Small error for a man

A SMALL ERROR FOR A MAN
but a giant mistake for mankind.

How do we know? Aristotle's (small) error 350 BCE.

Aristotle thought that the mind forms ideas in the following way: 

1. the mind takes the "forms" of things
2. and separates them from the "matter" of things.
   

This way of producing ideas was for him the basic process that enables us to understand the nature of things. We see the foundation for this approach in his main work, later called "Metaphysics", in chapter VII, an inquiry into the essence of things:

Aristotle (350 BCE), Metaphysics, book VII (Z), 17, 1041b.

Text in English, German and Ancient Greek:

• EN: "... one looks for that cause of the matter (but that is the form), by reason of which the matter is a what (some definite thing); but that is the essence (of the thing)."
• GE: "Man sucht also die Ursache des Stoffes (das ist aber die Form), durch die der Stoff ein Was ist; doch das ist das Wesen."
• AG: "ὥστε τὸ αἴτιον ζητεῖται τῆς ὕλης (τοῦτο δ᾽ ἐστὶ τὸ εἶδος) ᾧ τί ἐστιν: τοῦτο δ᾽ ἡ οὐσία."

This is a profound insight connecting four fundamental concepts: matter, form, thing and essence. Unfortunately Aristotle made here a small mistake: he wrote "is" where he should have written "becomes".

With this small correction, his sentence would be:

• "... one looks for that cause of the matter (but that is the form), by reason of which the matter BECOMES a what (some definite thing); but that is the essence (of the thing)."

In other words: "matter" BECOMES a definite things by means of "form"; for this reason "form" is the essence of that thing.

Why is it correct to use "becomes" instead of "is"? Because  "forms" are not there in "matter" ready to be taken. What Aristotle called "forms" are products of the mind, mental constructs. The mind "produces" forms (mental constructs) that we ADD to the "matter", like a potter modeling clay.

In this way the indefinite matter BECOMES a "what", a definite thing, an experiential thing in our experiential world.

In this way each of us lives in two worlds: the physical environment (matter) and her/his own experiential world (definite things).

Peace and mind

 PEACE & MIND - FOR A MINDFUL PEACE
#StandWithUkraine #MindfulPeace

For promoting and establishing Peace we need to understand each other.
For understanding each other we need to understand the human mind, how the mind works, knowing.

How do we know?
How do we perceive?

A person perceiving something does not become that something:
it is the something that becomes (a part of) the person, that's assimilation."
More precisely: that something (a part of the physical world) becomes a specific mental object in the experiential world of the person.

So, each of us lives in two worlds: the physical environment and her/his own experiential world.

This is based on a statement by Piaget (see image):
"A rabbit that eats a cabbage does not become a cabbage: it's the cabbage that becomes a rabbit, that's assimilation." - Jean Piaget, 1977
Original:
"Un lapin qui mange un chou ne devient pas un chou: c'est le chou qui devient du lapin, c'est ça l'assimilation." - Jean Piaget, 1977
Bringuiler, J.-C. (1977) Conversations libres avec Jean Piaget. Paris: Robert Laffont, p. 69

To know how we know

 "All men by nature desire to know"

... but very few desire to know HOW they know.

Original: πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει.
- Aristotle (384–322 BC), at the beginning of his book "Metaphysics", a treatise of "first philosophy".

 

That is why, since Aristotle, the human mind has not evolved: we just use it. That is not enough for promoting peace, #MindfulPeace.

Aristotle thought that the mind forms ideas by TAKING the "forms" of things and separating them from the "matter" of things. This way of producing ideas was for him the basic process  that enables us to understand the nature of things.
Unfortunately he made a small mistake here:
we do not "separate" forms from things: instead, we "produce" forms (mental constructs) that we ADD to the "matter" of things, like a potter modeling clay, thus producing the "experiential" things of our experiential world.

