The West and Russia: a war of attrition

The brainchild of the "liberal" West – the pro-nazi Ukrainian regime is so dear to the ruling circles of the United States and EU countries that they are ready to fight Russia not only to the last Ukrainian, but also to the last frozen European. Every day, the United States and EU countries are being drawn deeper and deeper into the military conflict in Ukraine.

This includes the expanding supply of modern lethal weapons by Western countries to the Ukrainian regime, the direct participation in military operations of thousands of mercenaries and "instructors" from Great Britain, the United States, Poland, Croatia, Germany, France, and many other countries, and the huge economic and financial assistance to the pro-nazi Zelensky regime from Western states, not to mention the endless the number of anti-Russian sanctions stamped by the West.

In other words, Russia, which conducts a special military operation on the territory of the former Ukraine, has to deal not only with the Ukrainian troops themselves, but also to an increasing extent with the "collective West". In such a situation, it is very likely that the Ukrainian conflict will escalate further, turning into a larger regional war (but not a world war, since this would mean a nuclear catastrophe, which the West cannot opt for).

It seems that it would be extremely reckless to ignore the prospects of an escalation of the military conflict and talk about the imminent completion or even termination of the special military operation that Russia is conducting on the territory of Ukraine. It is very likely that Poland, Lithuania, Great Britain, and the United States will gradually be drawn into the military conflict and directly participate in it.

And here we come to the most important point of the current international and domestic Russian situation, namely, that the Western countries, led by the United States, are waging a multidimensional war of attrition with Russia, and therefore this war will not end quickly.

We are talking, firstly, about economic and financial exhaustion, secondly, about resource depletion (energy, raw materials, food resources), thirdly, about military exhaustion (destruction of the enemy's military potential), but most importantly, this is, fourthly, about moral and psychological exhaustion.

Thus, the multidimensional war with the West has been going on for a long time, and the winner will be the one who has stronger nerves, more endurance, patience and willingness to survive difficult times for a long time. One of the paradoxes of the current situation is that the calculations of the United States and EU countries for a quick economic and financial victory over Russia have not been justified.

Despite thousands of unprecedented sanctions imposed by the United States and its vassals, Russia is showing economic and financial resilience. Moreover, Western countries themselves, including the United States, suffer from their own sanctions almost more than Russia.

At the same time, we are talking not only about rising prices for energy carriers and other goods, but also about huge costs and risks for Western countries in the event of a decrease in Russian supplies of fertilisers, titanium and other metals, rare earths, artificial sapphires and neon, necessary for microelectronics.

According to all these positions, Russian manufacturers occupy a significant share in world markets, and the refusal of Russian supplies leads to a sharp deepening of the global crisis, and in the future – to an increase in socio-political instability in Western countries themselves.

The rejection of the dollar and euro in settlements between Russia and a number of major countries, the transition to settlements in national currencies, the development and strengthening of the ruble zone stabilises the Russian financial system, and it demonstrates stability.

There is no need to talk about Russia's resource depletion – Russia is richer in resources, including mineral, energy, and food resources, than any other country in the world. In terms of resources, our country is largely self-sufficient. Moreover, it is able to supply these resources to many other states, while at the same time providing them to itself and its closest allies.

There is also no threat of the military exhaustion of Russia with the current development of its military-industrial complex: the Russian defence industry produces significant quantities of both traditional and the most modern types of weapons. Of course, there are certain problems - first of all with modern types of communication, with not always a sufficient number of drones and bomber aircraft, but these problems are gradually being solved. And in some important strategic types of weapons, Russia is ahead of all countries in the world.

However, the fourth and, in its own way, most significant aspect of the war of attrition remains, namely, the struggle with the goal of moral and psychological exhaustion of the enemy through information and psychological wars. This is an extremely important dimension of today's multidimensional war, since modern war is largely a war aimed at the moral and psychological exhaustion of the enemy.

Here, American IT corporations, which are world monopolists, have obvious advantages: these corporations control and direct huge flows of information (most often streams of direct misinformation, outright lies and numerous fakes) that fall on people's heads and affect their moral and psychological state.

At the same time, Western media and social networks have learned and far surpassed all the "achievements" of Goebbels’ Nazi propaganda and are trying to brainwash the population of both their own countries and other states.

It's amazing, though, how history repeats itself and how often we don't notice it. In 1876, almost 150 years ago, F. M. Dostoevsky wrote in “A Writer's Diary" about the attitude of Europe towards Russia and the oppressed Slavic peoples, who were then subjected to terror and massacre in the Ottoman Empire:

“And Europe, Christian Europe, a great civilisation, is looking forward to... ‘when will these bugs be eaten’! Moreover, in Europe they dispute the facts, deny them in the people's parliaments, do not believe them, pretend that they do not believe them. Each of these leaders of the people knows to himself that all this is true, and they all look away from each other: ‘this is not true, this did not happen, this is exaggerated, it was they themselves who beat up sixty thousand of their own Bulgarians to speak against the Turks”.…

But why is this all that these people are afraid of, why do they not want to see or hear, but lie to themselves and disgrace themselves? And here, you see, is Russia: ‘Russia will strengthen, seize the East, Constantinople, the Mediterranean Sea, ports, trade. Russia will descend in a barbaric horde on Europe and destroy civilisation’ (this is the very civilisation that allows such barbarities!). That is what they are shouting now in England and in Germany, and again they are all lying, and they themselves do not believe a single word of these accusations and fears. All these are just words to incite the masses of the people to hatred."

Similarly, England, Germany, the United States and other Western states prefer now not "see" many thousands of civilians killed over 8 years in Donbass, to say that "it is they who shelled themselves", in every possible way to demonise Russia and attributed to it plans for the "destruction of civilisation".

