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 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.

He resigned after six months with a controversial record. According to Tsipras himself, Varoufakis was more interested in testing his theories and promoting his books than actually fixing the Greek economy. Even Russia had refused to help at that time.

Varoufakis is active and popular in progressive and socialist circles (some of whom are not entirely vatniks and might really need to clean house a bit here): a co-founder of Progressive International, with the support of everyone’s favorite tankie, Noam Chomsky…

… he’s also a Fellow at Bernie Sanders’ Institute, in the good company of other vatniks such as Cornel West and Jeffrey Sachs, united with Bernie (previously critical of Putin) to “combat the rise of authoritarianism around the globe”. You can’t make this shit up really.

Yanis is the “anti-imperialism of idiots” kind of vatnik (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 to 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, he came up with the astonishing “hang in there, sisters”. In 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 or anti-war Russians. 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 travelling to Moscow, to dance and help the Kremlin with their genocidal invasion of Ukraine by confusedly blaming Europe for everything. Russia never has any agency, responsibility or alternatives according to him.

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.

Yanis parrots all the usual Kremlin talking points, especially NATO “expansion” and Russia’s “security needs”. It’s curious that Varoufakis, a European, picks the propaganda aimed at US audiences, ignoring the “needs” of Europeans bordered by Kaliningrad and Belarus.

Of course, Putin is *not* ready to compromise. Varoufakis’s vatnik lies serve only one purpose: shift the window of acceptability to help Russians get away with their war crimes and conquests. Far from avoiding war, he works to push Ukraine to reward the genocidal invader.

He also claims that Putin needs to bring home a victory to justify Russians’ “sacrifices”, a completely twisted approach. Putin and Russians under his orders have committed crimes that should not be encouraged — an economist should understand some basics about incentives.

Varoufakis still remembers his “economics” background though when it comes to justifying 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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