Day 50 Russian invasion of Ukraine

Day 50 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine - 14. April 2022

Trying to make sense of an unthinkable tragedy: 14 steps
#StandWithUkraine

1. THE EARTH STANDS WITH UKRAINE. All compassionate human beings #StandWithUkraine
2. IT IS OUR DUTY TO STAND WITH UKRAINE. Because: "No equidistance is conceivable, if we want to be faithful to our values."- Liliana Segre, OMRI, Holocaust survivor, member of the Italian Senate, 25. March 2022.
3. RUSSIA’S WAR IS ILLEGAL - "No state shall by force interfere with the constitution or government of another state." - Immanuel Kant, 1795.
4. RUSSIA: A MAFIA STATE - This was already known to the Western governments since many years, but they preferred to do big business with the mafia. Now everybody can see the demonstration that it was bad for stability and safety.
5. Putin and his mafia have NO JUSTIFICATION FOR THIS WAR: ONLY THEIR MADNESS.
6. THE LANGUAGE of their madness:  RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA & DESINFORMATION.
7. THE WAR STRATEGY of their madness: INTENTIONAL VIOLENCE AGAINST UKRAINIAN CIVILIANS in Chernihiv, Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka, Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Mariupol, Kherson, Mykolaiev, etc. #CrimesAgainstHumanity
8. BUCHA MASSACRE: PUTIN AND THE KREMLIN ARE RESPONSIBLE for the Bucha massacre and all the other crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine. Why? Because intentionality and responsibility form a unity. See #InheritedIntentionality
9. Putin claims "IT IS NOT A WAR":  Right, it is worse than war, IT IS GENOCIDE.
10. PUTIN'S RUSSIA IS BACK TO ABSOLUTISM. The European Enlightenment was the beginning of emancipation from Absolutism (I. Kant, 1784). Russia is back there now, a gap of 250 years.
11. IN RUSSIA THE MIDDLE AGES ARE STILL ONGOING. What Patriarch Kirill preaches in his sermons related to the war reminds of the Crusades, the Holy wars of thousand years ago.
12. WESTERN SANCTIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH. Why are they ineffective? What hidden agendas are some powerful Western governments trying to implement? 
13. THE PRIORITY IS TO STOP THE RUSSIAN AGGRESSOR. When a mafia state with a mad government is intentionally killing civilians and destroying cities of another state, then market, customers, business, history, reconciliation and the like are not priorities. The priority is Justice, which means stopping the aggressor. Because: "If Justice perishes, human life on Earth has lost its meaning." - Immanuel Kant, 1797.
14. GLOBAL POWERS ARE A "SYSTEMIC DANGER" for stability, safety and ethics.:  from the tragedy of Ukraine, we see now that we need to change this. SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL ... AND HUMAN, more than ever in 2022.
    

Putin responsible for Russian crimes in Ukraine

Why is Putin responsible for the crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine?

Because ...

 

 

(1) Intentionality and responsibility cannot be considered in isolation, they form a unity.

(2) Thus, since:
... INTENTIONALITY climbs down (i.e. is inherited via) the ladder of military command from the highest hierarchical level (intentions of president Putin) to the lowest level (soldier)

(3) it follows that:
... RESPONSIBILITY climbs up (i.e. is transferred via) the ladder of military command from the lowest hierarchical level (action of soldiers) to the highest level (president Putin).

#InheritedIntentionality
#StandWithUkraine #PutinsWarCrimes #CrimesAgainstHumanity

Wir als Christen sind schuldig - 17-10-1945

Wir als Christen sind schuldig 

Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream

Am 18. Oktober 1945 war in Stuttgart die erste ordentliche Sitzung des Rates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) angesetzt, zu der auch eine ökumenische Delegation unter der Leitug von Willem A. Visser’t Hooft angesagt war. In Vorbereitung auf diese Sitzung fand am Mittwoch, 17. Oktober um 19.30 Uhr unter Leitung von Landesbischof Wurm eine Abendandacht in der Stuttgarter Markuskirche statt. Als Martin Niemöller gegen 18.30 Uhr in Stuttgart eintraf, teilte ihm Stadtdekan Lempp mit, dass er in der Markuskirche sprechen solle. Seine Frau Else suchte daraufhin für ihn als Predigttext Jeremia 14,7-11 aus, und Niemöller hielt seine Predigt weitgehend aus dem Stegreif. Gegenüber dem tags darauf verfassten sogenannten „Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis“ sind Niemöllers Worte in Sachen Schuld der Christen radikal gefasst:

Predigt über Jeremia 14,7-11 (1945)

Von Martin Niemöller

Ach HERR, unsre Missetaten haben’s ja verdient; aber hilf doch um deines Namens willen! denn unser Ungehorsam ist groß; damit wir wider dich gesündigt haben. Du bist der Trost Israels und sein Nothelfer; warum stellst du dich, als wärest du ein Gast im Lande und ein Fremder, der nur über Nacht darin bleibt? Warum stellst du dich wie ein Held, der verzagt ist, und wie ein Riese, der nicht helfen kann? Du bist ja doch unter uns, HERR, und wir heißen nach deinem Namen; verlaß uns nicht! So spricht der HERR von diesem Volk: Sie laufen gern hin und wieder und bleiben nicht gern daheim; darum will sie der HERR nicht, sondern er denkt nun an ihre Missetat und will ihre Sünden heimsuchen. Und der HERR sprach zu mir: Du sollst nicht für dies Volk um Gnade bitten. (Jer 14,7-11 Luther 1912)

Liebe Gemeinde, liebe Brüder und Schwestern in dem Herrn Jesus Christus!

