The emerging multipolar world order led by Russia, China, and the Global South is pushing the old West’s arrogant imperialist order into historical oblivion
This week marks the second anniversary of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022.
President Vladimir Putin ordered the intervention of Russian forces for two reasons: to protect the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass region which had endured eight years of NATO-backed aggression; and, secondly, to denazify the regime that the Western powers had illegally installed with a coup d’état in Kiev in 2014.
The tenth anniversary of that coup on February 22 was also marked this week.
Two years on, the first objective has been substantially achieved. Russian forces control most of the Donbass region, as well as Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea. These regions are now legally part of the Russian Federation following historic referenda. In sum, Ukraine has lost about 20 percent of its pre-conflict territory to Russia. The concerned populations contend that they have rejoined Mother Russia.
The military victory last week for Russian forces in the key city of Avdeevka portends the imminent full taking of the Donbass along its historic provincial lines. That breakthrough also speaks of the near collapse of the Kiev regime forces.
Two years on, the cities and towns of Donetsk and Lugansk have been rebuilt after suffering the vandalism and war crimes of the Kiev regime. The NATO-backed regime still attacks communities but the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine are appreciably safer and better off than they were two years ago.
As for the second objective, the denazification of the Kiev regime has still not yet been achieved. However, the regime is but a shell of its former incarnation when with the help of NATO weapons and military advisers it was waging a brutal aggression against ethnic Russian communities.
Moscow has stated that it will continue its military operation in Ukraine until the neo-nazi regime is eliminated. There seems to be little doubt that that objective will be met given the superior firepower on the Russian side and the rapidly deteriorating condition of the NATO-backed forces.
The Russian achievement is quite remarkable given that the U.S.-led NATO bloc (30 nations) has flooded Ukraine with a vast array of heavy weapons. The United States and its European allies have spent – wasted – up to $200 billion in supporting the Kiev regime over the past two years.
Despite the inordinate flow of weaponry and mercenaries, Russia has secured the territory it set out to obtain, and the NATO-backed side is facing collapse.
The course of the war is on Russia’s side. From the outset, Moscow said it had no intention to occupy all of Ukraine. But the collapse of the regime in a rump state is no doubt something that Russia wants, and the betting odds point to that eventuality as the cabal in Kiev descends into corruption, backstabbing, and infighting.
But, importantly, the military situation in Ukraine is only part of a much bigger picture of global confrontation and one that speaks to an existential crisis for Western imperialism.
On February 25, 2022, the day after Russian forces began their special operation, our SCF weekly editorial stated that the intervention would finally confront NATO’s aggression existentially. Our editorial then was headlined: “U.S., NATO-Backed Aggression Towards Russia Finally Checked”.
Here is a lengthy clip from that article which gives the context of that historic moment:
“A NATO-backed anti-Russia regime on Russia’s doorstep attacking Russian people is clearly unacceptable. The volume of NATO weapons flowing into Ukraine over recent weeks was pointing to a larger war footing. Then at the Munich Security Conference last weekend [in February 2022] Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky dropped the incendiary threat that Ukraine could develop nuclear weapons. Clearly, the security situation for Russia was crashing several red lines.
“Of course, the chorus of condemnation from the United States and its Western partners is shot through with hypocrisy. They claim that Russia has ‘shattered peace in Europe’ and they have moved to impose an all-out economic blockade to ‘strangle the economic functioning of Russia’. The U.S. and NATO have for years trashed international law and the UN Charter with their criminal wars and regime-change operations. Their duplicity and hysterics are adding more layers of confusion to the problem.
“Western media have systematically concealed the global problem of U.S. and NATO aggression. The misinformation and disinformation are manifest with claims that Russia is embarked on ‘a barbaric venture’ and ‘unprovoked war’. To claim ‘unprovoked’ betrays extreme ignorance of the situation.
“Russia has for years warned that U.S. and NATO aggression was posing a critical danger to international security and had to stop. The revoking of arms control treaties by the U.S. (the ABM, INF, Open Skies Treaty) and the expansion of missile threats near Russia’s borders were no longer tolerable. Ukraine is really just one element of the bigger picture. But this week, Russia has moved finally to stop the aggression. It is a historic watershed.
“Moscow says that its aim is to deNazify and demilitarize an illegitimate NATO-backed regime in Kiev. It says it has no intention to occupy Ukraine. As of this writing, Moscow has indicated it is open to negotiating as it always has been. What Russia is seeking is a more comprehensive security agreement with the U.S. and NATO for Europe.
“More widely, the United States must also end its belligerent ideological view of Russia and China as enemies. The U.S. has to come to terms with a multipolar world order in which its unilateral diktat is no longer tenable, legally, politically, or morally. That is the ultimate challenge for international peace and security.”
Back to the present writing of this week’s editorial, it should be noted that a month after Russian intervention in Ukraine, a potential diplomatic settlement to end the conflict was negotiated in March-April 2022 via mediation by Turkey.
The peace deal was sabotaged in April 2022 by the United States and Britain (Boris Johnson on an errand from the Biden Administration) who overruled the Kiev regime and insisted on a full-blown war. Nearly two years later, the Ukrainian military death toll has climbed to 500,000 and the Kiev regime is rendered nearly defunct.
The upshot is that Ukraine has been callously devastated by the United States and its imperialist partners in a proxy war against Russia – a war that the Western powers have all but lost.
But this epoch-making conflict has significance way beyond the disaster of Ukraine.
What is evident to the whole world is the criminal nature of the U.S.-led Western axis.
While the Western powers have fueled a futile slaughter in Ukraine, they are also seen by the world to be complicit in genocide in Gaza with their unbridled support for the Israeli regime even as it massacres Palestinian civilians, including women and children, by the hundreds every day for the past five months. The death toll is nearly 30,000.
The United States – the lead hegemon in the Western imperialist axis – is also recklessly ramping up provocations against China through its illegal weaponizing of Taiwan.
The true face of Western “democracies” and their so-called “rules-based global order” is fully revealed. It is the ugly face of fascism.
For decades after the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the Western powers, which had covertly sponsored the rise of European fascism, were able to project a fraud on the world claiming to be virtuous champions of pro-democracy and pro-peace. Informed people always knew the Western pretensions were a sordid sham.
Since the watershed conflict in Ukraine – and thanks to Russian fortitude and resolve – the Western charade now stands exposed. The U.S.-led axis of Western imperialism is finally facing a nemesis, a day of reckoning.
The emerging multipolar world order led by Russia, China, and the Global South – the world’s majority – is pushing the old Western arrogant order into historical oblivion. The United States and its rogues’ gallery of partners in NATO are crumbling from their own lies, duplicity, and untenable dead-end of warmongering rackets.
The conclusion of our editorial from two years ago stands the test of time: “The U.S. has to come to terms with a multipolar world order in which its unilateral diktat is no longer tenable, legally, politically, or morally. That is the ultimate challenge for international peace and security.”
By Pepe Escobar
Published by SCF
Republished by The 21st Century
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 21cir.com.