Gregory Hood is back! Greg travels to the frontlines of the Ukrainian civil war and shares his observations.

Small arms fire clatters in the distance, the rhythm broken only by the boom of artillery. “The cease-fire is holding up well,” my guide says wryly. Every third building has had its roof blown off, so the cold rain pours into the apartments where you can still see residents walking around; they have nowhere else to go. As we move through the complex, armed guards by our sides, heads emerge cautiously from doorways, followed by lone scouts sent out to confront us and determine if we are friend or foe. Eventually, the beleaguered and mostly elderly denizens pour out, venting their fury against the Ukrainian “junta,” the “fascists” of the hated Azov Battalion, and of course, the Americans who are supposedly behind it all. Each oath was punctuated by explosions getting disconcertingly closer. After one particularly loud one, I catch the guards shoot each other a nervous glance. It’s time for us to go, but those old men and women we were just interviewing are staying put.

It seems like a lifetime ago, but it was only two years back when I found myself in the Donetsk People’s Republic, carefully being chaperoned with a small group of mostly leftist journalists and academics as part of an endearingly obvious propaganda effort by the Russian government. How I had managed to talk them into letting me be part of this trip is still not clear, nor do I really know who sponsored it, nor do I even know what the Kremlin and their separatist allies hoped to accomplish with this junket.

But after spending time on the literal front lines of the new conflict between the Russian World and the post-White “West,” I didn’t walk away a firm partisan of one side or the other, instead feeling only a vague sense both sides were being played, pawns in a game neither they nor I fully understood.

Now, with only one rash act separating us from a far more ominous conflict, all our lives depend on penetrating this web of shadows. The United States of America escalated its war with the anti-terrorist government of Bashar al-Assad recently by shooting down a plane attacking the “moderate” rebel troops the Washington government is backing. In a particularly chilling detail, we are told the unfortunate Syrian pilot was forced to parachute into ISIS-controlled territory, so we may see him being burned alive or blown apart somewhere on the Chans any day now thanks to the heroism of the American military.

The controlled media grants “our” government, inconveniently based on the post-constitutional order created by Abraham Lincoln’s victorious armies, the right to wage war on a sovereign state combatting a violent rebellion. It’s also taken for granted that the overthrow of Assad will somehow be a great boon to American national security, with the chaos unleashed in Afghanistan and Iraq by our “victories” there blithely overlooked. Indeed, any American elected official who expresses skepticism about the wisdom of yet another Middle East war and a possible confrontation with a nuclear power is subject to a blistering defamatory campaign from the Washington regime’s hirelings in the press, whether it’s Republican State Senator Dick Black of Virginia or Democrat Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.

One would have to be as hopelessly naïve as an Oathkeeper to entertain the Washington regime’s rhetoric about being opposed to “terrorism” as such, especially after President Trump’s nauseating pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and absurd attempt to blame Iran for an ISIS attack on Tehran. The main objective of Washington is to destroy strong sovereign states in the region (Syria, Iran) that Israel perceives as threats and that could conceivably complicate access to oil resources and pipelines. The latter at least appears as a semi-plausible concept of “national interest,” except for the amount of blood and treasure expended in each of these idiotic adventures far exceeds any possible material gain.

American foreign policy is defined by an almost perfect nihilism. Wars are waged for their own sake, enemies are endlessly created and combatted in turn, and staggering sums of taxpayer funds are apportioned to contractors and defense companies in a process no different in intent or execution than how the federal government bankrolls leftist activist groups or blows billions on welfare programs that perpetuate the very problems they’re supposed to solve.

In Syria, it’s not just that the United States of America is once again unnecessarily intervening in a foreign civil war. It’s that we are on the wrong side. If America had anything close to a legitimate government, we’d be shipping arms to Bashar al-Assad, the sole protector of Christian minorities and a champion of secular nationalism in that tortured region.

If American Christians are right about the existence of God, many of them may find retribution in the afterlife rather than salvation because of how they have shamefully tolerated or even supported the genocide of Christian communities in the Levant. I doubt the Almighty will be appeased by the excuse that they were too busy posting images of themselves on Facebook adopting befuddled African children.

Unquestionably, it is Russia that is the champion of anything that can even remotely be called a civilized order in Syria. Ten years after the moral atrocity that was the Iraq War, only the most unhinged criminals can un-ironically champion regime change in Damascus. Nor can we pretend those who advocate an American military effort to achieve this end are anything other than deadly enemies of overwhelmingly Christian servicemen who will be ordered to throw away their lives to make their countrymen at home and fellow believers abroad less safe.