Wenn ein Mensch heutzutage, so wie ich, nach langen Jahren zum erstenmal wieder einen Schritt hineintut in das Leben unse­res Volkes und unserer Kirche, dann kann ihm wohl gar nicht anders ums Herz sein wie dem Propheten, dessen Worte wir eben vernommen haben. Dann steht man da und schüttelt den Kopf über dem Trümmerbild unserer deutschen Städte, dann stößt man hier und da auf die riesigen Lücken, die der Krieg geschla­gen hat in dem Kreis derer, die uns bekannt und lieb waren, dann [146] seufzt einem das Herz unter der Not unter der ein ganzes Volk heute seufzt und stöhnt und man fragt sich und findet keine Ant­wort: Was soll und mag aus dem allem werden. 

 Und diese Sorge und dieser Druck des Her­zens, die werden eigentlich nur noch schlimmer, wenn man dann am Sonntag in die Kirche geht und sich wieder mit der Gemeinde wie einst unter Gottes Wort beugt und stellt. Denn da muß man sich fragen, was ist denn nun eigentlich in all diesen 8, 10, 12 Jahren bei uns anders geworden? Ist nicht alles noch genauso geblieben wie es vorher war? Gewiß, da ist die Not. Aber sind die Menschen anders? Gewöhnen wir Menschen uns nicht an die Not ebensogut wie wir uns vorher an die guten Tage gewöhnt haben und lassen nun die Dinge laufen, weil man nicht anders kann und mag? 

Und gewöhnt man sich nicht an diese zerstörten Städte und die stilliegenden Fabriken und dieses Hin- und Herlaufen ohne Sinn und Ziel so wie wir uns früher gewöhnt haben an unser eifriges, fleißiges, schaffendes Leben? Und was ist mit unserer inneren Einstellung zu all diesen Dingen? Haben wir aus diesen Zeiten als Volk und Kirche wirk­lich etwas gelernt? Haben wir gemerkt, daß es Gott gewesen ist, der uns diesen ganzen Weg geführt hat? Haben wir einen Ein­druck davon und fühlen wir eine Verantwortung des­wegen, daß und weil Gott uns in diesen 12 Jahren in ganz besonderer Weise heimgesucht hat wie der biblische Ausdruck lautet. 

Als ich Ende Juni nach Deutschland und in die Freiheit zurückkehrte, da hörte man überall die Menschen schimpfen auf die bösen Nazis, die all dies Elend über uns gebracht hätten, und wenn man dann hinhorchte, wie sich dieser Schwerpunkt von Klagen und Kriti­sieren allmählich verschoben hat, dann war das Kritisieren nicht mehr in 1. Linie auf die Nazis gerichtet, mit denen man vorher nichts zu tun haben wollte, dann waren es je nachdem die Eng­länder, Franzosen, Amerikaner. Wir fanden immer irgend etwas, wo­rüber wir uns aufregen konnten und jemand, den wir verant­wortlich machen zu können glaub­ten und haben ja doch wohl immer und immer wieder dabei übersehen, daß Gott in dieser Zeit bei uns an die Türe geklopft hat und müssen doch nun endlich merken, daß Gott von uns heu­te etwas will, daß Er uns zum Nachdenken bringen will, nämlich zum Nachdenken dar­über, wie es mit unserer Zufriedenheit und Stolz sei, daß er uns von ihm frei machen will. 

Wer ist schuld an unserem Elend? 

Die [147] Nazis, die Militaristen, die Engländer, die Amerikaner? Sie mö­gen es selbst sagen. Aber eins ist ganz gewiß, wenn wir mit uns ins Gericht gehen und als Christengemeinde, als Kirche uns unter Gottes Wort beugen, dann sollen wir unsere Schuld sehen und dann sollen wir etwas davon merken, daß unser Volk ja doch wohl niemals diesen Weg bis zu diesem Ende hätte gehen kön­nen, wenn in seiner Mitte eine Christenheit gelebt hätte, die ihre Pflicht erfüllt hätte. Unsere Kirche, wenn auch immer wieder einzelne Zeugen dagewesen sind, die mutig aufgetreten sind, aber unsere Kirche als Ganzes, unsere Gemeinde als ein Stück des Lebens unseres deutschen Volkes, haben die wirklich getan, was sie zu tun schuldig waren, oder haben sie just in irgendeinem kleinen gezirkelten Kreis des Tages ihres Glaubens gelebt und unser Volk gehen lassen, wohin es wollte und mochte. Wäre vielleicht nicht etwas ganz anderes geschehen, wenn in den Jah­ren 33 und nachher noch eine Gemeinde dagewesen wäre, die den Willen Gottes ohne Furcht bezeugt hätte, die gesagt hätte, daß Unrecht Unrecht ist, auch wenn es von oben befohlen wird, Sünde Sünde bleibt, auch wenn die Obrigkeit diese Sünde tut. So haben wir heute wenig Anlaß, uns auf ein hohes Roß zu setzen, wo die Kirche da ist, das einzige, was geblieben ist aus diesem ganzen Zusammen­bruch. 

