Luis Gonzalo Segura: analyzing the war in Ukraine independently has a very high cost

JAYRO SANCHEZ

Luis Gonzalo Segura is a former lieutenant in the Spanish Army. He was expelled from the Armed Forces for denouncing his corruption publicly in 2015. He is now a writer and collaborates in various media outlets. In his last book, The Ukrainian trap. The Western story under examination (Akal, 2023), presents the key events of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine since 2014. We spoke with him about the war and the latest events.

You begin your new essay by saying that the West is used to judging what happens in the rest of the planet from a plane of false moral superiority. Is he doing it with the war between Russia and Ukraine?

Of course. It is something that is perceived very clearly. There is a key element that we should take into account when analyzing this matter, which is what is happening between Palestine and Israel.

If we try to compare the position of the Western world regarding the war in Ukraine with that it maintains regarding this conflict in the Middle East, we can observe the hypocrisy, falsehood and cynicism that characterize it. The opinion that he has expressed about the contest has varied in proportion to the way in which it affected his interests.

That opinion is disseminated through the media, which you criticize for constructing a monolithic story about what is happening in Ukraine. Are they deceiving their audience?

I think so. Western media conglomerates have avoided telling citizens the entire context around which the war being fought on Ukrainian soil revolves to prevent them from getting an exact idea of ​​what it means.

They have also dedicated themselves to carrying out propaganda operations as crude as linking the figure of Vladimir Putin with that of Adolf Hitler. Of course, the Russian president is not a good guy. I am surprised that there are people within the Spanish left who feel admiration for him, since he is an unscrupulous far-right who violates all human rights there are and to be had.

However, I think there is a huge difference between today's Russia and Nazi Germany. The simile is nonsense, and what I don't understand is how people who say these outrageous things can remain so calm.

What parts of the context of the conflict have the media not described?

None of them wanted to ask the question of why Russia invaded Ukraine. I agree that it is an intolerable act, but no one has questioned the motives that the Russian authorities had for launching the attack.

The information offered to us on the subject is so biased that with it we can only establish value judgments. They have not explained to us what has happened in this country during the last 30 years, nor that Russia has felt threatened by the West's interference in Ukraine, which has belonged to its sphere of influence for decades.

Can and should we discuss whether there continue to be areas of influence? Yes. Can and should we discuss that today there are states that are vassals of others? Clear. But the truth is that, until a few years ago, Ukraine was a vassal state of Russia. And, if he won the war, it would be the United States'.

How has Europe arrived at the current situation?

We have wanted to take Ukraine from Russia, and Moscow has warned on multiple occasions that it was not going to allow it. The Russians have always marked this issue with a red line because they consider that Ukraine is not a sovereign country. And they have arguments with which to defend their position.

Although, regardless of whether these are true or not, Western countries have always been very clear about what their strategies could generate in Eastern Europe. What they were trying to do was isolate Russia in geopolitical terms. They wanted to turn it into a regional power that was oriented towards Asia so that it would also compete with its other great enemy: China.

His intervention in Ukraine in the first decade of this century responded to this dynamic, and ended up leading to one of those color revolutions that are supposed to be so beautiful and democratic.

All of this is what has made Russia feel justified in invading its neighbor. As I said before, there is no legal reasoning on which he can rely to have undertaken such action, but it is true that his decision is understandable in geopolitical terms.

The West is not the best place to denounce what is happening there. Hasn't the United States used that same kind of reasoning to launch its troops into Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan? The Washington Government has had the opportunity to lead the planet and impose new geopolitical laws, but all it has done is abuse those that govern the current world. Now we are living the consequences.

IT IS NOT THAT THERE IS NO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, THERE IS ALSO NO DEMOCRACY

En The Ukrainian trap, you claim that the sources used by journalists to create the story about the war are very partial and contaminated from the beginning. How is it possible?

I can't explain it either. These people should have a minimum of respect for citizens and their own means. For example, there is the case of María Ramírez, the editor-in-chief of the international section of elDiario.es. His articles on the subject do not have a minimum of criteria...

We could also talk about Francis Fukuyama, who suddenly posted a video on social media claiming that the Russian Army would collapse in a matter of days. Many media outlets began to distribute this “information” through their own networks, asserting that Putin was not going to make it to Christmas. Two years later, we see that these statements did not make any sense.

And, on the other hand, all those far-right American generals who believed that Russia had won the conflict one or two weeks after it began have not proven correct either.

Unfortunately, we live immersed in a whirlwind of opinions developed without rational arguments. There are very few people who analyze the conflict independently because doing so has a very high cost, both professionally and personally. In the end, you end up being left out of the game.

