The situation in Ukraine looks to be getting worse, and can no longer be ignored.
That is most especially true for one group in UK society who have much to lose. They are London's professional elite who service the needs of the oligarchs. As Chatham House said last December:
The intertwining of financial globalization and deregulation with the post-Soviet transition has, since the 1990s, created a new international political and economic environment. In this context, the UK's relations with Russia and Eurasian states are characterized in part by features of transnational kleptocracy, where British professional service providers enable post-Soviet elites to launder their money and reputations.
Just reading the summary of their article is worthwhile, and covering. Note this for example:
The provision of aggressive reputation management services by UK professionals includes libel actions, quasi-defamation cases, and the use of public relations agents against journalists and researchers. These services also transplant authoritarian agendas and rivalries to the UK, which has become a leading site of legal action and political conflict between post-Soviet elites.
And this:
Opportunities for reputation laundering are placing the integrity of a range of important domestic institutions at risk. Philanthropy to UK universities and charities is one method by which post-Soviet elites clean up their reputations – but these donations are processed in secret, and several cases suggest that their due diligence has been flawed. Westminster – and the Conservative parliamentary party in particular – may be open to influence from wealthy donors who originate from post-Soviet kleptocracies, and who may retain fealty to these regimes.
As a result, the UK is not neutral in this dispute, as many of our supposed allies realise. Some of the UK's elite have been bought by Russian money, and there are doubts as to our willingness to impose sanctions in the event of Russia invading Ukraine, which appears to be the chosen method of counter-attack. As Chatham House concluded:
This situation is materially and reputationally damaging for the UK's rule of law and to the UK's professed role as an opponent of international corruption.
Are we willing to change that, most especially now when Russian influence has become so embedded in some parts of UK society, unlike most other countries, and all because of our willingness to operate an ineffective money laundering regime? The test may come, quite soon.
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My first reaction watching the events leading up to this morning was ‘shades of WMD,here we go again’. After reading this perhaps not, but one thing will be certain and that is that us little folk will be the ones paying the price. The only question appears to be will that price be financial or cannon fodder again.
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Mail me, but I cannot take in anything else right now
Quite apart from which, we fielded Liz Truss, clear indication we aren’t serious about interfering.
Johnson’s BREXIT Government has a lot of skeletons in its cupboard so well done for pointing this out.
With apologies to John Warren, read Tom Burgis’ ‘Kleptopia’ (2020) or Katherine Belton’s ‘Putin’s People’ (2020) – Chapter 11 ‘Londongrad’.
And it’s not just London. The weird thing is also what’s going on in New York and Washington too – all enabled by those we can rely to be blind to morality – the finance sector. Nice job boys and girls, nice job. They should all be arrested for sedition and as traitors in my view.
Agree entirely on the Belton and Burgis books, PSR, they should be compulsory reading. And of course, the original (as far as I know) on the subject ‘Londongrad’ by Hollingworth and Lansley, published in 2009 – and oh, how much worse the situation’s become since then. To quote the Russian proverb that appears on the inside cover page of ‘Londongrad’: “There are no barriers to a rich man”.
Catherine Belton’s book “Putin’s People” is worth a read & provides context to the emergence of “Londongrad”. The rise in gas prices since August 2021 will unleash a wave of further cash looking for a home – doubtless Londongrad banksters and assorted apparatchiks will help. Londongrad even has its own English-language Russian-owned newspaper. it is not as if this has not been developing for some time, Le Carre wrote about it in one of his books a few years back.
The Belton book is also interesting since one can argue that following the SovU collapse there was only one org able to pick up the pieces – the KGB. & that is what they did. The idea that “democracy” could have been intro’ed into Russia is a joke – one needs a range of institutions for that – & there were few in Russia – 1991. Couple of days after the Winter Olympics the tanks will rumble off.
