This post initially included a corridor photo which was fake. My fault, but that made no difference at all to the argument.
It will definitely be good if the war in Ukraine draws to a close. Too many have died or been maimed, too many civilian assets have been destroyed. However the cynicism with which the conclusion of the war is being driven is quite extraordinary.
I am not sure there has been a sight in modern history equivalent to the way Europe’s “leaders” were pictured in the White House.
This is not an accident. There really is a craft to diplomacy; many countries in the world have foreign services consisting largely of people who have a degree in it. I have personally organised two state visits for the former Queen as well as head of government visits.
These things follow a careful choreography and an absolutely key part of that is to present a picture of equal status between state parties. Who will enter first, whether there will be a handshake, the precise spot where the handshake will happen, the setting of the table they meet around, flags of equal size, all that is plotted in great detail. It is fundamental to the job.
If I had put Robin Cook, for example, in a position where he was seated on a chair in front of an interlocutor enthroned behind a desk, I would have received a very fierce bollocking indeed. Yet here we have European Heads of State and EU leaders seated before a desk in the Oval Office.
This is just unthinkable to anybody familiar with the craft of diplomacy. I realise you don’t have to be a diplomat to feel there is something wrong in this picture: but you are probably not quite as stunned as I am.
The unequal interpersonal relationships are just the immediate physical manifestation of Trump’s instinctive ability to maximise the brutality of realpolitik. The deal which is being put together to end the war in Ukraine is a remarkable testimony to Trump’s ability to seize economic advantage for the USA, or at least for the class of people in the USA he cares about.
Trump’s Presidency is marked by an undisguised willingness to leverage the massive economic advantages which come from possessing the world’s reserve currency, which means you can just invent money to purchase any good you want from another country, the economy of which becomes addicted to this “cash” flow.
Trump’s trade war has displayed an ability to force other states to make enormous concessions, including reinvesting hundreds of billions of dollars back into US industry, rather than face tariffs which would make it harder to give up their goods as tribute to the USA in return for token dollars.
The reserve currency is essentially a confidence trick. It always works, if and only if the world believes in it. The world was starting to lose its faith in the power of the dollar, and Trump was smart enough to know that the way to maintain a confidence trick is to double down and be still more assertive.
Trump has undoubtedly prolonged, at least a little, American economic supremacy.
The Ukraine deal is a related trick. Part of the “guarantee” of Ukraine’s security is that the Europeans will purchase US $100 billion worth of weapons from US arms manufacturers in order to give said weapons to Ukraine.
It is not planned that any European weapons will be in the deal or that the USA will finance any weapons. A senior FCDO source tells me that Keir Starmer is saying the UK will put “well over” £10 billion into the pot to buy US weapons for Ukraine.
The hope on the European side is that they will be able to pay for this merchant-of-death bonanza with stolen Russian money – assets seized under sanctions. There are two obstacles to this. The first is the international courts, which are most unlikely to agree. The second is Vladimir Putin.
I have never bought in to the notion that Russia is militarily infallible and about to triumph quickly and simply. I have certainly never accepted the nonsensical propaganda that the initial disastrous Russian strike at Kiev was just a ruse or feint.
But Russia is indeed now winning and was always going ultimately to prevail on the battlefield. The delusional rhetoric of European leaders over the last few weeks, including from Keir Starmer, attempted to ignore this obvious reality.
Ukraine’s lines in Donetsk are now so untenable that Putin is able to attempt to insist on being given territory he has not conquered yet, because everybody knows that conquest is both unstoppable and imminent.
This is a realpolitik as hard as Trump’s.
The team Trump took to Alaska had substantially more officials connected with commercial policy than with military or foreign policy, and we should not underestimate the extent to which this attempt at agreement is cash driven.
Putin, who is winning the war, will insist on the lifting of economic sanctions and is simply not going to agree to US weapons being purchased for Ukraine by the Europeans with Russian money.
As support for the Ukrainian military is an essential part of the mooted “security guarantee” structure – as opposed to mutual defence commitment – funding will have to be found. This despite Rachel Reeves’s entire philosophy being to please the money markets by austerity.
My FCDO source tells me that plan B, for when the idea of paying with Russian money fails, is for the private financing of the UK’s purchase of US weapons for Ukraine. This has been an important point of preparation.
Just as with the aircraft flying out of Brize Norton, the idea is that a private equity consortium would finance the purchase of the weapons for Ukraine, with repayment by the UK over a twenty-year period.
This means that £10 billion of weaponry would eventually cost the UK about £38 billion. Yes, you read that right. Blackrock and Trump himself are among a variety of investors who would be brought in to the scheme as financiers.
There is of course no industry like the weapons industry for corruption: backhanders, directorships, service contracts to front companies, post-retirement jobs. Politicians love the defence industry.
That US $100 billion for weapons will provide lots of lovely pork for absolutely everybody in the picture. Look at the wealth of Tony Blair. Come back to me in ten years’ time and discuss what personal wealth was eventually amassed by each of the people in this photo.
