What Actually Ruined Planned Economy and Why a Hybrid Model is the Future.

Nowadays so-called Paleo Conservative or Paleo Libertarian people like to advocate for so called small government, which often means complete laissez-faire economy and no regulations for businesses. One of the arguments they bring is that communism never worked and always led to poverty.

That however is a false analogy fallacy. Just because communism failed does not mean that laissez-faire economy is the only alternative, nor that is proves that laissez-faire is a successful model. Actual practice of laissez-faire first led towards cartels and monopolies and then to Great Depression. According to Paleo-X we now have to overlook these facts because communism led to North Korea and Pol Pot. 

Fundamentally however it's not a binary choice, there are many different models, including Keynesian that tries to bring together best of both worlds.

If we look closer on Soviet Planned Economy, then it's not government ownership per se that was root cause of its problems. The entire Soviet industry was controlled by a Gosplan agency that functioned as both mega conglomerate that united all industries and economic activity under one management as well as legal monopoly. 

Detrimental effects on monopolies are well known, the US had to deal with monopolies in late 19th century. Back in the days public was outraged by what trusts were doing. Teddy Roosevelt made a name for himself busting trusts. Nowadays there are anti-monopoly laws in many states that prevent any company from monopolizing the market in any way. 

Large conglomerates companies are also not the most efficient form of business. A company that does anything from selling matches to building spaceships cannot efficiently and professionally do either. If you read article about conglomerates, you can easily notice that its advantages are superficial and mostly focused on company's survival, rather than efficient operation. At the same time many of its disadvantages are the same that eventually killed off Soviet Planned Economy. 

Combination of these two factors in Gosplan led towards most inefficiencies and problems with Soviet planned economy system. Add to that completely unaccountable government that did not allow for free elections, and you have completely insulated from public scrutiny and feedback bureaucracies in both government and Gosplan, that will not be removed no matter how poorly they do.

At the same time Soviet Planned economy could solve various social issues like maintaining full employment to staff off social unrest. It gave people certainty they will be able to put food on the table and provide for their families.

The biggest advantage a free market has over the alternatives is the competition that drives innovation. Companies invent new better ways of doing things to get ahead of their competitors. That works well for new industries that can still be improved in many ways. However, if industry is mature and fails to innovate, then free market becomes nothing more than rent seeking for the owners and shareholders. It can even turn predatorial if managers who run essential services would deliberately raise prices on essential goods, knowing people will pay anyway.

Because of that a hybrid model can be considered optimal. 

Government should run and control companies and services that are essential for human live: energy, transport, housing market, even grocery stores. That will make sure people have everything they need to live a decent life.

At the same time there should not be legal monopoly on any industry. If private sector feels they can do something better than government does, they should be allowed to step in and make profit. This should be encouraged, not banned like in USSR.

The hybrid system can bring best of both world and allow our society to finally reach universal prosperity and eliminate poverty. This is the way forward. 

Trump's Tariffs

 

Recently Trump announced his "reciprocal" tariffs. Large colorful boards smell poorly thought populism. Same rate for all goods with differentiations only per country does not make it any better. These tariffs are just for show. Now the question is what they will cost the countries in question and the US.

It's not that all tariffs are bad, and they cannot be used to help local manufacturing. However, in order to actually help local manufacturers tariffs have to be per product, not per country. Before charging any tariffs on this or that, local producers have to contacted to discuss if they could profitably produce this product locally if foreign competition was made more expensive. That is what some countries do to protect certain select local industries from foreign competition. High tariffs on some good and pretty much none on the rest. 

For example, EU mostly use tariffs to protects local farming. EU does not want to be completely dependent on foreign import when it comes to food. If they allow foreign competition to completely drive local farmers out of business, they will be at risk of starvation if something interferes with food imports.

Some overprotective countries like Russia even managed to make people buy morally outdated 70s era Ladas, by using tariffs to make even 10 years old imported cars more expensive than local ones. Measure was very unpopular with drivers even if personnel of Lada factory was happy.

In contrast blanket tariffs on all import will do little beyond raising prices on all import. Some or possibly most of this stuff will still be unprofitable to produce locally, so all tariffs will accomplish will be higher prices on every imported product. 

American lovers of foreign goods will be hit hardest, foreign countries that export to the US might lose some sales due to higher price on their goods in the US, but ultimately most will be able to sell their goods elsewhere. 

