The Good News Nuclear War Will Save the Planet


Armstrong Economics Blog/Energy

Posted Jan 24, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

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Most of these people like Al Gore, Kerry, the mainstream media, Rhinos, democrats, and Bill Gates seem to actually believe in climate change for they are displaying the most stupid form of analysis invented by the lowest possible intelligence level of society. Hey, it’s warmer today than when I was a kid so we must be causing it. There has been ZERO research into climate on any of their parts to even test their theory. They all project that we are headed toward an environmental Armageddon if mankind does not immediately end fossil fuels. Not a single one has bothered to even consider that switching to electricity curiously makes society extremely vulnerable. If I were China looking to take down the West, I would be pushing this agenda at light speed. The first thing you do is take down the power grid and society will crumble in less than 72 hours. Using digital currency would mean you could not buy anything. Without an electric car you would be forced to walk to a store that then could not sell you anything without electricity and no new supply of anything would be able to move so there goes the supply chain – again.

The GOOD NEWS is you can then just nuke your opponent and actually save the planet all at the same time. Without electricity, your opponent could not even make a phone call to launch a response. But if we look at Chornobyl, the nuclear disaster restored the region which became a sanctuary for animals void of humans.

Bikini Atoll 70 years after nuclear tests is thriving. On July 24, 1946, Baker Test shrouded its formidable height over the U.S. Navy’s test fleet. The United States dropped 23 nuclear bombs on the island, including a device in 1954 that was 1,100 times larger than the Hiroshima atom bomb. Now a team of scientists from Stanford University has been stunned. They discovered an abundance of marine life apparently thriving in the crater of Bikini Atoll, which was declared a nuclear wasteland after the bombings.

Strangely enough, the same has been found at Chernobyl in Ukraine. It is starting to emerge that even setting off every nuclear bomb will not destroy the planet or turn Earth into space rocks. We can alter our environment by doing so and ridding the planet of humanity as the dominant species, but Earth will heal itself and life will adapt exactly as scientists have discovered in Ukraine at the site of Chernobyl. Wildlife has thrived because it sent humans running.

This new evidence emerging from Chernobyl and Bikini Atoll is demonstrating that we just may not be as smart as we think we are no less all-powerful. Obviously, the WEF and world leaders who are all pushing for World War III, are obvious far smarter than we are. They are really trying to save the planet from us. Exterminate humanity and we can save the bugs and crickets from becoming our next food source.

The Last Days of Japan


Armstrong Economics Blog/Japan Re-Posted Jan 23, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

We have been forecasting for several years now that those who have been focused on the demise of the dollar to the exclusion of everything else would be wrong because of what must fall first is both Europe and Japan. It is an all-out race to see who will be the first to collapse.

This special report on Japan is very critical for it provides a view of Asia v Europe. This is the prelude to the fall of socialism in the West. Communism collapsed in 1989. Now 34 years later, it is just our turn. It does not mean the end of the world. It simply means the end of the present monetary system as we have known it.

The Report covers the Japanese Yen spot and futures, the Nikkei 225 Cash Index, and the Japanese JGB Futures.

Soros Owns Mainstream Press?


Armstrong Blog/Tyranny Re-Posted Jan 23, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Marty, As you know I worked for _____________ in NYC. We all know you were innocent back then. I have followed you for probably 30 years. Everyone knew that the bankers told the CFTC that you had to be silenced. Your forecast cost them a lot of money when they assumed they could control the market.

It is no longer a mystery why the mainstream press refuses to ever even talk about your Economic Confidence Model and how it has always been right. The press is on the payroll of George Soros who hates your guts for his biggest losses were always against you.

I am passing this article on because I think it sheds light on who is on Soros’ payroll.

Cheers

All the best

WH

REPLY: Thank you. I have heard that from many sources. The CFTC wanted to stop our forecasting at the request of the bankers. They thought they could manipulate markets for “the” perfect trade. They always blew up and blamed me because we had more than $3 trillion under contract back in the ’90s – the equivalent of 50% of the US National debt at the time.

Soros is manipulating the press to press for the destruction of Russia to further his one-world government. Perhaps making that much money causes mental illness whereby you become a demigod to redesign the world. I have ZERO respect for Soros, Gates, or Schwab. They should all be thrown into a padded cell, handed a game of monopoly, and let them try to manipulate each other.

