Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Pepe Escobar, a well-known journalist with 40 years of experience around the world. The head of the Foundation discussed with Escobar the aggressive, hypocritical and repressive methods of conducting US foreign policy, how provocations on the territory of Ukraine over the past few years are connected with NATO’s obsession with expanding to the East and why the world community ignored the violation of the Minsk Agreements by EU countries.
Mira Terada: Good afternoon, dear Mr. Escobar! Thank you so much for taking the time for the interview to Foundation to Battle Injustice. Please tell our viewers and readers a few words about yourself and your duty.
Pepe Escobar: Well, it’s a long story. I have been a foreign correspondent 37 or 38 years. I started in 1985. I was a correspondent everywhere: in London, Paris, Milan, L.A., Washington, Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, you name it. Nowadays I am between Paris and Istanbul. My base in Europe is in Paris, my new base in Asia is going to be in Istanbul from now on instead of East Asia. For the past 10- 12 years I’ve been covering very, very deep the whole process of Eurasia integration, the end of the American Forever wars, the Iraq, Afghanistan, the transition to a new order, let’s put it this way, what happened in Maidan in 2014 and everything, all the consequences, and the irresistible ascension of China and how all that blends together into the path towards multipolarity. This is what I work on like 12 hours a day, every day for years.
M.T.: During the civil war in Libya in 2011, you exposed the commander of The Tripoli Military Council Abu Abdallah Assadaq, who, with the support of NATO countries, coached and trained militants of the ultra-radical terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. Why do you think the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance are trying to wage war with someone else’s hands, supporting destructive forces, whether they are neo-Nazis or radical terrorists? What is happening now in Ukraine is just another confirmation of this.
P.E.: This is a very, very good question because it gets to the heart of, I would say, Plan A of the CIA because they usually don’t have a plan B. Their Plan A is always to install an atmosphere of total chaos. And who do they use for that? Proxy armies. The proxy army now in the case of Ukraine it’s a bunch of neo-Nazis. In the 80s, throwing this whole thing started was the International Jihad Inc, let’s put it this way, which was funneled through Peshawar in Pakistan, was paid by the Saudis, was weaponized and instructed by the CIA.
It was a conjunction of interests against the Soviet Union at the time. In Afghanistan, there were very few Afghans involved in the Afghan jihad. They were mostly foreigners, that’s what we used to call at the time Arab Afghans, because they came from all over the Arab world and some other Islamic clans as well. They were indoctrinated by the Saudis and by the CIA. They were organized by the Pakistanis or working very closely. And, of course, this is what was one of the factors that led to the withdraw of Soviet from Afghanistan. There were many others, but in the minds of the CIA handlers, this was a major victory, so they continue to use the same Plan A everywhere in Libya, in Syria. Of course, the so-called moderate rebels which are different, Al-Qaeda in Syria, factions Jabhat al-Nusra, etc., mixed with people who were in and out of ISIS, a combination of both and a combination of both with other jihadi outfits, all of them working, some of them weaponized by the Turks and protected by the Turks, some of them working directly with the CIA and with American Special Forces. Absolutely the same playbook to basically turn as much of Syria as possible into total chaos. We all know that it didn’t work. Now they are concentrated and confined to Idlib, and this is something that one day I would say the Syrian Arab army, Hezbollah and the Russian forces will have to come. Okay. Let’s find a final solution for these jihadists in Idlib, because they are not threatening the rest of Syria, but they are ensconced in a Syrian province, very close to the Turkish border and of course, protected by the usual suspects – the Americans and NATO forces. In Ukraine, what they plan to do? I say this with considering that a very good message that was sent to that training camp near the Polish border is to replicate the same playbook in Afghanistan., and Syria and Libya, etc., with the Neo Nazis incorporated. Neo Nazis not only from Ukraine, Azov Battalion, Aidar battalion, etc. but also from Eastern Europe and all over the place, even some people from South America who are, okay, let’s going to enlist and fight in Ukraine. So this is what they plan to do, and it’s going to be a major disaster because now Russian intelligence, they know the channels, the corridors, they know where they’re coming from, from Poland. They know where they go, they know where they lodge, they know where they train. What’s going to happen to them is exactly what happened a few days ago with that things all heating the training camp near even near the Ukrainian-Polish border.