Ich bin überzeugt, auch mit uns kann Gott der Herr, kein Neues beginnen, solange wir als Christen, als Gemeinde und als Kirche nicht eingesehen haben, wie sehr wir schuldig sind, schuldig an dem Weg unseres Volkes, weil wir geschwiegen haben, wo wir hätten reden müs­sen, weil wir leise geflüstert haben, wo wir laut hätten schreien müssen, weil wir uns in den Winkel zurückgezogen haben, wo wir hätten auf den Markt treten müssen und das Wort Got­tes hätten sagen müs­sen … 

Wenn etwas Neues werden soll … 

dann gelebt und verkündigt von einer Christenheit, die um ihre Sünde weiß, von einer Gemeinde, die an ihre Brust schlägt und weiß, es darf nie mehr so werden wie es in den letzten 12 Jahren gegangen ist, wir müs­sen den Mut haben, nicht bloß im Raum der Kirche, wir müssen den Mut haben, inmitten der Welt, inmitten unseres Volkes Christen zu sein und das Wort Gottes zu bezeugen und zu leben. Wir haben eine Schuld und ich möchte meinen, unsere Schuld als Christen, liebe Gemeinde, ist viel größer als die Schuld der Nazis, des deutschen Volkes und der Militaristen. [148] Wir Christen haben ja um den rechten Weg gewußt. Die andern haben sich ihre eigenen Wege ausgedacht. Wir wußten, es gibt einen, den zeigt Gott in seinen heiligen Geboten, in dem Le­ben und Sterben unseres Herrn und Heilandes Jesu Christi. Das ist der rechte Weg, den haben wir zu bezeugen, den haben wir zu leben und haben es unserem Volk vorzuhalten. O, unsere große Schuld!

Wenn wir nun neu anfangen wollen, Gott möge es uns schen­ken, wissen wir es, wir Christen, wir sind schuldig an Millionen und Abermillionen von Umgebrachten, Hingemordeten, Zer­brochenen, ins Elend und in die Fremde gejagten, armen Men­schenkindern, Brüdern und Schwestern in allen Ländern Euro­pas und über Europa hinaus. Hätten wir unsere Pflicht getan, wären nicht Millionen ermordet, verhungert, Geiseln in Holland erschossen … alles, was uns über die Schandtaten gezeigt wird von Buchenwald und wie die Stätten des Schre­ckens alle heißen mögen. Diese Dinge wären nicht geschehen – unsere Schuld!

Und was sollen wir tun? Wie muß dieser neue Anfang ausse­hen, wenn wir wissen, daß auf uns die Schuld für alles dies liegt und wir eine riesige Verantwortung tragen? Jeder Mensch hofft, Amerika muß Getreide schicken, England muß helfen, die Rei­chen den Armen, die Feinde sollen keine Vergeltung üben. Wem sagen wir das? Sagen wir das Menschen, die das Wort Gottes kennen, oder sagen wir es um uns selber zu rechtfertigen? Was wir als Christen heute zu tun haben, ist wie immer, daß wir inmitten dieser Welt das Evangelium von Jesus Christus zu verkündigen haben, bloß daß wir es so verkündigen sollen und müssen, daß es heute in der Welt ihrer Kirche gehört und ver­standen wird. Wir haben einen kümmerlichen Versuch gemacht 1933 und was daraus folgte, den Menschen zu zeigen, was Gottes Wort ist. Wir müssen heute einen besseren Versuch machen, das wieder zu tun, bloß daß es jetzt nicht gegen Rosenberg, gegen den Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts geht. Er ist so tot, ihn kann keiner töter machen. Heute wartet die Welt darauf, ein Zeugnis zu empfangen, ob die Vergebung, die Gott uns Menschen in Chri­stus Jesus gebracht hat, eine kleine ist, ob die Christenheit Verge­bung leben kann. Die Welt wartet darauf, ob die Liebe, von der das Neue Testament redet, die des Gesetzes Erfüllung ist, die Liebe, die nicht fragt, wer derjenige ist, dem geholfen werden [149] muß, sondern nur fragt, wo bist du, Bruder, dem ich helfen soll. Daß diese Liebe nicht nur mit Worten gepredigt, sondern in der Tat von der Christenheit gelebt wird. Welche Chri­stenheit wollte mehr Anlaß haben, damit anzufangen als wir, die Christenheit im deutschen Vaterland, die wir unter dieser Last stehen. Sie werden wissen, wie es in Berlin aussieht (ich konnte Bischof Dibelius nicht hören, da ich in der Markuskirche zu sprechen hatte). Sie wer­den wissen, daß Millionen von Menschen so oder so in diesem Winter verhungern werden. Und das Furchtbare dabei ist, wir können den Amerikanern nicht sagen: Hier verhun­gern Deutsche – östlich der Elbe. Antwort: Ihr habt alle noch viel mehr zu essen als wir in Frank­reich.