And yet, the narrative of Russia as some international champion of the far right or as the savior of the West is completely mistaken. The mainstream media, partially out of professional jealousy, mostly out of tribal ethnic hatred, accuses the Kremlin of undermining confidence in the Western system by promoting “fake news.” But most of this news, even if we grant the premises that the Russian government is directly promoting it or even that it is phony, is just a variation on the same leftist narratives you can find anywhere else. It’s no longer even true that someone like Richard Spencer is moderately more likely to make an appearance on RT than on a major American news network.

Ultimately, the Russians, albeit for far different reasons, are trapped in the same postwar ideological trap as the post-White West. Never before have I heard the word “fascism” so often as I did in the DPR and in Russia during that week. While in Moscow, ordinary people complained to me about the “Nazi government” in Ukraine, ostensibly preparing to relaunch the blitzkrieg into the heart of the Rodina. Seminars and lectures were held on the supposed war crimes of Azov Battalion, Right Sector, and other “fascists,” with endless SPLC style discussions of their “links” to various mainstream figures in the Ukrainian government. Though Vladimir Putin has condemned the post-White West’s unwillingness to defend its own children in the manufactured “refugee crisis,” the same Western style restrictions on speech can be found in Russia itself.

Of course, “fascism” means something far different in the Russian context than it does on an American college campus, there it’s something akin to “anyone who opposes Russia.” (Every Serb I’ve ever met has a similar definition of the word related to opposition to their own country.) This led to several amusing scenarios during my sojourn.

In one case, some kind of defense official in the ad-hoc DPR government, whose only direct military experience seems to have been some time in the Soviet Navy in the 1980’s, held court with the overwhelmingly leftist journalists and academics and boasted about his new country’s heroic resistance against fascism. In the next breath, he casually remarked how interesting he thought it was that Ukraine’s government was dominated by Jews. In another case, a paramilitary festooned with hammer and sickle speechified to us about how Novorossiya was leading the new struggle against global capitalism. And one of the most destructive aspects of reactionary capitalism, he warned darkly, was homosexuality. In both cases, the appalled silence of my leftist colleagues was broken by the sound of me failing to stifle my laughter.

Yet in another way, there’s no ideological confusion here. Traveling through the eastern Ukrainian countryside, with its endless plains, you can almost see the Wehrmacht crashing into the limitless waves of T-34’s. Then Savur-Mohyla swells out of the earth, a strategic height home to a massive monument to the Soviet army. The villages surrounding the height are rubble, the statues on the height itself pockmarked by bullets or entirely destroyed. A war monument from the pages of history, it now hosts the fresh graves of men of my own generation who died to possess it, as its strategic location was the site of a furious back-and-forth battle between DPR and Ukrainian forces in 2014.

I ascend the steps, finding tortured iron and stones at the pinnacle, as well as a breathtaking view of the countryside where one can still visualize hostile troops assembling below. And of course, something else – a bewildering array of flags – the DPR, the tricolor of the Russian government, the tsarist emblem, the orange and black flag of the Saint George ribbon, the Soviet flag, the motley flags of various DPR regiments and militias, and others I was never able to decode. Ideologically, it makes no sense. From a Russian perspective, it makes perfect sense, as the tragedies and triumphs of systems diametrically opposed to each other, the Tsardom and the Supreme Soviet, have been seamlessly woven together into a great national saga.

The Soviet victory of 1945 is at the centerpiece of this. At the monument To Donbass Liberators, a twenty-something girl who had been serving as my interpreter stared up at the heroic representation of the soldiers, her eyes shining, and spoke without irony or cynicism about how the Great Patriotic War was a time when the entire country (by which she meant the USSR) and all its many peoples were totally united in a great cause. There was no acknowledgment, or perhaps even knowledge, of the crimes committed by the Red Army during its march through Germany, nor of the dehumanizing methods used to achieve this military conquest. The youth of the DPR was getting to essentially reenact what they have been told their entire lives was the greatest triumph and most incredible adventure in their history. And sometimes, even with the same exact weapons, as I stared at the gap in the line of vehicles on display a JS-3 Stalin heavy tank had actually been refitted and sent to the front.