For those in need of light relief the BTL on the link below offers some unexpurgated scenes from the Trussed – Lavorov meeting. Naturally such “humour” would never be allowed in the UK:
https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/russia-says-facts-bounce-off-britains-truss-in-tense-encounter/
I hesitated to comment on this matter because the complexity of the geopolitics here requires a depth and breadth of understanding of opaque political cultures and history demands greater insight than I bring to the table. I can understand why Putin would do what he has done; bringing Russia back to the centre of world diplomacy; a position it lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union. What both Chatham House and Richard write about “Westminster – and the Conservative parliamentary party in particular – may be open to influence from wealthy donors who originate from post-Soviet kleptocracies, and who may retain fealty to these regimes”; is true – but it is true long before Ukraine was an issue, and is quite independent of that crisis. The worst part of Liz Truss’s inane intervention, is that it did not require a threatened Russian invasion of Ukraine to galvanise the British Government to think about doing something about the Russian oligarchy’s financial invasion of Londongrad. Notice, all this is still talk; as if Russia not invading Ukraine is sufficient for the Conservatives to do nothing at all about the oligarchists. The British Government should have acted long. long ago on the Russian financial invasion of London, but did precisely nothing; before the appalling teapot murder of Alexander Litvinenko (poisoned by polonium in Litvineko’s tea, in the affably genteel public surroundings of a Mayfair hotel; Litvinenko may have worked for MI6). The British Government demonstrated abject spinelessness at the time (2006), and has repeated the same invertebrate form ever since (until Johnson found himself in a real fix – one of the worst things about Johnson’s pollution of the body politics is that it is difficult not to put “2 + 2” together, and that just shoudn’t ever enter anyone’s head). In 2006 Britain sent a few embassy officials back to Russia – the diplomatic equivalent of something a great deal less than a fixed penalty notice.
Which brings me back to what I do not understand. I do not understand what Putin thinks will advantage anyone; most of all either Putin or Russia, by actually invading Ukraine. There seems no doubt Ukraine will fight, or what that means. Russia can win every conventional battle; but can it win a war? I think the answer to that is best discovered by reading Timothy Snyder’s best book. He is first a historian and ‘Bloodlands’ describes the appalling WWII nightmare that was Ukraine; it was a bloodbath, with Russians, Ukrainians and Germans fighting wars within wars against each other, simultaneously; it is doubtful that some who died in the fighting would even know who was killing them. I cannot understand why Putin would wish to open that box. There is no ‘upside’ for a a major military invasion of Ukraine, for anyone.
Thank you
The upside’s the distraction, definitely for Boris from his present troubles and arguably for Putin too if (I couldn’t say, I stress) he’s having domestic embarrassment at the moment too.
I will not rise to the Boris Bait (he inhabits a bankrupt and desolate politics); but it seems to me that from a Russian perspective a major invasion of Ukraine would bury more than any “distraction” could conveivably be worth to Russia, or Putin.
I agree
I am still unsure what gain he sees in this
That it could end like Russian involvement in Afghanistan did seems all too likely
There is a school of thought that has suggested that Putin, as a former KGB Colonel, schooled in the techniques and mindset of the Soviet cold war thinking remains convinced that NATO is a threat to Russia and has responded accordingly.
It also seems safe to assume that Lavrov’s recent comments about the ineffable Truss reflect the Russian administration’s frustrations that her and her ilk are too arrogant/stupid, call it what you will, to accept that continued NATO expansion is of considerable concern to Russia. Having heard part of a recent interview with Stoltenberg one can quite understand their frustration because at no point did he appear to consider that Russian concerns, legitimate or otherwise, should be given even the slightest consideration.
Can I draw the attention of anyone wanting more information with regards to Russian (amongst others) money flowing into London and the Tory Party in particular and the professional services facilitating it to Private Eye, they’ve been reporting on it in some detail for years.
Whilst, “There is no ‘upside’ for a major military invasion of Ukraine, for anyone.” What if you’re pretty certain that there will be NO invasion? Then there’s definitely an upside to building up the threat, flexing your military and diplomatic muscles and thwarting a threat that never was.
The carve up of Europe was agreed over a series of conferences prior to the end of WWII, and the leaders in the “West” knew the Russians were not coming, yet to pretend they were has been useful in keeping the military/industrial complex in power ever since.
