putin’s army vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest. Putin’s barbaric system derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution. Russia can’t ever be a trusted friend of the democratic free world ever again.

We have appeased Russia often enough. We can’t make that mistake again. Otherwise, the Russian empire will come back to haunt us.

Appeasement will enable Russia to continue its murderous campaign and its genocide in the years to come. We cannot allow this failed state to linger on. The world has met this evil halfway many times. This course of action has never ended well for the West.

“Historians study the past not in order to repeat it but to be freed of it.” Yoval Harari

There isn’t only one single future. As a historian, I can help to re-imagine the future to give us more options to choose from. The situation worldwide is neither natural nor normal nor is it permanent.

From the current bad and unjust situation, a better future can arise

Russia aims to perpetuate its dark past rather than being liberated from it. America and Europe should be careful not to follow Russia down that road.

Russia forgot its own past and is doomed to repeat its mistakes

The Americans shouldn’t forget the fascist business plot, which almost toppled the US government in the early 1930s. Sadly, it isn’t taught in US schools. The US electorate must prevent Trump from rising to power in the US once more.

Globalization, or rather the rules based system, was introduced to keep the Soviets out. We are in the middle of a major geo-political shift. Chaos demands to be recognized and experienced. Only then can it bring about positive change.

I can guarantee my readers that we will be upset by how long this process of change will take.

Change comes slowly, and then it comes all of a sudden. We cannot know what will happen and when exactly this change will happen. We must be prepared to deal with the chaotic consequences that this change will bring in its wake.

The collapse of ecosystems and of the global supply chains. The erosion of democracy. The fall of the Russian empire. These are just some of the events the future could hold in store

The system of globalization is rolling back. This process of fragmentation will bring chaos and multipolarity. This process will continue for several decades until the dust settles, not years.

“The Holocene and our transition into the Antropocene is happening right now.” (Yoval Harari)

Summary and conclusion

This chaos won’t only affect the US or Russia. It will affect the entire globe. This makes it even more important to prevent the fascist wannabe dictator Trump from being re-elected. We need cooperation and collaboration to face these global challenges. We can expect neither from this narcissistic man child.

The good news is that the geographic boundaries of the US and its excellent river system, its natural resources, food ,water, oil and gas (shale oil and gas) will make the US less exposed than most places on earth

No matter who will be elected next year. I think the US will be a more absent world power in the years to come. In 70.000 years, we have changed the global ecosystem. We will change it even more in our lifetime. In Russia’s case, change is long overdue, and our policy makers should not be afraid of Russia’s potential collapse.

The ones who will suffer the most are the countries that are already low on dollar reserves and who are net importers of food and energy (Sahel Zone, parts of Asia spring to mind)

The US led order is retreating from the Middle East, from Pakistan, and elsewhere. The US will remain more active where its core interests are. (Europe, Taiwan, Japan among some others)

Under Trump, a more isolationistic course would be likely

The future of Russia’s empire will depend on many complex factors. The US election is one of them. The outcome of the war, the financial situation of Russia, and the involvement of China will be playing a pivotal role as well. I would be surprised if the Russian Federation still exists in its current borders by the end of this decade.

I want to end on a positive note. There is always a way out. There is always hope unless we create a self-fulfilling negative prophecy

We need US/EU leadership in this dangerous and chaotic world. Putin and his friends offer no replacement for the rules based system. This is a recipe for more chaos and war.

US democracy needs therapy. It must deal with its fascist MAGA malady, which is spreading like wildfire. Trump’s agitations and lies have filled the hearts of many Americans with fear, anger, resentment, and hate.

I am certain that the US citizens will ensure that the failed former president fails again with his campaign of hate and fascist lies. Trump is a con man. Like Hitler or Putin. He has no answers. He doesn’t want to make America great. Trump frantically tries to prevent to be locked behind bars.

I would like to hear your take in the comments on whether the Russian system and ours can co-exist. I thought so until the initial invasion of Crimea in 2014.

I am inclined to think that a peaceful co-existence with Putin’s Russia is impossible. A peaceful co-existence with the deviant and expansionist Third Reich was also impossible. With the Russian people, yes. With its political system, though? No. Fascism is inherently intolerant. We have tolerated the intolerable for far too long. There is no appeasing an imperialistic maniac.

Dear reader, thanks for reading my story

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Take care and be well

“Russiae Imperium delendum est”