Well, here we are, barreling along on the Orient Express. Which those of us old enough to remember, was the famous rail link between Paris and Istanbul in the early years of the 20^th Century. But, while everyone seems to think that it is currently heading westward, I perceive it as actually heading east.

What am I talking about? The War. Ukraine! You know, the smoldering mass that could reach critical mass and blossom into WWIII. Which will render the need for elections moot. Convenient, eh Joe?

Furthermore, I sense that the Express’ actual destination intended by the Engineer (Vlad) is radically different than what most people imagine that Russia seeks to reach. Most people in the West seem to think Vlad’s primary goal is to dominate Western Europe, by way of conquering Central Europe. And while I think these will eventually be on the menu in the Club Car, they will be under the ‘desserts’ column.

But the main course listed on the upcoming menu is a Thanksgiving dinner, complete with all the fixings. And when Russia reaches her real intended destination, there will be plenty to be thankful for, from their Slavic Orthodox perspective. I will attempt to explain what I mean. That will require I explain a series of formative events in the origins and development of the Russian psyche, which covers a vast period of time. Please, be patient.

I want to begin by making three statements. We can argue about them later, but this piece is built upon these three premises.

First, that the Orthodox mindset is built upon the presumption that the Church is (and should be) subservient to the State. The foundation of this belief only came forward after the Great Schism of 860, sparked by Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, as he served the wishes of Caesar Bardas. The Orthodox believe (today) that the Council of Nicea (325 AD) approved of this concept of Caesaro-Papism. Why? Because it was the Emperor, Constantine the Great, who called forth this great council. The Eastern Orthodox (of today) say that it is the power of the Emperor that rightly guides the Church. (Yes, today, and for the last 500 years, there has been no Byzantine Emperor, but that’s not a problem for them. It’s just an intermission in a epic movie.).

Second, I assert that the Russian mind is the greatest example of deliberate deception, dis-information and mis-direction, both on the battlefield and in diplomacy, since the time of Sun Tzu. You may disagree, but the record shows that almost every Western ‘intelligence’ agency has been radically wrong on almost every assessment of Russian power, intention, maneuver and nerve for the same past 500 years. Not even the Anglish Bastards are this devious (try as they might). The CIA and its siblings, all products of this same Anglishmen-tality, have also either been total idiots or else totally controlled (knowingly or not) by the Russian mind in all the areas that matter. Ask Kim Philby. Or the rest of the Cambridge Five.

Third, I believe that the entire aim of the current war in Ukraine is totally different than what these same ‘intelligence’ agencies perceive as the end-game of Russian power. I believe that the essential aim of Russian might is not the capture of Europe, but rather the Ottoman Empire (a.k.a. Turkey). Europe will follow, but only as a result of the capture of Istanbul (Constantinople). This is the key to everything, in the Russian mind. Here is why.

You cannot understand where Russia is going until you know where she has been (and why). To do this, you must know her origins. We all know she began as ‘The Rus’ with the invitation, by the northern Slavic tribes, to the Swedish Varangian (Viking) Prince Rurik, to come and rule them. The reason for this was that the Slavic method of princely succession (agnatic appenage) created too many contenders for an ever-shrinking throne. The resulting fratricide was killing the Slavs, not the invading foreigners.

So, the Northern Slavs outsourced the job of ruler. Rurik’s first call-center was in Novgorod. He brought leadership to the Northern Slavs loyal to him, and the beginnings of Empire were laid. This was around the late 850’s. (Please remember, not all historians agree on dates this old).

Rurik and then Oleg (the regent of Rurik’s young son Igor) then sent some of their ‘nobles’ on expeditions to acquire more lands. (They’re Vikings, remember. Taking things is what they do). They sent Askold and Dir south on the Dnieper River, where they found a small Slavic settlement known as Kiev. They took it in Rurik’s name.

Later, from this vantage point, those same Vikings sent an armada of over 200 long boats down the Dnieper, into the Black Sea, and from there to the very gates of Constantinople. This is all recorded by the greatest Byzantine historian Alexander Vasiliev, in his volume on The Russian Attack on Constantinople in 860.

While the attack failed to breach the city gates, it was an incredible effort. The Vikings actually beached their ships and mounted them on wheels to ‘sail’ overland on the promontory of The Golden Horn in order to bypass the gigantic iron chain that blocked the waterway.

This attack was followed by successive expeditions (Oleg in 911, Igor in 941 & 944, etc.) each of which grew more worrisome to the Emperor. These guys were not going away!

By the time Rurik’s great grandson Vladimir came along, nothing had changed. The Viking mindset was still locked in on looting the Empire. And so, a deal was struck. Vlad could marry the Emperor’s sister, Anna, if he would stop attacking his new in-laws. All he had to do was convert to Christianity, which he willingly did in 988, on the banks of the Dnieper River, in Kiev. These two families have been intermarried ever since, even until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. From which time, Moscow has claimed to be Third Rome.

