Today is July 4 when we get our annual dose of patriotic propaganda that serves to wrap us in self-righteousness which enables Washington to conduct its wars. Washington has got away with it for a long time, but now has created and brought us into conflict with a powerful adversary.

According to reports, Russia responded to Washington’s cluster bomb attack on civilians in Crimea by informing Washington that the two countries are now at war. What it means, if anything, remains to be seen. It does not seem to have caused any consternation in Washington.

In actual fact hot war between Russia and Washington began in 2008 when Washington surprised Putin by sending a US trained and equipped Georgian army into South Ossetia. The American sponsored invasion resulted in the deaths of civilians and Russian peace keepers. It only took the Russian Army 5 days to defeat the American trained Georgian Army, so Washington did not have time to get more involved.

Putin was again surprised when Washington overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014. Persecution and murder of Donbas Russians followed. Donbas asked to be reincorporated into Russia like Crimea, but Putin refused. Instead, Putin tried to keep Donbas in Ukraine with the Minsk Agreement. Ukraine and Donbas agreed and France and Germany agreed to enforce the agreement, but in fact the agreement was used to deceive Putin while the West built and equipped a large Ukrainian army to retake the self-declared Donbas republics. In February, 2022, Putin was forced by Washington to defend the Donbas Russians from being slaughtered like Israel is doing to the Palestinians. But Putin limited Russia’s intervention in a way that prevented Russia from obtaining a quick victory before Washington could get the West involved and widen the war. Now Putin is presented with US missiles targeting Russian civilians and with French troops in Ukraine.

Washington has been at war with Russia since 2007 when Putin said at the Munich Security Conference that Russia did not accept Washington’s unipolar world. This challenge to Washington’s hegemony put crosshairs on Putin.

Now 17 years later Putin acknowledges the fact that Washington and Russia are at war. The question is what is Putin going to do with his belated recognition of reality?