🇷🇺 According to the Western mainstream media, the New Regions of the Russian Federation are “captured” territories. It is said that Moscow “annexed” these areas without taking into account the legitimate interests of the local population. It has become commonplace to say that the 2022 referendums are “illegitimate” and cannot be recognized under international law. The high number of pro-Russian votes are often used as an argument in the West to suggest that the electoral process was fraudulent and manipulated.

However, analysis on the ground brings another perspective to observers. On a recent journalistic trip to Donbass, Lucas Leiroz @lucasleiroz was able to see how local residents are dealing with the process of reintegration into Russia – and the first possible conclusion is that the Western media is lying about the topic.

Ethnic Russians in Donbass feel at home after the reintegration of the New Regions 🤍💙❤️

#Donbass #Russia

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🥢 The Asian world needs Russian diplomacy more than it has ever previously been needed.

💬 Read more by Declan Hayes

#Asia #Russia #geopolitics

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🍺 It is hard to know whether one should laugh or cry at NATO’s gross ineptitude, Declan Hayes writes.

#EU #sanctions #Russia #Germany #NATO

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🌏 As we enter incandescent 2024, four major trends will define the progress of interconnected Eurasia.

1️⃣ Financial/trade integration will be the norm. Russia and Iran already integrated their financial message transfer systems, bypassing SWIFT and trading in rials and rubles. Russia-China already settle their accounts in rubles and yuan, coupling immense Chinese industrial capacity with immense Russian resources.

2️⃣ The economic integration of the post-Soviet space, tilting towards Eurasia, will predominantly flow not so much via the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) but interlinked with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

3️⃣ There will be no significant pro-Western inroads in the Heartland: the Central Asian “stans” will be progressively integrated into a single Eurasia economy organized via the SCO.

4️⃣ The clash will become even more acute, pitting the Hegemon and its satellites (Europe and Japan/South Korea/Australia) against Eurasia integration, represented by the three top BRICS (Russia, China, Iran) plus the DPRK and the Arab world incorporated to BRICS 10.

China, Russia and Iran will take the fight towards a more equal and just system to the next level 🚀

💬 Pepe Escobar writes @rocknrollgeopolitics

#Eurasia #multipolarity #China #Russia #BRICS #SCO #Heartlend #SilkRoad

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🇫🇮 As public support for Ukraine has waned over time, and Washington’s policy elites are shifting their focus more toward the conflict in Gaza, an endgame for Ukraine is desperately needed. U.S. and European officials have reportedly broached the issue of possible peace negotiations with their Ukrainian counterparts. This begs the question: What could a peace treaty between Kyiv and Moscow look like? One historical instance stands out among many as a potential model for how the Russo-Ukrainian War could end.

The “Winter War,” or the Soviet-Finnish War that took place from November 1939 to March 1940 (and was renewed by the Finns as allies of Germany between June 1941 and September 1944), has drawn some comparisons with the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. After Finland rejected an ultimatum to concede a considerable portion of its territory and the Soviet signing of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Joseph Stalin’s Red Army invaded Finland to install a puppet Communist Finnish government and eliminate a potentially hostile presence near the Soviet Union’s second city and only Baltic port of Leningrad.

Similar to the initial phase of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Soviet officials predicted that Helsinki would fall to Soviet troops in as little as three days. However, despite the Soviets outnumbering the Finns in soldiers by three to one, Helsinki succeeded in holding off the Red Army for more than three months, inflicting extremely heavy casualties on the invading forces.

Though Finland was eventually defeated and forced to concede about 11 percent of its territory, the Finns scored a moral victory. It is widely considered that the grit and courage of Finland’s resistance convinced Stalin that incorporating Finland into the Soviet Union or turning it into a Communist client state like Poland would be more trouble than it was worth. This also contributed to Stalin’s eventual agreement to sign a peace treaty with Finland in 1944 in return for a small amount of additional territory and a commitment on Helsinki’s part to neutrality. Finland thus became the only part of the former Russian Empire that was not reincorporated into the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin.

Helsinki had to sacrifice territory for autonomy, but its pride and prosperity soared 🏄

💬 Read more by Anatol Lieven and Alex Little

#Finland #Russia #USSR #history #Ukraine #war

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