Zelensky is probably the biggest profiteer of all (though he also has bosses to pay off).
I explain in specific detail in both my memoirs – Murder in Samarkand and The Catholic Orangemen of Togo – that international affairs is always driven not only by control of natural resources, but by the corrupt interest of politicians in the companies that acquire them.
That I found first-hand true for oil and gas in Uzbekistan and for rutile and diamonds in Sierra Leone.
With Trump, these background motivations step out of the shadows and into the spotlight. So here we have a war which appears, thank goodness, to be drawing to a close, but on the basis of overtly commercial deals.
I expect those European leaders will cheer up. Cash can buy a lot of indignity.
As I have stated frequently, it was and is simply impossible for Ukraine to recover all of its territory of 1991, without a NATO-fuelled war being waged on a scale that would have been certain to escalate to nuclear conflagration.
There will now be border adjustments, be they de facto or also de jure, with the integration of some Russian speaking areas of Eastern Ukraine into Russia, including Crimea and at least the large majority of the Donbass.
It is simply a statement of fact that there had never existed a Ukrainian state prior to 1991, and that there had never been any state with anything like the borders of 1991 Ukraine. I don’t know why people find incontrovertible historical truth so offensive.
We are going to have a modestly smaller, Western-aligned Ukraine. That seems to me something those Ukrainians who want to be Western-aligned ought to be celebrating. The percentage of the land area of Ukraine likely to be retained by Russia – something under 20% – is a fair approximation to the percentage of the Ukrainian population who would prefer to actually be Russian.
If the putative peace deal can be delivered, it will undoubtedly be better than continuing war. It will be slightly less advantageous to Ukrainian nationalists than the deal that was available in Turkey over two years ago, but NATO vetoed.
Hopefully Ukrainians have noted that sacrificing an entire generation as cannon fodder for NATO is not a good policy.
European leaders are still attempting to strut their stuff by threatening Putin with further sanctions if a deal is not reached. This simply does not work; Moscow is fine. It in no way counters the military advantage now enjoyed by Putin.
I should like to believe that peace in Ukraine might lead to a reduction in Russophobic hysteria across Europe. But the truth is, that cold-war style scaremongering is really all these failing European leaders have with which to terrify and control their disgruntled and impoverished populace at present.
They will, however, be ever less convincing.
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Weak men create hard times.
Thank you Craig for telling the truth and hopefully saving lives and forcing Zelenski to negotiate the best deal possible to ensure Ukraine does not end up a landlocked rump state forever begging its European neighbors for handouts. Europe needs to understand Trump is America first, Europe is a competitor who must comply with US foreign policy or be considered an enemy of sorts. In other words Trump is telling his vassals, ‘Know your place’ if they do not, they are about to find out.
Geopolitical analyst and commentator Glenn Diesen has pointed out, however, that Kiev is essentially attempting to create leverage out of nothing.
“Europe will spend $100 billion it does not have, to buy weapons from America that it does not have, to arm soldiers that Ukraine now lacks,” he wrote, explaining further: “This is to confront Russia, which for 30 years warned it would respond to NATO militarizing its borders.”
Diesen followed by doing something that Washington policy-makers refuse to do, and that is look at the big picture of how we got here [emphasis ZH]:
There was no threat to Ukraine before 2014, as only a tiny minority of Ukrainians wanted to join NATO, and Russia laid no claim to any of Ukraine’s territory. Western governments then supported a coup to pull Ukraine into NATO’s orbit – something that CIA Directors, Ambassadors, and Western state leaders had warned would instigate a security competition and likely trigger a war.
Russia predictably reacted fiercely. Ever since then, the only acceptable narrative has been that Russia wants to restore the Soviet Union and that Putin is Hitler. Any dissent is labelled as “disinformation”, “propaganda”, “hybrid warfare”, or even treason.
The war has now been lost, and the Americans are pulling away from it, asking the Europeans to absorb the consequences. How do the Europeans respond? By doubling down on this madness, which will destroy Ukraine, our economies, and our relevance in the world – and possibly trigger a nuclear war. – What is the strategy? More of the same? The best thing for Ukraine is to remove it from the frontlines of the geopolitical struggle over where to draw the new dividing lines in Europe: End the war, rebuild Ukraine, and replace expansionist military blocs with the principle of indivisible security.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/europe-spend-100bn-it-doesnt-have-buy-weapons-america-it-doesnt-have-arm-soldiers
I completely agree with you, Harry. The sad conclusion is that our “Western” political systems have failed utterly. They are dragging us into insane confrontations to enrich a tiny handful of evil people who completely control “our” governments. Just imagine what policies would be followed by Western governments that really represented the interests of their nations and their citizens. For a start, we would go back to trading amicably with Russia, China, and Iran – and countries like Venezuela and Cuba. Which would be greatly to our advantage.
