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Nazi-German – Soviet Russia alliance for the benefit of City corporations

After World War I, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, head of the Polish state, sought the revival of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in order to counter-balance the power of Russia and Germany. However, the independence of the Republic of Poland and its regional aspirations were not well perceived by some circles in the City of London and Washington D.C., who had a different plan in mind for this region.

They were financing the Bolshevik revolutionaries with aim to abolish Russian Tsardom, take over the vast Russian resources and introduce a new communist totalitarian regime. This was another stage of global masonic revolution engineered by the elites of the City of London (and City’s American branch, Washington D.C.), against Christian society, private property and individual freedom.

The attempts of the Bolsheviks to spread the revolution in Europe were thwarted by the combined war effort of the Polish people and the Polish and Ukrainian Army in the Polish–Bolshevik war of 1919–20, but in consequence of subsequent negotiations between the Poles and the Bolsheviks, Ukraine was split between the Moscow-controlled Ukrainian government in Kyiv (Ukrainian SSR), which kept the territories in the east, and Republic of Poland, which kept territories of West Ukraine, that is Galicia with Polish city of Lvov and part of Volhynia. This partitioning of Ukraine along the 18th century border lines, before Commonwealth's dissapearance from the map, angered the Ukranian nationalists as well as the elites of the City of London who envisaged the Polish border with Russia along the line drafted by Lord Curzon, that is without eastern lands with significant Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities.

The new territorial boundries and new distribution of power was to be decided in another war.

In 1922, in Rapallo (a charming coastal town on the Italian riviera), the representatives of Germany and Soviet Russia resumed their co-operation agreeing to strengten their economic and military ties for their mutual benefits. An important element of their revisionist plan, was to recover the territories in Central and Eastern Europe, over which they lost control in result of World War I.

The corporations in the City of London and the United States invested in both regimes, Nazi-Germany and Soviet Russia, and floated loans to corporations that were building their military and industrial power, to the detriment of Central and Eastern European states that were in the immediate radiation of these menacing powers.

For example, as part of so called "Dawes Plan" the American banks were lending German industry millions of dollars. Although the American banks were major investors in the “Dawes Loan” for Germany, London bankers, including the Rothschilds, were responsible for some £10m.

Another example was a collaboration between IG Farben cartel, major supplier of Hitler's military machine and Rockefeller's Standard Oil in the production of synthetic fuel. Since Germany had plenty of coal but no oil, synthetic fuel was necessary to sustain German military machine. Generally, more than a hundred American corporations have subsidiaries or cooperative agreement in Nazi-Germany.

The fascists sentiments in London were nurtured by the Anglo-German Fellowship which was founded in 1936 following a speech by Edward Prince of Wales of Saxe Coburg and Gotha (alias Windsor), soon to be king Edward VIII, who called for a closer understanding of Germany in order to safeguard peace in Europe. The Anglo-German Fellowship consisted mostly of Conservative MPs. There were also journalists such as editor of The Times, Geoffrey Dawson, and businessmen and bankers such as governor of the Bank of England Montagu Norman, and the leading banks and corporations in Britain such as J. Henry Schröder, Lazard Brothers, the Midland Bank, Firth Vickers Stainless Steel, British Empire Steel Products, the Dunlop Rubber, Price Waterhouse, Unilever, Thomas Cook & Son, among many others. The Anglo-German Fellowship had a close relationship with several important Nazi-German leaders including Hjalmar Schacht and Rudolf Hess whose personal secretary, Martin Bormann, administered Nazi-German finances.

Simultaneously, the elites of Washington D.C. and the City of London, were investing in Soviet Russia. The banking family of Warburgs (who were affiliated to the Rothschilds and did business with Nazi-German corporations) financed the Soviets in early days. One of the top bankers from Wall Street, Averell Harriman (who later handled Land-Lease for Sovier Russia), participated in Ruskombank, the first Soviet commercial bank. International General Electric Company signed an agreement with the Soviet Union in 1929, amidst great purges in Ukraine and Russia, for the development of the electrical-equipment vital to the growth of the Soviet military-industrial complex. Henry Ford, an early backer of Adolf Hitler, signed an agreement with the Soviet Union in 1929 agreeing to sell the Soviets automobiles and parts, and provide technical assistance until 1938 to construct an integrated automobile-manufacturing plant at Nizhny Novgorod. British-American historian Professor Anthony Sutton researched all major companies that were involved in the financing of Nazi-Germany and Soviet Russia.

The purpose of financing of Nazi-Germany and Soviet Russia by the elites of City of London and Washington D.C. was three-fold: to drive educated Jews from Nazi-Germany to Palestine and create the state of Israel (according to Balfour Declaration); to create the Soviet Empire that would abolish nation states, private property and introduce classless, atheist society; and to create the environment for the U.S. government to step in and emerge as the new balancing power in the world with U.S. dollar as new global reserve currency...

World War II, Nazi-German and Soviet occupation

In the 1930-ties, the Soviet Union, where high-level positions in the communist party and security apparatus were mainly occupied by communist Jews, perpetrated unprecedented genocide on the territories of Eastern Europe, to clear ground for future military invasion. Moscow-controlled Ukrainian SSR has been particularly affected by forced Soviet collectivization. All privately owned farmlands and livestock was seized in a country where 80 percent of the people were traditional village farmers. Millions of Ukrainian people were thrown out of their homes and deported to "special settlements" in the wilderness of freezing-cold Siberia. By mid 1932, nearly 75 percent of the farms in the Ukraine had been forcibly collectivized. On Stalin's orders, mandatory quotas of foodstuffs to be shipped out to the Soviet Union were drastically increased in August, October and again in January 1933, until there was simply no food remaining to feed the people of Ukraine. This led to a catastrophic famine known as the Holodomor, when millions of Ukrainians died of starvation. This was a demographic devastation that paved way for further Russification of eastern Ukraine. /

At the same time, much of the hugely abundant wheat crop harvested by the Ukrainians that year was dumped on the foreign market to generate cash to aid Josef Stalin's Five Year Plan for the modernization and industralization of the Soviet Union and also to help finance his massive military build-up. So those who benefited from this mass murder of Slavic people in eastern Europe were wester corporations. By 1930, the Soviet Union was importing more from the United States than any other country. The Soviet representatives were shaking hands with representatives of the United States and the City of London regarding new investments in Soviet Russia.

In August 1939, Nazi-Germany and Soviet Russia signed an economic agreement as well as Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, agreeing a secret supplement dividing Poland and other Central and Baltic European countries into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Washington was immediately informed of the pact, and so was Paris and London, but none of the western powers alerted any of the countries which were part of the secret protocol.

On the 1st of September 1939, Nazi-German army invaded Poland from the west, and Soviet Russia joined its ally on the 17th of September, invading Poland's eastern border and starting World War II. This was another watershed event in the history of Poland and Ukraine, as the war front had been moving through these territories few times. In the course of war, both Nazi-Germans and Soviet-Russians committed mass murders on Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian population, on unprecedented scale. Additionally, the Nazi-Germans encited Ukrainians to ethnically cleanse the territory of Galicia and Volhynia of their large Polish minority. The so called „Volhynia massacre”, carried out by Ukrainian nationalists (under inspiration of Stepan Bandera) on Polish civilian population, including many women and children, was worse in its brutality than Nazi and Soviet crimes and caused a deep rift in Polish-Ukrainian relations that would be utilised by future Russian and German elites to antagonize Poland and Ukraine.

During World War II, the City of London and Wall Street elites provided an unprecedented in history military, economic and political assistance to the totalitarian regime of Soviet Russia. This included the passing of relevant information required for the construction of nuclear weapons and sending them to Lavretiy Beria, the chief of Soviet Secret Police and mass murderer. Victor Rothschild, the leading banker in the City of London, scientist by education and communist by conviction was one of the key people responsible for passing this top secret information to the Soviet regime. The Soviets used their military-industrial complex enlarged with support of the American Lend-Lease program and British intelligence, not only to defeat Nazi-Germany but to maintain its dominance over the countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and to retain status of a global superpower.

In the post-war period, werstern corporations continued doing business with Soviet Russia and other communist regimes in full awareness that they were murdering the intellectual elites of the opressed countries, confiscating private property and restricting economic and social activity. Communist rule was a collective trauma that has crippled all countries in Central and Eastern Europe, in economic, politicial and social dimension. Its harsh consequences will reverberate for decades and communist inheritance would especially remain strong in countries with traditional authoritarian rule such as Russia and China…

NATO, European Union and „March Through Institutions”

Just like the Muscovites turned against their Mongol overlords centuries ago, so did the Soviets steadily turned againts their American paymasters becoming their outright enemies in the post war period known as “Cold War”. To curb the Russian-Soviet influence, which extended beyond Europe, the United States and western European states formed NATO alliance. In words of its first Secretary-General Lord Ismay it meant "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”.

At the same time the elites of the City of London and Washington D.C., negotiated with France and Germany and other western European States, to create supranational institutions that would take over some competences of national governments and thus prevent future war in Europe. Because Germany was needed as an economic engine of Europe, the western elites granted amnesty to German convicted war criminals, including key industrialists. Majority of Nazi-German war criminals who were convicted at Nuremberg Trials were released by mid-1950s. Among them were: Edward Milch, Friedrich Flick, Alfried Krupp and directors of IG Farben (which was a transnational cartel). The companies that were re-building German economic power after World War II were frequently the same companies that financed Nazi-Germany but were never brought to account. An example were Krupp company or BASF (a splinter from IG Farben), that were once major suppliers of Nazi-German industrial and military war machine and which started to prosper again after World War II.