The Petrodollar – Another Fake News Invention?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Gold Re-Posted Jan 23, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The entire theory of the Petrodollar dares back to the collapse of Bretton Woods and the subsequent oil embargo protesting US support for Israel and the price shock of raising prices. Those were the days when everyone was obsessed with gold and the whole idea of a floating currency that was popular to say will crash and burn for money had to be backed but some commodity. Those were indeed the days when that theory was very popular and it dominated the thinking process of the 1970s.

Here is an advertisement from my past days as a market maker in gold during 1970s to about 1983. I too believed in all those theories until the crash came in 1975. I too had bought into all that nonsense. Gold was going to be legalized in the United States in 1975 for the first time since 1934. Being a very large dealer domestically and internationally, all my European clients were talking up the scenario that gold was going to $500 if not $1000 once Americans could buy.

Because Teddy Roosevelt was an ancient coin collector, when Franklin Roosevelt, who was a stamp collector, recognized that gold coins existed from ancient times thanks to Teddy, he confiscated gold on deposit at the banks but exempted collector coins. That was the reason why we have rolls of $20 gold coins trading to this day.

As a result, those who were really believers in gold would buy common date American $20 gold coins by the roll in those days. So when the Europeans were talking themselves into gold was going to explode in 1975 as soon as it was legalized in the United States, as a dealer, I never got a single call about buying gold from anyone other than those who already owned it. The gold crowd was only looking at gold and had no idea that any American who wanted gold bought it in coin form. They were cheering gold without understanding the reality of the marketplace.

I went short gold in January 1975 not using even technical analysis. The hype was so much and I knew that there was no line standing at the door to buy gold. My gut feeling was that gold was going to decline – not rally. I saw that in 1970 when the two-tier gold market they created in 1968 saw gold drop below the official price of $35 in 1970 – something that was not supposed to happen.

Even the Senate of New Jersey came to me and I wrote the law on sales tax regarding gold in 1974. Gold peaked in December 1974 at $197.50. It fell to $97.70 while inflation continued but economic growth declined and they called it STAGFLATION. I learned back then that all the scenarios and theories that gold rises with inflation and the dollar would not survive without some backing. I was confronted by the reality that exposes all these theories to be a throwback to times long since passed. This all only inspired me, even more, to investigate everything in detail. By 1979, I published what I called the WHY REPORT. I later republished this in 1981 and again in 1983.

To explain the survivability of the dollar since it rose between 1972 and 1976 against the British pound, with the collapse of Bretton Woods, the rise in gold, and the entire oil embargo, that is when they came up with this idea that the dollar was backed by oil. They had to explain why their theories were wrong just as they changed global warming to climate change to explain away global cooling.

All the theories were wrong. The dollar rose, and inflation soared, as did gold. None of this made sense under their theories. Something had to be done. It became obvious that it was impossible to make investment decisions based upon these theories that people just made up to sell gold which are still being used today. I also remembered that in January 1970, gold fell in the London market to $34.70. Gold was not supposed to sell below the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate of dollars to gold. It was like being smacked in the face and told to wake up!

Without question, the dealers could not sell gold if it did not rise with inflation and against the dollar since it was no longer backed by anything. They had to invent something new. That is when the sophistry specialists stepped in and boy did they succeed in bullshitting everyone.

The explanation was ah ha – the dollar is really backed by oil because it is priced in dollars. That’s it. It is really the Petrodollar! Suddenly the dollar became de facto-backed by oil. They needed an explanation to explain why all the old theories were wrong. They sold this theory and it made the front cover of Newsweek. Everyone said YES! That must be the reason. OPEC priced oil in dollars! Naturally, everything was priced in dollars because, under the fixed exchange rate of Bretton Woods, everything from wheat and corn to copper and gold was all priced in dollars.

Many people are now calling for the collapse of the dollar all because Saudi Arabia has confirmed that they will be selling oil in various currencies. Hence, relying on this old fictitious their of the Petrodolarr from the ’70s, they are telling everyone the dollar will collapse and gold will soar. They never get tired of kicking the same theories down the road without EVER just once being honest and looking if they have any validity whatsoever.

