In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Yanis Varoufakis, a Greek economist and politician. He’s best known for rising to power at the height of the Greek debt crisis, not solving anything but endearing himself to the left, and then using his fame to promote Russian imperialism.

Born in 1961 in Athens, Varoufakis studied economics in the UK and built an academic career in Australia, the US, and Europe. His early work focused on game theory, political economy, and critiques of capitalism.

Presenting himself as the fearless, unorthodox economist willing to confront the EU’s “neoliberal” elites, he rose to prominence during Greece’s debt crisis. At its height in 2015, he was appointed finance minister under the left-wing Syriza government of Alexis Tsipras.

During that time, while Russia was already occupying parts of Ukraine, the Greek government sought Putin’s financial help.

Varoufakis resigned after six months with a controversial record. According to Tsipras himself, he was more interested in testing his theories and promoting his books than actually fixing the Greek economy.

Varoufakis is active and popular in progressive and socialist circles. Some of them have denounced his strange support for Russian imperialism from the start, but others might need to clean house a bit more here: a co-founder of Progressive International, with the support of everyone’s favorite tankie, Noam Chomsky…

… he’s also a Fellow at the Sanders Institute, in the “good” company of other infamous vatniks such as Cornel West and Jeffrey Sachs.

Varoufakis claims to be united with Bernie (who has been critical of Putin and his war much more convincingly) to “combat the rise of authoritarianism across the globe”: You can’t make this shit up really.

Yanis is the “anti-imperialism of idiots” kind of vatnik (a term coined by Syrian activist Leila al-Shami): the supposed leftist who’s always criticizing Western imperialism but reveals a naïveté amounting to bad faith when it comes to Russian imperialism.

Anti-imperialism

He’s also the kind of leftist who still admires Lenin, who like Stalin starved Ukrainians to death. And this is where he gets angry at Putin: not the bombings, the kidnappings of children, the murders of Ukrainians, not even the murders of Russians, no, a comparison of Prigozhin with Lenin.

After perfunctory condemnations of Putin, Varoufakis’s specialty is to “just imagine” what Putin has been doing or trying to do for years, such as targeting Zelenskyy or bombing hospitals. At this point, it’s not naïveté, it’s outright support for Russia’s genocidal invasion.

Varoufakis offers no solution to those who suffer under the oppression or occupation of anti-Western regimes. He of course is privileged enough to live in the West, and can enjoy the luxury of complaining about it and lecturing everyone else from his wealth and comfort.

On Afghanistan, after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, he came up with the astonishing “hang in there, sisters”. This January, while the Iranian regime was slaughtering protesters, his “Progressive” International explained that that’s the good kind of oppression, the non-Western kind, so nothing to worry about.

There are of course voices on the left who disagree with his embrace of Russian imperialism, especially Ukrainians, anti-war Russians, and others from Central and Eastern Europe.If they dare to show up at his events, Varoufakis has a very progressive and democratic solution: silencing and forcibly removing them.

Varoufakis’s descent into ruscism culminated with his recent trip to Moscow, to dance and help the Kremlin with their genocidal invasion of Ukraine by justifying it: on Putin’s state propaganda TV, he confusedly blamed Europe for everything, up to getting applauded by the interviewer.

Needless to say, that’s not what’s gonna make them stop their war.

Russia never has any agency, responsibility or alternatives according to Varoufakis. Implicitly but fully embracing Russian imperialism, he never mentions the 2014 invasion and occupation, talking instead about “the war’s commencement” in 2022 and “disputed territories”. Russia recognized Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty without the slightest “dispute” in 1994 and 2004, and even Putin himself explicitly said in 2008 that Crimea was not disputed.

Yanis parrots all the overworn, classic Kremlin talking points: the alleged Euromaidan “cookies-coup”, NATO “expansion”, the outright grotesque lie of the “ban on Russian language”, and of course poor little Russia’s “security needs”. It’s curious that Varoufakis, a European, picks this particular propaganda clearly aimed at US audiences, ignoring the obvious “needs” of Europeans bordered by Kaliningrad and Belarus.

He also claims that Putin needs to bring home a victory to justify Russians’ “sacrifices”, even calling that a “moral duty”. A completely twisted, openly pro-Putin approach: Putin and Russians under his orders have committed crimes and invasions that must not be rewarded or encouraged — an economist should understand some basics about incentives.

It also shows a profound lack of understanding — or deliberate lying — about Putin’s territorial ambitions. Varoufakis might sincerely hate the NATO and the EU in themselves, for his own reasons, but Russia conversely and crucially is opposed to them as obstacles to its imperialist expansion.

Of course, therefore, Putin is not ready to compromise. Varoufakis’s vatnik lies (he cannot be that naïve) serve only one purpose: shift the window of acceptability to help Putin and his soldiers get away with their war crimes and conquests. Far from helping to achieve peace, his appearance on RT encourages Russians to continue their genocidal war.

Varoufakis still remembers his “economics” background (or lack thereof, really) when it comes to painting in a positive light the self-destructive militarization of Russian society, rejoicing at how the mass production of terror weapons “energised factories that lay dormant since the end of the Soviet Union.”

With his brilliant insights such as this “military Keynesianism”, and if sanctions are so good for Russia, it’s really a pity Varoufakis didn’t make his whole career there instead of Greece: he could have advised them early on to just sanction themselves into oblivion.

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