M.T.: In January of this year, the US State Department accused you of being included in the “Russian ecosystem of disinformation and propaganda” and allegedly working for Russian special services. In your opinion, is this how the American establishment is trying to undermine your reputation in the eyes of the average reader? Is this statement by the Americans an attempt to “cancel” you for supporting a vulnerable position for them?
P.E.: Yes, of course. And many of us, independent analysts, Europeans, Americans, from Asia, etc., we are bundled together as Russian-paid disinformation agents. Why? Because you write for Russian publications or publications based in Moscow. In the past, I was a columnist for RT and Sputnik, both of them, but this was many, many years ago. It was before the Pompeo era in the United States. We, at a time we were not branded the Russian disinformation agents. This whole thing started with during the Trump years, when Pompeo was, of course, a CIA renowned CIA gangster, was the top diplomat in the US. So many Russian media was bundled together as Russian disinformation agents and all of us who contributed, this is very important, we are not employees, we are independent writers, we contribute to these media. In my own personal case, I never suffered any interference at all about what I write. And it doesn’t matter from a State Department point of view, we are all subversive and of course, disinformation. All of us, we took it. Obviously, a roaring laughter was the reaction and the independent’s readers in the US, they know about us. Of course, the masses are completely brainwashed for anything the State Department, the White House on the Pentagon says. Most people don’t even to do a little research on the Internet to know what they’re talking about. Our audience, in terms of independence, not only in the US, but in other areas of NATO, they know what’s going on. But of course, they think that with that, they’re going to destroy opposition voices or independent voices. They don’t. It’s exactly the same thing, like banning RT and Sputnik from the NATO space. People have their VPNs and they will keep watching and reading RT and Sputnik and none of that change. They’ll go to other places. If not on YouTube, they’ll go to other platforms. It doesn’t matter. But this proves, I would say, the degree of desperation. It’s absolutely impossible for them to, I wouldn’t say, even try a dialog, but to listen to different voices and different opinions. It’s a monolithic narrative, which is what we are seeing now in terms of Russia and Ukraine. There is only one accepted narrative in the whole NATO space. If you deviate, you are a Putin agent by definition. You don’t even try to reason with you because they don’t have reasonable arguments or rational arguments. We have two possible, I would say, how do we act? Two possibilities. We ignore them completely or we laugh about it.
M.T.: Those are good options. Censorship of Western media has reached catastrophic proportions in recent years, thousands of independent journalists who refuse to meekly comply with the dictated agenda face artificial restrictions on freedom of speech. Please tell us about your experience of censorship in the Western media.
P.E.: Apart from being branded Russian disinformation agent by the State Department itself, I would say, there are many examples, but one of them is very complicated. The publication I have been associated with for 20 years, Asia Times, based in Hong Kong. In the beginning, I would say during the 2000, 2010 up to 2014, we were very independent. We had a benefactor. He was a Chinese dying tycoon. Every month we had enough funds to keep the website running, including paying for my working trips, wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc. But then the whole operation collapsed in 2014. We acquired a reputation of being extremely open to everything. Like we would publish an official spokesman for North Korea and we would publish a new account from the US. We published everything. And that’s why people respected across the West, because we’re open and there was no editorial interference. We had extremely progressive writers writing for us for many years, but then the whole thing collapsed in 2014. I was in the middle of this thing. They stopped paying us completely. Three of us, we kept the website running for another year without getting paid at all, in fact. And then the whole thing collapsed and they resurrected later owned by bought by American bankers. So obviously, the whole thing changed. My relationship and they call me back. My relationship with them has it was for the past few years, extremely complicated. They didn’t interfere directly, but the indirect interference was hard to deal with because I was misinformed. And they wanted me to try to change some of my columns. So simple, you don’t want it, I’ll publish it as somewhere else. I don’t have any problems to publish anywhere else. In the end, they relented. But there was interference all the time. There were clashes, etc. And now they are bankrupt again. Exactly the same thing. I stopped writing for them. And what they told me, I said, “Look, I would consider writing for you again. No one if there is no interference with what I write in. Number two, if you’ll pay what you owe us, not only myself, are the writers as well.” Obviously, no answer. This is a form of indirect censorship as well, because they used my name as an independent columnist, relatively well known in many