The Franco-German elites were steadily pushing for the alterations of the European Treaties towards the model of federal Europe, where more and more competences of national governments were to be delegated to the central power in Brussels.

A vital element on the road of centralization of power in the hands of the EU elites was to break up cohesion of European society by undermining traditional western values often associated with Christian principles, traditional family unit and national pride, which was seen as a threat to a new model of multi-ethnic, multi-faith socialist society.

The German socialist elites started to dominate the EU institutions according to the slogan „The long march through the institutions”, coined by the German communist activist Rudi Dutschke. The phrase "long march" was a reference to the long retreat of the Chinese communists who wanted to evade the persuit of Kuomitang Army (Chinese Nationalist Party). This term meant to describe his strategy for establishing the conditions for social revolution: subverting society by infiltrating public institutions.

The Soviet influences were still very strong in Europe, and the West German institutions – government and business circles – were infiltrated by German communist secret service of East Germany, commonly known as Stasi. During his long service, head of Stasi, Marcus Wolf, planted some 4,000 agents in the West — most famously placing Günter Guillaume as a top aide to West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. It was Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik policy in the 1970s, that opened up West Germany's relationship with its eastern neighbors. That paved the way for a historic deal between West Germany and the Soviet Union in 1970, which saw West Germany agree to extend Transgas, an extension of the Soyuz gas pipeline, through what is now the Czech Republic into the southern German state of Bavaria. By 1973, Russian gas had begun to flow to West Germany, which established a mutual basis for economic cooperation between Russia and western Europe.

In the 1980s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan who undertook efforts to dismantle the Soviet Empire, made attempts to convince West Germany and other European countries to reduce the amount of Russian gas they imported, but to no avail. By the time the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the Soviet Union accounted for around one-third of all gas demand in West Germany. https://www.dw.com/en/russian-gas-in-germany-a-complicated-50-year-relationship/a-61057166

During German re-unification process in the 1990-ties, after the retreat of Soviet Army, the Ost-CDU party of East Germany, which was staffed with Stasi agents, merged with main CDU party of West Germany. When in December 1990 federal election chief of CDU Helmut Kohl was elected Chancellor of reunified Germany, Lothar de Maizière, last leader of East Germany and agent of Stasi, became vice-chairman of main CDU party. As rumours about his Stasi past began to mount, Lothar de Maizière resigned but managed to secure a post for his protégé, Angela Merkel, a former communist activist in East Germany...

Putin – the Terrible

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, was preceded by years of political, economic and intelligence war against the Soviet Empire that was orchestrated by the elites of Washington D.C. and carried out with support of western European states, and with great support of Catholic Poland, which was the most rebellious among all the communist states ruled by regime in Moscow. Dragging Soviet Russia into the protracted war in Afghanistan in 1979, was also an element of this plan.

After the ultimate fall of the Soviet Union, members who were affiliated with former communist regime, still penetrated government institutions in former communists states in Central and Eastern Europe. Although communism was oficially dead, the leftists parties were still popular whilst members of former regimes made fortunes on privatization of state assets. That stolen money was often channelled out to the City of London or the United States whose elites helped members of foreign communist regime to survive political and economic transformation, enriching themselves in this process.

In Russia, only members of the former Soviet regime or associates of those in power would be given licence to export gas or oil. In 1989, the Soviet Ministry of Gas industry was converted into a corporation called GAZPROM. It was staffed with people of former regime and KGB and GRU officers. LUKoil would become the second largest company in Russia after Gazprom and the first Russian company to acquire (in 2000) publicly traded US corporation, Getty Petroleum Marketing and its 1,300 gas stations in the United States. Given that Russia was the world's largest natural gas producer and exporter, Gazprom, and other Russian oil and gas producers, would become a powerful instrument of Russia's foreign policy. The Russian corporations and money that often came from criminal theft of state assets had been reportedly located in friendly tax haven jurisdictions such as Great Britain (especially the City of London and British offshore tax havens), United States, Netherlands, Cyprus, Switzerland, Israel, Luxembourg and Lichtenstein.

The Russian energy companies would establish contacts with former agents of Stasi, who like their counterparts in Russia, found employment in private sector often enriching themselves at the expense of the state assets. In 1999, former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin, who in the Cold War, operated in Dresden, East Germany, and had extensive links with the agents of Stasi, became new Prime Minister of Russian Federation.

Vlardimir Putin proved his loyalty and efficiency whilst appointed as deputy to Anatoly Sobchak, his former law professor and first democratically elected Mayor of St. Petersburg. As law graduate, he worked under Sobchak as chair of City's Committee on Foreign Economic Relations, controlling which foreign company could register their offices in the city. When Sobchak got entangled in a corruption scandal, Putin managed to smuggle him to a hospital in France. In 1996 Putin moved to Moscow, where he joined the presidential staff as deputy to Pavel Borodin, the Kremlin’s chief administrator. There he grew close to Anatoly Chubais, former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Kremlin Chief of Staff and author of privatization program under which few (mostly Jewish) oligarchs rapidly became billionaires by acquiring state assets by fraction of their real value.

Vladimir Putin steadily moved up in administrative positions and in 1998, Russian President Boris Yeltsin made him director of the Federal Security Service FSB (successor organization of KGB). Whilst searching for his successor, influential Jewish oligarchs in Russia: Boris Berezovsky, Anatoly Chubais and Petr Aven supported Vladimir Putin, and Boris Yeltsin appointed him acting Prime Minister in 1999.

The Russian Secret Services FSB, under directorship of Putin’s successor, Nikolai Patrushev, would use the ongoing war with the Chechen rebels to boost Putin’s popularity. Chechnya, a small country in the Caucasus region which sought independence from the Moscow's rule, was invaded by Russia during the rule of Boris Yeltsin in 1994. In the 20-month war that followed Russian troops slaughtered thousands of Chechens, including many civilians. In retaliation, the Chechens resorted to terrorist attacks taking Russian hostages.

A day before Putin’s appointment as Prime Minister, a group of Chechen rebels led by Shamil Basayev, launched an incursion into neighboring Dagestan to support the separatist rebels. Russian forces responded by organizing massive air campaign over Chechnya. Since the ordinary Russian citizens were against another war with the Chechens, Russian FSB arranged an event that would persuade the public opinion to support full-scale military intervention. Few weeks later, between 4 and 16 September 1999, a series of explosives destroyed residential apartment blocks in Moscow and various other Russian cities, spreading a wave of fear across the country. Putin was in New Zealand when the first explosions occurred, but on his return he appeared on television, making a statement, promising to hunt the Chechen terrorists. On October 1, 1999 Russian forces launched a land invasion on Chechnya.

In the first years of his presidency, Putin stopped the privatization of Russia's state assets, curbed the power of the Jewish oligarchs, who made money on privatization of Russia's state assets, and worked towards monopolization of the energy industry in Russia. For example, in 2005, Gazprom bought 73 per cent of Sibneft, previously owned by Boris Berezovsky, from an offshore investment company controlled by Putin’s friend, Roman Abramovich, doubling Abramovich's personal fortune to an estimated £15.9bn.

Western banks were again involved in Russia’s elites’ efforts to consolidate power. Financial Times provided that “a group of western banks, including Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and ABN Amro, and Goldman Sachs have agreed to provide a bridge loan to Gazprom of up to $13bn to finance the acquisition.”
https://www.ft.com/content/1aee02b4-3016-11da-ba9f-00000e2511c8

Western corporations build new Russian-German axis

Vladimir Putin grew up during Soviet times of which he was quite nostalgic, especially that he was a committed agent of that regime. He admitted openly, in an April 2005 state of the nation address to Russia’s top politicians and parliament, that: “The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century."

Thus Putin’s plan was to rebuild the imperial power of Russia, especially in the states that used to form part of the Soviet block. This was of key importance as the elites of the City of London and Washington D.C. were meddling in these regions, curbing Russia’s influence. Especially the enlargement of NATO was an ongoing concern for the Russian elites. In 1999, three former Warsaw Pact nations, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic, joined NATO amid much debate within the organization and Russian opposition. Another expansion of NATO came in 2004, with the accession of seven Central and Eastern European countries, of which three, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, were former Soviet republics; and other three, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, were members of defunct Warsaw Pact. Other former Soviet republics, such as Georgia or Ukraine, were also willing to join NATO alliance.

Russia’s strategy was focused on extending Russia’s influence over European States and other countries outside Europe, by making them dependent upon Russia’s energy supplies and then use energy blackmail for political advantages.

Thus, just like many times in the past, Russia and Germany resumed economic cooperation primarly through big energy business ventures such as Nord Stream gas pipe line. The pipe line, first launched in 2011, ran under the Baltic Sea, circumventing Poland, Ukraine and other states in Central and Eastern Europe, in transmission of gas to Germany, making European states dangerously dependent upon Russian gas. The majority stake in the project belonged to Gazprom, but its major partners were German companies, BASF (a splinter from IG Farben) and E.ON. The managing director of Nord Stream AG was Matthias Warnig (former agent of Stasi), whilst German ex-chancellor, Gerhard Schröder (who in 2006 joined the advisory board of the investment bank of Rothschild) became chairman of the shareholders' committee. Nord Stream AG was registered in neutral Switzerland, due to the low levels of financial risk and high levels of privacy. In the following years Dutch N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie and French company GDF Suez, joined the project.