Out of countries affected by tariffs, the biggest impact will be felt in Mexico as well as China, Vietnam and other southeast Asian countries, whose economies are design to export into the US. For EU tariffs will be mostly an annoyance that nonetheless breaks trust between EU and the US.

Once again if tariffs against China could be justified with geopolitics: China was sliding further into authoritarianism and bellicose behavior. They exploit smaller countries and try to drive Western influence away. Tariffs could cool their heads a little bit.

Doing the same to EU does nothing but hurt transatlantic alliance. After initial shock EU will get its shit together and prepare measures to do everything without the US. America will lose its unique leadership role in the world. Role that still affords them greater say in any global affair then the entire EU combined.

Unfortunately, in their current form, Trump's tariffs are more of a trouble than they are worth. Which is a missed opportunity. Instead of a cohesive policy that could shore up certain key industries from competition and ensure their continued survival, it instead will mostly become lose/lose situation.

Economic Benefits of War in Ukraine

I recently watched a video that stated that Ukraine lost a lot of people to war, and that current population of the country is only about 27 million. Most of the losses are either refugees that fled to Europe or Russia or inhabitants of occupied territories that Russia has given Russian citizenship and now wants to draft into Russian military.

The video uses these numbers to draw a conclusion that Ukraine will not recover from war demographically.

I would like to disagree not with numbers but with conclusion. I generally used to continually claim that world suffers from overpopulation and that reduction of population is beneficial to any nation and the world in general. That does apply to Ukraine as well. The more people will die in war, the more wealth will be left to those who remain. Cynical but truth, nonetheless.

Second issue is question of loyalty. There is significant pro-Russian minority in Ukraine that actually prefers to be part of Russia. Most of them also want to extend that wish to the entirely of the country without regard to the fact that majority of Ukrainians do not see themselves as Russians and see Russia as enemy. 

Half of these Russia sympathizers Russia already claimed in their annexation of Crimea and creation of DNR and LNR puppets, but some still remain scattered here and there across Ukraine. War will help weed these people out. 

During peace time they refused to just move to Russia or elsewhere, because selling their apartment is a hard and they erroneously believed they are majority of country's population. Now that war destroyed their homes and communities most of them have fled the country, some to Russia but most to Europe. 

As I mentioned in my other article, for a person who thinks that Ukraine is not even a country, leaving it behind is just an issue of practicality and possibility. For such people, as war endangered their lives and destroyed their homes, it also opened them towards resettling in Europe by claiming to be a refugee. Russia also offered people in areas they have reached to leave with retreating Russian army and promised to resettle them in Russia at government expense.

As those for whom Ukraine is not a country leave, only those for whom Ukraine one and only their country remains. These patriots will be able to rebuild their country much better and faster without all these naysayers getting in the way and complaining about Ukrainian language or culture.

However, there is one other issue and that is an economic one. There are two areas that can benefit from population reduction and that is mining and farming. I will begin with mining.

Mining in Ukraine is concentrated in Donbas area. It was started in late 19th century by John Hughes and other European and Russian businessmen. Biggest city in the area Donetsk, used to bear Hughes's name. Area grew rapidly and in soviet times was the most densely populated in Ukraine.

However, there is a problem with mining in Donbas: it still uses outdated 19th century shaft method of mining. Modern mining is all open pit mining. Open pit produces a lot more coal than a shaft and require a lot less people to work the equipment. These facts make shaft mining unprofitable compared to open pit.

Converting to open pit however is not easy. The pit itself takes a lot more open space compared to shaft. To convert to open pit almost every settlement in Donbas will have to be levelled to the ground and population resettled somewhere else. Because of that Thatcher government in UK choose to close their mines in northern England instead of converting them to open pits. They did not want to resettle the miners elsewhere, nor would they commit to simply exterminating them. 

Donbas population is whooping 6 million people. Resettling them peacefully would not be prohibitively expensive but also politically complicated. As strange as it sounds, residents of Donbas are attached to their area and would resist moving elsewhere. Just as British miners who resisted Thatcher, they view their mining communities as source of power and influence and would not want to be divided and separated from each other. They tend to mistrust Kyiv government and would remain skeptical, no matter what alternative accommodation Kyiv would offer them.