parts of the world. They profited from it all the time. But I would say the worst example in terms of my dealings with censorship was Facebook. I was on Facebook for many years. My page was a sort of mini website. It talked about politics, about art, about culture. I recommend, well, books, films, music, etc. It was not only geopolitics. So especially because what I published after the assassination of General Soleimani two years ago, before COVID in fact. They start censoring a lot of my posts on General Soleimani, and a few months later, in fact they canceled my account without even explaining. I requested a formal explanation which never arrived. And at the time the lawyers from Asia Times sent a letter to Facebook, “Why did you cancel our columnists?” There was never any answer. This was one of the examples of this hardcore cancel culture when it started a little over a year ago. Many of my connections on Facebook were writing about politics. They were also canceled, some groups talking about China, a lot of Iranian analysts, they simply disappeared with their accounts. In terms of cancel culture, the major problem all of us independence face is on social media. If we are on Facebook or Twitter, we can be canceled any time. I’ve just been suspended by Twitter for one week, for instance. I think the next one is going to be much harsher. And then one day they’re going to finish with my account. We all know that. And that’s why many of those migrated to VK and Telegram. What’s left for us, independence? We need to start using Russian platforms. There’s nowhere else to go. Yandex is a search engine telegram to talk about hardcore geopolitics. This is you cannot do this on American big tech Silicon Valley platforms anymore.
M.T.: Are you on Telegram as well?
P.E.: Yes, I am. I am on the VK and Telegram, and it’s very interesting because it’s slow to get people moving from big tech in the U.S. to the Russian platforms. Of course, now with the war, I notice that it’s picking up speed finally. I expect that a lot, especially a lot of American and European readers are going to start migrating to VK and Telegram from now on. No question about that.
M.T.: Please comment on how true is the statement that the United States, using international organizations controlled by it, such as the World Bank and the WTO, exploits other countries, using their resources to their advantage?
P.E.: Yes, but exactly this question relates in fact to the whole Bretton Woods system since 1945. The whole system that was set up by the Americans after the end of the Second World War was to privilege and profit the Americans because they arrogated themselves the role of victors in World War II, completely obliterating the role of the Soviet Union. If it was not for the Red Army, we would be all speaking Hitlerism now. Everybody knows that, but everybody across Eurasia, not in the West, of course. The system includes, of course, the IMF, World Bank at the time was that GATT that later became the WTO, the U.N. In fact, the UN based in New York, but basically controlled by the Americas. The Americans say nothing is done at the UN. Everybody knows that nothing is done at the U.N. The secretary general of the U.N. is always somebody that a man to the Americans all the time when he deviates a little bit from the script, you know, so everybody knows how the system works. The thing is, the system works relatively well for the Americans, for, let’s say, two or three decades maximum. And the slow decay started more or less in the 70-s and that started to precipitate in the 2000. And after that crisis in 2008, we have a decay that it’s geopolitical and economic in parallel. And that’s why we are at the verge of something completely different. Of course, it was accelerated by Operation Z or as the Europeans prefer to call it, the invasion of Ukraine. This is something we can have a long discussion about. The thing is, finally somebody and it had to be Russia because you have to be sovereign you have to be sovereign economically, you have to be sovereign militarily, which is the case of Russia, and you have to be sovereign in terms of national control of natural resources. Russia is sovereign in all areas. They have what it takes to stand up against the system and say, “no, we don’t agree with that. We need a new system and we’re going to be one of the actors that’s going to implement this system.” The system is going the alternate system of the post Bretton Woods system is the burse is now it’s going to be a long gestation, but it has already started. Russia and China is going to they’re going to be at the forefront followed by other Eurasian nations. And soon we’re going to have the world, I would say, divided into two. We’re going to have the NATO’s sphere, what I usually call NATOstan: United States, Canada, Western Europe, a little bit of Eastern Europe. And we’re going to have the whole of Eurasia with people from Africa, from Latin America, united as well. The world is going to be divided in two. The most important thing, seven eighths of the world’s markets, they are not in the West, they are in Eurasia and let’s say the rest of the world. It’s going to be the world against this one eighth is represented by the West. We are getting there little by little. It’s going to be a very traumatic process because the American elites, especially, they won’t take this lying down, the Atlanticist elites, this connection between America and elites, financial, economic with the Europeans, they