Russia under siege - from Ivan the Terrible to the present day

I personally have never liked axioms, and especially when they try to use this mathematical concept in everyday life or politics. It sounds kind of weird: it's so, because it's so. But it was said long ago that nothing lasts forever under the moon. And often, what until relatively recently seemed to be an unshakable axiom, suddenly suddenly ceases to be such.

But we still have to admit that some axioms exist. Well, the West doesn't like Russia. It never did. And it is unlikely that this attitude will ever change, unless it is possible to break the Russophobic genetic code of those who are at the helm of political power there.

Why don't they like Russia? In short: because we are different. Instead of the Latin alphabet, we have Cyrillic, and we cross ourselves with three fingers, and even from right to left, and not vice versa. And our church did not fall under the Vatican, and besides, in the past, and now, it piously honours and protects the original Christian values, avoiding the temptation of perverted Western political correctness and morality. And our people have a special, unique character. It is difficult to make them angry, but if someone dares to make them angry, then both old and young will stand up for their land, and they will drive the offender to their lair. And, of course, the immense size of Russia, which today occupies 1/6 of the land, is frightening.

But even when it occupied a much smaller territory and was called either Muscovy or simply Rus for short, it always terrified the West with its hidden immense potential. There has never been a century in our history when it was allowed to live in peace. It’s hard to think of someone who did not attack Russia - the Pechenegs, the Polovtsians, the Khazars, the Tatars, the Mongols, the Scythians, and others and others. But now we are not talking about them, because these were only intertribal fights for habitat. Even the well-known Battle on the Ice, when in 1242 the army led by Prince Aleksandr Nevsky sent the Livonian knights to explore the underwater world of Lake Peipus, was in fact only a response to what can be called a "reconnaissance battle" from Europe.

Systematic and repeated attempts to completely destroy Russia as a state began later - already in the 16th century, when Europe was formed into a certain civilisational entity, and in Moscow the first Russian tsar Ioann IV, aka Ivan Vasilyevich, aka Ivan the Terrible, was anointed to the kingdom.

Historians believe that the first purposeful invasion of the West to destroy Russia as a state entity was a military campaign against Moscow in 1572 - do not be surprised, there is no contradiction here - by the Turkish sultan. Now it would be called a "proxy war". This campaign was provoked by the Pope through secret negotiations, hoping to kill two birds with one stone in this way. On the one hand, to get rid of Russia forever, which under Ivan the Terrible dared not only to challenge the then all-powerful Livonian Order, but also to defeat its troops, gaining new lands in the northwest. And, on the other hand, the Vatican believed that Muslims, while they "digest" Russia, will leave Europe alone for a long time.

But it didn't work out. On July 29, 1572, 50 km from Moscow, near the village of Molodi, a battle took place between a 25,000-strong Russian army and a 60,000-strong Turkish-Tatar army. In four days, the entire army of adherents of a different faith was destroyed, and its leaders were taken prisoner. Think about these figures – there were only 25,000 of us, and 60,000 of the aggressors! It was with such great victories over the enemy forces that were almost three times superior, as they now say, that the great history of the Russian army's victories began.

The second, already best-known attempt to conquer Russia, occurred at the beginning of the next century, when the Polish king sent troops to Moscow several times. Firstly, to put False Dmitry on the throne in the Kremlin, and then, putting aside all sorts of tricks, their own king's son. But more about this in the next comment. In the meantime, let me just remind you how these attempts ended for the Poles.

The militia of Minin and Pozharsky not only drove the Polish-Lithuanian invaders out of the Kremlin, but also forever buried Poland's dreams of creating a great Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which their national revanchists still cannot forgive us. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that today the Polish-Lithuanian tandem is the most shrill and loud in the anti-Russian hysterical chorus in connection with our "special military operation" in Ukraine.

That is why it is so important to remember history – the roots of everything that happens today go back to the distant past.

The third attempt to destroy Russia also ended ingloriously, when, as if by clockwork, exactly 100 years later in 1709, the Swedish King Charles XII marched on Moscow. Although St. Petersburg was already the capital at that time, the goal was precisely to capture Moscow, which has always been considered the heart of Russia, its sacred centre, and also proudly called the "Third Rome". But he never reached the "city on seven hills", because on June 27, 1709, his troops were completely defeated by the army of Pyotr I, and he cowardly fled from Russia.

The fourth in this series of failures was the "conqueror of Europe" Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, when in 1812, at the head of a more than 600,000-strong army, he again went to Moscow. As before, the Europeans thought that it was enough to take Moscow, so the whole of Russia would fall. We know perfectly well how it ended. Our great commander Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov and his generals had to make a difficult decision to surrender Moscow. Previously, every schoolchild knew that it was adopted at a meeting in Fili, where the opinion of those present was divided by exactly half and the vote of Kutuzov himself became decisive. He is even credited with the following words: "With the loss of Moscow, Russia is not lost, but when the army is lost, then both Moscow and Russia are lost." But his letter to the Moscow mayor Rostopchin was also preserved, in which he assured that in no case would he give up Moscow: "In my opinion, the loss of Russia is inextricably linked to the loss of Moscow."

