Turkey as Strategic Partner, Russian Deaths and Crimes in Ukraine, Radio Free Europe

I mentioned Turkey and its importance in my last post. Here is an article originally from the Foreign Policy Research Institute that clearly states the importance of Turkey in the future of European security.

According to the Telegram channel “Find Yours”, at this point there have been nearly 38,000 Russians killed in combat in the Ukraine. This number will continue to rise, unless the Russian government, or the Russian people, come to their senses. Remember that the Soviet Union was a repressive, communist state.  The Russian Federation is a repressive, oligarchic kleptocracy, and will likely become equally oppressive in due course.  While there are many differences, glaring and subtle, throughout the two systems, the end result is the same. The people of Russia are servants of a corrupt dictator, to be used as he sees fit, sent of to work the fields, or to die in the fields of Ukraine.

The same Telegram channel reported the following crimes committed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine to date (translated using Google Translate):

The Office of the Prosecutor General has published updated data on the war crimes of the occupiers recorded since the beginning of the war

▪️The number of dead children increased to 347, another 646 were injured

Crimes committed by the Russian aggressors during their invasion of Ukraine, as of 07 July, 2022.

I have been reading lately about the weaponisation of water, food, and other resources.  We are all familiar with the concept at this point, seeing it in use in Syria, Yemen, the Palestinian territories, and of course in Ukraine, to name a few places. Water is the last commodity, and it has more value than we can imagine. It is scarce in so many regions already, and once a crisis occurs and refugees concentrate in one location, it is only a matter of time before exploitation begins.  Water and food are the most basic needs, and are easily controlled by governments and non-state actors.  Water and food are now weapons in the latest iteration of hybrid warfare.

I recently read an article by Robert Legvold from the journal Foreign Policy from 1977. The title, On Power: The Nature of Soviet Power says it all. It helped put the current situation in perspective. The article mentioned interdependence many times. Back then, the Soviet Union was a relatively isolated country, and globalisation as we know it today, and thus the interdependence we have come to regret, was in what we might call its infancy (again, compared to today.) The article notes how interdependence might be used as a weapon. And now, 45 years later, witness today’s sanctions against Russia. Just one point of note.

Finally Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty reporting, though obviously having a distinct agenda, is full of background information, as well as current reporting, on the situation in Russia and Ukraine. For some background on the fall of the USSR, see the article The Undoing of the USSR: How it Happened.   Here is a story about one Russians’ stand against Putin’s war.