The value of any currency is NOT some commodity. It is the people. You can have all the gold in the world, but if the people do not produce, it means nothing. Indeed, Russia had the largest gold reserve of any nation ahead of the Communist Revolution. They took the gold reserves and hid them so the communists would never find them. They are still missing to this very day. Likewise, Germany and Japan has no gold reserves post-WWII yet they rose to the strongest economies in their respective regions. How is that possible? It is very simple. The true backing of a currency is the total productive capacity of its people. The US became the largest economy in the world NOT  because of gold, but because the US had a consumer-based economy built of freedom rather than Marxism as the problem with Europe. China, Japan, and Germany, all focused on the old-world mercantile economic model. Produce to sell to someone else. They failed to follow the strength of the United States in building a consumer economy.

China understands the difference and has shifted to develop that type of economy whereas Germany oppresses its people with high taxes on its citizens to sell manufactured goods to everyone else. That is why they wanted the Euro to expand their European economic marketplace.  Germany’s high taxes have put it near the bottom insofar as the German people have less net worth than Italians. The more Marxist the country, the lower the economic standard of living.

Recipe for Perfect Pancakes


Posted originally on the CTH on January 22, 2023 | Sundance

Making good pancakes is one of the easiest processes; however, you need just the right ingredients.  Consider this recipe next time:

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cups whole milk

4 tablespoons melted butter

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 3/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon sugar

.

UPDATE: Here’s what I know:

♦ I know the key principals have read the outline, reached out, connected, seem to concur with the scale of the problem, and are discussing options.

♦ I know this is uncomfortbly outside the box for almost all involved.

♦ I know I have assembled an external small group ready, willing and capable to engage.

♦ I know the alliance group -outside govt- comprehend the larger outline (as below), and despite initial reservations now agree on goals and objectives.  The human resources are there, and their ability to get things going seems solid.

♦ I know everyone inside and outside wants to do the right thing, the best thing.

The basic elements are in place, and in my opinion the goal timeline would be to have all the preliminary structural and logistical work done by Easter; then blitz with intense speed on “Operation Sunlight” for the following six months.

Beyond that, all other aspects are now contingent upon what happens inside the discussion silo of the principals.

CTH password protected posts are under the password: wolverines

Communication, discussion and step-by-step outlining is a very time consuming enterprise.  If you are wondering about the light CTH posting recently, refer to the prior sentence.  I cannot say much, except to say no one is more cynical than I, and yet… We live our best life and remain pragmatically hopeful.  If they do this, we will all benefit.

As previously noted, the 118th Congress is expected to authorize a “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.”   The subcommittee will fall under the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee led by Chairman Jim Jordan.  Additionally, Thomas Massie (R-KY) is being reported as a representative under consideration for the chairmanship of the House Subcommittee.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and potential House Subcommittee Chair Thomas Massie should have a grasp of the scale and scope of the opposition they are about to face.  Assuming they have a fully prepared staff to support them – willing to take on a very consequential investigation; then we begin by first anticipating who will oppose their effort to investigate the “weaponization of government“.   Which is to say, everyone!

The defensive apparatus of the DC political system will likely do everything in their power, individually and with collective assistance, to ensure this committee fails.  The stakes are quite high.  As readers here can well attest, DC politics is an institutional system of purposefully created compartmentalized silos.

The compartmented information silos permit plausible deniability, and this collection of weaponized institutions contains career bureaucrats who view their opposition as the American people.

Example – The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and every Republican member therein, including SSCI Vice-Chairman Marco Rubio, will make it their willfully blind priority to obstruct any investigation that touches on how the intelligence apparatus of the United States Government is weaponized against the people.

The SSCI is the institution that facilitated the creation of the National Security State.  Any effort to investigate the outcome of that system will make the House investigators adversarial to their colleagues in the Senate.

Additionally, every executive branch intelligence institution, including the DOJ-NSD, FBI, DHS, ODNI, CIA, DoD, DIA, NSC and every sub-agency within their authorities, will do anything and everything to block a subcommittee looking into their domestic activity.

A lot of bad decisions have led to really bad things.  DC does not want those bad things discussed.

Every national security justification that exists, and some that have yet to be created by the DOJ National Security Division solely for the expressed interest of blocking this subcommittee, will be deployed.

