The Ukraine-Syria Complex:

What Does Putin Want?

Once again, they want to fog up [reality.] Theyre trying to make us
believe that the only thing standing in the way of the
democratization process in Ukraine is Russia's support for the
unrecognized republics Donetsk and Lugansk. Russias adherence
to President Baschar el-Assad is the only thing preventing an
established peace in Syria, which would bring about an end to the
terror and an end to the stream of refugees.
The fact is, only after Junckers ultimatum was Poroshenko willing
to introduce an anti-discrimination law in parliament, and to refrain
from taking on people from the ruling oligarchical clans as
members in the Anti-Corruption Commission. EU Commission
President Juncker had ultimately told Poroshenko that the Ukraine
would not receive the pending loan installments if Poroshenko
couldnt finally bring himself to making significant concessions.
Its been paid now. After the three presidential elections in May
2014, after the parliamentary election in October of the same year,
after the recent local election in October 2015, and after the
establishment of a constitutional commission that would
decentralize the country; Poroshenko can now finally say that the
Ukraine is on the path to democracy.
Its only correct that the election results of the years 2014/15 reveal
that the slope of acceptance for the nationalist government has
fallen. This government appeared after the upheaval in February of
2014. Theres also a growing rift within the ruling nationalist
coalition. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk didnt even dare to compete at
the local October elections with his run-down party. The area east

The Ukraine-Syria Complex:

What Does Putin Want?
of Kiev made itself known to be clearly against President
Poroshenko, voting strongly in favor of the opposition block. The
populations of Donetsk and Lugansk werent even involved in the
elections, neither in these elections nor the ones previously held.
Theyre preparing for their own elections. The Constitutional
Commission that was called into existence is the centerpiece of the
planned reform and will shape the future relationship between the
central and regional areas. When considering the participation of
these territories in parliamentary proceedings, it was decided that
criminals are not be negotiated with.
In short, the question about the status of the separatist areas has
yet to be decided; therefore, the conflict reaching the point of war
can be cooked up again at any time. Thats why, according to the
German government in its impenetrable logic, sanctions against
Russia cannot be lifted as long as Russia supports the separatists.
Thats also why its just as logical that Poroshenko invite NATO
troops back into the country. So this conflict can be heated up
again at any time, along with all other similar conflicts that had
been put on ice.
Heavy fog over Syria
They want to fog up the situation in Syria, too. Supposedly, the only
thing standing in the way of peace and democracy in Syria is the
butcher, Bashar al-Assad, who is also supported by Russia and
Iran. Then the country is described as a battlefield of religious
fanatics, who cant come to grips with Western values. It began with
the great enemies of the Shiites and Sunnis throughout the various
terrorist groups from Al Qaeda all the way up to (Anti) -Islamist

The Ukraine-Syria Complex:

What Does Putin Want?
State. Given the situation, the people see the enlightened West as
the only means of escape. All this combined has made a regime
change unavoidable and perhaps even inevitable.
Reality presents itself differently. [There is] a not-to-be-dismissed
account of the situation in the country prior to the first riots in
Deraa (authors note: area in southern Syria on the border of
Jordan) In March of 2011, Peter Scholl-Latour left the following
account in his last book, which was published just after his death:
(1) in comparison of the surrounding chaos, he writes about the socalled Arab Spring and its disastrous consequences: In Syria,
things were quite different. The United States in cooperation with
Saudi Arabia and Israel did not wait for the first protest
demonstrations against the dictatorship of Deraa, Bashar al-Assad
and his Alawite-dominated Baath Party, to undermine the
foundations of the state. Long before that there was an
unrestrained campaign, a systematic propaganda in the American
and European media used against this Arab Republic, a republic
which even taking into account the brutality, which they
themselves practice represents the only secular political system
in the entire Arab region. Compared to the preferential allies of the
West be it Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, or
Kuwait the capital Damascus offered an image of religious
tolerance and an almost Western lifestyle, ever since Bashar elAssad accepted his inheritance from his uncompromising father,
Hafez el-Assad. Somewhere, in secret command posts, in secret
factories of disinformation operated masterfully by Anglo-Saxon
opinion manipulators, the motto was adopted that Syria had to give

The Ukraine-Syria Complex:

What Does Putin Want?
in to the American belief [which included] a deceptive reorganization
of the Middle East. () In any case, long before the outbreak of local
revolts in Deraa and Homs, there was the relentless demand for the
destruction of the Damascus regime. When I was in Damascus in
December 2011, there was still nothing to be felt of any struggle
(2)
Syria as linchpin
Nevertheless, Scholl-Latour leaves open that which lies hidden
behind the masterfully crafted mottos and secret command
posts. You also dont hear anything in the general media about it.
[Theres] a hint which will be given here. It can lead into the
background, which will definitely have to be delved into deeper.
Only a few years after the turn of the millennium, new promising
gas deposits were found off the Syrian Mediterranean coast. Oil
fields were also discovered in Golan Heights. Ever since then, Syria
is dealt with as the linchpin of all future oil and gas supplies.
However, the details of the annual results of the findings and the
sizes of the fields vary. Once again, there is considerable need
for clarification.
At least since the year 2009, the Government of Qatar has tried to
arrange an agreement with Assad to build a pipeline. The very large
but up to that point poorly developed gas fields in the Persian Gulf
would flow over the Arabian Peninsula to the north, over Syria and
Turkey, up to the Nabucco-Pipeline. This project of the EU was built
around the turn of the century to rival the Russian South Stream
and was previously untapped for lack of supply. Assad rejected the
deal in 2011. Instead, apparently anticipating a Syria exploitation of

The Ukraine-Syria Complex:

What Does Putin Want?
the Mediterranean gas fields, he made a contract with Iran in 2013
for the construction of a pipeline leading from the Iranian gas fields
through Syria to the Mediterranean. Whats fatal about all of this is
that both Qatar and Iran are laying claim to the gas field below the
Persian Gulf.
Assad's decision was a hot deal for Syria, if not understandable
because instead of just collecting transit fees, Syria would be both
the supplier and beneficiary of transit fees, if such a project were to
come to fruition. Its also understandable that the Government of
Qatar was more than a little upset about Assads cancellation and
the subsequent pivot to Iran, especially since this arrangement goes
beyond immediate economic competition; it taps into the permanent
religious war of the Wahabi-Sunni Islam of Qatar and Saudi Arabia,
and the Shiite-Islam of Iran.
At least since 2013, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have acted as
financiers and suppliers for Assads opposition. Three billion dollars
must have flown out of Qatar by now, all in support of the
opposition. The amounts that have been financed; how much the
Saudis have invested, and beyond that, how much the United States
has invested, can only be estimated at this time. Not having the
exact details prevents us from naming figures. Unfortunately, the
Middle East has, so far, no one like Victoria Nuland.
However, the often puzzled-over breakup of the former friendship
between Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo()an can
be explained here. With the loss being a transit country in SyrianIranian pipeline project, Turkey didnt just lose a lucrative transit

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What Does Putin Want?
operation. They lost out on the possibility of exerting pressure on
the EU.
The geopolitical context

What happened after this situation was created is understandable

only in a geopolitical sense. First of all, lets envision again the
current basic situation that can viewed as a juxtapostition of all the
three major transformation trends currently happening around the
globe: the post-Soviet partitioning of the world, the crisis of the
nation state, and the fundamental problem of how we want to live in
the future if were not subject to the spent either-or of socialism
OR capitalism.
These three basic trends overlap each other. At the overlap points,
alternating knots of conflict are formed which after theyve been
broken up and used are generally left unresolved as whole, or
they remain as half-frozen deferred conflicts. Only to name the last
few: the day before yesterday [it was] Moldova [and] Georgia;
yesterday the Ukraine; today Syria and the entire Crescent. Maybe
tomorrow [it will be] the North Pole, whose territorial claim provides
the start [of a new conflict] for those already driving their marked
stakes into the ground.
As different as these conflicts are, theres one constant variable, a
common thread that runs through all of them: the containment of
Russia as a potential rival for the US, who still sees itself as the
only world power. The possible conflict with China, India, and other

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What Does Putin Want?
countries that might connect themselves to Russia is lurking in
the background.
Why Russia? It cannot be repeated enough: because Russia is the
only country that has, throughout its history, evaded the control
and associated exploitation of its resources through the colonial
grip of the West and it continues to this day.
Always the same method
Lets direct our attention to the Ukraine and Syria. The method is
essentially the same in each case. The main message is as follows:

Russia can no longer remain an empire without the Ukraine.

Without its alliance with Syria, Russia can only realize the half
of its resource-based exports.
For both of these methods, there exist strategies worth following up
on, and these need to be briefly clarified here:

Ukraine: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990-91,

the winner USA unmistakably and publicly formulated their
intention to free the Ukraine from Russian influence in order to
secure US hegemony. This is the religious mantra that has been
repeated most obviously by Zbigniew Brzezinski throughout his
various books. For the Kiev Regime Change of 2013/14, this
strategy was implemented tactically. (3)

Syria: Post-9/11, year 2001, the neoconservative forces behind

George W. Bush [started] the Project for the New American
Century, which regardless of a nation-states sovereignty
focused on a gradual subjugation of the states in the Mesopotamian

The Ukraine-Syria Complex:

What Does Putin Want?
area, all in the interests of the US. This policy has been
camouflaged by its initiators as a war against terrorism,
sometimes referred to as the Fourth World War. (The Cold War is
considered to be the Third.) The final phase of this war should be
the acquisition of Syria. (4)
Already at the time of planning these strategies both in 1990,
1991, and even in 2001 international energy experts drew a
strategic ellipse on a map.
Contained in the ellipse was the largest-known share of oil and gas
reserves, from the northern and central Russia, down to the
southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. The Russian resources in
the north and the south of the Mesopotamian-Arab region were
equally represented in this ellipse. By making use of new
discoveries and possibly activating previously untapped oil fields in
the Mesopotamian-Arabian region, and considering the fact that
this tight oil [oil trapped in impermeable rock] is currently thought
to be the supply of the future, the southern part of this ellipse has
reached a resource weight which could far exceed that of Russias.
If previously untapped gas from Qatar were to be fed directly into
the Nabucco line, it would inevitably cut Russia off as a resources
supplier, providing Russia were to lose the Ukraine as well. This
would indeed be life-threatening, because the entire South Stream,
leading out from Russia and the Central Asian interior, would be
severed. This affects deliveries to Europe. This loss could not be
quickly compensated through a redirection to China, India, and
other Asian countries.

The Ukraine-Syria Complex:

What Does Putin Want?
Conversely, Assads decision for a joint project with Iran had to lead
to bitter hostility towards Syria on the part of Qatar and the Saudis
and of course this has brought consequences from their ally the
US, who had set its hopes on being able to wrestle Russia to the
ground.
One recalls that it wasnt long ago, in 2013, when the US Secretary
of State John Kerry was on the verge of declaring war on Syria. It
was the occasion where Assad was immediately blamed for the use
of chemical weapons in the Syrian slaughter, although to this day
there hasnt been any clear evidence in support of this. An
escalation was prevented solely through Russian intervention. This
intervention prompted Assad to have his chemical weapons be
destroyed under international control. (5)
The hope of being able to circumvent Russia was fostered and is
being fostered by the EU politicians, by the way. These politicians
have had the issue for more than a decade, in which theyve
complained about their oil and especially their gas dependence on
Russia, and they have felt the need to diversify in order to make
deliveries with their purposefully-built but so far untapped Nabucco
Pipeline. This interest has increased among the EU politicians with
current geopolitical tensions. One can assume that the conflict over
the projected pipelines and the future use of natural gas fields is
not over.
Putin's offensive defense

The Ukraine-Syria Complex:

What Does Putin Want?
Taking into consideration all the aforementioned conditions,
Russia's policy in Ukraine as well as in Syria, including their
current bombing of the pro-democracy forces opposing Assad, can
only be judged as an offensive defense. Its important to mention
that the Russians are operating in observance of Syrian
sovereignty; concretely, [they had] prior agreement of Syrias elected
head of state.
Please, no confusion! Looking at all the fundamental problems that
have been mentioned repartitioning of the world and the crisis of
the nation state, how do we want to live? We have to be clear:
Putin is not Russia. Russia's future power extends far beyond Putin.
Putin is also not a socialist. Hes not a democrat and not an anticapitalist. Hes also not a sponsor of the world revolution, promoting
the idea that capitalist production is the worst cause of the present
conflict; that is, the expanding migration out of the exploited
southern hemisphere of the globe into the industrial centers. A
reverse migration into new settlements in the countries of origin
can only be effected with a fundamentally different industrial policy,
which would end the migration favoring the development of local
and regional economies, which was caused by the capitalist mode of
production.
This is not Putin's goal. One only need to look at the Republics
Donetsk and Lugan(s)k, and how he has dealt with their
democratically-counselled dreams of self-determination and
autonomy; or the building of an autonomous Novorossiya in
Eastern Ukraine. After offering his short-term opportunistic

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What Does Putin Want?
support, he how does one say brushed off these cases. His
goal is evident in his social policy, and how he reintroduced the
class society in Russia, by restricting the basic rights of the
dependent labor force. The fact that criticism [of his policy] is so
limited is due to the fact that the population regards him as the
defender of their homeland against colonization attempts coming
from the outside.
Putin is a neo-liberal modernizer who wants to restore Russia as a
great, sovereign nation. What distinguishes his national as well as
his foreign policy is his ability to pursue a course leading from a
weak position towards that of building a consensus. Since his
inaugural in 1999/2000, he has involved the Russian oligarchs in
his taking charge of the new Russia. In matters of foreign policy, he
has acted out of a cooperation of weak elements, out of which
begins to build its own independent strength. This has already had
the effect of putting the US in its place, and the US has always seen
itself as being the words police. In other words, under Putins
political leadership, Russia is the leading force under the weak; a
force which is currently against the warmongering dominance of the
US, and which is in favor of a cooperative world order among
sovereign states. Putins political policy is what he himself calls an
architecture for global security - no more, no less.
To be able to recognize [the need for such architecture] in the
atmosphere of current global conflict requires a stance of critical
solidarity. Putin understands this solidarity as being a de-escalating
force. [The author says this] without trying to put [Putin] on a

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What Does Putin Want?
pedestal of being a possible Nobel Peace Prize recipient, as was the
case with his opponent, Obama.