Liebe Brüder und Schwestern! Das Warten auf auswärtige Hilfe ist es nicht. Was die Kirche, die Gemeinde, die Christen unserem Volk schulden ist, daß wir es leben und zeigen, wir sind wirklich solidarisch mit euch so wie der Herr Jesus Christus mit uns armen Sündern am Kreuz, wo er starb, solidarisch gewesen ist. Jetzt wollen wir diese Solidarität leben. Wir leben noch in unserem Paradies, auch wenn wir nur haben, was auf die Lebensmittelmarken zu haben ist. Wir leben noch im Paradies zu dem, was anderswo geschieht. Wir haben das Recht nicht als Christen nun unsere Herzen verhärten zu lassen und uns auf den Stand­punkt zu stellen: Ihr müßt helfen. Nein, wir müssen denen helfen, denen es noch viel schlimmer geht als uns. Wir müssen Verge­bung üben. Es ziemt sich nicht, daß ein Christ auf den Nazi schimpft. Er muß ihn sehen mit den Augen, dem Blick, der weiß: Du hättest auch einen ande­ren Weg gehen können, wenn wir unsere Pflicht getan hätten, du bist angewiesen auf meine Hilfe und Liebe. 

Laßt uns, Liebe predigen und Liebe bezeugen, den Menschen helfen, wieder zurechtzukommen, zunächst einmal wieder an die Liebe Gottes in Jesus Christus und seiner Gemein­de glauben, und dann an Jesus Christus zu glauben als ihren persönlichen Herrn und Heiland. Das dürfte das Zeugnis sein, das uns heute abgefordert wird. Das ist die einzige Hoffnung, die es heute für die Zukunft der ganzen Völker Europas gibt. Man kann sagen, alles muß auf dem Christentum aufgebaut werden, recht verstanden ja, aber nicht so, daß überall christliche Welt­anschauung gepredigt wird. Das wird sowenig helfen wie einst, wenn die Menschen nicht das Zeugnis der Gemeinde hören, [150] nicht bloß der Pastoren, sondern mer­ken, daß die Gemeinde lebendig ist, daß die Gemeinde lebt von der Liebe Gottes, die sie aus Christus Jesus empfängt. Die Verkündigung des Evange­liums hängt von jedem einzelnen ab, so daß sich an jedem einzelnen Menschenschicksal entscheidet, was aus unserem deutschen Volk, den ganzen Völkern Europas vielleicht noch einmal werden darf. Das hört man sich nicht an einem Abend, nicht am Sonntagmorgen an. Darum sollten wir und dürfen wir täglich im Gebet mit unserem Gott ringen, daß er uns das steiner­ne Herz wegnehme und das flei­scherne Herz gebe, in dem der Herr Christus seine Liebe wirken lassen kann, daß dieses Herz den ganzen Leib der Kirche in Bewegung bringe und die Leute unsere guten Werke sehen und den Vater im Himmel preisen. Amen.

Gehalten am 17. Oktober 1945 in der Markuskirche in Stuttgart am Vorabend der ersten ordentlichen Sitzung des Rates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD).

Quelle: Gerhard Besier/Gerhard Sauter, Wie Christen ihre Schuld bekennen. Die Stuttgarter Schulderklärung 1945, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1985, S. 145-150.

Quelle: https://jochenteuffel.com/2019/08/02/unsere-schuld-als-christen-ist-viel-groesser-als-die-schuld-der-nazis-des-deutschen-volkes-und-der-militaristen-martin-niemoellers-predigt-zum-stuttgarter-schuldbekenntnis-1945/

 Putin is a second Hitler.

... the war against Ukraine is just the last demonstration of this.
From this premise you can draw conclusions on what he will decide to do next ...

This was my answer to a question posted on linkedin.com: "Could Russia claim indirect intervention by NATO and launch a strategic offensive?" 