That picture screams to that EU sovereignty is over, the EU full of warmongering bigwigs, that will eventually kowtow to what Trump wants, the rush to get a deal done with Russia is of course down to, weapons needing to be redirected towards Israel, because there’s huge war with Iran just over the horizon, and Israel doesn’t have the weapons to defend itself, and the USA is short of the weapons required to really defend the Zionists occupying force known as Israel, so any weapons from the US destined for the Neo-Nazi dictatorship in Ukraine will be diverted to help bolster the Zionist occupying force, and the EU will, if it can find the weapons – help prop up the collapsing Neo-Nazi dictatorship.
Putin knows this and that’s why over the last week or so Russian forces have been making great gains in Ukraine – the Ukrainian forces are spread so thin that they cannot defend the entire front line – so Russian forces have been breaking through on several fronts – Trump knows this as well and is desperate to see an end to this conflict – for now at least, because he too knows Putin can push forward almost at will.
As for the tens of billions the Zionist Starmer will waste on Ukraine, its an utter disgrace that his party – which should be finished for good after his term as PM is over – the cost of living crisis goes on and prices keep on rising for food and power, and just about everything else – whilst Starmer wastes this money, and millions more on helping the evil Zionist occupying force in Palestine.
Western leaders really are vile disgusting people – who should be in prison for backing a genocide and backing a Neo-Nazi regime.
“He too knows Putin can push forward almost at will.”
I don’t think they can. Slovyansk, Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka form a fortress belt that has proven a tough nut to crack.
Ukraine has spent the last 11 years pouring time, money, and effort into reinforcing the fortress belt and establishing significant defense industrial and defensive infrastructure in and around these cities.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/critical-importance-ukraine%E2%80%99s-fortress-belt-donetsk-oblast
They are already enveloping the belt. The festungs have become kessels.
Exactly! As they always do. The scenario in Ukraine since 2022 has so closely mirrored the German performance in WW2 that it hard to know whether to laugh or cry. An opinionated dictator living in an increasingly unreal world of his own, ordering attacks, campaigns, and “defence to the last man” in defiance of military common sense. That’s why the terms “Festung” and “Kessel” are so marvellously appropriate.
I am reminded that, as the war against the USSR gradually become unwinnable, German soldiers started to refer to Hitler as the “Grokaz”. The “Groesster Kampfherr Aller Zeit” – the “greatest warlord of all time”. That was sarcasm. One is also reminded of Marx’s dictum that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the next as farce. There is nothing in the least funny about the dreadful slaughter going on in Ukraine – which is far more one-sided than Mr Murray admits – but the antics of the political honchos have a certain dreadful Brechtian irony.
I was looking round the table wondering if Trump had the balls to ask them individually how has your nation fared in war with Russia. Each of them represents a nation that has been trounced by Russia in warfare and i have to say there’s only 4 million Russians of Scottish descent. Could you imagine what she could have achieved with 40 million.!
Cavery ,August 20, 2025 at 13:44
“Each of them represents a nation that has been trounced by Russia in warfare”
==========
Italy?
Also, the UK in the Crimean War (1853-56), allied with France, Ottoman Empire and Sardinia, (one of the components of modern Italy) was hardly trounced!
ISW is a notorious neocon warmongering outfit. I wouldn’t believe one of their assessments if it hit me with a baseball bat.
No. When the Ukrainians made their famous summer offensive in 2023, I think it was, the one that was going to get to Mariupol, but fell far, far, short, the Ukrainians had no fortified belt, but the Russians had a very effective one that stopped the Ukrainians cold. Now we’re told by neocons (not a disinterested party) that Ukraine has been building its defences for 11 years. Pull the other one.
Taking cities is not easy, if they’re defended, and if the Russians are holding back to a degree from massive destruction because they don’t want to slaughter the kindred ethnic Russian inhabitants. Those are the real factors.
The way to deal with fortresses has been well understood for thousands of years. You simply envelop them to cut off supplies and move around them. All the defender has done is deprive himself of a substantial contingent of troops and equipment. Modern war is still all about mobility, although drones, missiles, and especially aerial and satellite reconnaissance have slowed it down a lot.
The Russians, as you would expect, have good reasons for all they do. Moving slowly minimises their own casualties, lures Ukrainian forces into doomed counterattacks, and relentlessly chews up the limited supplies of Western weapons and ammunition. The longer the fighting continues, the happier the Russian general staff will be.
As everyone in the know has seen for years, the war is already decided. The Kiev mob (or rather their NATO puppeteers) are in the position of a patzer dully playing on with king and rook against king, rook, and three pawns. It will take a few moves to checkmate, but any decent player would have resigned long ago.
“Ukraine has spent the last 11 years pouring time, money, and effort into reinforcing the fortress belt and establishing significant defense industrial and defensive infrastructure in and around these cities.”
No, they haven’t. One of the reasons that Russia is able to advance just now is that the money supposedly to be spent on these defences has mostly been shipped off to bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere.
It suits US foreign policy to have Russia as an enemy, the combined GDP of the European Union is approx $20 Trillion dollars 5% of which is $1 Trillion dollars most of which is spent on the US military Industrial complex. [nice deal for the US].