I think it make believe to pretend there is no Russian threat at present
Ivan
I was first turned onto what was happening in post-communist Russia by John Gray in his book ‘False Dawn’ (1998). Gray had at first been rather enthusiastic about the Thatcher ‘revolution’ but began to see signs of tensions and problems opening up as it began to impact the rest of the world where it was ‘exported’. At that time he was describing what he saw in Russia as ‘anarcho-capitalism’ – I think Russia at that time had refused to pay back an IMF loan? He worried about how this new Russia would develop and I think his worries have borne fruit. Gray also seems to have come to realise by then what Galbraith already knew about Thatcher and Reagan: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
John Warren: I’m going to have to disagree with you about Snyder. Sorry. All three of his major books I am aware of and have read (Bloodlands, Black Earth and The Road to Unfreedom) are ALL stellar in my opinion. He is to me at least the most important public intellectual of the Western Atlantic. It is shocking to read in his smaller book ‘Our Malady’ that the American health care system nearly killed him during a bout of illness I think he had between 2020/21. I mean we could have lost him and it was bad enough losing David Graeber.
The amazing topical pivot Snyder makes at the end of Black Earth towards the global warming crisis which up to then is a thorough historical dissection of the methodology of fascism and it’s consequences on societies at the time (German negation of Jews) is both inspired but also rooted in his comprehensive erudition of the subject as to be absolutely compelling. I mean, if someone has seen what our immediate future could be like if we are not careful – if we are not brave – it is Timothy Snyder.
He seems absolutely committed to the job of ensuring that all those innocents murdered by the Nazis and Communist fascists are not forgotten. You can have as many Holocaust remembrance days as you like, as many ex-camps as museums as you like, as many Hollywood movies.
But the best way to remember the victims is to learn and not to repeat the same again and create more victims and we must pick up Snyder’s gauntlet or be damned if we don’t. It’s serious stuff. And he’s right in my opinion to point this out to us in Black Earth.
Perhaps Putin is just pulling USA/UK’s chain? After all it could be argued that all he’s really done is move a few troops around within his own borders?
Another person to read is Anne Applebaum as someone with roots in Poland and Ukraine, married to a Polish politician. Also interesting as an old fashioned Republican on the takeover of Republicans by Trump, and the rise of nationalist, populism in both E Europe and the USA.
Try between East and West, Twilight of Democracy, and Red Famine (on Stalin’s brutal treatment of Ukraine).
Russia’s brutal treatment of those countries on its Western and Southern borders goes back not just decades, but for some it’s centuries. We seem to know next to nothing about that history. It is hardly surprising that they were so keen to join NATO as protection from being dragged back into being colonies of the the Russian Empire – as an empire is just what it was, and what Putin would like to see restored. Ukraine’s treatment by Russia has been especially brutal in the past – they know what to expect.
It does no credit to sections of the Left to ignore and at times praise and somehow justify authoritarian colonialism from the East whilst (rightly) condemning it when done by the West. Starmer is quite right to distance Labour from Stop the War and their allies. They damage the decent Left and Labour in the eyes of, I’d suggest, most of the British public.
It is then supremely ironic that it is the Right in the U.K. and their main backers in the City that have done the most to weaken the U.K., driven by their greed for dirty Russian money, stolen from the Russian people.
‘It is then supremely ironic that it is the Right in the U.K. and their main backers in the City that have done the most to weaken the U.K., driven by their greed for dirty Russian money, stolen from the Russian people’.
The thing is this Robin – and this is more ironic for you to consider :
The money that has been stolen from the Russian people is actually in the hands of Russians and not Americans, Brits or anyone else outside of Russia. If Russia had gone the way of Western capitalism, who would own those assets now? We know what happens – foreigners can end up owning your strategically important assets by up what is floated on the international exchanges. That’s why Putin ended up kicking out all non-Russian nationals who were working in the gas and oil sectors in Russia and split the proceeds and management of them amongst his ex-KGB and other cronies.
Basically Putin had his cake and ate it. Call it what you may, but in one way at least the assets are still Russian. Putin outflanked the Western capitalist system with sheer brute force. He did not yield a thing. And why should he when you consider the shenanigans us ‘righteous’ Westerners get up to in the name of ‘free markets’? Who knows, in a parallel universe some where, it is us who have Russia over a barrel with energy prices?
That simple fact is where Putin gets his justification from. He’s a crook alright but look at the crooks in the West? Look at our culture where we happy to sell our our companies – even strategic ones – to foreigners just to make money.
It’s a poor choice to make but believe it or not I can see Putin’s logic. I really can. Which is why we should take him seriously and talk to him more.
BTW Robin – Putin and contemporary Russia has been made by us – the West. He and it are a reaction to our own bloody minded way of doing things.