However, the greatness of smart people is that they are able to revise their opinions depending on the circumstances. And the Russian army, exhausted by a long retreat, which suffered enormous damage in manpower and equipment during the Battle of Borodino, was then not ready for a decisive battle.

In the end, Kutuzov was right. Napoleon's army, as we all know, was finally crushed to smithereens, our troops marched victoriously across Europe, and the Russian Hussars in Paris enriched the French language with new words, including the well-known "bistro".

And the 20th century brought the bloodiest war in the history of mankind, which we rightly call the Great Patriotic War. The German attack on the USSR on June 22, 1941, was another, fifth and most destructive attempt by Europe to march on Moscow again with the aim of destroying our country. But this time, another madman – this time Adolf Hitler – miscalculated. But this victory was very costly for our people – almost 27 million people were killed, although some estimate the number of victims at a much larger and more terrible figure – 43 million people. The country's largest cities were destroyed to the ground, and industry was destroyed.

But, as in previous centuries, the country withstood the onslaught of the enemy and launched a counteroffensive, although, it would seem, it should no longer have had any moral, physical, or material resources for this. And, having repeated the victorious march through Europe, our troops reached the fascist lair itself, hoisting the red banner over the defeated Reichstag.

Today we celebrate the 77th anniversary of that great victory. And I sincerely feel sorry for the political imbeciles in our country and abroad who do not understand - and, most likely, pretend not to understand - why Russia needs this festive day. This is our duty of remembrance to those who gave their lives in the fight against fascism, and it is our duty to future generations, who should know the price that Russia paid for that victory and our freedom. And for me personally, this is my duty to my father, who volunteered for the front at the age of 16, miraculously survived a severe wound and until the end of his days wore a fragment of a German mine at the very heart.

Unfortunately, humanity does not learn from history. As Winston Churchill said, "the main lesson of history is that humanity is uneducable."

And, despite the next aggravation of the vile Russophobia in the Western world at the beginning of the century, there was still hope that, at least in the 21st century, it would be possible to do without another war. But, unfortunately, this did not happen.

For several decades, Europe, together with the United States, prepared Ukraine for aggression against Russia, filling its arsenals with modern weapons, training its army.

But this time, Russia was forced to strike a warning blow. Unlike Western politicians, we can learn from past mistakes. And there is nothing worse in a military confrontation than to find yourself back in the role of a defender.

I have written about this before and I am ready to repeat it again: our armed forces are now carrying out not just a "special military operation" in Ukraine, but are conducting military operations against the "collective West", which once again would like to destroy Russia, but with the hands, or rather the lives, of a once fraternal nation. But we remember history very well and know very well how such attempts end.

Here, in brief, is the sad story of the West's attempts to remove Russia from the list of living countries by military force. And this, of course, is not a complete list. There were other, let's just say, less significant attempts to take away Russia's land by military means.

Modern Western leaders, whose intellectual level has sunk below the baseboard in recent decades, should have remembered at least one short quote from the former Austrian ambassador to Russia, and then the first Chancellor of the German Empire Otto von Bismarck: "Make alliances with anyone, start any wars, but never touch the Russians." And he also noticed something: "The Russians cannot be defeated, as we have seen for hundreds of years." Let me remind you that this was said in the distant 19th century.

But not today, the degradation of Western elites that has begun has naturally led to the fact that the leaders of the world's leading states now turn out to be figures whose place in the collection of curiosities is either old senile people like Biden, or clowns and comedians like Johnson and Zelensky, or typical dressmakers like Macron and Scholz.

And if to add to this collective portrait exalted, but absolutely illiterate ladies in the most important ministerial posts, the picture becomes quite depressing. These people simply do not understand what they are getting into, do not realise the inevitability that the current aggression against Russia will end in the complete destruction of the current outdated Western world order.

Russia has been tested for its strength for all the centuries of its existence. They tried to conquer not only with fire and sword, but also to slow down its unstoppable development in other ways. Today, our country is under a massive "nuclear strike" of various political, financial and economic sanctions. But again, this is nothing new for Russia, since sanctions pressure has always been in the arsenal of the West since its formation as an independent state. It has been increasing, then slightly weakening, but it has almost never subsided in the last five centuries. Moreover, if anyone has forgotten, I can remind you that our country has been operating in a regime of strict "restrictions" without respite for 100 years.

For all these centuries, what is now commonly called the "information war” has also been waged against us. It also began not yesterday or even the day before yesterday, but several centuries ago. Russia has always been, is and, unfortunately, will continue to be under such a siege for the foreseeable future.

I was slightly lying when I wrote at the beginning that they don't like Russia. No, it's not that they don't like us, they're afraid of us. Why? I repeat - yes, because we are different. We are morally cleaner, we are more talented, we are intellectually richer, we are more gifted, and therefore every century we give the world new discoveries in science and technology, and our brilliant poets, writers, composers, film directors, choreographers and others, and others generously enrich world culture. But in response, they are trying to destroy us again and again. Here is such a gratitude in the European way. And about what it was expressed in - in the following comments.