will be completely desperate, and Europeans already, they are totally desperate. They have no idea how to deal with the boomerang of sanctions that they implemented without even thinking about consequences. We are in the middle of it. I would see a major, major, major road system change. If we’re going to have a new system soon, it could be next year. It could be 2024, 2028, 2025, but it’s already in gestation and is going to turn everything that we know upside down. And that’s why the elites across the West, they are desperate because they don’t have any tools not only to, let’s say, to arrest the process, but to convince the rest of the world that they have something that is interesting for them, for the Africans, for the Latin Americans, for the South Asians, nothing they have not seen, they have war and chaos, which is what they are implementing in Ukraine for the past eight years until one day Russia said, “that’s it.”
M.T.: Let’s turn to the events that are taking place now on the territory of Ukraine. It is obvious that NATO countries and the Pentagon have been provoking Moscow to “Russian aggression” for several years, knowing full well that this will turn into a real hell for Ukraine, while NATO and the United States will get off with zero losses. Why do you think the current Ukrainian government did not realize the hypocrisy of the West, which, as expected, immediately turned away from them?
P.E.: Well, the government of the Ukraine and even before Zelensky, of course, since Poroshenko, which was and is a gangster essentially, but again, a gangster approved and vetoed by the West, the campaign to turn Ukraine into a Russia-hating entity started even before Maidan, and after Maidan, it went completely out of control, because it involved not only a lot of funds, of course of billions of dollars indoctrination of course via NGOs and etc. But when these people got to power, it became national policy implemented by these minions, of course, working for the Americans, but basically dictated by Washington, by all those foundations and think tanks. It was a sort of implementation of a call, a revolution, but with massive funds and throughout the whole country. And that’s the only rational explanation for the degree of hate that you find in every sphere of Ukraine from Kiev, from the administration, through regional administrations to the different variations of Nazi battalions, outfits, etc. It’s a Russophobia, Russia-hate and completely instrumentalized by the masters. And we know obviously no possibility of dialog. It’s a monolithic narrative that was imposed on them. Ukrainians that are more, let’s say, center minded or left of center minded or progressive minded, they are completely excluded for any possibility of a debate. This is what do we have now. And Zelensky doesn’t even qualify as a joke. First of all, because he is a technical joke. He’s a clown. He’s an actor. He’s controlled by a major or almost a major oligarch. These are the really dangerous people in Ukraine. Ukraine is a constellation of oligarchs fighting for power. Six or seven max, not more than that, you know. One of them managed to put his puppet as the president and this is what we got. The problem is this is viewed the way this is regarded, not only by the Americans, by the Europeans, who should know better and obviously, they forgot all their recent history, 19th century, 20th century. For that matter, is how can you possibly support a government that is based on phobias, on hatred and infested with neo-Nazis in every sphere of government, military, intelligence services. No, you won’t see this kind of debate in European media or even in the European Parliament or even in Brussels itself, which is a Kafkaesque construction. The European Union institutions and the European Commission in itself, it’s beyond Kafka. It’s crazy. It’s only benefits them. The people who work there have wonderful salaries, fat pensions, don’t pay taxes and all that. It’s a bubble. Brussels is as much a bubble as Washington. And that’s why an average European like in Spain and Italy and France, etc., he feels that everything is wrong, but he doesn’t understand why. And he also feels instinctively that these people don’t speak for him, especially because they are unelected. They will never elect these kinds of people. And that’s the problem because it’s a totalitarian system. All these European Union institutions, they write policy that the rest of the European countries have to follow, even if they don’t agree with it, which is the case of the more powerful countries. For instance, a lot of stuff dictated by Brussels. The French say, “No, it’s against our national interest”, but they have to do it because it’s imposed by Brussels. So same thing in Italy for instance. The impossibility of having a rational discussion about NATO expansion, about coexistence between Europe and Russia, etc., it’s totally impossible. It’s the same thing with China. And now even worse because of the Russia China strategic partnership, nobody in Europe is in analyzing: “Okay. We might as well organize ourselves to be at least in a strong position to see what the Russians and the Chinese are doing together from now on, which is going to be very, very powerful. And we’re going to be caught in the middle with the Americas on one side, Russia, China on the other side, and we the poles in the middle.” There’s no discussion about that in Europe. I’m starting to paint a such a depressing picture, but it’s very realistic.