In Finland, the Nord Stream project received support from former Prime Minister of Finland, Paavo Lipponen, who, according to Finnish scholar Alpo Rusi, was on the so called Tiitinen list, that included names of Finish politicians suspected of having links with Stasi. A consulting company owned by Paavo Lipponen, Cosmopolis, provided consulting services on the Nord Stream (and subsequent Nord Stream 2 project).
https://warsawinstitute.org/gazprom-lobbyists-among-finlands-high-ranking-government-officials/

In Sweden, matters were arranged by former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who after leaving politics in 1994 joined two oil companies Lundin Petroleum and Vostok Nafta, which had invested most of its assets in Russian Gazprom, and which were owned by oil baron, Adolf Lundin, accused of complicity in war crimes in oil-rich Sudan. In 2006, when Carl Bildt became Minister of Foreign Affairs, he arranged Sweden's consent for the Nord Stream project. Soon thereafter Lundin Petroleum went into joint venture with Gunvor Ltd, a Russian oil company registered in Cyprus and controlled by Putin's associate Gennady Timchenko.

In Denmark, Vladimir Putin managed to pave the way by using dynastic connections between Dutch Royal Family and the Russian Royal Family of Romanovs, and by signing in 2006 a gas deal with Dutch company DONG for supply of Russian gas.

The Russians would corrupt western politicians by offering them stakes or employment in Russian energy companies and run joint ventures.

In England, Russian influence was vast and dated back as far as to the foundation of Muscovy Company in the 16th century London. The City of London elites, under leadership of the House Rothschild (who in turn were traditionally close to the Tory Party), financed the Bolshevik revolution and later Soviet Russia. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian criminal money stolen from the state assets, were laundered through British banks and invested invested in London real estate and British offshore jurisdictions. The Russians had many joint ventures with members of the British establishment and made donations to British political parties.

For example, Nathaniel Rothschild, whose family had for the last two centuries virtually shaped Britain’s foreign policy, became a trusted advisor of Oleg Deripaska, a powerful Russian-Jewish oligarch, friend of Vladimir Putin and the owner of giant aluminium company, Rusal. At the beginning of the 3rd millenium, Nathaniel Rothschild joined the advisory board of Rusal and acquired shares in a Deripaska-controled company in the UK called London and Russia Holdings plc. Nathaniel Rothschild was also a friend of George Osborne, Chancellor of Exchequer (from 2010-2016), who after ending his political career become editor of Evening Standard, a free popular London newspaper that was owned by Russian businessman Evgeny Lebedev, son of former KGB agent, Alexander Lebedev (from 2020 Lord Lebedev).

Among British companies that had joint ventures with Russian energy companies was Royal-Dutch Shell that was traditionally linked to the Rothschilds (and supplied Nazi-German war machine during World War II). Royal-Dutch Shell had 27.5% stake in the vast Sakhalin-2 gas project and would join Gazprom project of Nord Stream 2.
https://www.shell.com/media/news-and-media-releases/2017/shell-and-four-european-energy-companies-sign-financing-agreements.html
https://www.shell.com/media/news-and-media-releases/2017/shell-and-four-european-energy-companies-sign-financing-agreements.html

Other British corporations that were doing business with the Russian regime was British Petroleum which was the largest foreign investor in Russia with 19,75% stake in Russian national oil company Rosneft. It also held stakes in several other oil and gas projects in Russia. Centrica (operating in Britain under name of British Gas), Britain’s biggest supplier of gas and electricity, also had contract with Russian Gazprom for delivery of gas.

An example of a prominent EU politician who did business with Russian energy companies, was Former Prime Minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, chief of an Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe – a liberal political group in European Parliament. He was among many members of European Parliament who in addition to the salary he received for his office, also made money from the work he did on the boards of various investment firms, including Exmar — a Belgian shipping firm — which had a subsidiary operating offshore and which had a contract with Russian Gazprom for the delivery of liquidated gas.

Few other core European leaders with links to Russia were: former Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, who joined the board of Russian oil firm Lukoil; Austria's former finance minister, Jörg Schelling, who joined Russian Gazprom; Austria's ex-foreign minister Karin Kneissl, who became board member of Russian state oil company Rosneft (in which British Petroleum BP, had near-20% stake); or former French Prime Minister François Fillon, who provided consultancy work for Russian state oil company, Zaroubejneft. https://euobserver.com/foreign/151123

The Russian business network also extended beyond Europe, as many U.S. corporations either had joint ventures with the Russian businessmen or Russian companies, or invested in Russia. Best example was American ExxonMobil’s subsidiary Exxon Neftegas Limited which had 30% stake in Sakhalin 1 – a vast oil and natural gas project located off Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. It has operated the project since 1995 on behalf of a consortium that included Japanese and Indian partners, as well as two affiliates of Russian Rosneft.

Monopolizing the energy market in Europe would create a powerful web of economic and political dependency on Russia. Through manipulating gas supplies to the European market, Russian Gazprom and its western partners, could achieve a price increase for themselves, whilst society would suffer from higher gas prices and consequential inflation. This would lead to impoverishment of European society and, in the long run, de-industralization (especially of medium and smaller players in the European market) because European industry would not be able to maintain its competitiveness with very high energy prices.

Putin’s strategy also involved currency war. In the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash in 2008, when major U.S. deregulated financial institutions engaged in predatory lending, leading to the collapse of major investment banks and threatening the stability of global financial system, Russia joined forces with other major emerging national economies: Brazil, India and China (and later South Africa) in short known as BRICS, to accelerate their efforts to form a new central bank and a new global reserve currency that could, in long-term, challenge the dominance of the U.S. dollar and undermine the Anglo-American hegemony in the world.

To sum up, by corrupting western elites and making them dependent upon Russian gas, the Russian regime was seeking to achieve several geopolitical goals which were as follows: displacing US influence from Europe; undermining the integrity of NATO (and prevent enlargement of NATO); reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar trade, as well as the weakening of the European Union's cohesion in favor of bilateral and multilateral agreements such as – Pekin - Moscow – Berlin – Paris axis (with minor secondary partners)…

Russia’s invasion of Georgia

The only countries that strongly objected to Russia’s growing influence and Nord Stream project were Poland and Ukraine. Poland especially (through conservative Law and Justice Party) was forming a strong alliance with the United States, seeking to diversify its energy sources and aiming to integrate economically and politically the whole region of Central and Eastern Europe under the project called „Three Seas Initiative”, to counterbalance the Nord Stream alliance.

Polish Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński and his brother, President Lech Kaczyński, who were both members of Law and Justice Party, viewed Nord Stream project as a gigantic threat to Europe's energy security and breach of EU treaties, by allowing a possibility of bypassing EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe which thus far were transit countries for the Russian gas. By creating monopoly and holding majority stake, Russian Gazprom would be in the position to manipulate supplies, threatening European energy security.

Consequently, President of Poland Lech Kaczyński became a vocal opponent of Nord Stream and undertook efforts to make Poland less dependent on Russia's gas supplies. He developed strategic partnership with Ukraine and greater co-operation with the Baltic states, Azerbaijan and Georgia seeking to diversify gas supplies. In 2008, he also called up four European leaders and organised a trip to Georgia which was a subject of Russian military aggression.

Georgia was of Russia's strategic importance due to its transit of gas and oil and was a region that historically laid in Russia's sphere of influence. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that was completed in 2005, connected Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and Ceyhan, a port on the south-eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey, via Tibilisi, the capital of Georgia. It was a key corridor transporting hydrocarbon resources from the Caspian Sea to international market bypassing Russia. The pipeline was owned and operated by a consortium of 11 energy companies, including British Petroleum and American Exxon Mobile, with large funds coming from the World Bank. From the Russian perspective, the pipeline further weakened the Russian influence in the Caucasus.

Russian leadership decided to use international recognition of Kosovo and NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 (which historically has been protectorate of”Mother Rusia”) as precedent to back up a separatist region of South Osetia, in northern part of Georgia. Claiming to protect Russian citizens resident in South Ossetia, Russian leadership arranged a large-scale land, air and sea invasion of Georgia in 2008. Whilst the Russian troops were approaching the Georgian capital, Tibilisi, Polish President Kaczyński called leaders of Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia and organised a trip to Georgia to show solidarity in face of Russian aggression. During his speech to the Georgian crowds, on the major square of Georgia’s capital, he spoke very prophetic words:

“...We know that today it is Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after tomorrow the Baltic states, and later maybe my country, Poland. We deeply believed that our membership in NATO and European Union would bring an end to Russian appetites. But it was a mistake...”

Polish President Lech Kaczyński saw that the EU member states did not speak with one voice on the Russian military invasion on Georgia. Countries such as Germany, United Kingdom, France, Austria, Netherlands or even Italy who kept trading and doing business with Russian elites did not wish to compromise the benefits of their trade for the Georgian state which was far from the European Union and outside the NATO alliance.

By August 12, 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy secured a ceasefire arrangement with President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev and President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, which eventually resulted in formation of a broad buffer zones in South Osetia and Abhazia. About 200,000 people, mostly Georgians, were displaced and Georgia's vital military infrastructure destroyed. In result, Russian leadership got what they wanted – effective manifestation of Russia's dominance in the Caucasus region.