Thus, war was essentially the only solution to Donbas problem. Constant shelling already levelled many towns with the ground and Russia kept shelling more and more. Russian military heavily relies on multiple rocket launchers that cause a lot of damage to cities and other civilian infrastructure. People, unwilling to move in peacetime, are much more willing to do so in wartime to save their lives. The fact that there is war in Ukraine makes them eligible for refugee status in Europe and elsewhere. That will entice some to migrate to a wealthy western nation.

Second issue is agriculture, but problem there is the same as in mining and thus the same solution will work here as well. Ukrainian soil (Chernozem) is very rich in nutrients and very suitable for any farming.

However, agriculture was practiced in Ukraine since time immemorable, long before tractors, combines and other agricultural machinery was invented. Agricultural machinery allows a single person or a small group of people to work huge swathes of land. Without such machinery it would take thousands of people to do the same. Since Ukraine practiced agriculture long before agricultural machinery was invented, rural population of Ukraine is much higher compared to modern agricultural leaders such as the US or Australia. Ukrainians are accustomed to much smaller pieces of agricultural land, that are too small to make agriculture profitable in 21st century. 

As I mentioned before the US and Australia did not have to deal with the issue of transitioning agriculture from manual to mechanized way. The only country that transitioned agriculture from manual to mechanized was UK. It was done by means of Inclosure Acts that displaced a lot of rural peasants from their land in rather disrespectful to human rights way that would be hard to do in modern times. 

Here again war can help to solve the problem by displacing surplus of rural population to cities or even abroad. Emptied land then could be divided into large modern farms, sized for modern heavily mechanized farming.

I will not claim here that great powers of the world conspired to get this war rolling because of the economic benefits I outlined, but these benefits will be felt in Ukraine and in Russia once the war is over. Now if only COVID or other virus will pick up its killing spree and we would enter New Golden Age.

We Need More Comprehensive Rules Regarding Self-Determination

 

In international law there exist two contradictory principles. One is right of people's and nations for self-determination and the other is invariability of national sovereignty and borders. That creates conflict of interests. A simple example of such conflict of interests would be if a part of an existing country wants to secede and form its own country. Right of self-determination says it has a right to do so. However, a country they currently part of then can claim that their possible independence violates their sovereignty and borders. Give them independence and violate integrity of their current nation borders or deny them independence and violate their right to self-determination. No matter what you do it will break one or the other law.

These conflicting principles led to a situation where in practice interests of powerful nations decide who gets independence and who does not. Force and influence decide who gets to be free and who ends up being oppressed. Uyghurs and Tibetans live under Chinese yoke because China is big and strong in that areas. Tiny South Ossetia, that has less people than Monaco, wins its unrecognized independence on the back or Russian arms.

Dictatorships are not the only ones at fault though. Spain suppressed Catalan independence and EU OK-ed it because they do not want to ruin their cozy relationship with Spain.

These are just few examples. World is full of areas and unrepresented nations, big and small who all claim right for independence, but unable to achieve it. There are also places like Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Bosnia, Ethiopia and many others, where two or more distinct (nations)bodies of people vie for control over the territory and its government.

Nation state is a country where one body of people controls the government collectively. That can only work if there is only one such body of people in any given country. If there are two or more, then they will fight each other over the control of government. Once one group wins such control, they will use it to benefit only their ethnicity, sidelining or even drying extinct the other ethnicities. Multinational experiments, such as Yugoslavia or USSR failed because eventually consistent nations started accusing each other of hogging up all the wealth for their own people only and denying it to others. 

Yet collapse of Yugoslavia led towards international community repeating this experiment in Bosnia, where its three nations: Serbs, Croats and Bosnaks are deadlocked in never-ending Mexican Standoff and nothing ever gets done. As much as some might wish that these people would abandon their petty ethnic differences and unite behind one Bosnian banner, they do not do so. Croats and Serbs in Bosnia may hold Bosnian Passports but see Bosnaks as their enemies and people of nations of Croatia and Serbia respectively as their fellow countrymen. The remaining third nation of Bosnia, Bosnaks wish to unite their country but simply cannot. 

A solution is needed because leave things be and let things work out does no work. Fundamentally countries like Bosnia have to be divided until they reach one nation (polity of people) per country

However, that raises another question. If country is to be divided, then where borders should run and who should be entitled to a nation and who does not. That in turn can create new injustice to replace the old one. 