Mark Rutte is always frightening Euro nations on behalf of ‘Daddy Trump’ which reminds me of the Herman Goring quote….
“It is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
Rutte wants Europe to forgo social services, health care and pensions etc, in order to make Europe another Sparta. There is simply no evidence Russia wants to march on Europe, there is no evidence he wants all of Ukraine, why would he want Western Ukraine which is mainly inhabited with non Russian speakers and Nazis who want nothing to do with Russia. Since 1991 when the Soviet Union was dissolved, and particularly when Putin took over and agreed to be a capitalist society and embraced capitalism, thinking quite rightly that by trading with Europe and the world it was in a unique position to do so and profit immensely, it was, it had abundant natural resources the largest county in the world with a land mass covering 11 time zones, oil, Gas, minerals of every description.
The US had other ideas, building on the strategic ideas of Halford Mackinder and later Zbigniew Brzezinski who saw the weakness of Russia without ‘the Heartland’ Ukraine, this policy was disastrously embraced by Joe Biden. Putin admitted to Trump yesterday that had he [Trump] been President the war would never have happened.
.Here is what Putin said a while back….
“Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains”.
The quote can be summarized as follows: “Those who do not feel any sense of regret for the past Soviet Union may lack empathy, while those who advocate for its restoration may lack critical thinking.”
The first part of the quote is proof positive to the Neocon establishment that Putin wants to march on Europe and recreate the old Soviet Union. The second part of the quote is always left out by the MSM. I wonder why?
Worse than that Harry.
Yes, Putin did express regret for the passing of the Soviet Union. But we were never told WHY he held that regret.
It was not about loss of empire like you Brits.
It was compassion for all of the Russian ethnics who had moved to other soviets outside of Russia, but part of the Soviet Union. Like, for example those trapped in the Ukraine.
And he was right. Look at what Poroshenko and then Zelensky tried to do to the kokols in the east of Ukraine.
So now they are returned to mother Russia. And Putin will never betray them
funny remark
GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in Russian is ‘Валовой Внутренний Продукт’ and abbreviation is ‘ВВП’ – the same as the initials of Putin ‘Владимир Владимирович Путин’.
People use to say ВВП about Putin, informally. I mean bloggers, YouTubers etc. Along with other epithets such as Supreme, the Darkest.
I noticed the picture: obvious power play, and one I hope America regrets. The only ‘special relationship’ it has is with Israel, maybe Ireland too. The sooner we shut their bases on UK territory, the better.
Absolutely right, Dave! And get rid of that terrible albatross around our necks, the nuclear “deterrent”. All it guarantees (apart from a revenue stream to you know who) is that if the nuclear balloon ever goes up – which it so easily might any day – we will be among the first to get it in the neck. A handful of Russian ICBMs would completely destroy our islands in less than one hour. Being neutral would give us a sporting chance of survival.
I don’t agree. If the British nuclear deterrent were actually ours, and not simply weapons rented from the US (with backdoors that mean that the US can stop a launch they don’t agree with), then the example of Iran would be the useful model. If Iran had the bomb, then Israel would never dare attack. Deterrence works. That goes for us too. But we’ve sold ourselves out to the US (see article photo), and we’re simply paying for part of the US arsenal, not under our control.
Surely you don’t think Israel will attack the UK?
Deterrent against who ? The only country we truly have to worry about is the USA. Go figure !
I partly agree with you, Craig. As always, “follow the money”, as I also wrote earlier tonight in my latest article, focussing on recent developments in the Caucasus and the Middle East: https://geopolitiq.substack.com/p/all-eyes-on-washington-dc-europe
However, I do not believe that the war on Russia is drawing to a close. No, in my opinion, Trump and the US administration are just trying to dump the war front in Ukraine to NATO (or UK + EU), so that the US can focus on a new war front in the Caucasus against Iran and/or Russia (and, indirectly, with China).
That picture really does tell a story. None of the European leaders seem happy at the idea of peace breaking out. Zelensky, understandably – nothing less than an outright victory would be a win. But the rest of them – they don’t want this bandwagon grinding to a halt.
Hillary Clinton said – excitedly – on the Rachel Maddow show right at the start of this conflict, that Ukraine would be a bullet to strike at Russia. (Anyone seen what a spent bullet, having struck a target, looks like?)
This was a war to ‘bleed Putin’ (ie Russia). Despite his manifest faults and obvious corruption, Trump actually wants this war to end.
No wonder the glum faces.
I’m sure that I can’t be the only person that sees things like this:
“These things follow a careful choreography and an absolutely key part of that is to present a picture of equal status between state parties. Who will enter first, whether there will be a handshake, the precise spot where the handshake will happen, the setting of the table they meet around, flags of equal size, all that is plotted in great detail. It is fundamental to the job.”
And thinks – how fucking old are you ? You are in charge of a country with millions of people and you are acting like some little shit in a nursery that can’t play with their favourite toy. Why don’t you grow the fuck up ?