From what you say, it seems that the right to freedom of expression is not guaranteed anywhere in the world...

Clear. In the West, there are laws that say it exists, but it is a lie. And, in Russia, if you write something that the Government doesn't like, you go to prison. At least, its authorities are more honest, since they clearly express that the only thing that is written there is what they want to be written.

Here, no one needs to censor journalists because they already do it themselves. They know perfectly what they can say and what they can't. Let's look at the diary El País, which has a gigantic number of layoffs behind it. One of the latest has been that of Fernando Savater, who was one of its founders.

In fact, I'm going to go further. It is not that there is no freedom of expression, it is that there is no democracy either. What people know by that name is nothing more than a tool that allows the United States and Western elites to control citizens.

According to you, how do they do it?

Let readers investigate the processes of democratic transition in Europe, Asia, Africa or Latin America. It is evident that the only thing that the United States has sought with them is the establishment of "democratic" systems designed so that the remaining countries of the world become their vassals.

The best example to prove that their leaders are not interested in their "allies" possessing true democratic sovereignty may be that of Franco's Spain. Why did the leaders of the “free world” allow the regime to survive? Very easy. They preferred that a dictator govern here than that the citizens vote and reach a hypothetical agreement with the USSR.

Something similar happened in Germany. After the Second World War (1939-1945), American leaders preferred that it remain fragmented rather than become a democratic state and be able to turn towards the Soviet Union.

This was something that did not suit them, since they had achieved their prominent geopolitical position by positioning themselves in Europe, which they saw as a bridgehead over Eurasia.

THE UNITED STATES USES DEMOCRACY AS A SUCTION TOOL

So, do you think there has been no true democratic regime in the world?

Perhaps the closest to that ideal was that of Pericles' Athens. Despite this, that city-state was only democratic for its citizens. Outside its territory, it maintained the same geopolitical rules as any current power.

In the end, what any leader wants from other territories is extraction and exploitation. In that sense, the United States uses democracy as a suction tool that provides enormous benefits.

You mentioned before that you think that linking Putin with Hitler is a mistake. Some people have also drawn associations between the Ukrainian conflict and World War II. The Nazi leader was one of the main causes of the destruction of the Versailles international order, and, in some ways, Putin is trying to encourage the creation of a new multipolar system. Are these situations comparable?

Yes and no. We cannot talk about absolute truths. I think that, most of the time, those kinds of similes are made for mere propaganda purposes. The aim of describing Putin's figure in this way is to instill fear in the citizen, to exalt him so that he asks to go to war.

It is very easy to tell ourselves that we have to sell weapons to Ukraine because its rulers are very good and democratic and because, after all, it has been unjustly invaded by the new Hitler of the 21st century. Much more than explaining the geopolitical reality...

The same thing happens with Palestine. People are more likely to buy the explanation that all Palestinians are terrorists and belong to Hamas than that Israel has been financing that organization for decades because it wants the territory it is currently bombing to be as radicalized as possible to justify the violations of rights that it is carrying out.

Although they have been more nuanced in their words in recent weeks, Western leaders have repeatedly stated that Ukraine will win the war since it began. They are right?

Nobody has it. One of the main premises of my last essay is that we should not believe in any predictions made beyond the short term. It is impossible to know who is going to win.

Still, kyiv will not be able to achieve victory if the West continues to block the economic aid it has provided until recently. The political parties that can order the shipment of money, weapons and other supplies are nothing more than tools of Western economic power, and it is already realizing that defeating Russia is not going to be as easy as it thought.

It is true that, until now, Moscow has not been able to deal with Ukraine. But that does not mean that it can defeat Russia. That would only be possible if the United States and its allies invested much more money in their "partner."

On the other hand, Russia is risking its life in Ukraine. She's not going to abandon her just like that. Thus, the question we should ask ourselves is: how willing is the West to sacrifice its well-being to keep Ukraine in the game and have it bleed Russia?

I imagine it is not something easy to calculate, but to what extent are the latest Russian military advances in eastern Ukraine important?

I would say they are quite relevant. Although I consider that the fact that Russia has not collapsed is even more important, since everyone was very clear that its collapse was going to materialize after the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023.

The only thing that has been demonstrated is that the counterattack has been a complete disaster, and this despite the manipulation applied by certain media outlets such as the The New York Times, which has been publishing modified maps of the territories recovered by Zelensky's armies for the past 9 months.

I think we are in a period of uncertainty right now. If the US Congress continues to block President Biden's funding efforts for Ukraine, Ukraine will most likely be in serious trouble. However, the continuation of the fight depends on its will and Russia's ability to subdue it. At least, we will have to wait a few months to see what is going to happen.

Jayro sanchez he is a journalist.