Not long after these events, on September 17, 2009, the anniversary of Soviet Russia's invasion on Poland in 1939, the U.S. President of Democratic Party, Barack Obama, announced his decision to abandon its plans to install a missile defence system in Eastern Europe. This meant that Washington elites were on the reset course with Russia, a policy typical for the Democratic Party in the United States that often worked in favour of American corporations, banks and businessmen who were in various joint ventures with the Russians, mainly in the oil, gas and mining sector.

Soon thereafter, on April 10, 2010, President Lech Kaczyński and the entire Polish delegation, including chief generals of Polish military forces, politicians, freedom activists and top representatives of the major public institutions died tragically when the presidential plane crashed near the military airport in Russia. They were on their way to visit Katyń graves near Smoleńsk, in Russia, for the commemoration of the thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals who were secretly murdered by the Soviet regime in 1940 and buried in the mass graves in Katyń forest and surrounding area.

Prior to the Smoleńsk flight, the presidential plane had been renovated in the aviation plant in Samara (in Russia) that belonged to Oleg Deripaska, the head of Russian aluminium giant Rusal, close associate of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and business partner of Nathaniel Rothschild.

The pro-German Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk (a political enemy of President Lech Kaczyński and his twin brother, Jarosław Kaczyński) handed over the investigation of the Smoleńsk plane crash to the Russian authorities, who concluded that the crash was the result of the pilot’s error, ignoring all other vital evidence. Few months later, on October 29, 2010, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak signed, on behalf of the Polish government, a new gas deal with Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Igor Sechin. The terms of that gas deal were extremely unfavourable to Poland. The agreement obliged Poland to buy 1.5 times more gas than Poland actually needed at a much higher price than the one offered to western European countries and on condition that Poland won't sell it to third countries.

A year later, on November 8, 2011, members of the “Nord Stream Alliance”, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of France François Fillon and Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutter celebrated the opening of the Nord Stream pipeline which construction late President Lech Kaczyński had opposed.

Further subversion of Poland and its „Three Seas Initiative Project”, by Germany and Russia (and their minor partners like Austria, Netherlands and France) was ongoing on multiple levels. Politically, Poland was tied to the directives that came from the European Union, which was controlled on decision-making level by corrupted politicians, those who often had joint ventures with the Russians in energy sector (or were promised employment in Russian energy companies) and virtually acted in favour of German-Russian elite alliance. The decisions adverse to Poland’s social and economic stability, such as closing the coal mine in Turów, were pursued through EU institutions, including politicized and biased European Court of Justice which had multiple allegations of corruption. Additionally, the German elites worked closely with the corrupted Polish politicians such as Donald Tusk of Civic Platform. For his handing of the investigation into Smoleńsk plane crash (and other actions aubversive of the Polish conservative Law and Justice Party), he was awarded the position of the President of the European Council (in 2014), and later (in 2019) the position of the leader of European People's Party (EPP), the largest party in the European Parliament that controlled European Council and European Commission….

Gerasimov Doctrine and the concept of “NETWAR”

In their attempts to extend their influence, the Russian elites relied on a doctrine developed by General Valery Gerasimov - Russia’s chief of the General Staff. He envisaged that the future war would involve a type of hybrid war that took into account unconventional tactics in fighting the enemy. The tools available and predominant in such war would be in the economic, political, social and information spheres of public life.

In Gerasimov Doctrine, it was increasingly important to use a variety of political, economic and humanitarian instruments combined with manipulating the mood of the people living in the conflict area. These activities could be supported by military means, but mainly through the operations of special forces or so called humanitarian missions. Open use of armed forces were allowed only at the later stage of the conflict, in order to seal the final success.

In the field of public information, Gerasimov Doctrine was supplemented by the doctrine of Aleksander Dunin who developed the concept of “NETWAR” that was a response to a similar doctrine developed by the experts from American RAND Corporation, John Arquill and David Ronfeldt. The main goal of the concept developed by Aleksander Dugin and related experts was the creation of a "Eurasian network" as a symmetrical response to the "Atlantic network" - that is, structures and entities whose actions, in his opinion, were harmful in Russia's geopolitical interests.

As part of successful NETWAR in Europe, the Russians would use existing networks to target the contemporary European civilization and identity as well as government institutions. This would involve support for all separatist tendencies and movements, groups such as far-right, racist, anti-globalist, as well as environmental groups, Euro-skeptics, isolationists, illegal immigrants, sects and minority organizations, national and ethnic. Some such organizations were directly or indirectly financed and organized by Russia.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0227-8

Russia's invasion of Crimea

Ukraine was of significant importance to Russia for several reasons. First, Kyiv was capital of the first East Slavic State considered to be birthplace of Russia. Second, it consisted of lands that used to be part of the Russian Empire. This included the territories in the east that were historically referred to as ”Malorossia“ (Little Russia), and Crimea and lands near the Black Sea which were annexed by Russia in the 18th century and which were referred to in Tsarist Russia as Novorossiya. Crimea was transferred to Ukraine in 1954, during the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav, by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (who was raised in Eastern Ukraine), most likely to buy support of the Ukrainian members of the Soviet Politburo.

In other words, the emergence of Ukraine as an independent state in 1991 was, in Putin’s view, an accident of history that deprived Russia of a territory which was in part russified and which was pivotal for Russia’s geostrategic interests, especially that Crimea was home to the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol.

Much to the dismay of Russia, from the moment it gained its independence in 1991, Ukraine was steadily increasing its political engagement with the western states. In June 1991, it signed a cooperation agreement with the European Union and in 1994 Ukrainian government declared that integration to the European Union is the main foreign policy objective. Like Poland, Ukraine underwent privatization reforms in 1990s, under presidency of Leonid Kuchma, that benefited the Soviet-era managers and people connected to the communist state. The country was run by an oligarchic regime still linked to Russia through its intelligence services Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrayiny, which was a branch of the Russian intelligence services. The whole of its industrial sector, located mainly in four eastern oblasts – Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk, were entirely dependent on Russian natural gas supplies.

For many western leaders, Ukraine was terra incognita, a state with no distinguishable history and heritage. Ukraine’s unsettled relations with the western leaders were used by the Russian elites as justification for their expansion into these territories. London and Washington elites and the more Moscow did not also look favourably at the fact that Ukraine inherited the third largest nuclear weapon stockpile in the world. This could potentially change the balance of powers in the region of Central and Eastern Europe that historically was subject of colonization by the major European powers. Consequently, Ukrainian authorities yielded to the pressure from London, Washington and Moscow, and agreed to give up their nuclear weapons as part of so called Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. In return, the three nuclear powers, Great Britain, United States and Russia, gave Ukraine security assurances with regards to its territorial integrity and political independence.

At the same time, one of the main strategic principles of Russia was to keep Kyiv government under Russia’s political control. In this way, they could extend their influence into the Balkan region and Central European states, becoming gatekeepers of the European Continent.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, once a National Security Adviser to US President Jimmy Carter, understood the importance of Ukraine very well and therefore stated in his 1997 book - The Grand Chessboard - that Ukraine is “geopolitical pivot” and that “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian Empire”.

Thus, since the country's independence in 1991, the Anglo-American elites sent money into Ukraine to curb Russia's influence in this region. The prime speculator of the City of London, George Soros, operated there via International Renaissance Foundation, whilst the Washington elites channeled money to Ukraine through U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

In 2004, the elections in Ukraine were rigged to push through Moscow-backed candidate, Victor Yanukovych. In response, the Ukrainian people came to Maidan, Kyiv's Independence Square, to protests the election fraud. Although Putin’s political enemies like Jewish oligarch Boris Berezovsky contributed funds to the protests, this so called Orange Revolution was a manifestation of the will of the Ukrainian people who wanted to determine their own political and cultural orientation.

Victor Yanukovych’s successor, Victor Yushchenko, looked towards the European Union and less toward Russia. During his term in office, there was a dispute between Ukraine’s Naftohaz and Russian Gazprom, which used Ukraine’s dependency on Russian gas supplies to impose higher gas prices. The dispute resulted in Gazprom cutting off in winter time all gas supplies passing through Ukrainian territory, that adversely affected Ukrainian citizens and threatened additionally gas supplies in numerous European countries.

Subsequently, Russia’s aim was to consistently discredit Ukraine as an unreliable trading partner (failure to settle gas debts) and as a transit country, to force the European Commission to adopt decisions favorable to Moscow concerning construction of alternative gas routes that is - South Stream pipeline (from Russia through the Black Sea to Bulgaria and through Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia further to Austria – later replaced by Turkish Stream) and Nord Stream pipeline (from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea).

In 2010, pro-Russian Victor Yanukovych became again President of Ukraine. When in 2013, he rejected pending EU association agreement, mass protests broke out again at the Maidan square in Kyiv. In the following months, in various regions, there were bloody clashes between pro-Maidan and anti-Maidan government forces.

In response to the crisis, U.S. President Barrack Obama appointed Victoria Nuland (the wife of Robert Kagan, the co-founder of PNAC) US Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. In early February 2014, a leaked conversation between Victoria Nuland and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, revealed how the Washington elites spoke about which opposition leaders they would like to see in government.