And this, my friend, is how we have arrived at today, where the Russian mind says two things; first, Russia is the legitimate heir to the Byzantine throne, and second, that this same throne should rule the Church as well.

Let’s think for a minute. If you were the legitimate (but despised) heir to the Imperial throne, as well as The Lord of the Church (as you saw it), and you were head of the preeminent Orthodox population (which reached deeply into Eastern Europe, across lands you did not yet own), which would you desire most, Paris or Constantinople? Which city would best allow you to consolidate your ethno-religious base, in order to conquer the rest of Europe (and the world)?

Sure, Paris is nice, with great Bistro’s and all, but hey, we want respect! We may be Slavs at heart, but you need to respect our Viking heritage. Or we’ll kill you. OK?

What is there that can support this thesis? Let’s look a bit at the military history of Russia since the fall of Constantinople. And let’s notice one thing: that most of Russia’s offensive movements have focused on one thing, the girdling of the Black Sea. That is, to the south.

Yes, much is made, and rightly so, of Russia’s many defensive wars. But these were primarily against the Western and Northern European powers. The list is long (Sweden, Teutonic Knights, Poland-Lithuania, Prussia, Germany, France, etc.). And the cost profound. Being a younger sibling taught me the value of suspicion. Russia has drunk from the same cup.

But I’m not here to talk of her paranoia, earned or not. I want to look at her own sins, if so they be. Let’s make a check-list of these southerly movements that have produced the Russia we know today.

Here’s a nice cheat-sheet, showing twelve Russo-Turkish Wars, beginning in 1568, and continuing through today (#13) if you want to count the Syrian theatre, where Vlad and Erdogan are currently at hot odds.

What’s my point? Russia is fixated on the Throne of Constantinople. And the West is fixated on denying it to her. Even though it is always Russia that has to pull the European fat from the fire when maniacs like Napoleon and Hitler appear.

It’s really a pretty simple formula. Until Russia can reach a warm-water port, she is effectively nothing but a land-power. An under-manned one at that, as MacKinder explained. All she needs is a little help from her putative ‘Christian’ friends in Europe. Who have all conspired (with the infidels, no less!) to deny her this access. No one likes competition. At least, not in London, Paris, Rome or Berlin.

Now Vlad and his men, in light of the astounding Russophobia exhibited by the Anglo-Financial-West, have decided ‘to Hell with you’. They will never again be left beholden to Western favors (or slights).

And once again, they will do as Alexander Nevsky did, when he turned East and joined the Mongols against the Swedes in 1240 and then the Teutonic Knights in 1242. Russia has now repeated this fateful move, and has turned to China as her wing-man in their joint struggle against the Anglosphere. And not a moment too soon.

So let’s dispose of the question of ‘who owns Ukraine?’, and all the attendant propaganda that has been generated in the Western attempt to jump-start WWIII. Here’s an excellent primer on the origins of this political-military football that has been tossed around since the times when Poland ruled Moscow.

Notice the map. And how the original peach-pit in the center has had numerous layers added to the original idea of ‘the borderlands’ (which is what Ukraine translates to). The Ukraine we think we know of is actually a pretty recent invention. Here’s the short story of how Great Russia came to believe it rightfully belongs to her.

Let’s start with the Cossack rebellion against the Poles (1648) and their subsequent allegiance to the Throne of Moscow. This occurred, in the southern steppes, under the Cossack Hetmanate of their Head-Man, Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Since that time the nomadic Ukrainian steppes have been part of Tsardom. This Cossack (Khazak) outburst spread further south, to Crimea, which was then under the Sultan’s control. Until Catherine the Great wrested it away in 1783.

Let’s see…there was no such ‘nation’ known as Ukraine…the nomadic Cossacks threw off their Polish overlords…and then pledged allegiance to the Tsar…and have fought in his service for centuries. Check, check, check, check. Sounds like the law of possession to me.

But things don’t stand still, do they? And Cossacks like to ride free. And loot. But it was in the name of the Tsar, so it was OK, right? Remember, there was nobody named Zelensky screaming for American stingers back then. It was an open range. Whoever filled the vacuum ruled it. And anything nearby was simply a new place to put in another franchise outlet. And since the northern rim of the Black Sea was now secure, from Odessa to the Azov Sea, (including Crimea), the logical expansion was southeast, to the Caucasus.

The Caucasus Mountains were a formidable barrier to anyone trying to cross it. In either direction. They kept the Sultan out of Moscow’s turf, but it also kept Moscow out of the Sultan’s world. For now.