For example, Kosovo was granted independence in its administrative borders, drawn by Josef Tito. That left province with a Serbian enclave of around 10%. During Serbian control over the area, Serbs attempted to genocide Albanians of Kosovo, who were an ethnic minority in whole of Servia but majority in Kosovo itself. Solution, that granted Kosovo independence, now left Serb minority in new Kosovo, reversing the tables between ethnicities. 

As much as some may say it's fair that Serbs now experience what it's like to be a minority ruled by others who hate them, it's not a solution to a problem, it's just a reversal of roles. Serbia and sympathizers will protest, then do something and a constant chain of offenses will continue.

Kosovo's independence itself raised conflict between territorial integrity and right for self-determination. Sure, there were good reasons to allow Kosovo its independence and the decision was made by a representative of neutral enough country to forestall accusations of bias. However, it was a decision based on merits of the situations seen by a guy from Finland. There was nothing more substantial to back it up.

Russia, long ally of Serbia, protested Kosovo independence on the grounds of Serbian territorial integrity. Later Russian ceased this precedent to hold referendums in Crimea and then claim that people of Crimea should have self-determination to secede from Ukraine. Now EU claimed that Ukrainian territorial integrity cannot be violated in this manner.

Sure, Russia is a dictatorship, it is unduly biased towards Serbia, there was a proper due process in Kosovo but not in Ukraine, Russia has history of electoral fraud and so results of referendum it organized cannot be trusted, Serbs were committing genocide in Kosovo and Ukrainians did not and many other reasons why Kosovo's independence is justified, and Russian annexation of Crimea is not. 

However, it is not written anywhere in particular what is fair and what is not. Lack of clear rules on self-determination is to blame that it used more as a pretext to war or foreign interference than a real body of rules that can govern humanity. For Europe its territorial integrity of Ukraine but right for self-determination of Kosova's Albanians. For Russia its self-determination of Russians in Crimea but territorial integrity of Serbia. Net result that is not an international law but an excuse to carve up the map as one sees fit and more war as a result.

However, it does not have to be this way. A comprehensive set of principles to govern people's right for self-determination can be created to prevent any further wars and accusations of bias and unfairness. 

Such rules have to include minimum size of polity that can be considered for independence. Density of their residence in the area of question. Special provisions have to be made in split areas where half of population wants independence, and the other half does not. Safeguards against saturating area with recent settlers to alter its demographics also has to be accounted for. Options for resettlement to nation of their choice should be offered. 

Geographic implications on nation they want to secede from and many more. New nations should not geographically disadvantage the original nations by blocking all their access to sea, like Eritrea did to Ethiopia. New borders have to be defensible and not put either nation in jeopardy of invasion. Natural barriers like rivers and mountains should be considered as borders whenever possible. Natural resources also have to be considered, new nations should not hog up all the valuable resources such as oil from the nation the want to secede from.

Borders of the new nations should be drawn to avoid including any ethnic minorities. If unrepresented nation/ethnicity makes up 60% of region's population they should get 60% of region territory, not the whole of it. Credible historical population figures should be considered if the current controller of the area deliberately brought migrants of their main ethnicity to the region to dilute its ethnic composition. Population stuffing should be discouraged. Recent migrants should be told to either accept separation from their nation or return to their provinces of origin.

Finally, referendums on self-determination should be organized, held by UN. Votes should be counted by UN in presence of all concerned parties and neutral observers to avoid accusations of electoral fraud. Votes should be counted not only for region as a whole but also for each individual city and sub region. Areas that vote against independence should not be forced to secede with the rest of the province.

Hopefully my proposal principles on nations' self-determination will be able to create a better and both more fair and more workable world where each polity of people will be able to have a country of their own. A world where bigger ethnicities will not oppress smaller ones. A world of rule of law.

Government Should Control Weather

 

Recent storms, rains, cyclones and other tantrums of capricious weather get me convinced that we should use advanced knowledge of weather and climate to simply control weather and shape it to out liking. Government can easily use this knowledge to control weather and prevent damaging cataclysm, while ensuring perfect sunny days for citizens to enjoy. 

Why suffer floods and thunderstorms when you can just launch coolant into a cloud and make it rain couple of km away from the shore. Floods and cyclones cause a lot of damage to properties and kill a lot of people. We do not need to suffer these tantrums of nature, when we can simply tame it to our needs.

I wonder why people fail to realize that it is not only possible but also very easy to do. Even Wikipedia has an article about that.