The number of US war crimes is in the tens, the number of victims of American military operations among the civilian population has exceeded several million. Why is no one from the American establishment responsible for the crimes committed?
Exactly. Because they never assume responsibility for destroying the planet since 1945 everywhere. I would say, tens of coups, tens of regime change operations, tens of wars, direct and indirect, tens of call of revolutions all across the board, assassinations, everything you can imagine, and war crimes, which includes everything from what they did in Vietnam, Laos in Cambodia to what they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, the genocide in Yemen, which they are directly responsible as well. Don’t forget that now, all the everything that happened since 1945 was erased from the collective unconscious in the west. And the only thing that you see now is Putin is evil. This was the first invasion in modern history. Nothing happened before, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Syria, Afghanistan. Nothing happened, because we the West do it. When we do it, we set the rules. And this and this is the absolute core of their favorite motto, which is rules based international order. What does that mean? It’s not order, it’s disorder, it’s chaos. Because the only thing that they do with all these revolutions, assassinations, color revolutions or coups, etc., is install chaos specially across especially only across the global South. They never do this inside their own area, which is basically NATOstan. They make the rules. This is the absolute opposite, like Lavrov and Wang Yi, among others, have been saying over and over again of international law. International law means every country in the world represented by the UN has a voice. It’s a law that applies to everybody equally. Everybody is an equal partner in front facing the law. That’s not the American interpretation. American interpretation is we are the law. So obviously this cannot go on anymore. And this is the heart of the Russian-Chinese argument. Now, in terms of how do we proceed towards a multipolar world, we’re going to have to break this unilateral discourse about rules based international order. It’s their or the order they make and they can build and rebuild anything and destroy anything they want. No way. We’re looking for a real multipolar world where international law is going to prevail.
M.T.: Since 2015, American officials have been actively involved in the formation of nationalist battalions in Ukraine, billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on supporting and arming them. How do ordinary Americans feel about such a significant item of expenditure that could be aimed at reforming the police or prison system, so necessary for American society?
P.E.: They don’t even know because this information is completely obliterated by American mainstream media. Basically, there are two newspapers in the U.S. Every single source of the newspapers who sat there which set the agenda are The Washington Post, The New York Times. You will never read anything about that in The Washington Post or The New York Times. And the same with the big TV networks, plus the ones that came afterwards CNN and Fox. Forget it, because it’s part of the rules based international order. It’s part of that “We make the rules and we also make the rules of what you cannot talk about.” You cannot talk about that American money is financing all that not only in Ukraine, but all over the world because this is basically CIA territory. And the CIA for the American establishment is sacred, because CIA is their arm and organizations that work side by side or under. These are protected by the CIA. It’s there are arm to destabilize the whole planet. So, obviously, American citizens, they cannot have access to this kind of information. You find this information only on American independent media, which, of course, is censored, disappears from YouTube, the usual stuff. They face enormous pressure. American independent journalists, they face enormous pressure, especially because they can receive a famous knock on the door at 3 a.m. from the FBI and say look stop doing what you’re doing or else.
