Thread by @fmod1

🧵1/20: On Russia: “The Roots of Russia”, written by Dr. Lev Dobriansky (1918- 2008), a renowned Professor of Economics at Georgetown University, and former US Ambassador to the Bahamas, published, courtesy by (US) Naval Institute Proceedings-April 1963, tells us:

🧵 Dobriansky was US-born son of Ukrainian immigrants, staunch anti-Communist. Amongst nuggets that his article brings out, over a half-century ago, when Russia already dominated USSR, which in turn dominated much of world: Russians did not constitute a majority of the USSR.

🧵3/20: Even back in 1897, 60% of subjects of Russian Empire were not Russian. Lenin himself said “Czarist Russia & Russians constitute 43 per cent of total population, i.e. a minority, while non-Russian nationalities constituted 57 per cent”.

🧵4/20: Even USSR census 1951 revealed that of 202 millions, 54 percent were non-Russian (later denied by Beria). Dobriansky pointed out specifically “statistical tricks in padding figures for political purposes e.g, counting a person as Russian because he knows Russian language”

🧵5/20: This underpins to this day the egregious and false invasion logic that Putin exerts on eastern Ukraine, including Crimea. Dobriansky also pointed out that the most productive lands were in non-Russian homelands, such as #Ukraine, the Causasus and Central Asia.

🧵6/20: He adds, back in 1964, that “both Russian institutional totalitarianism and Russian imperialism have been fiercely resisted by the non-Russian nations in the USSR”. In all of this, #Ukraine, by virtue of its size, history, and capacities, is critical, for freedom.

🧵7/20: Ukraine, is critical to the fulfilment of the rights of all peoples in the FSU space. Ukraine’s struggle for normalisation as a free and independent European state is analogous to struggle of the #Irish (& Americans, Africans, Asians, etc.) from imperialist colonial rule.

🧵8/10: Dobriansky, recommended “hybrid” means using diplomatic, political, psychological & cultural weapons, in favour of realising “expansion of freedom in the world”, esp. for “(1) real national self-determination & independence for all non-Russian nations in the Soviet Union

🧵9/10: and for "(2) advancement of decentralist Siberyak tendencies in Asiatic sphere of RFSFR itself, &(3) the hope of genuine freedom to countless innocent Russians in an attempt to create & broaden any discernible rift between Moscow government and underlying Russian masses.”

🧵10/20: Since then, USSR dissolved, and as Russia again seeks resurgently to dominate its neighbourhood and intimidate the world. Putin’s greatest legacy is likely to be his destruction of Russia’s international credibility, and failure to enhance Russia’s standing in the world

🧵11/20: along with Putin's failure to widen the freedoms of Russians in civil society and the media, to decentralise power, to liberalise their society, advance democracy, transparency and accountability, and diversify its economy on a sustainable basis.

🧵12/20: Dobriansky also recalled how Krushchev, at 20th Congress of CPSU admitted "Stalin had attempted to kill off 40 million #Ukrainians and had failed". For those who still think that Russia and Ukraine are brotherly nations, perhaps parable of Cain and Abel tells it best

🧵13/20: the future of European coherence largely depends on 3 critical factors today: (1) Russia's ability to respect Ukraine sovereign choices and to restore itself to international & multilateral collaboration, and (2) EU ability to maintain strategic unity and political heft,

🧵14/20: (3) and #Germany's ability to think "outside the box", and with some modesty realise that in wider EU, it is a minority nation, for there is no majority one, and should therefore exert its influence more positively to build consensus around choices for European futures.

🧵15/20: and this is where Germany fails abysmally today, @Bundeskanzler #Scholz in particular, with his fading leopard "spots". Get those tanks rolling NOW. Ukraine is losing ground around Bakhmut, Berestove and Konstyantynivka, shows @TheStudyofWar

🧵16/20: Even Russia would be a minority country if and when it joins the EU (fat chance of that). This neighbourhood no longer has any room for bullies. As Romano Prodi said in 2003, EU's Europe is "a union of diversity and minorities". That is our strength, and our only future.

🧵17/20: the future of Russia lies in a transition back to reform and true democracy, but with complete withdrawal from Ukraine, war crimes trials, and reparations. Can Russia survive is the bigger question?

🧵18/20: and at this stage of its moral, financial, political, and strategic decay, the question must be: why should it? It is after all a crony empire, and should be stripped of #UNSC veto power, subject to decolonisation under UN Charter chapters XI, XII, and XIII.

🧵19/20: Russia has continually violated the UN Charter, the UDHR, the Geneva Conventions, and multiple UN General Assembly resolutions passed against its aggression in 2022. It has become a rogue criminal régime.

🧵20/20: Finally, Russia can't veto any UNSC resolution on dispute to which it is party, i.e. it can't veto UNSC action on its invasion of Ukraine, as per UN Charter Art 27.3. It is time for the world to stop ignoring that prohibition. @InterActCouncil @TheElders @NizamiGanjaviIC

🧵21/post-script: Kremlin greed has nothing to do with "human rights" of Ukraine's "Russian-speakers". Apart from facts given in thread above, of its people, history & democracy, #Ukraine is hugely important for these strategic reasons (its global role pre-war 24 Feb 2022)🇺🇦