Every member of the subcommittee and their staff will be under constant surveillance.  Phones will be tapped and tracked, electronic devices monitored, cars and offices bugged, physical surveillance deployed, and top tier officials at every subsidiary agency of the U.S. government will assign investigative groups and contract agents to monitor the activity of the subcommittee and provide weekly updates on their findings.

The White House together with the National Security Council will also backchannel to and from these agencies doing the surveillance.

The intelligence apparatus media will be deployed, and daily leaks from the various agencies to their contact lists in the New York Times, Politico, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC will be in constant two-way communication for narrative assembly and counterpropaganda efforts.

This is the context of opposition to begin thinking about before anything moves forward.

Additionally, the national security state will demand the House investigation take place on their terms.  They will demand secrecy, national security classification and require House subcommittee members to adhere to the Intelligence Community terms for review and discussion of anything.

Each agency will not voluntarily assist or participate in the investigation of any of their conduct.  Every official within every agency will do the same; and they will require legal representation that will be provided to them by Lawfare, political operatives skilled in the use of “National Security” and “classified information”, as a justification for non-compliance and non-assistance.  A protracted legal battle should be predicted.

Lastly, anticipate Special Counsel Jack Smith using his position to block the House Subcommittee from receiving evidence.  The House should anticipate that congressional representatives are already under investigation as a result of the authorities granted to Jack Smith by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco {Go Deep}.  The White House and all of the executive branch agencies will use the existing Special Counsel to block House investigation. Heck, that looks to be the primary purpose of the appointment.

As a result, expect the House Subcommittee members to be under constant threat from the DOJ, via the Special Counsel, specifically from DAG Lisa Monaco, with statements that House Subcommittee investigative efforts are “obstructing” a special counsel investigation.  The aforementioned agencies and the Senate Intel Committee will work with the DOJ to use the Jack Smith special counsel as a shield to block participation with the House Subcommittee.

With all of that in mind, what is the successful path forward?

♦ First, everything has to be done in sunlight and maximum transparency, even the planning and organization of the committee construct, purpose and goals.

The committee can have no shadow operations, unknown guiding hands or secrets that can be discovered and then weaponized against the intent.  Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I know DC has little concept of working like this, but you can train yourself to do it.  You have nothing to hide; however, those who are being investigated have everything to hide.  Do not provide them ammunition by retaining secrets that can be weaponized against you.

As Andrew Breitbart said, be open with your secrets.

Your second cousin Alice will be a source for the New York Times to write about the Thanksgiving dinner three years ago when she heard the “N” word or a tasteless joke about something outrageous.  Every member of the committee and staff need to prepare for a dossier completed by the FBI about them and distributed to the government allies in mainstream media.

Security clearances will be leveraged and threatened as a tool of the national security state to stop the secrecy envelope from being opened publicly.  This will happen; so just anticipate it.  When the security clearance of [insert_name_here] is threatened, go to the microphones and tell the public who is doing the threatening, and why.

♦GOALS – The goal needs to be crystal clear to anyone and everyone who would contemplate assisting.  Yes, there needs to be a legislative intent in order to legally formulate the committee; that’s a no-brainer.  However, the ultimate goal should NOT BE accountability on those who may have perpetrated or supported weaponized activity against American Citizens.  The ultimate goal SHOULD BE for maximum public information, transparency and sunlight about the weaponization as it is discovered.

Let us assume the goal is accepted.  Before moving forward, the subcommittee needs a professional communication strategy in place before the rules, terms and member outlines are structured or made public.

A thoughtful communication strategy so that information can come from the committee to the public without the filtration of a corrupt system that will bend and skew the findings as a weapon against the committee itself.

♦COMMUNICATION PORTAL – Hire a communication staff, and set up a website for the sharing of information directly from the committee to the public.  The daily activity of the committee should be shared publicly in granular detail.  The witness names as scheduled, documents requested, everything that involves the committee activity should be known to the general public. This system should be updated at least DAILY, or as information is compiled.

This communication network should also contain a separate staff assigned to solicit, accept and distribute information provided by the public to the subcommittee.  Yes, you read that correctly, the subcommittee website should be able to accept information provided by the public as it relates to the ongoing committee work.