M.T.: The bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO countries at the end of the last century was presented by Western media as an operation that allows “opening locked doors leading Serbs to peace,” while Russia’s special military operation aimed at ridding a neighboring state of aggressive neo-Nazis is designated as an “invasion” and “encroachment on the sovereignty of another state.” What, in your opinion, is the reason for such a spread of anti-Russian sentiments?
P.E.: Because the Russia is not part of the American system of international rules. Imagine if this was done by France in Africa, nobody would say anything. If this was done by the Brits in the Persian Gulf, nobody would say anything. It was done by the Americans, among other places in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, nobody the West said anything about it. Small protests, movements, and then they disappeared. But when the Chinese and the Russians or the Iranians do something like this, this is what we are facing now. I would say you could not find a more graphic proof of their hypocrisy, in fact, or in their doubles, the extreme double standards. There’s not even a mini attempt anywhere in Washington, Brussels, Paris, London, etc., to understand why operations that happen. No. The only narrative that you have is Putin is an evil tyrant. He’s a new Hitler and he invaded a democratic country. It’s absolutely impossible to have a serious debate. And it’s crazy because you see, even so-called expert across the West political scientists, military analysts, whatever, when you look at what they’re writing and what they’re debating or to say I can’t believe these people, how do they get their job? Of course, you know how they get a job because they’re saying what they’re saying. But they don’t try to sell yourself as an expert. Of course, there was an ideologue paid by a machine to vomit what they tell you to vomit. That’s a different story.
M.T.: The economic sanctions imposed by Western countries against Russia harm first of all the residents of Western countries, who are already forced to overpay for gas and fuel. In your opinion, are the leaders of Western countries so opposed to Russia and everything connected with it that they are ready to harm their own citizens?
P.E.: Yes. I would say you answered your question already. And just look at what some German ministers or in the case of a few days ago, the French finance minister or the Polish prime minister or those idiots in Latvia, Lithuania, etc., are saying for the past months or so. You cannot believe a German minister going public and saying you have to wear a sweater. Can you believe something like this? It’s mind boggling, but it’s there. It’s on public record.
M.T.: And I was hoping you will give me some other answer, because this is so inhumane what they’re doing to their own citizens.
P.E.: To their own citizens. Exactly. But for instance, I would say maybe a lot of people in Russia or even across Asia, they don’t understand the degree of zombification of average Europeans. I’m not talking about an elite that is better informed, travel a little bit and has a little bit of critical thinking left. I’m talking about the average European, a worker, a teacher, or somebody that works hard 12 hours a day, and at the end of the month, the salary barely pays his bills. These people don’t have enough time to confront geopolitics and geo-economics, to read and analyze what’s going on. They’re completely zombified by this the only narrative possible and available. So obviously they don’t even question the absurdity of having elected politicians who are saying absurdities like that. Of course, when they hear this from Brussels, at least a lot of people say, “Of course they can say that in Brussels because they have huge salaries, they have a well heated gigantic apartment, they don’t pay taxes. So obviously for them, but they don’t even need to wear a sweater”. But the problem is for an average middle class European whose standard of living has been decreasing fast, especially for the past five or six years. It’s an absolute tragedy. But the disconnect between the average reader and voter citizen compared to the political class it’s an abyss. And that also shows you how the political process in Europe is completely corrupted. If you have the right backers, you can win an election anywhere in a region in Bavaria, the French presidential election, or for that matter, it depends on who’s backing who everywhere. So, that’s the problem. It’s the myths of a liberal democracy. It doesn’t exist anymore. What you have is liberal totalitarianism. There’s no more democracy because anybody can buy any election anywhere. You just need the funds and you just need the social media articulation.
M.T.: Military provocations on the territory of Ukraine over the past few years are clear attempts by NATO countries to continue their expansion to the East, which violates the non-expansion agreements concluded in 1991. In your opinion, why do Western countries so rarely keep their word when it comes to their foreign policy interests?