See discussion at: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6910992939942879232-Jvic

#StandWithUkraine #PutinsWarCrimes #CrimesAgainstHumanity

The role of the Russian mafia in the war against Ukraine - 2022

The twin mafias of Ukraine and Russia and drug, gas and gold trafficking

By Roberto Saviano / 28. February 2022 Corriere della Sera, Milan, Italy

link to the ORIGINAL ITALIAN VERSION

Seeing how clans behave means understanding war. For decades, what has held the two countries together is organized crime, with billionaire proceeds. The admixture with Putin's politics and methods of controlling the overwhelming power of the bosses.

When in March 2016 I asked Gary Kasparov, one of the greatest chess players in history, about the role of the Russian mafia, he replied: «In any case, on fundamental issues they always act on the orders from the top». And who is the top, I hastened to ask? "Obviously, Vladimir Putin," Kasparov replied, astonished to have to repeat it.

I wonder how it is possible that the fundamental question is completely absent from the international debate: what is the role of mafia organizations in this war? Nobody wonders how it is possible that, in a territory that has always been completely hegemonized by criminal cartels, these are neither mentioned, nor known, nor considered by reporters and the political debate.

What has kept Ukraine and Russia together for decades is the mafia. And this war is a war that has its mafia vocation behind the geopolitical masking with Europe of the conflict with NATO.

Seeing how the mafia clans are behaving means understanding the war. It is always like this: in Afghanistan, in the war in Yugoslavia, in Syria, in the Congo. Identify the mafias, observe them and find the real interests.

«Michas» and «The Brain»

Despite the memory of the Holodomor, the terrible holocaust of hunger that the Russian Bolshevik government perpetrated on the Ukrainians between 1932 and 1933 (killing six million people), Russian and Ukrainian organized crime have always been twins. The most important Russian mafia organization, the Solntsevskaya Bratva (Russian: Солнцевская братва), or the Sun Brigade, is governed by a diarchy: the Russian Sergej Michajlov, called "Michas", and the Ukrainian Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich (Ukrainian: Семен Юдкович Могилевич), called "The Brain".

To immediately understand their economic power, I report below some data from various studies conducted between 1996 and 2011 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: 1 billion dollars is the annual earnings from the export of heroin in China, 8 billion dollars are the proceeds from the mediation of the sale of Afghan heroin, 620 million dollars the profit from Russian timber illegally harvested for the Chinese construction market. These listed are only the surface of their business. The mass of money the organization raises, is recycled and invested in Europe, the US and Israel.

In 2018 alone, for example, he laundered 50 million euros of real estate in Spain, a favorite destination for Solntsevskaya affiliates along with Switzerland, where Michajlov "Michas" is the owner of a luxurious villa (after all he is listed as a businessman on Wikipedia; the one who is considered the head of one of the most powerful organizations in the world from 1991 to 1994 worked at Parma Foods, a Russian-Italian joint venture).

The gas alliance

What has allowed the great Russian-Ukrainian political alliance delegated to the mafias, to be created in the past decades? The answer is: gas. The gas brokerage firm, RosUkrEnergo (which is headquartered in Switzerland and whose 50% share is in the Russian gas giant Gazprom), was created in 2004 by former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma and Vladimir Putin.

It transported gas from Turkmenistan to Naftogaz, the Ukrainian national oil and gas company; Naftogaz had to buy from this Russian brokerage firm and had to sell gas only in Ukraine. RosUkrEnergo, which sold gas to Ukrainians (and not only, also to various Eastern countries), sold it at a higher price than the market price, and informally obliged, among other things, to give it free of charge to the pro-Russian areas of Crimea and Donbass.

The alliance was essentially based on three pillars: Mogilevich, the Ukrainian boss at the top of the Russian mafia, the support of Vladimir Putin and that of Dmytro Firtash. The latter was the intermediary between the Ukrainian government, Gazprom and the Ukrainian Prime Minister (from 2002 to 2007 and then from 2010 to 2014) Viktor Janukovyč.  In 2009, officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) investigated the misappropriation of 6.3 billion cubic meters of transit natural gas, accusing Naftogaz Ukrainy of stealing those 6.3 billion cubic meters of gas .

Yes, because the mafia alliance under the power of the Solntsevskaya bratva not only guaranteed the distribution of the dividends of RosUkrEnergo (from 2005 to 2007 1.753 billion dollars) but, by stealing the gas in transit through Ukraine to other countries, it allowed the various bratvas mafia to smuggle it to gas importing companies around the world. They made money from legal gas and from stolen gas (which went to the Ukrainian taxpayers who had to pay for it).