Crowdsource We The People as research leverage against the much more effective Lawfare operations you will face in opposition.  This means a portal where the ‘open source’ information can be delivered by researchers, many of those on the spectrum, who hold deep knowledge of the information and system processes in the silos.

In the past several years, thousands of documents have been retrieved by FOIA and public records investigations.  Hundreds of experts in the granular details of the DHS, FBI, DoD and DOJ-NSD systems have knowledge that can benefit the committee; you just need a way for them to transmit the evidence/information to you.

That ‘open source’ evidence should flow into the committee portal with address sourcing that allows the committee staff to review and locate it independently.  This avoids the predictable counterargument, from the national security state, that Russia (or foreign actors) is feeding disinformation into the committee.

The documentary evidence will mostly be “open source,” extracted and then cross-referenced from within the multiple silo system the national security state uses as a shield. And the origination of the documents will be traceable and easy to duplicate, thereby providing secure provenance.   The internal staff manager for this inbound portal is critical (think former HPSCI Nunes staff).

Documents found by the committee should then be uploaded to the same communication system (website), permitting the public -especially the autists- to review and then cross reference the committee material; ultimately channeling information back into the committee if important dots connect or puzzle pieces clarify.   Think of this as a massive counter Lawfare operation with hundreds of Deep State subject matter experts assisting the committee.

Witness transcripts should be uploaded within 36 hours of testimony.  Then let the public do the research, background review and dot connecting from the testimony.  If you build it, they will come.

♦ Next, GO PUBLIC with everything.  Do not use the terms and conditions of the secretive administrative state.  Tell the public what you are finding as you are finding it.  You can share information without violating “sources and methods.”   Schedule a media appearance at the 8pm hour twice weekly with a high visibility broadcast media network to provide updates and answer questions.

These scheduled appearances should be in addition to random media press releases and press comments as pertinent information to the subcommittee arrives.   What this means is that you do not wait to produce a 2,000-page final report before releasing the information.  The final report should be an update and summary of all previous findings that have been released to the public along the way.

♦ At the outset, put no rules on media contacts with any subcommittee staff or member.  Counter the darkness that fuels the intelligence community agenda with maximum sunlight and transparency.  Use truth as a weapon against disinformation.  That means no nondisclosure agreements at any part of the process.

Yes, this is radical change in approach, but this is also a radical enemy you are facing.  Playing the secrecy game works in their favor, not yours.  Transparency is your tool, not theirs – use it.

Use truth as a weapon.

Every member of the committee can say anything they want about any of the material or witness testimony they hear during the course of the investigation.  Public hearing or closed-door sessions, it matters not.  The same rule applies.  Committee members are completely free to discuss any findings as the information is reviewed.

The goal should NOT BE accountability on those who may have perpetrated or supported weaponized activity against American Citizens.  The goal SHOULD BE for maximum public information, transparency and sunlight about the weaponization as it is discovered.  This approach makes We The People the accountability portion of the process.  As a result, the next section is again rather groundbreaking….

♦ Every witness to the committee should be granted full legal immunity provided by the House and House Speaker for anything said during the testimony or admitted as being done as part of the evidence fact-finding.  Again, the goal is transparency and openness, not prosecution and accountability.  Use sunlight as a weapon to draw out the truth, then let the American people be the judges of what that truth means when contrasted against the constitution of our nation.

Let me repeat this… There should be ZERO legal liability for any conduct that happened as a part of any witness effort to weaponize the United States government against the American people.  The immunity should cover everything *except* perjury from the witness to the committee itself (ex. Oliver North).   If the witness lies, the immunity evaporates.

Why this approach?  Because (a) it circumvents any issues that might impede testimony, removes hurdles; (b) immunity compels confession, honest sunlight and the urgency of the situation; (c) immunity makes the truth more likely; and finally, (d) you are not going to get legal convictions anyway.   The truth has no agenda.

Another reason for the immunity is because the operation of the subcommittee should be heavily focused on witness testimony, not documents.  The documents can come as part of the follow-up to the witness testimony, but it is the witness testimony needed; the publication of the transcripts then provides the public sunlight.  This is key.

90% of the committee work should be focused on witnesses and questions therein.  Only 10% of the committee work should be seeking documents.   Avoiding the documents shortens the time needed for investigative disclosures and avoids protracted legal battles therein.  If the people on the committee, those who are asking the questions, do not already know the details behind the questions and the locations of the supportive documents, then you have the wrong people on the committee.