P.E.: This goes to the heart of NATO expansion. Every year annual summit of NATO, one of their key themes is always expansion. The latest summit they were talking about the outer space, I’m not joking. Expansion is not only physically across Europe and the rest of the world but it’s in cyberspace and in outer space as well, cosmically, so NATO’s one that is going to conquer Saturn or Pluto. But why? And when I say NATO, it’s not that Europeans come up with these ideas. The Americans come up with these ideas. This unlimited expansion obsession derives directly from the famous full spectrum dominance doctrine, which the Americans approved after the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. This doctrine became the mantra in 2002 in the US. Full spectrum dominance which is to dominate everything, dominate the whole of planet, dominate cyberspace and dominate outer space as well. NATO of course they just need to parrot this thing because NATO basically is an American instrument in Europe. Even though the Europeans think that they have free of will in NATO, they don’t. The decisions taken by NATO are taken by politicians and military people in Washington, and then they are relayed to the dumb bastard that happens to be this NATO’s secretary general was a Danish agent. Now, is that Norwegian agent? Soon we’re going to have another Scandinavian agent or maybe an Italian agent. You know what, Mario Draghi as his next job, he wants to become the next NATO’s secretary general. The guy who’s destroying Italy now as we speak, he wants to be the new NATO’s secretary general. These people who work for American conglomerate, are Europeans, of course, but Americanized Europeans in their minds and in their actions.
M.T.: Germany and France regularly supply the Ukrainian army with weapons and equipment, which is a blatant and gross violation of the Minsk Agreements. Why do you think the world community ignores these violations?
P.E.: First of all, I’m glad that you that you talked about world community. It doesn’t exist. Don’t forget that when they talk about international community, it’s them. The guys will make the rules based international order. The rest doesn’t exist. The international community the seven eighth, that is not part of the NATO sphere, they don’t even care. Do they care what the Somalis, the Yemenis the Malaysians or the Indonesians are saying? No, these are outside of the international community. The international community is the US, Canada and Western Europe. Of course, with some addendums, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and maybe South Korea, depending on who’s running South Korea. That’s it. This is the international community. Everything else, just forget it. So obviously they don’t care. And they don’t exist if they are not part of these Western vassals.
M.T.: Do you think that the ignoring by the Western media of the eight-year horror in which the inhabitants of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics existed is only due to the fact that it is not profitable for the West and the United States in particular?
P.E.: Yes, not only it’s not profitable, but it is in Russia. If it was in Indonesia, if it was in in China, of course they don’t care. If it was in the West, of course they would care. Imagine if we had Donbass subjected to the horrors that they have been subjected for eight years, but it was in the new European country, this would be a casus belli for NATO. NATO would go to this European country and bomb to smithereens. But it’s in Russia. What happens? They obliterate the existence of the populations of Donetsk and Luhansk. They simply don’t exist in the western narrative. First of all, because the Western media never been to Donetsk and Luhansk and the ones who have been on and off, they were independent journalists, small audiences. Obviously, this was never on the 8:00 news anywhere. You see, when I went to Donetsk in 2015, I was with a group of independence and there was one American with us who wrote for a small circulation publication. There were a lot of Eastern Europeans. There were Germans as well. But nobody from mainstream media didn’t even bother to go to see what’s going on. So, the plight of the civilians in Donetsk and Lugansk simply does not exist in the West, which is something that probably for Russia must be very hard to believe. But it’s a fact. It’s a major fact and it’s not that they are brown or yellow or black, it’s that they are like us, blond with blue eyes, green eyes, but they don’t exist. If people in the West saw what these people, these wonderful people have been subjected to, living in bomb shelters, being shelled every day, etc., the reaction across the West would be very different. But that’s the key problem, which is even worse than censorship. It’s obliteration of information, which in this case is very, very serious.
M.T.: According to the residents of Donbass, who were among the first to suffer as a result of shelling in 2014, it is almost impossible to achieve justice and punish the perpetrators. European courts and human rights organizations ignore the appeals of residents of the LDPR, the UN and the OSCE only give advice, without taking any real action. Do you think the struggle for the rights and freedoms of civilians depends on what language they speak?