At one point Victoria Nuland said: “I don't think Klitsch should go into the government. I don't think it's necessary...”, and later she added: “I think Yats [Arseniy Yatsenyuk] is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience.”

In consequences of the national protests, in a deal brokered by German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, President Yanukovych was forced to make concessions and call for early presidential elections. Consequently, President Yanukovych took refuge in Russia, whilst US-backed Arseniy Yatsenyuk was appointed head of interim government in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s retaliatory move for US interference in Ukraine was to annex Crimea. Following the bloody clashes in various parts of Ukraine, President Putin and his generals, including Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu, sent special forces and annexed Crimea within days, in breach of 1975 Helsinki Accords and 1994 Budapest Memorandum. In the subsequent referendum that was organized by Russian authorities, the people of Crimea voted to join Russian Federation, as majority of population in Crimea were of Russian origin. And within weeks, Russian-backed rebels declared independence in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of East Ukraine, collectively called Donbas (from "Donets Coal Basin"), a large mining and industrial region that was mainly populated by Russians.

In order to justify its policies towards Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Russia’s ruling elites were making assertions that Ukraine has never been a ‘real’ country in its own right and came to exist as patchwork of diverse territories, some of which were previously part of the Russian Empire. Putin and his cronies presented historical narrative in a very selective way, adapted to the soviet ideology, trying to justify its case for the revision of borders in Europe.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

Furthermore, the Russian ruling elites maintained that there was no such thing as Ukrainian nation. In their view, the Ukrainian nationalism was centered around Stepan Bandera, who during the World War II, collaborated with the Nazi-Germans and inspired Ukrainian nationalists to “cleanse” Ukrainian lands from the Soviets and the Poles. This derogatory belief about Ukrainian nation was expressed by chief personal advisor to Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, Vladislav Surkov, who stated in an interview:

“Ukraine is not. There is Ukrainianism. That is, a specific mental disorder. Surprisingly brought to the extreme degree passion for ethnography. Such bloody lore. Muddle instead of the state. There is borscht, Bandera, bandura. But there is no nation. There is a pamphlet called “Samostiyna Ukraine”, but there is no Ukraine. The only question is, does Ukraine no longer exist, or does it not exist yet? (…) Relations with Ukraine have never been easy, even when Ukraine was part of Russia. Ukraine has always been troublesome for the imperial and Soviet bureaucracy (..) Forced coercion into fraternal relations is the only method that has historically proven effective in the Ukrainian direction. I do not think that any other will be invented...”
https://actualcomment.ru/surkov-mne-interesno-deystvovat-protiv-realnosti-2002260855.html

London and Washington elites were stunned by Russia’s annexation of Crimea. British Prime Minister David Cameron had telephone conversations with Vladimir Putin in February and March 2014. David Cameron was blunt: “Your relationship with us will face increasing difficulties unless you stop the aggression”, to which Vladimir Putin replied:

“...This is my backyard. The West has repeatedly humiliated me over Libya, over Syria, etc..for the last ten years...”

Apart from the introduction of soft economic sanctions against increasingly aggressive Russian state, the leaders of Great Britain and United States did not hasten to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity despite being signatories to the 1994 Budapest memorandum. The reason behind it was that the American, British, Dutch, German and other EU companies were making money doing business with Russia. In February 2016, General Electric and sanctioned Russian energy firm Rosneft announced a long-term cooperation program for joint manufacturing of marine, oil and gas and electrical equipment. Dutch companies started to help Russia build bridge over Kerch Straits connecting Crimea with the Russian territory, whilst German company Simens provided turbines for Russian power stations in Crimea. The French companies delivered arms to Russia after the EU imposed sanctions, including an arms embargo, against Russia. The French equipment delivered after 2014 would have enabled Russia’s army and air force to modernize its vehicles, notably with cameras and navigation systems for aircraft. And the German company Bosch has supplied the components for the Russian infantry vehicles.

Furthermore, in 2015, a group of European companies: Anglo-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell, German E.ON (PEG Infrastruktur AG), German BASF (Wintarshall Unit), Austrian OMV and French Engie signed an agreement with Russian Gazprom for the construction of the second gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea to hugely increase the volume of the gas transited to Germany from Russia and make Europe even more dependent upon Russian gas supplies. From the very beginning it was clear that from Russia’s perspective the main goal of the implementation of Nord Stream 2 was to bypass Ukraine and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe whilst Germany hoped to increase its role as Europe’s central gas hub. About three quarters of funds to finance Nord Stream 2 project would come from the German and international banks.
https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2022-02-23/a-dangerous-dependence-russia-germany-and-gas-crisis#_ftnref2

The role of the banking elites in German-Russian cooperation was absolutely crucial. Nord Stream project was financed by consortium of multiple banks: Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Deka Bank Deutsche Girozentrale, UniCredit Bank AG, UniCredit SpA, WestLB AG, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. (Niederlassung Deutshland and Milan branch), Raiffeisen Zentralbank Oesterreich AG, ING Bank N.V., ING Bank N.V. (Frankfurt branch), Fortis Bank Nederland, Credit Swiss AG, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, PNP Paribas, Bayerishe Landesbank, Caja Madrid, Natixis, Nordea Bank AB (publ), SEB AG (Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken), Société Genéralé, The Royal Bank of Scotland N.V. London Branch, The Royal Bank of Scotland N.V. Niedelassung Deutschland, Espirito Santo Investment, Standard Bank, Barclays Bank PLC, Citibank International PLC, Citibank Europe PLC, Intesa San Paolo Ireland PLC, KfW IPEX Bank Gmbh, Mediobanka International (Luxembourg S.A.), bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (Holland), Mizuho corporate Bank, ltd, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Banks such as Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Citibank, Credit Swiss, PNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Barclays Bank PLC or ING had a history of financing, co-operating with or profiting from Nazi-German genocidal policies and looting of Europe during World War II. They were never held accountable for their previous collaboration with criminal regimes.
http://www.gazprom.com/press/news/2010/march/article87053/
https://www.nord-stream.com/media/news/press_releases/en/2011/03/nord-stream-completes-phase-ii-financing_20110304.pdf

Londongrad Haven

Just like before World War II, the City of London played crucial role in helping aggressive Russian regime to undermine European security. It is noteworthy that the banking elites of the City of London, especially the House of Rothschild, supported the Soviet regime from its early days and Great Britain was doing business with Soviet Russia during World War II and during the Cold War. After the fall of the Soviet Union, in the 1990-ties, the money that was made on the privatization of Soviet Russia’s state assets was channelled out to the City of London and other tax havens under British jurisdiction. It involved billions of pounds invested in London real estate, donations to Britain’s political parties (both Labour and Conservative) and joint ventures between the Russians and members of the British establishment, including members of the House of Lords. Thanks to the secrecy of British offshore jurisdictions, the Russian elites, who were virtually controlled by former KGB members, could successfully hide their criminal proceeds and avoid accountability. Many lucrative properties in central London were owned by offshore trusts whose beneficial owners were Russian oligarchs or people linked with Russian regime. Transparency International published a report that identified £1.5bn-worth of UK property owned by Russians accused of corruption or links to the Kremlin.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/20/uk-weakening-threat-to-kremlin-by-failing-to-close-property-loophole

On March 20, 2017, the Guardian newspaper exposed the secret connections between the City of London and the Russian state. In an article called “British banks handled vast sums of laundered Russian money”, it showed that circa $20bn had been moved out of Russia via a network of the British offshore companies. The investigators focused on a number of companies including Seabon Limited, which was run by a company management firm in Tooley Street, just around the corner from the Mayor of London's office and City Hall in London. The operation involved the Russian banks, top Russian government figures including President Vladimir Putin and Russian Secret Services FSB, at least 17 UK banks including HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds, Barclays and Coutts as well as American banks such as Citibank and Bank of America. The day after these money-laundering revelations, on March 21, 2017, Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, member of Labour Party, raised a number of questions in the House of Commons. These were addressed to Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, who was represented by Simon Kirby, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City Minister, who represented the interests of the City of London:

Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell:

“First, it is alleged that, via an operation referred to as the “global laundromat”, banks based in Britain have been used to launder immense sums of money obtained from criminal activity in Russia linked to the FSB spy agency there. This appears to point to an overwhelming failure of basic management on the part of the banks. One of those banks, HSBC, is an institution that has previously faced money laundering charges in the US and across the globe. The direct intervention of this government helped to block a 2012 investigation on the purported grounds of its potential risk to financial stability. In the case of another bank, RBS, THE GOVERNMENT DIRECTLY OWN A 72% STAKE. A third bank, Barclays, has been under investigation for its role in LIBOR rigging. Will the Minister give us specific details of what steps are being taken to address this scandal? (...)“

Roger Mullin, MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath; Scottish National Party:

“This revelation is SHOCKING, but it is not in the least bit surprising. For over a year, I have been campaigning in this House on associated areas. After the story was released yesterday evening, I undertook research that indicates that at the heart of the issue is the banks’ use of limited partnerships—not only Scottish limited partnerships, but many other forms—that allow the criminals to hide their ownership of companies. It is through that mechanism that these things are happening.”

Mr Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering, Conservative Party:

How many money launderers have been sent to prison in the past five years?

City Minister Simon Kirby:

I am not aware of the exact answer to that question, but I will write to my honourable Friend with all the information I have. I am convinced that, across the world and in this country, money laundering is taken very seriously.