The insidiousness of modern warfare for moral and psychological exhaustion consists in the fact that different "targeted" tools are used for different groups of the enemy's population, taking into account the psychology of each social group. So, for young people, Western intelligence agencies, which actually run the media and social networks, use catchy and biting slogans and fakes, including elements of computer games or real-life filming taken in completely different places and at a different time.

The calculation is based on the lack of education of a significant part of young people, especially teenagers who spend many hours a day in social networks, and their ignorance of real, not fake, history, economics, and politics.

For the patriotic groups of the Russian population that predominate in Russia, other tools are used. Thus, the idea is insistently instilled that Russia's special military operation in Ukraine is proceeding slowly, unsuccessfully, with heavy casualties, that civilians in Donbass are constantly being killed, and that it is necessary to speed up this operation at all costs, regardless of losses.

Thus, they are trying to achieve two goals: first, to instil disbelief in the leadership and armed forces of Russia, and secondly, to bleed the Russian army as much as possible. Of course, all true Russian citizens who love their homeland want a quick victory over the pro-nazi Ukrainian regime, but the question of the price of such a victory and the credibility of the Russian Armed Forces is key.

It is extremely important for Russia and Russian citizens to learn lessons from the ongoing information war of moral and psychological exhaustion. One of the lessons is the wider and more effective use of specialists in moral and psychological warfare and counter-propaganda.

Modern information and moral-psychological warfare is a necessary part of the military confrontation. It requires the involvement of military sociologists, psychologists, historians, country experts, computer scientists, and representatives of creative professions. Their work allows us to take into account the specific moods and mentality of the population of a given country, identify potential "pain points" and accelerate the psychological breakdown of the enemy.

At the same time, in a moral and psychological war, it is important not only to defend yourself, but also to attack, to point out, despite the information blockade of Russia by the West, the numerous failures in the domestic and foreign policy of the United States and EU countries associated with attempts to bring Russia to its knees. These attempts, in particular, not only caused unprecedented inflation and a drop in the standard of living of the population of Western countries, but also significantly limited the role of the dollar and euro as the main world currencies.

The latter circumstance is extremely important and painful for the West, since it is precisely the dominance of the dollar and the euro, on their printing by the Federal Reserve or the ECB and spreading around the world that the high standard of living in the West and the ability to impose their will on all other countries, that is, in fact, to implement a new colonial policy, is based on.

Now, as a result of its own anti-Russian sanctions, the West itself "saws the branch on which it sits", and this fundamentally important circumstance should be widely covered in the media and on Internet platforms, and if possible with access to a part of the audience of Western and especially non-Western countries (China, India, the Middle East, South-East Asia, Latin America).

The second lesson is the need for broad segments of the Russian population to understand that a brutal information and moral and psychological war is being waged against them and their country.

Despite all the difficulties, it is important to maintain confidence in victory among Russian citizens, to fight impatience and lack of self-control, to fight panic moods of all kinds in the information field, to explain that impatience and haste during a special military operation lead to wrong actions and unjustified victims, to demonstrate the real daily movement of the allied forces that liberate Donbass and other regions.

The third lesson is working with Russian youth and with the youth of the liberated territories of former Ukraine.

Unfortunately, at present, the overwhelming majority of teachers in secondary schools and the majority of teachers in higher education institutions, due to their workload and lack of training, cannot effectively conduct explanatory work on the reasons, goals, progress and prospects of the special military operation of Russia.

Meanwhile, in connection with the military operation in Ukraine, it is necessary to move to real, using real live examples, live patriotic education of young people, based on highlighting the exploits of Soviet and Russian military personnel, designers, and scientists.

We need an intolerant attitude to the official and formal education of patriotism among schoolchildren and students, countering the strong influence of Russophobic propaganda and numerous fakes on social networks on them.

At the same time, traditionally liberal references to the fact that it is not the business of schools and universities to educate schoolchildren and students, in the context of a military operation, actually turn into a betrayal of national interests and lead to the loss of the younger generation for Russia, potentially – to the emigration of the most capable to the West, to the actual training of future personnel for the enemy at state expense.

In this regard, it is necessary to organise trained groups of specialists (consisting of 3-4 military and international experts), who, while communicating live with schoolchildren and students, would competently and intelligibly cover the reasons, goals and significance of the military operation, talk about its real, and not "fake" course, would competently answer the inevitable (including complex and sometimes even provocative) questions and opinions of young people.

Such groups can move consistently from one school to another and from one university to another, eventually reaching a large number of young people. Such organisation of work with young people is much more effective than the existing practice, and is aimed at fostering genuine, rather than formal, patriotism.

In addition, it is extremely important to regularly show in schools and universities the best domestic documentaries ("Ordinary Fascism", "Victory Parade on Red Square”, "The Great Unknown War", etc.) and feature films about the Great Patriotic War and the operation in Syria ("Only old men go to battle", "The Dawns Here Are Quiet", “Belarus Station", "Sky", etc.). If it is not possible to show these films in their entirety due to their duration, then one can show the most powerful and important fragments.

In conclusion, it should be noted that many of the rules that developed in the previous "quiet" years, especially in information policy, counter-propaganda, in the education system, in the upbringing of young people, are rapidly becoming outdated and demonstrate the danger of following modern Western neoliberal "models". We should also take into account our own experience, including the Soviet experience (first of all, the experience of the Great Patriotic War period), and the experience of non-Western countries with real sovereignty.

Radical changes in the entire world order are already taking place before our very eyes, and the consequences of Russia's special military operation have only accelerated these changes. This means that in the new conditions we need to live, think and act in a new way, overcome the existing inertia and resistance of the liberal-pro-Western elite.