What are you on about?!
Bruv, if you can’t see it, I’m sorry for you. A state that actually has power doesn’t need these trappings. You think that if the US or China or Russia wasn’t granted these courtesies, that all the other parties would ignore what they had to say ?
I think you might just be the only person
Schroeder’s Russia. According to our expert strategists they have been unable to break through Ukraine’s defences for three years but they will conquer Europe tomorrow.👀
After immense sacrifice, 27m+ deaths, Russia destroyed Nazi militarism in 1944. But obsession with world hegemony led to the US turning Russia into a foe and fighting WW2 right up to now, until this defeat in Ukraine. US influence is now on the exponential wane. The UK and Europe look very foolish. This all should be good news for everyone else around the globe.
Craig
Good analysis, as opposed to the bitchy analysis coming from the MSM as if it was all about personalities and not the outcome of the reality of the world situation today.
‘We Good – They Bad ‘ won’t cut it anymore and simplistic Inter Imperialist rivalry ( the leaks of info- who said what about whom is trivia) is Technocrat Speak only – not politics.
In the West we have ended up with these Jokers because the majority voted for them.
That is how democracy works – you just need enough ( votes ) and that’s all.
Which shows that Democracy works no longer but, it will take time for the realisation to set in.
While we are waiting we will have Farage/Le Pen/Orban and the ADF all being ‘ given a go’ by the Left Behind.
The question is: when they dis-appoint , where do they go then?
That is the scary part.
Ukraine is part of all the above and the attempt by the dis- appointers ( the Centrists ) to stay in power in order to make their retirement stash is fuelling the fire of dis- appointment.
So, why would they worry?
The fact is they don’t they have to pretend they are bothered to the tune of a nice income.
I have always thought this of Capitalist Society and it is: The very rich are very rich – they have egos and ambitions.
They are not stupid.
The dangerous people are the ambitious politicians who know they will never be billionaires or maybe never multi millionaires – they just want to be millionaires and that is their raison d’etre.
By foul means or fouler, this is their aim.
It was said about Mandelson that ‘ He liked the smell of money’
He is not alone and these are the people who should never be politicians.
A terrible mix of greed and vanity.
You see them all in that picture.
Behind the Desk and in front of the desk.
Not everyone can be a Megalomaniac but, has anyone tried telling a Megalomaniac that fact?
They wouldn’t believe it.
“In the West we have ended up with these Jokers because the majority voted for them”.
In last year’s UK general election, Labour won with 33.7% of the vote on a turnout of just under 60%; so about one voter in five chose them. That was “…the lowest of any majority party on record, making this the least proportional general election in British history”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election
I expect the reason for the low turnout and the choice of Labour was that most voters could see no reasonable alternative, since their main objective was to punish the “Conservative” party.
Hmm, I don’t buy that this is coming to an end any time soon.
The worst part of the shabby charade is it simply won’t work either. Just like all the other “cunning plans” these morons have had.
The Ukrainians are going to play silly buggers and lose more than just Donbass in the end, the Eurocucks & YooKay will spunk away tens-of-billions they don’t have for Trumpian IOU’s to equip Ukrainian troops who march on payroll scams.
As for the Ukrainian desire to be “pro-Western”, I am categorically unsympathetic. Given the monstrous reality of what that actually means. Rump Ukraine should be neutral/Russian proxy a-la Belarus or it simply shouldn’t be independent at all.
The Russians aren’t obligated to co-exist next to a toxic UnRussia the root of whom’s “ethnic identity” is that they exist *only* to hate all Russians and be “Not-Russia”.
Lastly on Donnie’s little dollar trick, it’s a short term swindle in exchange for long-term losses. Just like his domestic policies.
The underlying US economy actually isn’t doing well at all.
This piece, Published 3rd Aug 2025, is well worth a read : https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/why-i-strongly-suspect-that-president-zelenskys-days-are-numbered-patrick-mercer-5251872
Commander in Chief, General Syrskyi, demanding 30,000 recruits every month simply to replace battlefield casualties, the conscription officers are having to resort to increasingly brutal methods to press men into service.
The government has recently reduced the age of conscription to 25 and increased it to 60.
Ukraine is simply running out of healthy soldiers, something that pumping a hundred billion in US weaponry won’t fix. And recruiters are increasingly hated :
Territorial Conscription Centres (TCC) officers have to operate openly, so a precise strike which kills or injures them and destroys their vehicles and accommodation not only seriously hampers recruitment, but also has the tacit support of even loyal Ukrainians.
Indeed, the reality of our democratic values of who we are. In the most virtuous nation of all, led by St Zelensky.
It’s not just all that of course. For example the Sorosite civil society grant-eaters etc. Almost all have military deferments for their bone spurs or whatever. Whilst screeching about the need for total war naturally.
OTOH many of the Bandera-Nazi droogs at least had the good grace, to go to the front and get promptly de-nazified. To point that many are now bitching bitterly about their mounting losses. Tough luck there waffendweebs.