The mediator on the run

Ukraine was treated as a colony from which to extract large rents without paying taxes; the funds were deposited in offshore tax havens. Dymitri Firtash, the great gas broker has fled Ukraine, taking refuge in Austria to avoid extradition, and is accused in the United States of corruption amounting to 500 million dollars. Firtash was linked to Trump's campaign president, Paul Manafort, and has as his lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, Trump's lawyer convicted in 2021 for having "communicated manifestly false and misleading statements to courts, legislators and to public opinion in general (...) in relation to Trump's failed re-election attempt in 2020 ".

It is Firtash himself who revealed that the Russian-Ukrainian alliance was based on a mafia agreement, and we know this thanks to the precious documents published by Wikileaks: during a confidential meeting with the US ambassador William Taylor, in 2008, he admitted that it was Mogilevich the real power of the brokerage firm. Ukraine, he said, is "governed by the laws of the road".

To the American ambassador Firthas described that it was impossible to approach any Ukrainian government official without also meeting a member of organized crime at the same time. All these confessions, Firtash made them with a view to showing the American administration, which he had known for a long time to investigate him, that he acted only on "compulsion", that it was the Balkan practice to always act in accordance with the mafia and that without the boss Mogilevich nothing could move in the gas, even though he specified several times that he had never had direct relations with him. Obviously, once the cable was released, Firtash scared that he was unwittingly proof that the world was looking for information on RosUkrEnergo denied the whole world that he had said anything of the sort.

The "unexpected" Maidan

What interrupted this mafia gas scheme that caged Ukraine? The unforeseen that even Solntsevskaya bratva could not foresee was the revolution in Maidan Square in 2014, when an uprising Ukraine denounced Yanukovyč's electoral fraud, forcing him to flee to Moscow.

The unexpected insurrection of the Ukrainian people linked to the pro-European desire broke the bank of the mafia agreement: "It must be said - says the British political scientist Taras Kuzio, one of the world's leading experts on the dynamics we are describing - that Ukraine, before the revolt of Maidan in 2014, had become a neo-Soviet mafia state ». Europe, under the blackmail of Russian gas, left Ukraine alone in this new season of independence but above all of liberation from mafia power. Indeed, the European and Swiss banks welcomed the Organizacija's money (a term used to define all the various Russian organizations).

Austria welcomes Firtash. European support for Ukraine has been more in form than real, in this dynamic (only this is) the space that NATO and the US see in order to carry out their international politics.

Smuggling on the Black Sea

The vories (godfathers) are taking advantage of the tension on the border between Ukraine and Russia to increase their power. Crimea is the center of smuggling between Europe and Russia: (due to) drug and merchandise trafficking, (it has been) called for years "Ukrainian Sicily" (referring to the power of the Cosa Nostra). Mark Galeotti, one of the leading scholars of the Russian mafia, wrote: "Crimea is the first conquest in history led by gangsters who work for a state."

The famous unsigned soldiers who make raids are none other than members of the Solntsevskaya bratva of Mogilevich and Michas. Viktor Shemchuk, ex Chief prosecutor of the region, recalls: «Every level of the Crimean government is mafia. It was not unusual for a parliamentary session to begin with a minute of silence in honor of one of the murdered 'brothers' (affiliates). " The Black Sea and Odessa are the great spaces in which various trades are articulated: gasoline sold by smuggling circulates, tons of illegally excavated coal loaded on ships ready to go halfway across the world, heroin, gold. Anything that can evade the burden of the taxman in exchange for a tax to the vory mafia. Everything that has to enter Europe illegally passes through these places. Black hole of goods, heroin, raw materials.

Russian journalist Yuliya Polukhina makes a clear summary: “The beneficiaries of this war are politicians, oligarchs and gangsters. Coal, gold, gasoline and tobacco. This is what they are fighting for in eastern Ukraine. " The conquest of Donbass and Crimea served above all to protect business.

The affiliates have sparked an insurrection in order to create autonomous republics in Donetsk and Lugansk, but they are nothing more than republics of mafia members, governed by proxy from Moscow. The leaders of the revolt, as Galeotti reports, all have nicknames they had when they were inside the bratva: Motorola, Batman, Shooter

Putin and "the junkies"

On April 17, 2015, Radio Svoboda interviewed a Russian volunteer who believed Putin's propaganda, the illusion of going to fight against the Ukrainian fascists: "When you get there, you immediately realize that it is not military units, but of real gangs "

Former Ukrainian police general Vladimir Ovchinsky comments: "Now a sort of nationalization of the mafia is taking place." Yet Putin in the accusation against the Ukrainian authorities defines them as a "gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis". That passage on "drug addicts" clearly refers to the role that Ukraine plays as a transit for drug trafficking but ignores that it is the Russian mafia to organize it.