These southern Cossack expeditions led Russians into the northern side of the Trans-Caucasian region. Where Georgia, Armenia and many of the other minor principalities were brought under the sway of Moscow. The northern and eastern rims of the Black Sea have been, for centuries, firmly in the grip of the Tsars. And their Tatars. Nobody ever pretended there was such a national thing known as Ukraine. It was simply a geographic term.

That’s not the end of the story, of course. Although, it must be noted, that all of these expeditions and victories did something to Russia. It made her multi-ethnic, and multi-confessional. But all of this was nicely contained by the Russian doctrine troika of ‘Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationality’. (Uvarov was the popularizer of it, I think.)

In other words, you could still be a good Muslim or Azeri, or whatever, as long as you pledged total allegiance to Moscow. You must be Russian first, last, and always, but anything else in between was OK. Religion and ethnicity were not a problem because the Tsars weren’t into proselytizing. Just ruling.

Let’s go back to Crimea and go counter-clockwise to the Black Sea and see where we get.

First, we go west to Odessa. Probably the most Russified city in the south of Russia. This is where the current war really started. On May 2, 2014. This is where the Russian soul was inflamed to the point of rage, as the NATO-Nazis immolated, gassed, shot and killed 48 unarmed civilians (including 7 women, one who was pregnant) in the Trades Union Building. 221 more were hospitalized.

All for the crime of wanting to be able to speak in their mother tongue. Which is the dominant tongue of the entire southern rim of ‘Ukraine’. What? You’ve not heard of this war crime? After 8 years, you’ve never seen a single word of it in the Western ‘press’? Me neither. But here’s a link if you’re interested in why Vlad is mad. Notice the roasted corpses.

That’s now: this is actually defense. But in the past, Russia has fought a dozen offensive wars against the Sultan (see the previous list), from Odessa to the Danube and beyond. And she has won most of them. Only to have their spoils spoiled by the ‘Great Power’ conferences that snatched Russian victory from her jaws, time and again. Now she’s had enough. Enough of the West and their Pasha Proxies. Enough of everybody that wants to ‘cancel’ her and her glorious past.

Here’s the real strategy. Keep the West fixated on Central and Eastern Europe. Keep maneuvering towards the West. But don’t commit to crossing that portion of the NATO line. For those who understand, you must forget Warsaw for now. And forget Berlin. Forget Paris too. That will all come, later. London too. With a vengeance, I might add, as the Policeman of Europe returns to his beat.

No, for now, and always, the real goal of Russia is the Bosporus. From the vantage point of Moscow, south-west is the direction of true intent. That move alone will finally secure the soft underbelly of Russia, the Black Sea. Vlad must harden the entire coast of the Black Sea area if he is to have any chance of national survival. Once this coast is cleared, literally, the real action can commence. But not a moment before.

Once Odessa is re-gained and Transnistria is conjoined to the newly and fully Russified coast, the way is secure. All the way to the Danube. And that will give Vlad the protection he needs. When all the Big D’s are secured: Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, and Don. Control of the delta of the Danube then gives Vlad the ability to interdict the main east-west freight corridor of Europe. He then controls the flow of energy in (via pipelines), and then the flow of products that energy produced, coming out. It’s nice to have levers, da?

(And by the way, for those eternal CIA-nitpicking doubters, ask yourself this about the everlasting Russian chessboard mindset: why in the world was it seen as necessary to Russian national interests, to protect and foster this microcosmic Transdnistrian breakaway in 1990? When the Soviet World was supposedly imploding and the fisc was bankrupt and there was no coherent central government? And to protect it until now, when it would finally have truly geostrategic value? Well? Cosmic coincidence? Again?)

What’s the next step in this Bolshoi Ballet of mis-directed military operations? The same as it has always been. The last leg: From the Danube to the Dardanelles. The location of Troy, by the way. The last of the Big D’s. With a short stop at the palace, where the Hagia Sophia will be closed for renovation, and the frescoes restored to their Byzantine glory. So that they will be presentable at the next Byzantine coronation.

Romania and Bulgaria, guess what? You need to be aware of something important. It’s 1914 all over again. But this time the Tsar is actually prepared. Russia is mobilized and the West is not. And it’s your necks that are going to be next on the block. And nobody from the West is going to save you. The NATO Sultan is busy, you know, in Syria. Again, courtesy of Vlad. And Joe is busy fighting White Racism.

When you see The Orient Express, with Vlad at the wheel, veer off from Central and Western Europe, and head south along the western coast of the Black Sea, be thankful. Be thankful he isn’t interested in incinerating us—yet. He’s got bigger fish to fry. Let’s see if we can’t be more appreciative of this guy and this nation that are willing to go against the Sultan and his Horde. Again.

And for once, let’s not get in his way.

St. Joseph, please, please, pray for us.

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