The sooner the current Ukraine implodes the better, it doesn’t deserve to exist regardless of any other theoretical outcome. The most likely now being Ukraine suffering a decisive defeat.
Hopefully that’ll also knock down a few NATO incumbents too, as collateral damage and consume those regimes as a whole, with internal affairs. Making the rest of the world a tad safer.
“Tough luck there waffendweebs”.
That gives me a difficult choice. Should I pronounce it “waffendweebs”, or “vaffendweebs”, or “vaffendveebs”?
Good coinage, though. It’s tough to squeeze any amusement out of this hideous farrago, and I am grateful.
It has looked that way for a while despite the uncertainties of war. It could make Europe more secure for the future one hopes. I do wonder what the asset value of UK for the US is going to be? Asset stripping of Germany seems to have paid-off in the short term, but I wonder about the UK. The guess must be the arms will not be purchased in such quantity by EU states, let alone UK.
Does the UK have any assets worth stripping? I suppose the citizens might count as an asset, for instance privatisation of the NHS would be a good way to do achieve this. .
Actually it has made Europe and the UK far, far less secure. Before 2014 there was no serious risk of a major war in Europe, let alone a global thermonuclear war. But the Americans could not stand by and see Europe and Russia (and China) prospering mutually by trade and cooperation.
Funny how few selfish traitors have to be paid off to set great nations at one another’s throats.
thanks craig.. i like your commentary, except for your assured attitude here where i think you are wrong..
” I have certainly never accepted the nonsensical propaganda that the initial disastrous Russian strike at Kiev was just a ruse or feint.”
this feint or ruse worked for the intended purpose which you appear to overlook..
Yeah, the numbers deployed weren’t nearly enough to take Kiev by storm *and* properly secure it.
The main Russian forces were sent into the south & east. So at most the move on Kiev was a phycological bluff to induce a sense of panic.
You just can’t accept that Russia got it’s arse kicked can you? The US took Baghdad, a larger city than Kyiv, with fewer troops and we know Russia intended to encircle Kyiv and force it’s surrender because it’s a standard tactic (decapitation) from their training manual. They did it in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Syria. Unfortunately for them having trained with the Russians in Soviet days the Ukrainians knew what they were up to in advance. The whole plan hinged on capturing the airports and using them to fly in reinforcements and supplies, (an army needs hundreds of tonnes of supplies daily) by blowing up the runways and putting up stiffer resistance that Russia expected Ukraine was able to inflict an humiliating defeat on Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe8AWujGuR0
You do know that Ukraine is getting help from NATO countries, right? Because what you’ve written above shows no awareness of this whatsoever.
It’s been a few years since Amerika invaded Iraq, so you must have forgotten just what sort of resistance the Yanks encountered, and how long that went on.
Had the Iraqi resistance been armed and trained by Russia, China, NK, and Iran, it certainly would not have been the ‘cake walk’ you appear to remember. Instead, it would doubtless have been WW3, with nukes, had Russia had the audacity to arm Iraq like America has armed Ukraine.
We should all be very glad that Russia acts with far more sense and restraint than America.
Exactly my thought, james. For those of us who play chess it seems obvious. When playing a probably weaker opponent – for example, in a simultaneous display – a master may decide to play riskily, giving his opponent the chance to blunder – for instance, by falling into Noah’s Ark or allowing a Greek Gift. Should the mistake be avoided, the master has to reconsider and take his opponent more seriously.
To begin with, it appeared that all the Russians had to deal with was the Banderite mob in Kiev – which, it was fair to suppose, were deeply unpopular with most citizens. So it was a reasonable try to launch a swift blow at the capital in the hope that Ukrainians themselves would help to overthrow Zelensky and his crew.
Then it turned out that Russia was fighting, not just the Banderites, but the whole of NATO. That required moving up a whole series of gears, which took time if disaster was not to be courted. Slowly but surely, the Russians fed more resources into their armed forces, until today they are irresistible. When the opponents keeps raising the stakes, one must either follow suit or fold. And for Russia, folding would mean dissolution, so it has never been possible.
You cover the essentials very well (rather more succinctly than Alexander Mercouris, who I do follow and who has been along with his colleague Alex Christoforou making similar observations for a long time.) That it should be this serious psychologically damaged man, President Trump, whose modus operandi is a form of disorientating malevolent chaos that might yet achieve some sort of permanent peace between Russia and the west is a bizarre reflection of our times. We should though remember that Trump’s claimed horror of war in Ukraine provoking action to deal to it does not seem to be mirrored in any action in regard to the horror of genocide in Gaza. Cognitive dissonance again, the prime working principle of all power structures and the people in them around the world from age immemorial. .