It works both ways. To the Ukrainians in the west, some of whom have adopted the names and symbols of those who worked with the Reich to fight against the Reds, history is also playing out again as the young refight what to many of their grandfathers thought was a struggle for national liberation and crusade against Communism. In the Baltic states, many openly hail the SS while nations such as Poland tear down the monuments to their Soviet occupiers. As no one but a fiend can today claim Western Civilization was “saved” by World War II, it’s tempting to just interpret this as a purely ideological development, that the boys in black are rising again. But ideas follow the currents of subtle and complicated national and identity politics, with various nationalist movements associated with the “left” or “right” because of historical chance rather than ideological conviction. It’s at least as much about nationalism and intra-European rivalries than it is about a comeback of National Socialism.

And nationalism is both our salvation and our curse. Realistically, at this point in history, any political movement designed to safeguard the interests of the White race and the existence of Western culture will be labeled a “nationalist” movement. Of course, even (or especially) a “nationalist” government can be tempted to fight other “nationalist” governments, making it easy for rootless cosmopolitans to manipulate patriots to fight each other in mutually ruinous conflicts, as we saw in World War II.

Now, we may get the same thing again. The most uncucked nations in Europe, the Eastern Europeans, are also those most fearful of supposed Russian expansion. They are thus cheerleading the effort to position NATO troops on the borders with Russia (something NATO promised not to do during the 1990 talks over German reunification). More importantly, the nations of Eastern Europe are left open to having to accept refugees, granting leftist NGO’s the freedom to operate, and committing to various destructive social policies as the price for defense. It’s the exact same technique the federal government uses to force left wing policies on recalcitrant states and localities in our own country.

The “Maidan” revolution in Ukraine, that relied upon right-wingers, nationalists and some outright National Socialists for its street fighting, has already been revealed as part of a plot not to save Ukraine, but to deconstruct it entirely. Already, Ukrainians are being told the “true” meaning of Maidan was to ensure that there would be gay pride festivals in Kiev.

What kind of independence has been won when George Soros is dictating policy instead of Vladimir Putin? Kleptocracy is far preferable to utter subversion. Interference from Moscow is less harmful than the wholesale destruction of sovereignty and independence that comes with integration into the “West.”

Of course, many brave Ukrainian patriots know their country is being ruled by an alien elite and that they are being used. Why haven’t the Ukrainians toppled the hostile elite ruling their country? Well, easier said than done. After all, why haven’t we?

Putin knows what Maidan was really all about; avoiding one of America’s color-coded revolutions has been the driving impulse behind much of his rule. This is why he won’t let foreign NGO’s operate within the country, why he has painstakingly cultivated youth groups that support the regime, why he made sure he can call upon pseudo-official street fighters like the Night Wolves motorcycle club if there is an attempted coup, and why many of Putin’s supposed political adversaries are actually working in league with the Kremlin as part of a faux opposition.

Those on the ground in Donetsk knew this too; the word “Maidan” was used as an adjective to describe subversives and agents of the Americans. I learned this firsthand.

Unwisely wandering off from the group, I made the mistake of saying something in English while purchasing something at a market. As Americans aren’t exactly common in the DPR, before long, a man, perhaps intoxicated, randomly accused me of being in the CIA and shoved me, leading to the formation of an angry mob. Naturally, I shoved him and yelled back (in retrospect, a poor decision when outnumbered about 20-1 by mostly uniformed paramilitaries and you don’t speak the language). Luckily, an official (a blonde haired Muslim) soon arrived, dressed down the instigator, explained the situation and dispersed the mob. Following this furious diatribe, my shamefaced antagonist embraced me, pledged eternal friendship, and demanded I drink vodka with him. (The Muslim did not partake.)

But the mob was fundamentally right in its initial fear. The American government is, unquestionably, trying to overthrow Vladimir Putin through the same playbook it has used to overthrow other governments, with the (still) taxpayer subsidized Soros NGO’s as one of the key weapons in its arsenal. And the ultimate American geopolitical goal, as outlined by the recently deceased Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book The Grand Chessboard, is to break up Russia itself, ensuring there is almost no power able or willing to challenge the neoliberal economic and political order.

The “Russian hacking” narrative of the Democrats, the neoconservatives, and their friends in the media is pure projection. If every single one of Louise Mensch’s tweets were true, it would still pale in comparison to what the American government has been trying to do to Moscow for decades. Why shouldn’t they respond in kind?

Perhaps more importantly, the “Russian hacking” narrative boxes in President Trump and commits him to a course almost guaranteed to end in war. For a supposed Manchurian candidate, President Trump has done nothing to actually ease tensions with Russia. This may not even be his fault; the Deep State and Congress have tied his hands. The sanctions are still in place, America is still absurdly demanding Russia give back Crimea, and American forces are now attacking the Syrian government directly. If there is a real crisis, easily imaginable considering how closely Russian and American forces now are in both Syria and Europe, it will be impossible for President Trump to make any kind of a compromise or float a friendly proposal without risking accusations of treason or sparking a political or even military effort to remove him from power.