Not only we can prevent damage, but we can also create rain where it's needed, for example over the agricultural land to help crops grow. One can easily move clouds into hinterlands and make rain over farmlands to make them more productive. With some more complex tricks it likely possible to stop or create hurricanes (cyclones).

 

While we talk about some stupid green initiatives and "preserving" nature, our enemies in Russia and China already control weather. I think hurricanes that hit Louisiana were man-made, they hit America far too consistently. We can do that too and make some off Chinese coast. 

However, what we really need is to not hit Chinese but to prevent bad weather from causing damage to our cities and people. Weather was out of control long enough and we should finally reign in it and make it peaceful and docile.

Weather control is important part of national security. It can be used in unconventional warfare to cause damage without taking any retaliation or responsibility for the act. Because of that we need to master control over weather to prevent Russia and China from destroying us with cyclones and hurricanes. 

Why Russia Will Not Use Nukes

 

After my previous article about emotional nature of Russian reasons to wage war in Ukraine, some may wonder if Russia will go as far as resort to nukes. The answer to that is 99% negative. Putin may bluff about nukes but actually using them is a step too far for him. The reasons are multiple.

While some might argue that he already calls Ukrainians Nazis and now it's only a matter of time before he will start destroying them with all his might. To answer that I want to clarify this "Nazis in Ukraine" ideology. 

Putin does not say that every Ukrainian is a Nazi, far from it, his ideology instead portrays average Ukrainian as a "victim of a Nazi coup". According to Putin's propaganda during Euromaidan a small group of Nazis took power in Kyiv and now rules Ukraine against the will of its people. Based on this first lie, Putin later build his entire "special military operation" as "liberation of Ukrainian people from the Nazis in charge". 

Such benevolent facade allows him to maintain goodwill of Russian public and support for war. However, it also puts constrains on what he can do and use nukes is one of them. If he is trying to help people of Ukraine, why would he nuke them. Why can't them simply remove these few Nazis from power and return power to "legitimate government"? These uncomfortable questions is not something Putin wants to answer to. For him it is much more expedient to throw cannon fodder at problem as that will not require any further explanation.

Another issue the fact that Russian patriots view Ukraine as part of Russia. Thus, using nukes against Russian own territory would be seen as unreasonable destruction of Russia's own land and people. That too would require a lot of justification.

There is also an international outcry to consider. Sure, Russia so far holds against sanctions, but use of nukes likely to make things even worse and for a long time.

If Russia cannot defeat even Ukraine without use of nukes, then it will make Russia look weak, both internally and externally.

Finally, there is the fact that Putin war fundamentally aims to keep people of Russia in carefree slumber about reality around them. In that context nuclear explosion will likely work as a wakeup call to all these hooked up on Putin's propaganda masses. It's no longer fun and games if nuclear option was used. Putin wants to keep population numb, not alert.

Reason Putin calls the war "special military operation" is to downplay its seriousness and severity. There nothing he can do to downplay usage of nuclear weapons. No one will believe in use of "recreational McNukes" by some rich oligarch. In the beginning of the war, Russians did explore the option of somehow use nukes but frame it as if Ukrainians did it and not Russians, but nothing came out of it.

There is still an off chance that Putin manage to come up with some plausible enough narrative that could allow him to use nukes without taking responsibility for it, but that is very unlikely.

One thing for sure is that Putin will not want to be responsible for causing a nuclear disaster. Benefits of victory over Ukraine are not as significant for him as drawbacks from escalating the war and causing nuclear holocaust. 

Fundamentally Russian Objectives in War in Ukraine are Emotional and Not Rational

 

There is a saying in Russia that translated goes something like that:

One cannot understand Russia with their mind

Or measure it in commonly agreed yards

She (Russia) has unique constitution

One can only believe in Russia

Being very calm and rational person, I could not find a single reason to like Russia or live there. I left and do not look back.

However, there are people who actually like Russia, both inside and even outside of its borders. Back in the days I could not understand why anyone would like Russia. Now I think that the more emotional and irrational people are, the more likely they are to like Russia. 

For rational people who think with their mind, Russia is a horrible place to live or be. For emotional person however there are plenty of reasons to love or believe in Russia. They are all dumb and irrational reasons, but reasons, nonetheless. 

For example, Dugin's own "Russia is great, special unique center of Eurasian civilization and culture." brings laugh from rational people who know better but fills an emotional person with pride for their country.