It would also be useful to remember that Trump may be different from his predecessors, but this doesn’t represent any divergence of the principle of US hegemony – shaft your enemies as a matter of course, but equally cheerfully shaft your friends when they need reminding who is in charge. So it might have been the geriatric Biden that happily shafted Europe by getting Sholtz to commit economic treason against his own people in response to the Russian invasion, by blowing up the Nordstream gas pipe line and by subsidising home industry with his so-called anti-inflation bill,, but it was Trump as first term President that provided money and weapons to post- Maidan Ukraine, and it was Nuland on behalf of Obama who said “fuck Europe” as they did their regime change operation in Ukraine, the predecessor of this inevitable war. And it is Trump who pursues economic hegemony with his tariff warfare. again happily shafting Europe whose leaders sit obediently in front of Trumps desk like errant school children in the head’s office. How long is this effete leadership in Europe going to survive?
Your “follow the money thesis” rings true and we will have to see what deal eventually finalises, if it does, and Europe and Ukraine don’t pursue perpetual war; it will be considerably less advantageous than any deal that was previously offered before the start of the SMO, and the initialled deal in Istanbul.
Sadly your last paragraph also rings very true, Russophobia and the need to resist the enemy without who intends to become within the age old rationalisation of power under threat.
There is still the most important piece missing, to my knowledge – how can Russians make sure that Ukraine will not (never?) again be fed with arms by NATO/EU the way it happened since 2014.
(Larry Johnson had drawn down a quick timeline of that cooperation between NATO and Ukraine which in fact began well before.)
To quote Jacques Baud: It is about “demilitarization”. And that has to be taken verbatim.
Since as the European elite is concerned it will keep on with this sick and disgusting Russophobia as long as their voters will go along. And if that´s not gonna work they will use police force at home.
I personally fear it´s a huge misunderstanding that even a peace that is related to Istanbul content will not stop the nefarious hatred and actions thereof by Brussels.
Not to mention Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran. (Even though militarily those are no threat and if need to be the Russians will make that crystal clear.)
Trump is gone in 3 years. What then? What in 7 years? This issue is not gonna go away.
And one thing is s constant as the Nothern Star: EU leaders will break promises and ignore treaties as long as it serves their interest.
You cannot trust those people.
Just look at the German DIE LINKE (THE LEFT) – the statements its party leaders are articulating are just as embarrassing as can be.
The only means guaranteeing Russia´s security is military supremacy and control over what is happening in the ENTIRETY of Ukraine. How will that truism cue into any eventual peace deal?
p.s. just to illustrate the duplicity of our Western “leaders” – here NBC´s interview with SoS Marco Rubio the day after the Alaska summit:
“Rubio says a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire deal is ‘not off the table’
The secretary of state also said he didn’t believe placing more sanctions on Russia would be effective to reach a ceasefire or peace deal.”
see end at TC: 13:20 (“that guy is a professional liar”)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/rubio-says-ceasefire-deal-not-off-table-ukraine-russia-trump-rcna225421
His advisors did an excellent job in developing a spin to explain that away.
Apart from a statement he makes earlier in that same appearance that just past month Russia lost 20k soldiers. A statement made by the Secretary of State of the United States on national television. How can anyone seriously trust these people? When they are lying whenever it suits them, in whatever form. Knowing that the very people he spoke to in confidence a few hours before and who are meant in the statement will see that in Moscow. Sorry but this kind of behaviour is disgusting.
Of course peace is peace. But I am curious how this is supposed to work…
Expressing the last paragraph of your Ukraine article differently I would say the following.
Europeans are getting poorer while everyone else gets wealthier.
Our Politicians do not know how to change that.
Our politicians have not the intellect to admit the policies of the last 40 years failed.
Their own policies.
Someone else must be to blame.
If you are British who better than Russia. That ancient adversary of Empire.
If you are American who better than China. They are just evil, you can tell by their eyes.
Very well put, John. I can’t disagree with anything you say.
“the policies of the last 40 years failed”
The figure of 40 years works for Britain, but not for the EU. The EU problem started 20 years ago, when Blair pushed the EU into taking on the E. European, former members of the Warsaw pact. Before that, the EU was a coherent association of West European states that worked well. Blair was of course working on behalf of the US to weaken Russia already, and probably also the EU, so that it couldn’t rival the US.
“Ukraine’s lines in Donetsk are now so untenable that Putin is able to attempt to insist on being given territory he has not conquered yet, because everybody knows that conquest is both unstoppable and imminent.”
As he’s said since February 2022.
There was “a Ukrainian state prior to 1991” and “there was a Ukrainian state with exactly the borders of 1991 Ukraine” after Crimea became part of it in 1954. It had been a member of the UN since 24 October 1945. True, it was a Russian-controlled puppet state, but that’s what Putin and his backers want and expect now.
Re the size of Ukraine as it is likely to be shortly, as compared to the Ukraine of pre-June 1941;
1/. the whole of Poland was pushed westwards in 1945; its western frontier was pushed westwards to take in previously German lands, this in “compensation” for its eastern frontier being pushed westwards. The lands lost in the east became part of the Ukrainian republic of the USSR. It could therefore be argued that the territory Ukraine is now likely to lose in the east is balanced by the former German lands it gained in 1945.