But could there be more, perhaps the Ukrainian cartels are pulling out of their historic alliance with the Moscow bratvas? Is the Ukrainian mafia in split like the country? Have they decided not to submit to the Crimean groups? To escape the dominion of the Donetsk families? This is the real issue to be understood in the next few hours.

Mark Galeotti in the book The Vory: Russia's Super Mafia writes: "Ukraine is ... a country where all the main Russian criminal organizations have interests, operations, partners and people, and where the culture of vory is also still present. The Solntsevskaya gang has a long-standing relationship with the criminal-political "Donetsk clan", which was the power base of former president Viktor Yanukovyč. "

The pact between the state and criminals

Ukrainian criminal structures are similar to Russian ones, albeit on a small scale and in a territory where the majority of organizations operate locally: in the same way, however, they are in symbiosis with a deeply corrupt political class and aim at oligarchic control of the 'economy. "The flow of drugs through Donbass, to Ukraine, and then to Europe, has not shrunk by a single percentage point, even as bullets fly back and forth across the front line," says an officer of the SBU to Mark Galeotti, talking about the 2014 clashes in the region.

Russian organized crime is made up of several levels. Putin, as early as the end of 1999, stopped pursuing the policy of the fight against crime, which had also animated him in the first years in power. A street level is generically prosecuted, there are trials, arrests, if there is rape, if there are murders that alarm the population and street peddling is prosecuted if it compromises social peace, but in prison, organizations basically govern everything, they continue to affiliate and protect their inmates by killing their rivals.

Those who move to the highest level of organization, on the other hand, become a privileged interlocutor with a single constraint: they must never create problems for the state and its boss. If they create problems for the government or ally themselves with opponents wanting to replace it, they would be considered as enemies of the state and would simply be annihilated with the help of courts, police, sentences. In reality, the Russian mafia does not completely coincide with the state, the Russian mafia is one of the infinite articulations of Russian institutional power, with which it is in dialectic.

Solntsevskaya bratva of Moscow, the Bratski Krug (circle of brothers) of St. Petersburg and the Tambov Gang, the great enemies of Solntsevskaya, are the souls that dominate the business and life of Russia together with their satellites in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Chechnya, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Cekia.

Cut off heads and punish

Putin uses and is used by criminal organizations, the vories are fundamental for his international criminal approach with which he sabotages enemies or influences friends. Not only in operations in Donbass, but also in Montenegro, when an attempted coup d'etat in 2016 occurred through local criminal cartels allied with the bratva, to prevent the area from joining NATO.

Putin himself cyclically fears the excessive power of the members of the Organization, against which he acts only when they cause him problems, when he is unable to shield them from the Western judiciary who find evidence of their affairs putting the government's reputation at risk or worse when they act in support of his political rivals. To keep (the mafia) under control, Putin must cyclically cut off heads and punish. In 2016, for example, Russian police raided the apartment of one of his senior officers, Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko, who headed a department within his anti-corruption division. There they found $ 123 million - so much that investigators had to suspend their searches while looking for a container big enough to carry all that money. In reality it was not his money, he was just the keeper of the mutual fund, the obshchak, of a gang of "werewolves": this is how the men of the mafia within the police are called.

Mafia and politics

Putin must remind the Vories that it is he who gives the authorization to their life; obviously he knows full well that it will be over when his power depends on the vories. For now this balance is maintained because the Russian bratvas and the vories continue to do business on natural resources and concessions given by the state: this is the "dependence" of the Russian mafia on the political power in which it mixes and confuses. They manage things whose profit they have to split with the institutions and among other things delegating to organizations often means allowing a vertical efficiency that no one else could guarantee you.

As Taras Kuzio well describes in the book “Ukraine: Democratisation, Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2015)” the role of the vory is always only to solve problems, ask and it will be given to you. The reality of the Solntsevskaya gang over the years has made alliances and smoothed out friction with the already flourishing local Ukrainian mafias: "Ukraine - writes Galeotti - is a good example, a country in which all the main Russian associations have interests, operations, partners and people , and where even the vory culture is still present.

The Solntsevskaya gang has a long-standing relationship with the criminal-political "Donetsk clan", which was the power base of former president Viktor Yanukovyč, for example." The relationship between the mafia and politics is so close that even traumatic events, such as the annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014 and the subsequent clashes in the Donbass, take place with the active support of local vories. If I could ask Semyon Mogilevich how this war will end, I would certainly have the most up-to-date, most useful, most profound opinion we could get, which no analyst, not even the information that the American intelligence leaked to the newspapers, would be able to give. Observing the criminal dynamics, in this case, means looking at the beating heart of matters. Look at the mafia, see the crime; look through the mafia, see the fate of the economy of your time.

February 28, 2022 (change February 28, 2022 | 10:10)

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