There is another one: "Russia (USSR) saved the world from Nazis and prevented genocide of people of Europe". Truth is that Nazis only planned to genocide Jews and did not plan to exterminate say Hungarians or Ukrainians. There is also the fact that USSR basically enslaved entire Eastern Europe by installing communist governments against their will after the war and exploited them. 

However, just like some "BLM Woke person's feelings do not care for your facts", feelings of die-hard (red) Russian patriot do not care for historical accuracy. They will shout something like "we saved them from genocide, and now they shit in our direction" in enraged stupor and refuse to listen to any arguments to the contrary you will bring them.

That is how emotional Russian majority is like.

Taking the above into consideration, Russian war in Ukraine is not about any rational objectives. No matter how you look at it rationally there is no reason to suffer severe international sanctions and waste countless lives and equipment to conquer and annex several unproductive regions of Ukraine that are constant drain on Kyiv's budget.

That is if you think rationally. For an emotional die-hard patriot however it's not about making sense, it's about "showing 'the West' that Russia is superpower", "liberating Ukraine from Nazis" and other such fictitious things. There are no Nazis in Ukraine, but there is no point of telling that to a die-hard patriot as they will refuse to look at any facts anyway.

A somewhat rational Putin too is victim and hostage of the emotional country he is in charge of. He cannot simply hurt patriots' feelings and tell them the truth. During Yeltsin's times emotional patriots never stopped waving red soviet flags and yell "Yeltsin's gang to prison". Rationally speaking 90s were not bad times, just patriots lost their emotional reasons to be proud of Russia and annoyed everyone ever since. Putin won many of these patriots over to his side with some jingoistic rhetoric and occasional small war.

However, patriots' appetites grew ever stronger and now require even bigger sacrifices to the altar of "Russia's greatness". Before 5 days war over misunderstanding in Georgia could do it. Now a lengthy meatgrinder is needed.

Thus, Russian aims are not something rational but something completely emotional. In 2014 Putin annexed Crimea because it has symbolic meaning to Russian patriots. Much like say Medinah for Muslims, Crimea and Sevastopol are part of WW II cult created by Stalin and communists: "hero city" and "homeport/birthplace of Russian navy". 

Thus, just like in the first war, something symbolic like Crimea or Sevastopol is what Putin wants now. As I outlined in my previous articles, it's likely Sloviansk in Donetsk oblast. Grikin used it as his HQ during the first war and now Putin wants to sell its "liberation" to public as Russian triumph.

At the same time real war aims could be something immaterial altogether, something like Helsinki Accords, a bunch of dubious legal mumbo-jumbos that would say "Russia won" and "commit Ukraine to 'denazify'" without any actual commitment. 

I do not think it would matter for Russia if any of the provisions will be implemented or not. In fact, Putin might even prefer that NATO would eventually violate the treaty. That could give more fuel for pro-Putin propaganda. Patriots want to believe that "George HW Bush promised Gorbachev that NATO will not expand east into former Warsaw Pact, but then Americans reneged on these promises" - in truth Bush did not promise that. Possibly promising that Ukraine will not be in NATO and then taking them in anyway will do for Putin as well. Another tearjerking story about "Western betrayal" of "honest" Russia is something Russian TV thrives on.

On the other hand, any real legal concession to Russia is unacceptable. If they actually want to turn Ukraine into second Belarus, run by a Moscow puppet, then it will endanger lives of 40 million Ukrainians. Russia is purposefully and deliberately unjust and lawless country that gives shelter to tyrants, thieves and murderers and kills honest people like Alexey Navalny or Boris Nemtsov. It's better to die with a gun in hand than in custody of this Evil Empire.

Because of that before "Accord" solution is proposed it should be verified that Russia does not intend to follow through on implementation of these "accords". Finally, they can also write a completely different texts in Russian, Ukrainian and English and conclude that to each side version of their own language is binding.

Generally, I think that signing a fake deal, deliberately intending to violate it, is possibly the most workable solution for the West and Ukraine. Promise to stop aid but actually keep sending weapons. Promise to not place NATO troops but send them as, volunteers or PMC. Promise to not invite Ukraine in NATO but extend coverage of Article 5 to Ukraine. Promise to denazify but use it to ban pro-Russian politicians like Tsarev and symbols like Sickle and Hammer. Let Russia whine.