Ian Austin, MP for Dudley North, Labour Party:

The Home Affairs Committee estimates that £100 billion is laundered through London every year, but only 0.17% of that has been frozen, so the Minister might as well go to Heathrow and put up a welcome sign for Russian murderers and money launderers. Five criminal complaints have been submitted to UK law enforcement agencies about money laundering connected to the Magnitsky case. Not a single one has resulted in the opening of a criminal case, whereas 12 other countries have opened investigations on the same evidence. So the question is this: what is necessary to get UK law enforcement agencies to do their jobs and prosecute money launderers? Why has that not been working, and what is the minister going to do about it?

House of Commons Hansard, 21 March 2017, volume 623,
“Money Laundering: British Banks”;
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-03-21/debates/C6DDD86E-7A03-42D9-B8A8-612AD37EB93D/MoneyLaunderingBritishBanks

The partition of Ukraine – Minsk Accords - Prelude to war

Unstopped by the western leaders, Russia-backed rebels took control of Donbas which led to the establishment of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR). At the same time, the rebels tried to occupy the largest possible area, probably counting on the fact that in exchange for its return, they would negotiate a reform of the Ukrainian constitution. This would sanction the federalisation of the country and guarantee the autonomy of Donbas which would give Russia permanent influence over Ukraine’s foreign policy.

As the Russia-backed rebels increased their military offensive, in 2014, a ceasefire for east Ukraine has been agreed during talks in Minsk between Ukrainian government representatives and separatist leaders. The peace proposal was drafted by representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). As part of so called Minsk Accords, the government in Kyiv was forced to give Donbas the so-called "Special status", and allow for subsequent local elections. Kyiv government considered this solution temporary and necessary to achieve cease-fire, but Russia from the beginning aimed at breaking the country internally and weakening the central government in Kyiv, which they considered ‘Little Russians’ under ‘fascist’ and US control.

As there were frequent violations of the ceasefire by both parties to the conflict, a followed-up memorandum was signed two weeks later that required heavy weapons to be pulled back from the front lines to create a buffer zone. The truce again struggled to hold amid disputes over sequencing and finally collapsed in January 2015. Second Minsk Accords were signed in February 2015. The deal was imposed upon Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, by German chancellor and Putin’s strategic ally, Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande. All the present leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, agreed that a ceasefire would come into force at midnight on Saturday night, Valentine’s Day. Both sides’ heavy weapons would be withdrawn from the combat zone in the ensuing weeks. Donbas was to be granted a wide range of autonomy, under which it would, inter alia, have the right to independently conclude international agreements. These provisions were to be confirmed by the reform of the constitution sanctioning the transformation of the country into a federation of regions with varying degrees of autonomy, effectively giving Russia the power to veto Kyiv’s foreign policy choices.

In other words, German and French leaders surrendered to Russia’s demands and agreed that Ukraine would steadily loose its sovereignty in favour of Russia.

While the fighting on a larger scale was halted, the full halt and withdrawal of heavy weapons from the buffer zone never took place. Consequently, other political points of Minsk Accords were not carried out by Kyiv government, who in fact considered Minsk Accords a surrender to Moscow.

American plans to destabilize Russia – the echo of the Cold War

As the Minsk Accords were not bringing any solution to the conflict, the United States were increasing its support for the Kyiv government, supplying it with funds and arms. In 2015, Victoria Nuland testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee: “Since the crisis began, the United States provided almost $355 million in foreign assistance – in addition to the May 2014 $1 billion loan guarantee – to strengthen energy security; insulate Ukraine’s poorest citizens from the impact of rising gas costs; help fight corruption; strengthen the Ukrainian border guard and military – $118 million in security support alone – and to support political reforms, elections and cleaner government.”…
https://2009-2017.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2015/mar/238147.htm

The RAND corporation, which provides research and analysis for the U.S. Armed Forces and U.S. administration, often developing war strategies, had published in 2019, a brief on the report that outlined options that aimed to weaken and unbalance Putin’s Russia. It was made explicit in the brief that its „work builds on the concept of long-term strategic competition developed during the Cold War, some of which originated at RAND.” Consequently, the report examined “non-violent, cost- imposing options that the United States and its allies could pursue across economic, political, and military areas to stress - overextend and unbalance - Russia’s economy and armed forces and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad.”.

The strategy proposed by RAND included: expanding U.S. energy production (to expand world supply and depress global prices that could limit Russian revenue), imposing deeper trade and financial sanctions (that would degrade Russian economy), increasing Europe’s ability to import gas from suppliers other than Russia (preferably from the United States and their partners), encouraging the emigration from Russia of skilled labor and well-educated youth, and reducing Russia’s influence in Central Asia.

One of the points also concerned Ukraine: „Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages.” The geopolitical benefits and costs of providing „lethal aid to Ukraine” were estimated as high.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/RB10000/RB10014/RAND_RB10014.pdf

So, following the policy adopted during Cold War, the elites of Washington D.C. were aiming to apply a variety of political, financial, military and economic tools to weaken Russia as that would allow them to break the Russian-German gas monopoly in Europe (“Northern Alliance”), at the same time elevating the economic and political role of the United States and NATO alliance. Among these tools was dragging Russia into a war with Ukraine, which could become „Another Afghanistan”, that is a protracted guerrilla war which, combined with western sanctions, could bring Russia to economic, financial and political breakdown...

The corruption of western elites and the spectre of World War III

In anticipation of the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, that could result in western sanctions, the Russian elites were building up financial reserves and made other pre-emptive sanction-proofing moves. In 2018, Russia dumped 84% of its US Treasury bonds protecting itself against future U.S. economic sanctions that would affect their ability to trade US Treasuries. Instead, they bought gold, dollars, euro and yuan currencies.
https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/30/investing/russia-us-debt-treasury/index.html
Also, in 2019, Russian Rosneft, one of the world’s top oil producers and exporters, has notified customers that future tender contracts for oil products will be denominated in euros not dollars.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-rosneft-tenders-euro-idUSKCN1VB15J

The Russians also awaited conclusion of Nord Stream 2. In case of Russia’s aggression on Ukraine, the completion of Nord Stream was important, as major banks and European corporations invested in this project and that fact would make it difficult for the European politicians to introduce hard sanctions against Russia. Furthermore, any sanctions against Russia or cutting Europe from Russian gas supplies would largely affect European energy security (especially of those countries like Germany who made themselves reliant upon Russian gas) and would lead to rapid increase in gas prices and consequently amplify already rampant European inflation.

The situation was so much worse that the policy of taxing CO2 emissions, forced so far mainly by Germany and the European Union (in line with the EU energy transition policy) that encouraged countries to switch to gas and renewable energies, was meant to create a space for the distribution of Russian gas, with Germany becoming main distributor. By giving up the gas monopoly to Russia, the Russian elites began to take advantage of this and started to manipulate the supply which eventually increased the market price of gas in Europe in the second half of 2021, just before the winter season. This way the Russian elites were also attempting to force the acceleration of certification for the use of the just completed Nord Stream 2. Thus Germany was falling into the trap of its cunning plan, as the CO2 emission rights had previously been admitted to trading on the stock exchange without any regulation, which made it a financial instrument of stock market speculators in a short time. The effect of this was that in a few months, along with the deepening crisis between Ukraine and Russia, the prices of these emission rights increased many times, causing a huge energy crisis and the specter of the collapse of many industries in Europe due to catastrophic energy costs. The situation of Europe’s dependency on Russian gas, made Putin believe that European countries would not be able to stand up to Russia in case of a military aggression towards Ukraine.

Knowing that any decisions on part of the European Union would require unanimity, Putin counted that Russia’s trading partners and allies, Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands and Cyprus would prevent any hard sanctions against Russia. One additional element was that various politicians in the European Union were corrupted by the Russians and they would obviously advocate for Russian interests in the European Union.

The confidence of Vladimir Putin and his power circle was further encouraged by (real or apparent) weakness and incompetence of the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden. Not only, Biden’s administration downplayed Russia’s threat by withdrawing from sanctions against Nord Stream 2, ignoring the Russian-German alliance which was aimed at reducing the influence of United States in Europe, but it also showed its weakness by arranging a chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, shifting its focus on the USA rivalry with China.

The Russian leadership might have seen President Biden as front man representing U.S. corporate lobby, which thus far had business dealings with Russian companies or invested in Russia as well as in Russian companies. According to the sixth annual joint survey of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia (AmCham) and Ernst & Young, American companies operating in Russia have made direct investments amounting to a total of US$ 96.05 billion. Ernst & Young provided additionally that “For 73.5% of US companies surveyed, Russia is a strategic market”. Further to this, any future U.S. sanctions would put American businesses at a disadvantage. The same was true of many British companies and the City of London financial institutions.
https://www.russia-briefing.com/news/us-businesses-have-invested-nearly-us-100-billion-in-russia.html/

In late 2021, when many European states’ economies were still suffering from the Covid-pandemic and its economic repercussions, growing energy prices and high inflation, the Russian elites decided it was the right moment to strike against Ukraine. Preparing the ground for potential invasion, the agents of Russia and Russia’s vassal state, Belarus, lured masses of illegal migrants from the Middle East and Africa to travel to Belarus, from where they were directed towards Belarus’ border with Poland and encouraged, at the point of gun, to cross illegally the border with Poland. This directed Poland’s and world’s attention towards the Polish-Belarusian border whilst the Russian elites were amassing troops near the border with Ukraine. Within weeks, on pretext of military exercise, more Russian troops and military equipment arrived into Belarus, near the borders of NATO members Poland and Lithuania, and its southern flank with Ukraine. Nearly 200 000 Russian troops gathered along Ukrainian borders.