Every response to a questioned witness should come with the following question: “How do you know this?”   That is how you will discover the nature of the documents, communications, emails etc that support the fact-finding mission.  “How do you know this” also leads to more witnesses.  Work the issue from the bottom up.   How do you know this; who told you this; why did you do this; what authority guided you; who authorized this approach? etc. etc. etc.

Use fully immunized witnesses to tell the story, then go look for the documents to corroborate the witness statements using the ‘under oath’ transcript as part of the impenetrable subpoena itself; but don’t wait, keep questioning witnesses.

DOCUMENTS – Once you identify the location of documents that would assist the sunlight objective, don’t only rely on the government side of the conversation as the targeted source for retrieval.  If the document contains communication to external parties, ie public-private partnership, then move to gain the documents from the private side, thereby avoiding the roadblocks inside government.

Regardless of the status of the document search, and regardless of whether legal battles will be needed to retrieve those documents, keep moving forward with the witness testimony.  Do not stop committee work just because internal silo opposition is being fought.  Keep working the plan and bringing immunized witnesses, both inside government and outside government, forward for questioning.  Leaders within organizations and agencies are important, but clerks, staff, and administrative aides in/around those same leaders could also provide important information.

This subcommittee approach, along with the people needed, will obviously take more time to assemble.  However, once put together everything thereafter moves at a very rapid pace, which is also part of the strategy.  Flood the information zone with maximum sunlight and keep the opposition off balance.

The goal is sunlight. Rip the Band-Aid off, call the baby ugly and start the process to fix this crap by exposing it. Restore the First and Fourth Amendments, and heal the injury.

From the Church Commission we got the secret FISA court and more tools for violations of our Fourth Amendment rights.  From the 911 Commission we got The Patriot Act, DHS, TSA, DNI and many more violations of our rights and Fourth Amendment protections.   We do not need any legislation as an outcome of the House “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.”

We do not need your legislative help.  All prior legislative help only ended up making things worse.

What we need is a full, uncensored, brutally honest expose’ of how bad things have become and how that system can be dismantled.  The existing constitution is the protection, just remove the stuff that is violating it.

I know this approach is rather different from the norm.  However, if this roadmap seems reasonable, I am certain you will find support from within the silo system that is currently operating, and from people outside the government who will volunteer time and effort to assist.

Summarized: (1) Know the scale of opposition.  (2) Formulate a communication strategy around it and build a website. (3)  Communicate findings by telling the story to the American people as it is discovered. (4) Grant immunity to all witnesses. (5) Don’t wait until the end to generate another useless report that few will read. (6) Make sunlight the motive of the committee. (7) Consider success when the American people can see the problem.  (8) Dissolve any weaponized systems.  (9) Don’t create new ones.

If you tell us the truth, We The People will fix it ourselves.

WEF DECLARES NEW WORLD ORDER AT DAVOS 2023


Drew Hernandez Streamed on: Jan 20, 9:00 pm EST

Drew Hernandez LIVE | Ep 164 | Drew gives an overview of WEF Davos 2023 and their plans for a NEW WORLD ORDER 

Didn’t Ukraine Become Sovereign in 1918?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Ukraine Re-Posted Jan 22, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: I thought Ukraine claimed it was independent in 1918. Was that not then a country?

PH

ANSWER:  In the aftermath of World War I which began in 1914, that is when the Russian Revolution took place. That is when Ukraine first tried to assert its independence on January 26th, 1918. The Bolsheviks who seized control of Russia in November 1917 at first sought to negotiate peace with the Central Powers of Europe, which was the coalition that consisted primarily of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, the “central” European states that were at war from August 1914.  The former Russian state of Ukraine attempted to declare its total independence in the midst of this chaos, not unlike the Jews who sought independence when Nero died ending the Julio-Claudian Dynasty in 68AD. The Jews also issued coinage declaring their independence.

Because of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the paper currency of Russia was no longer valid. Russian coins were the only acceptable medium of exchange. This is the only reason why we see a brief issue of Ukrainian paper currency between 1918 and 1921. The Russian paper money was no longer valid.