Trump, who already seems overmatched in negotiations over health care, is perhaps the sole obstacle standing in the way of the conflict the Deep State so desperately wants. He might, out of pressure or newfound conviction, take an even more militant stand than President Clinton would have done. The Republicans have never been able to decide if their problem with the Democrats’ Russian policy is that it’s too confrontational or not confrontational enough. It’s the likes of Pence, Ryan, and McCain who will be whispering in Trump’s ear in the event of a crisis. In short, “this business will get out of control, it will get out of control and we will be lucky to live through it.”

If there is a World War III, in America and in Eastern Europe, soldiers will be called to fight in the name of God and Country, and the Beltway Right will thrill to those old-fashioned values, perhaps only because once again they will be marshaled in the service of their own destruction. It will be the “Greatest Generation” tripe all over again, only with more affirmative action cast members. Similarly, much as Stalin called upon the legacy of Alexander Nevsky, Russians will once again live out the Great Patriotic War, that provides additional motivation to those Eastern Europeans who will sacrifice themselves to defend their independence from Moscow, only to surrender it to Brussels and Washington.

Preventing this scenario must be at the heart of everything we do. A war between Russia and the United States would be the ultimate proof President Trump has either been neutered or totally subverted. And to suggest we share a meaningful national identity with the likes of Kamala Harris or Chuck Schumer that must be defended is as debased as Elsagate.

No Russian ever called me White trash. No Russian ever told me he was going to take my country away from me, rejoice in the genocide of my race, or extirpate even the memory of my people’s accomplishments like some ISIS knockoff. No real enemy facing the historic American nation lies within the borders of the Russian Federation. The furious mob on the streets of Donetsk was far less hateful and hostile to the authentic American people than the typical delegate to the Democratic National Committee.

I defer to Russian comrades whether Vladimir Putin is an authentic champion of his people or a cynical manipulator desperately trying to hold together a ramshackle imperial structure. (One of my armed guards, for example, wore a T-shirt festooned with the smiling visage of Ramzan Kadyrov.) But I do know there is no authentic conflict between Russia and the United States, nor any casus belli that wouldn’t eventually be as self-discrediting as Washington’s claim of WMD’s in Iraq. An American “victory” in such a conflict would simply seal the fate of nations such as Poland, Estonia, or Lithuania, not ensure their independence. And the centralization of authority and censorship always created by war would justify the crackdown on dissenters (us) that the journalists and their scriptwriters at the SPLC and the ADL have been urging ever since Trump’s election.

Those motley paramilitaries I spent time with had motivations I do not share, experiences I can’t fully relate to, and goals I may think are misguided. Yet for any American to call these cousins “enemies” is not just a mistake but an act of unspeakable malevolence. Indeed, even their initial fury against me as an American was totally justified, as it is Washington D.C. that houses that Swamp and threatens to drown every one of our peoples. And what looks likely to push us into conflict is not Ukraine (where there is at least an argument for both sides), but Syria, where the Washington government is obviously and explicitly backing the enemies of the West and the forces of wickedness.

For America to start a war in order to remove Bashar al-Assad would be an act of murderous evil and reckless brigandage unmatched since the days of Tamerlane. If Americans were to die in service to such an unquestionably despicable cause, especially after electing a president who vowed peaceful relations with Russia, the obscenity would be so great it would justify the nuclear annihilation that would ensue.

And that’s the only positive spin we can see for any of this. Most of the time, for a ruling caste to be displaced, it must set its own doom in motion. No matter how much we organize, how many brave men step forward on the streets, how much money is raised, how many books are read or how widely ideas are spread, our rulers are likely to remain secure until and unless they are massively discredited by a grave miscalculation. A war with Russia could well be that miscalculation.

All White men worldwide must rally to the cause of No More Brother Wars. But if it comes, all rules are abolished, all institutions forever discredited, all methods legitimate. If our insane rulers, with or without President Trump, launch such a conflict, let all the Earth be reduced to ash and dust if this creates but a chance an alternative can be created.

Treason to the occupation is loyalty to the nation. We must have freedom and sovereignty at any cost, we must either revolutionize or totally break free of this system of filth simply to ensure our own survival. And as for America, just as in every White nation the only real enemy is at home.