United Against Russia?

We often hear that the world is united against Russia due to Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.

In the United States, if you are not willing to swear your undying allegiance to Ukraine it is akin to not supporting Black Lives Matter or Dr. Fauci.

Source: https://twitter.com/Lewis_Brackpool/status/1509146851710160898/photo/1

In my neighborhood even the Russian markets are trying to distance themselves from Russia.

It is true that most of the world's most developed countries (North America, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia/NewZealand) have placed sanctions against Russia. 

However, most of the countries today with the largest natural resources around the world are sitting on the sidelines.

The Europeans also seem selective on where the sanctions begin and end.

They are willing to do without Russian vodka, caviar, wood, cement, chemicals and rubber.

However, not so fast on the oil, gas and coal. Those might be necessary to power those electric cars and insure that they don't have to reopen those nuclear power plants they recently closed .

You may recall that I wrote in February that I believed that a major reason that Putin invaded Ukraine now was the fact that he believed he had leverage over Europe on energy and the high price of oil right now.

I pointed out that I did not believe it was a coincidence that the invasions of both Crimea and Ukraine took place when the price of oil went above $100/barrel.

Oil and gas revenues account for almost 20% of Russia's GDP. 

Oil and provides 40% of the government's revenues. 60% of its global exports are from oil and gas.

Russia simply does not have economy without oil and gas revenues from exports.

The sad truth is that the climate change agenda that became a religion to the developed countries that are colored yellow on the map above played right into the hands of Putin.

That is why they want to put Putin on trial for war crimes at the same time they seem to find it impossible to cut off the oil and gas revenues that makes his crimes possible.

Source: https://twitter.com/bpmehlman/status/1511142382737272833

The EU has put themselves in a box largely of their own making and cannot find a way to extricate themselves without turning their counties and their economies dark.

Seeing all of this unfold you have to be incredibly native to not understand that Russia has undoubtedly funded a lot of the climate change and Green New Deal agenda in these developed countries.

Make no mistake that Putin and Russia deserve all of the condemnation they have received for what they have done to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

However, I find it interesting that the loudest voices in the United States for military intervention on behalf of Ukraine are the leftists and progressives.

This is difficult for a person who grew up in the Vietnam era to understand when the leftists and progressives were the most vocal (and violent) about the involvement of the United States in Vietnam.

It is as difficult to explain as why Ukraine, which is generally considered the poorest country in Europe, just happened to be where the largest foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation resided.

Let's put that in context.

Ukraine has lower GDP per capita ($3,116 in constant 2010 dollars) than neighboring Moldova and is even lower than Kosovo.

Ukraine's GDP is barely 25% of Russia's.

It is only 18% of Poland's GDP.

It is not even 7% of Germany's economy on a per capita basis.

The United States has 20x the GDP per capita that Ukraine does.

How do you make sense of all of it?

You can't.

Just as you can't make sense out of this question that was recently posed by a Canadian on Twitter.

In the meantime, Putin, Russia and who knows  else have put the Ukrainian people in the middle of this dangerous game.

Say a prayer for these people tonight.