Ukraine’s Defeat Likely to Be More Crushing Than It Would Have Been in 2022

Although NATO’s blustering Secretary General Stoltenberg won’t yet admit it publicly, the impossibility for Ukraine to defeat Russia at this point is evident to everyone involved. In that light, there are indications that Western “elites” are looking for a way out, but one which will keep the military-financial machine turning in high gear, and will pursue the attacks on Russia by other means. (For example, the U.S. embassy in Moscow has recently put out a travel warning for Americans on the danger of “extremist” attacks throughout Russia.) That makes the risk of a flight forward all the much greater.

In the United States, the Republicans in Congress are still blocking extra funds for Kyiv, and are unlikely to change their policy in a key election year, while President Biden is extremely weak and faces heavy opposition even among the Democrats for his permanent war policy. That may be one of the factors that led to the resignation of Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, an unbridled Russophobe who has handled Washington’s disastrous Ukraine policy since before the uprising on the Maidan in 2014.

And then, we have the Wall Street Journal, which revealed elements of the peace deal that Moscow and Kyiv had worked out in April 2022, which President Zelenskyy was prevented from signing after the heavy-handed intervention of the British (among others), delivered in an emergency trip to Kyiv by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The details published show that the agreement was more favorable for Ukraine than what it can claim today, although the WSJ article presents it as “punitive” for Ukraine.

Finally, we note the growing opposition within Ukraine that President Zelenskyy has to deal with, coming from all sides. After all, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed, and the country has been reduced to handouts from NATO. In any case, General Zaluzhnyy, Zelenskyy’s main political rival and Ukraine’s commander-in-chief until he was fired a few weeks ago, has just been named ambassador to the United Kingdom. Moreover, the Foreign Ministry spokesman just resigned, and it’s rumored that his boss, Dmytro Kuleba, could be the next to go.