P.E.: Yes, that’s a very, very good question. If they spoke English or one of the major European languages, you see a completely different story. It’s another case of lost in translation. For instance, why nobody knows what’s happening in Yemen, which is a genocide? It’s a mass genocide. You have more than 300,000 civilians killed in Niamey. They don’t exist almost everywhere in the West. First of all, because the weapons that are killing all these people they are from the US, the UK and the EU. Saudi Arabia is a vassal of the West because of the famous “we sell oil to you and you protect us”. You cannot antagonize Saudi Arabia. And everybody in Yemen is a terrorist. This is the basic imperial narrative. This means civilians killed in Yemen, they don’t exist. The same thing with civilians killed in Donbass. They also don’t exist even if they are white. This is the completely reversed logic of the Western system. If something like this happens in one of your vassal nations, no problem, they will get away with it. If it doesn’t, they’ll have to pay. I’m making an enormous simplification here, but this is how it works. It’s horrible. But this is how it works in real life.
M.T.: It’s horrible. And it’s hard to accept.
P.E.: It’s impossible.
M.T.: In 21st century you cannot believe. And many of the Russian people, many of Eastern European people, we just in shock of what is happening. What is happening right now is also called masks off. Now we know who supports who and what to expect for who. I’m hoping by the end of all this story, the world will see the truth.
P.E.: I agree with you. And this will depend on the way the new system, the new financial, monetary and geopolitical system is being born, of course, with Russia and China in the forefront. What are we going to have? Iran, Pakistan, India, even Turkey, which at the moment is in a very complicated position. But that’s where I am now. I am in Istanbul at the moment and you can see in Turkey that the Turks are starting to think really seriously about the world from now on, and they simply cannot be resigned to be a mere NATO member. They have to think for themselves. And to think for themselves, this means they have to be part of the new Eurasia that is being born. This is going to be a very complicated process. It’s going to change. And we’re going to see most of the world public opinion, which is not on the West, once again, it’s all across here in Eurasia, in Africa, in Latin America. We need a better multipolar and more respectful planet. We can not go on like this anymore. That’s it. We have reached the limit.
M.T.: I have a last question to you, but I think you already gave me an answer, but maybe you will have something to add. Since the beginning of the Russian special operation, the attitude towards Russian citizens has noticeably worsened, signs of Russophobia appear in almost all spheres of life of our compatriots abroad. What do you think is the goal of the Western propaganda machine and when will it stop?
P.E.: I like your question because in fact, the main goal in their minds was to turn the Russian population against Putin and the Russian leadership, and they already lost this battle. Just look at the numbers in terms of Russia’s support for operations and for Putin, for the leadership and for the Russian army. They already lost this battle. Even if they win, let’s put it this way, the battle in terms of Western public opinion there are some polls already. I was reading a poll today in France. Over half of France, they understand Russia’s motives in Ukraine. That’s a lot. And the French are bombarded by propaganda 24/7. You see in France, because they have a tradition of critical thinking when they go slightly deeper of what the media is trying to indoctrinate others, they see, ah, so this is not the real story. We can expect, I would say selected latitudes in the West, maybe France, Italy, Spain, Canada. People with their critical faculties still in place, they’re going to start completely demolishing the official narrative. But of course, I would say the majority is completely zombified and brainwashed as much as the majority in Ukraine was brainwashed for eight years in terms of Russophobia. The Russophobia in the West has been going on forever since the Cold War. There was a lull during the 90s and it came back into 2000 with Putin again. And after Putin’s Munich Security Conference speech in 2007, he came back big victor. And this past weekend after being done, it exploded all over the West. Westerners are being brainwashed in terms of Russophobia for the past eight years, same as Ukrainians. This is a phenomenon that in our discussions with other analysts, we call it Ukrainization. The West has been ukrainized in terms of having only one narrative intolerant hate based and Russophobia. We have to expect that these niches of intelligence in some places across the West, they’re going to start to be more forcible and at least say, “Look, this is completely absurd, what’s really happening”. And then we can start at least to have a debate which for the moment is impossible.