In January 2022, the Russian leaders presented the Washington elites a wish-list of security demands, primarily, that NATO and its allies ban Ukraine and former Soviet states from joining the alliance and that NATO would pull back troops from former Communist states in central and eastern Europe that joined the alliance after the Cold War. These demands were rejected.

Also in January, protests erupted in Kazakhstan (major post-Soviet, oil and gas-rich state in Central Asia), where the post-Soviet, Russified kleptocrats decided to scrap gas subsidies driving up fuel prices. To appease the crowds, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev removed much-hated head of Security Council Nursultan Nazarbayev from his post and when that was not enough he asked Russian President Vladimir Putin, to “aid” Kazakhstan. Russian Army Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov was in charge of subsequent Russian military intervention in Kazakhstan.

On February 4, 2022, Russia signed a trade deal and non-aggression pact with China, hoping it would help Russia to evade potential western economic sanctions in case of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. Both, China and Russia were staunch US adversaries who were determined to reduce the power of the United States and undermine the international monetary system that was established after World War II and based on US petrodollar regime.

On Wednesday, February 23, 2022, in his televised speech, Vladimir Putin attempted to provide justification of his planned military invasion by portraying Ukraine as fictitious state, created by Russia, infected by nationalism and ruled by corrupted oligarchs. He stated that Ukraine was home to NATO training missions which were, in his opinion, foreign military bases. He emphasized the threat of NATO’s eastward expansion and that Kyiv regime is being pumped with arms. He also stated that Ukraine intended to develop nuclear weapons and that in 2021, a new Military Strategy was adopted in Ukraine dedicated to confrontation with Russia and setting the goal of involving foreign states in a conflict with Russia. Finally, he was referring to Ukrainian ruling elite as neo-Nazi and accused Kyiv government of genocide in Donbas.
https://theprint.in/world/modern-ukraine-entirely-created-by-russia-read-full-text-of-vladimir-putins-speech/843801/

Putin in other words was admitting that he aimed to arrange a military operation to liquidate Ukrainian nationalists and install a pro-Russian regime in Kyiv, in order to protect the Russian population and Russia itself against NATO entrenchment.

The impending escalation of a conflict in Ukraine was predicted by chief personal advisor to Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, Vladislav Surkov, who resigned his office in 2020, stating in an interview:

“I chose Ukraine. Purely intuitive. No one told me and I myself did not know anything. And no one knew for sure. I simply felt, or rather I sensed, that it was going to be a big deal. Serious. With victims and sanctions. Because the West will stop at neither one nor the other. Yes, and we will not stand up for the price. (…)”.
https://actualcomment.ru/surkov-mne-interesno-deystvovat-protiv-realnosti-2002260855.html

On Thursday, February 24, 2022, after the end of Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, in China, following weeks of international efforts and negotiations to stop the forthcoming war, with the leading role of Poland which was presiding over Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Russia started a full scale invasion on Ukraine. Vladimir Putin and his generals counted on a swift Blitzkrieg-style military operation that would allow Russian army to seize Ukraine (mainly the capital city and eastern territories) within few days, before any potential sanction begin to damage Russia’s economy.

The ambitions of the Russian elites clashed however with the unexpected heroic resistance of the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainians were hampering the advance of the Russian army, which lacked trained soldiers, modern equipment and high morale, and suffered from logistical problems. The outstanding fight of the Ukrainian people and the public images of civilian casualties and barbarity of the Russian army soon caused international outrage that sparked massive global condemnation and made huge unprecedented pressure on politicians and international institutions, banks and corporations to isolate Russia from international community.

The avalanche of sanctions, including the ban on several Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments network, freezing the assets of Russian leaders, oligarchs, and certain companies, withdrawal of western companies from the Russian market, introducing ban on imports of various products from Russia, including to some extent oil and gas, was deepening Russia’s isolation, weakening its economy, simultaneously integrating the NATO alliance and America's military presence in Central and Eastern Europe. In few days, the situation changed so rapidly that the whole German-Russian project of Nord Stream 2 went bankrupt, and the German elites began for the first time to talk about the need to diversify their energy sources. This was making space for potential acquisitions of gas from the United States. Thus the aims of the 2019 RAND corporation report were steadily coming to realization.

Yet, even in the midst of international pressure, and growing number of civilian casualties in Ukraine, certain western leaders were not willing to instantly break their ties with Putin’s Russia. These were the countries who historically were part of the so called Northern Alliance and in the last decades made themselves reliant upon Russian gas supplies, or had been in various joint ventures with the Russians.
https://forvictims.co.uk/articles/old-alliances-die-hard.php

Thus Germany which acquired roughly 50% of its gas from Russia (taking just under 20% of all Russian gas exports in 2020, making it its biggest customer) and whose quarter of gas storage facilities was partly or fully controlled by Gazprom or affiliated companies, refused to sanction two banks that were handling payments for gas deliveries through Nord Stream 1, and shortly before Russian invasion they blocked deliveries of weapons to Ukraine. Deutsche Bank, which in the past financed Nazi-Germany and in recent times co-financed Nord Stream project, was one of the last banks to close its operations in Russia.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (from Green Party) stated that Germany as a whole <“helped to build up the current power of Russia” and operated “large-scale defense cooperation with Russia”.
https://gettotext.com/russian-infantry-vehicles-use-bosch-components/

The British Conservative government, which traditionally represented the interest of the City of London financial elites, did not immediately sanction all the Russian oligarchs affiliated with the Russian regime. It took them time to sanction people like Roman Abramovich, Russian-Jewish billionaire oligarch and friend of Putin, who had Israeli citizenship and was major investor in the UK and Israel. David Lammy, the foreign affairs spokesman for the main British opposition Labour Party made it clear that: “The government’s failure to keep pace with the EU and the U.S. on sanctions is allowing Putin-linked oligarchs to salvage hundreds of millions in assets”.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk-unable-prove-case-sanctions-against-russian-oligarchs-like-abramovich-times-2022-03-03/

It must be remembered that it was the elites of the City of London who developed the whole concept of tax haven jurisdictions which enabled the corrupted oligarchs (whether from Russia or elsewhere) to hide their assets to avoid criminal prosecution. This involved corruption of part of the British politicians, estate agents, accountants and City lawyers who were enriching themselves by facilitating money-laundering on a massive scale.
https://forvictims.co.uk/articles/great-escape-to-tax-haven.php

It is also noteworthy that UK Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson (friend of Nathaniel Rothschild and George Osborne from their Oxford student days), nominated Evgeny Lebedev, son of a former KGB agent, for a life peerage in July 2020, which came days after the intelligence and security committee warned of the growing influence of “Russian elite” in British life.

Dominik Grieve QC, former attorney general for England and Wales and former chair of the intelligence and security committee of British Parliament, admitted after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that the corruption of the British financial and political elites helped to build economic power of Russia:

“...We have failed entirely to craft an adequate response to Putin. Neither the recent British programme to train and engage with the Ukrainian military, nor the empty last-minute ministerial rhetoric challenging the Russian leader’s threats, can conceal the truth: that we have allowed Putin to conclude that the destruction of Ukraine comes at an affordable price...The intelligence and security committee inquiry on Russia, whose open report the prime minister suppressed for nine months on an entirely bogus pretext, was presented with the clearest evidence that Russia saw no distinction between economic and state interests, and that it used elements of its diaspora in the UK to further its interests...Meanwhile, we tolerated their financial corruption, and encouraged the use of London as a centre to launder the proceeds…”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/27/our-tolerance-of-russian-corruption-in-britain-fatally-clouded-our-judgment-ukraine
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/mar/15/british-law-firms-help-oligarchs-avoid-legitimate-media-scrutiny-mps-told

The Dutch elites, who were traditionally part of the “Northern Alliance”, rejected Ukraine’s plea for fast tract admission to the EU, and so did the German and French elites, fearing that this would strengthen Poland’s voice in the EU institutions. Additionally, French President Emmanuel Macron (former employee of Rothschild Bank) explicitly warned French companies against giving up business in Russia.