Nonetheless, the Russian gold reserves, which were the largest in the world, had been hidden to prevent the Bolsheviks and Lenin from using that money. After the collapse of the Czarist government in 1917, the Provisional Russian Government and the Bolsheviks continued to issue the Czarist 5 Ruble note retaining the date of 1909 pretending they had the gold reserves when they did not. The only significant difference between the Czarist and the Bolshevik issues is that the Czarist notes had a full serial number consisting of two letters and six digits. As you can see, the Bolshevik notes had only a series number consisting of two letters and 3 digits again to hide the quantity that they were printing.  The lack of serial numbers and backdating of the notes allowed them to issue large quantities of unbacked currency.  The 5 Ruble note continued to feature the Romanov Imperial Eagle on both sides.  The Czarist note was backed by gold which could be exchanged 3.87 grams of gold. The Bolsheviks were counting on that misconception to fund their revolution.

The very name Ukraine is meant at the border or borderland of Russia. It was flat and one of the major wheat-producing regions of Europe. It also had major deposits of coal which were a vital energy source at that time. Most of Ukraine had become part of the Russian empire after the second partition of Poland in 1793. The Eastern portion, known as the Principality of Galicia, had remained part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It was this region that became a strategic battleground on World War I’s Eastern Front. It was a Serb who assassinated the Arch Duke in 1914 which ignited World War I.

Immediately following the overthrow of the Russian czar in February 1917, Ukraine declared independence and set up a mega-shift provisional government proclaiming itself a republic, yet within the structure of a federated Russia. When Vladimir Lenin seized power with the help of Germany smuggling him into Russia to stop the war, Ukraine, like Finland, declared its independence in January 1918.

Ukraine’s newly formed Rada government did not really have the support of the people. They also did not have any financial backing. Their first issue of money was actually postage stamp currency. It had serious difficulty imposing its rule of law on the people without their consent. Then there was the Bolshevik opposition and counter-revolutionary activity within Ukraine and the fact that it was a major source of food for Europe that Germany and Austria sent in troops in an effort to support the new government. They managed to force the Russian troops to withdraw thereby establishing a treaty at Brest-Litovsk. That treaty was then signed in March 1918. In truth, Ukraine was really just annexed while pretending to recognize Ukrainian independence. At the time, the German commander in charge of Ukraine, Wilhelm Groener, famously remarked:

“The [Ukrainian] administrative structure is in total disorder, completely incompetent and in no way ready for quick results. It would be in our interests to treat the Ukrainian government as a cover and for us to do the rest ourselves.”

The defeat of the Central Powers, Germany & Austria, followed by the signing of the armistice in November 1918 forced them to withdraw from Ukraine. At the same time, with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire, an independent West Ukrainian republic was proclaimed in the Galician city of Lviv. The two Ukrainian states proclaimed their union in early 1919, but independence was short-lived, as they immediately found themselves in a three-way struggle against troops from both Poland and Russia. The Ukrainian government briefly allied itself with Poland, but could not withstand the Soviet assault. In 1922, Ukraine became one of the original constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); it would not regain its independence until the USSR’s collapse in 1991.

Ukraine was NEVER a standalone sovereign nation. It was the territory of one of the major powers. That is why they joined the German Nazi movement and began their own ethnic cleansing to exterminate everyone in the region who they regarded were not pure-blood Ukrainians. It was Hitler who promised them the right to carve out their own country. This is why the first coinage of Ukraine was that of the German Nazi occupation.

And as for Kiev, it was founded by the Russ – the Russians. It was destroyed by the Mongol invasion in 1240AD and all that stands today is the golden gate. The Russians finally reestablished their capitol giving birth to Moscow. So sorry, the Ukrainians were the Cossacks which were a roaming tribe that has no actual nation-state.

While the hatred of Polish, Russian, and Austrian-Hungarian peoples in the region stems from their subservient position to one major power to another, it was Stalin who saw the failure of Communism and then stole the food from Ukraine creating the Holodomor where up to 7 million died of starvation. The hatred of anyone other than Ukrainian has been a major issue in Ukraine. Within Ukraine, there are indigenous peoples that nobody mentions. There are three ethnic groups that do not have a mother state but have occupied Ukraine for centuries. This applies to the Crimean Tatars, Karaites, and Krymchaks.