Why the West Lusts After Ukraine

GATEWAY PUNDIT | By Larry Johnson | June 14, 2022

Until Joe Biden took office I thought that George W Bush had dibs on the “stupidest foreign policy blunder in history” award. His decision to invade Iraq rather than eliminate Al Qaeda hurt the United States and fueled international terrorism. But leave it to Joe Biden to one-up W by imposing sanctions on Russia that are inflicting an economic holocaust on the United States and Europe. Heck of a job, Joe.

The ostensible reason for “punishing” Russia with sanctions that actually pummel the west was Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Now we all know that Ukraine was/is the poorest nation in Europe. Right?

Ukraine is one of the worst off countries after the collapse of the USSR. It is the poorest country in Europe despite having a huge aerospace industry, natural resources and some of the most fertile land for agriculture. During the communist era, Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Despite all this, Ukrainians have experienced terrible famines such as the Stalinist Holodomor.

Today, the situation is not much better. Apart from enduring a war with Russia, its political system is particularly corrupt. Almost the entire economy is in the hands of big oligarchs: millionaires who amass fortunes thanks to their connections with political power.

Let me share with you some critical facts about Ukraine and its economic potential. When you consider these facts you will likely wonder why Ukraine is not one of the richest nations in Europe.

UKRAINE IS:

🌐 1st in Europe in proven recoverable uranium ore reserves;
2nd place in Europe and 10th place in the world in titanium ore reserves;
2nd place in the world in terms of explored reserves of manganese ores (2.3 billion tons, or 12% of world reserves);
The 2nd largest iron ore reserves in the world (30 billion tons);
2nd place in Europe in mercury ore reserves;
🌐 3rd place in Europe (13th place in the world) in terms of shale gas reserves (22 trillion cubic meters)
🌐 4th place in the world in terms of the total value of natural resources;
7th place in the world in coal reserves (33.9 billion tons)

Chemical industry–Titanium has become one of the main anti-corrosive materials in chemical equipment and has established his corrosion resistance status in chemical equipment. As an ideal material in chemical equipment, titanium has also attracted more and more attention from engineering technicians.

Marine engineering—Titanium has excellent corrosion resistance to seawater and is widely used in seawater desalination, ships, marine thermal energy development, and subsea resource extraction.

Sports industry–Titanium is used in sporting goods because of its lightweight and high strength. The use of titanium has gradually expanded from the earliest tennis rackets and badminton rackets to golf heads, clubs, and racing cars.

With this bounty of natural resources Ukraine, in theory, should have been in the catbird’s seat and surpassed Germany as an economic powerhouse. But corruption and insider dealing took precedence and the Ukrainian people suffered while the Biden, Clinton, Kerry and Romney families enriched themselves.

I have not yet done the deep dive on the portions of Ukraine that produce these various minerals and chemicals, but I suspect much of the territory Russia is occupying in Ukraine is where many of these riches are located. Given what Putin has accomplished in Russia during the last 20 years in wresting monopoly control from the hands of insatiable oligarchs and well-connected western politicians and corporations, I am betting that those portions of Ukraine that are now positioned to become part of Russia will have a brighter, richer future.

This will only make Russia stronger economically. Matt Bowen and Paul Babbar, writing in The Hill, identify a potentially dire challenge the west faces on the nuclear power front:

Western leaders need to immediately consider their exposure to Russian nuclear exports and take steps to reduce it or face another energy shock at the hands of Putin.

There are several segments of the commercial nuclear value chain where a Russian supplier could impact the availability of a reactor in the West to provide power. For nuclear fuel, these include uranium mining and milling, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication. For existing Russian-designed reactors, they include providing unique original equipment manufacturer spare parts and services.

Russia has a significant market share in many of those pieces of the nuclear supply chain through its state-owned nuclear company Rosatom. For that reason, various countries around the world are caught in a challenging situation, including the U.S. They may want to extricate themselves from buying nuclear energy supplies from Rosatom to reduce supply chain risk and to stop sending money to Russia, but at the same time, they currently rely on Russian services and materials to run their reactors.

If you have labored under the false narrative that Russia is an economic midget trying to play with the so-called “first world big boys”, these facts show that you have been fed a massive, false narrative. Russia’s natural resources exceed those of Ukraine. A united Russia and Ukraine represents a true economic powerhouse. Those two countries actually make things and have the internal resources necessary to produce them. The United States and Europe do not. And there are no stashes of alternative supplies in other countries capable of replacing what Russia and Ukraine mine and harvest. This is why the United States and Europe are desperate to weaken Russia. The writing is on the wall for all to read.