Israel, which had close ties to both Ukraine and Russia through the Jewish diaspora, appeared to be playing both sides, offering humanitarian support to Ukraine, whilst keeping in touch with Russian regime. On the 5th of March 2022, that is in the second week of Russia’s invasion, when it was already a public knowledge that Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett traveled to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in person. During the meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett reportedly talked about humanitarian aid for the war refugees, including Jewish population of Ukraine, but it seemed that the main purpose of his visit was to prevent Russia from assiting Iran in the build-up of Iran’s nuclear program.
https://www.reuters.com/world/israeli-pm-bennett-meets-putin-moscow-discuss-ukraine-crisis-2022-03-05/

It must be remembered that large sums of money stolen in Russia by Russian-Jewish oligarchs after collapse of the Soviet Union were invested in Israel. For example, Roman Abramovich, close friend of Vladimir Putin, donated millions of pounds to various institutions in Israel, including Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University’s new Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. Furthermore, Abramovich financed Elad, a highly controversial Israeli settler group accused of displacing Palestinian families from Jerusalem. In 2018, a month after the British authorities delayed renewing his visa due to rising tentions between Britain and Russia, after poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal, Israel offered him Israeli citizenship.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/billionaire-roman-abramovich-revealed-as-30m-tel-aviv-university-donor-539824
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/21/leaks-show-chelsea-owner-abramovich-funded-israeli-settler-group

That is why, after sanctions were imposed against Russian oligarchs, many of them, including Roman Abramovich, reportedly sought refuge in Israel, which has not joined western sanctions against Russia.<
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-private-jets-oligarchs-sanctions-israel-2022-3?IR=T
https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-israel-avoids-sanctions-on-oligarchs-14-private-jets-arrive-from-russia-report/

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army and the whole Ukrainian nation, supplied with weapons from many countries, and intelligence data from the United States, heroically opposed the brutal invasion of their country under leadership of courageous Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskiy. Their outstanding fight and especially President Zelenskiy’s steadfast, composed demeanor and ability to uphold society's high morale was building an epic foundation myth that this nation craved for so long, proving to the world that it was worth its independence and membership in the European Community. The Ukrainian people stood up for the core values that the European civilization signified: freedom, virtue and courage, democracy, nation’s right to choose its political and economic future, as well as national pride and readiness to fight for one’s land - that is all the values that the leftists Franco-German elites and their allies in the European Union were attempting to reduce in favour of neo-communist agenda of corporate monopoly.

Furthermore, by heroically standing up to Russia’s invasion, Ukraine was re-building its difficult historical relations with Poland, which became its staunch friend and advocate in the time of war, welcoming millions of refugees that were coming from war-torn Ukraine. The Poles were admiring the heroism of the Ukrainian people which reminded them of their own heroic struggle throughout the centuries against the same brutal aggressor.

On the 15th of March 2022, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, accompanied by Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and Slovenian Prime Minister, Janez Jansa made a courageous decision to travel to Kyiv, in the midst of the military conflict, to show their support and to present President Zelenskiy and his government with the bold idea to create an international humanitarian mission in Ukraine with a back up of NATO military force. Polish Deputy Prime Minister, Jaroslaw Kaczyński, was part of the Polish delegation. He was the brother of late President Lech Kaczyński, who travelled to Tibilisi, Georgia, in 2008, during Russia’s invasion of Georgia, and made a landmark prophetic speech that predicted Russia’s future invasion of Ukraine. Two years later, in 2010, President Lech Kaczyński died tragically in a Smoleńsk plane crash in Russia, where collective evidence suggested a political assassination. President Zelenskiy made reference to Smoleńsk plane crash, during his earlier speech to the Polish parliamentarians: “We remember the terrible tragedy in Smolensk in 2010. We remember how the circumstances of this catastrophe were investigated. We know what it meant for you and what meant the silence of those who knew everything exactly, but all the time still looked at our neighbor ... "

In face of the common enemy in the East, Russia's invasion of Ukraine had thus become the catalyst of the Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation and this was lying foundation for a new strong strategic alliance between Poland and Ukraine. That in turn was creating conditions for the revival of the Commonwealth of Central and Eastern European nations (“Three Seas Initiative”) which in long term could completely change the balance of powers in Europe.

Putin, who clearly miscalculated his move, not anticipating such concerted actions on part of the western governments, and such heroic resistance in Ukraine, did not however decide to withdraw. Like in Chechnya or Syria, the Russian leadership decided to focus on intense bombing and indiscriminate air attacks against residential areas and civilian infrastructure to undermine the defenders’ morale. By committing war crimes and by ordering nuclear deterrence forces on high alert, Vladimir Putin become a threat to world security.

Condemnations of Russia’s actions rang out around the European continent, but Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė made most blunt remarks: “Putin just put Kafka and Orwell to shame: no limits to dictator’s imagination, no lows too low, no lies too blatant, no red lines too red to cross. What we witnessed tonight might seem surreal for the democratic world. But the way we respond will define us for the generations to come.”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/21/world/ukraine-russia-putin-biden

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskiy made desperate pleas to NATO alliance to establish ‘no fly’ zone over Ukrainian territory or sent fighter jets, to prevent bombings of civilian targets, but NATO members were not willing to help Ukraine in this manner, claiming they wished to avoid NATO’s open war with Russia. Despite previous assertions on part of the U.S. administration that Poland could send planes to Ukraine, the US authorities eventually declined Polish proposal to provide Soviet-era fighter jets (MiG-29) to Ukraine when the Polish leaders proposed to transfer these planes via the U.S. airbase in Ramstein, Germany.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/08/poland-mig-29-jets-us-ukraine

The approach of the United States, which had obligations to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity on the basis of 1994 Budapest Memorandum, showed that the United States were not a reliable ally and that a prolonged conflict in Ukraine served the U.S. administration. Not only the war was steadily killing the Russian economy, removing it as United States’ competitor in the filed of energy supply, but the US corporations and savvy investors were also making profits in arms trade. In only the first week of fighting, investors in the US have already posted $69 billion in stock gains on the 33 major defense and aerospace stocks in the largest Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) of its kind, the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF.

For example, Northrop Grumman, one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers, pulled 9% past analysts' 12-month price target on the stock. Shares were up a powerful 18% since the war began, putting $10.9 billion into investors' portfolios. It was a similar story with Lockheed Martin, Pentagon’s largest contractor. Following a 27% run-up just this year, and 16% since the war, shares blasted past analysts' price target by some 7%.
https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/sp500-investors-gain-69-billion-dollars-off-russia-war-and-upside-remains/
https://www.activistpost.com/2022/03/as-ukrainians-get-killed-and-displaced-weapons-companies-reaping-record-profits-off-their-suffering.html

And there was much more money to be made as various nations were looking to enlarge their defense capabilities, especially those on the eastern flank of NATO. For example the Polish leaders announced in the second week of invasion, that London-based company Babcock International concluded a series of strategic cooperation partnering agreements with the Polish PGZ-Miecznik consortium for delivering three frigates from shipyards in the Polish port city Gdynia.
https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2022/03/04/polish-navy-chooses-arrowhead-140-design-for-new-frigates/

At the same time, London government was reluctant to accommodate Ukrainian war refugees. The people who were fleeing home in Ukraine were traumatized by the treatment they received from the British consulate authorities in Paris and the whole visa application process. Most likely, the British elites feared that Ukrainian people would organize anti-government protests that would expose the scale of the affiliations between the Russian oligarchs and Britain’s business and political class.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/britain-may-ease-immigration-rules-ukrainian-refugees-sun-2022-03-07/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/08/ukrainian-family-describe-trauma-of-uk-visa-processing

For the same reason, just days after hundreds of people had gathered outside of Downing Street in a show of support for Ukraine, the British Conservatives passed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Bill (first introduced in 2021) that proposed measures that would restrict protest rights.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/uk-policing-bill-ukrainian-protest-criminalise/

“History is the Teacher of Life” (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

Just like during World War I and World War II, the region of Central and Eastern Europe had become the playground of Global Powers, soaking the blood of innocent people for the greed of western corporate elites. And once again, the elites of the City of London and Washington D.C., which were thus far doing business with the Russian regime and their affiliates, were hoping to emerge from this war as saviors of the world who were fighting the “dark forces of evil” by Ukrainian proxy. Seeing the prospect of Russian regime’s eventual collapse, ending in business and economic bankruptcy of Russia, they were already making plans for investing into this strategically crucial region (the “Heartland” of “World Island”), potentially shattering Russia’s and China’s imperial ambitions, and once again laying foundations for a new order in Europe.

In this process, all other pre-war issues such as COVID pandemic, creation of ISIS, wars in the Middle East and false flag operations such as 9/11, political corruption and regime financing etc were likely to be swept under the carpet unless the public becomes better informed and demand accountability of the silent regime-creators and regime collaborators who hide behind façade democracies of the western world. In vast majority, these are the same corporations and banks that were involved in financing World War I, World War II, Nazi-Germany and Soviet Russia.

Let us re-iterate: the old alliances, same patterns and goals will reverberate through history until this becomes public knowledge and regimes’ creators and collaborators, are exposed and hold to account. History has shown that political accountability is difficult to achieve unless we make wise choices during the elections, voting for those who are prepared to fight with corruption, abuse of office and lobbying, and who plan to introduce transparency in government, and whose private interests do not overlap with public interests. This of course will lead to the remake of the entire democratic system that would not allow politicians, judges and other holders of public offices to keep any positions or shares in corporate bodies, to avoid any conflict of interest. Also, the candidates for most important public offices, such as High Court judges, prosecutors, or heads of Controlling Institutions, should be chosen in direct public elections, and not in accordance with political orientation. Secondly, the best method of disciplining the ethics of the banks and corporations is for the conscious consumers to think of their choices when selecting the products and services. In this manner, we can directly sanction these corporations or banks who participate (or participated) in the financing or supporting regimes that commit (or committed) crimes against humanity. There is no better disciplining factor than loss of profit. Thirdly, we must stop being ignorant about political and social affairs and demand more participation of the general public in decision-making processes, for example through optional referendums, petitions, public consultations or other forms of direct democracy. Finally, global community should make regular pressure on their respective governments to conclude a convention on the complete prohibition of nuclear weapons and any other weapons of mass destruction.

At the end of the day, we are all collectively responsible for the order of the world we are living in and the rules that govern it…

18 March 2022