Pretty grim and sad reading indeed is the above very well-informed analysis on the current status of the Ukraine war. If has been forwarded to me by very good friend and ex-colleague, Mr. Igor Afansiev, a Ukrainian national himself, who had been forced to leave last year his native city of Kiev, along with his family to neighbouring Germany.
It is truly very sad reading indeed for any Ukrainian to know that his or her once proud country has been reduced to beggary by the acts of an utterly rash and feckless leader who should never have been allowed to leave the stage-sets and props inside TV studios where he had made a living acting in comedy-shows instead of being voted and catapulted into power as their country’s president.
Ukraine cannot win this war . And Russia cannot afford to lose it … says the noted historian and American geo-strategist Prof. John Meirshmeyer.
The only peace that is now possible has to be under a negotiated agreement which (1) will allow Russia to keep all Ukrainian territory it has so far annexed and also already recognised as the republics of Donbass, (2) the total disarmament of Ukraine of all and every kind of weaponry, (3) NATO guarantee that it will not admit Ukraine into its membership and (4) the exile of Zelensky to maybe the UK or USA …
Those conditions for peace are humiliating to the West and will not be acceptable to USA and NATO. Otherwise, it would mean the end of NATO.
So, I fear that the USA will now do something even more perfidious after having used up Ukrainians as cannon fodder in the war and spilt Ukrainian blood. What would that be?
Poland could be next encouraged by America to join the war in Ukraine … to show bravery and courage on behalf of greater Europe and vaulting Western values and interests .. and keep the Russians from crossing the River Dnipro …
The Lithuanians too could be encouraged to open up another war front on the Belorussian border.
Poland always had covetous eyes on Western Ukraine and Lithuania always regarded Minsk as its very own city. So both have enough juicy national motivation and self-interest to join the war against Russia and prolong it until the larger strategic objective of totally wearing down and emasculating Russia as a Eurasian power is achieved .
American policy-makers inside the White House, Congress, Pentagon and State Department also know that so long as Russia is a major force to reckon with, it cannot wage the greater war in the Asia-Pacific against China. To weaken China, America knows it must first bring Russia to its knees.
Interestingly therefore, I think, what Biden reportedly told Zelensky is actually applicable to all NATO allies of the USA equally too … and none of them , whether it’s Germany, France, UK or Italy can do anything about it : “The bad news for you is we’re not going anywhere. You’re stuck with us!”.
Europe is stuck with the USA because it really has no other options now after having painted itself into a major and blundering geo-strategic corner in the Ukrainian War.
Europe’s economy is wobbling badly ever since it’s energy-security got disrupted and remains challenged today by the war of economic sanctions it declared against Russia in early 2022. Germany is facing recession. France is facing major social unrest or fission. Scandinavian countries are in the grip of policy paralysis on all fronts. Turkey as a NATO ally plays both sides and blows hot one day and blows cold on other days…. The European Union is fraying at the seams .
All in all, the Ukraine War has snowballed into a brutal war brought upon the rest of the world by imperious superpower rivalry. It is a war of grievous miscalculations as Prof. John Meirshmeyer has pointed out.
Russia made miscalculations in February 2022 when it thought a show of military strength on the eastern borders of Ukraine would quickly bring Zelensky to his senses; and that he would back off from his overtures to NATO; and that NATO too would not do anything so silly as to foment a low-grade but full-scale conventional war that could have unintended but terrible consequences for the rest of the world in terms of economic pain or hardship.
America and the EU too miscalculated .
They thought that by imposing crushing economic sanctions on Russia, they could chasten Putin and have him running for cover in the face of world opinion turned against him. The exact opposite happened.
The rest of the world did not condemn outright Putin. And the sanctions imposed on Russia soon turned out to be a great and miserable joke on all of Europe instead! It’s oil and gas supply chains were devastated; oil prices climbed; and an international black-market for energy supply flourished immediately with Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and India all turning overnight into some sort of unannounced , informal, underground oil-Moghul mafia.
Furthermore, in Asia the BRICS formation suddenly started taking centre-stage as the new anti-West coalition of the willing. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation suddenly gained more weight. China and Iran signed long-term strategic agreement. Saudi Arabia and Iran mended their fences. India and UAE were entering into non-SWIFT non-USD currency settlement arrangements…. The ground under the Western World Order appeared to be suddenly shifting seismically !
Russia today suffers no major GDP shrinkage. It’s currency still holds. It still has a lot of friends in the international community. It still remains a major exporter of oil, gas and wheat. The Russians as a nation are united.
The Ukrainians are not. Europe is not. And the United States of America doesn’t seem to realise it’s got egg on its face which might soon enough begin to unscramble … very badly… Or, at least as badly again as it did in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
What has AMERICA really gained from or hope to gain from the Ukraine War ? Does anyone in the world really know ?
Sudarshan Madabushi
In the West, the paradigm shift in the coverage of the war in Ukraine continues, and this is happening in the main analytical publications that form the expert environment. For the Office of the President of Ukraine it is a bad signal, to which it is necessary to respond discarding the old cliché to adopt the reality.