2/. The Ukrainian SSR increased in size (as compared to pre-June 1941) in 1954 after the USSR (in fact the Russian SSR) gifted it Crimea. Now that Russia has taken back Crimea, both Russia and Ukraine have returned to their pre-June 1941 size .
European leaders are so loathesome and stupid that I enjoy their humiliation at the hands of Trump and the Russian military. Why on earth would Russia agree to a ceasefire that would allow the Ukrainazis to re-arm and rest up? Did the US allow a ceasefire when the USSR wanted to pull out of Afghanistan? Did the NATO terrorist organization allow a ceasefire when the Serbs wanted to pull their troops out of Kosovo? Hell no. Now the Euro-elites are getting punished for their own hypocrisy. Bless Russia, America, and North Korea!
And look how cocky the EU vassals become after their meetings with Trump:
Macron: “Putin is a predator, an ogre!”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2612318/world
These people have no idea how to conduct diplomacy, one conduct diplomacy by sitting down, face to face solving the issue at hand, you do not call the other side names, how immature is Macron?! Reeks of desperation.
Macron’s dissaproval rate is as high as 75% so apparently the little Napoleon-wannabe try raise it by acting acting tough with Russia, so pathetic
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/france/
Macron is not worse than Starmer or Merz. My impression is that he takes his stance out of EU solidarity, not out of ambitions of his own.
You should read – perhaps you have? – “Le traître et le néant”. Whereas Merz is a throwback to the 1950s conservative German political mindset and Starmer is but the “leader” of a country far up Washington’s backside, what motivates Macron? What does he really believe? Nobody knows…..
I deeply resent the billions of pounds that Sir Keir Starmer and his accomplices are extracting from British citizens under threat of deadly violence and giving to the Kiev mob, Zelensky personally, and to any chancer who rolls up from abroad in search of treasure. The UK is seriously overpopulated – to the point of supplying only half its food and running out of water – and ever more deeply indebted. Successive governments have reacted by putting their hands over their ears, singing “la la la” louder and louder, and prancing about on “the international stage” in what they take to be drama, but the world sees as low farce.
Whether Zelensky himself will live to enjoy the fruits of his unprincipled treachery and cruelty remains to be seen.
Although Mr Murray has considerably adjusted his views to approximate more closely to reality, I think that in this article he still shows substantial prejudice against Russia. Twenty percent of Ukraine is a very low estimate of the territory Russia will take, if only because it has to push NATO missile launchers as far back as possible. (Exactly the same reason the USSR set up the Iron Curtain, by the way, although in 1945 the threat was from bombers and tank armies).
Moscow is about 725 km (450 miles) from Kiev, for instance. (As far as Inverness is from London). Or 1120 km (695 miles) from Lvov, as far away from Moscow as you can get in Ukraine. The latter (longer) distance is about the same as from Washington DC to Nova Scotia or Miami. Would the US government – or Americans in general – be happy to have Russian or Chinese – or Iranian – nuclear missiles sited in those places? Not bloody likely. And there is far less evidence that those nations intend harm to the USA than vice versa.
The Monroe doctrine is still in place, in 1962 Cuba was the testing ground, the equivalent to Ukraine today might be Mexico or Canada, imagine the US reaction to Chinese or Russian bases with nuclear missiles on the border with Mexico.
Thank you for explaining how arms manufacturers promote wars. Revelations about how laws are broken and bribery is rife everyzhere arms are sold, and how Israeli arms manufacturers ensured the banning of Palestinian Action and just how little the signatories to nuclear non proliferation treaties will do to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons make it clear that any member of the UK military linked to arms manufacture or promoting Israeli slaughter in Gaza should be tried, and the branch of the US military operating in the Kings London Department of War Studies should be sent back home.
Check them out …..The Willies Of The MICoalition ( honourary willies Baloney & VD Lyin’ manifesting the sad-but-undeniable truth women are just as ghoulishly bloodthirsty & malignantly indifferent to others’ suffering as men given the opportunity ) summoned to the Headmaster( bators ) office to be TOLD what’s going to happen , eg buy $Ts of U.S weaponry then fuck-off and never darken this Ovoid Orifice again , punks
That photo is the visual representation of loathesome harpy Nuland’s ” Fuck Europe ” . And never was a ” fucking ” so easily accomplished and so readily accepted by the fuckees .
Not one of those preposterous , pampered poltroons genuinely wants an end to this Proxy War , they are all so heavily ” invested ” in it’s continuation and fearful for their own skins should it end and their colossal hubristic folly exposed and subjected to public scrutiny ( assuming such a thing is even possible these days given the supine complicity of Main Stenographic Media ) they are quite prepared to see the carnage continue to the literal last Ukrainian .
To repeat …….we are the unfortunate and for the most part ( far too ) passive victims of – hands-down – the worst European/U.S Political Class in living memory ; possibly ever if things escalate out-of-control as is at least possible
“With Trump, these background motivations step out of the shadows and into the spotlight.”
But not so far into the spotlight as to be prominently featured in the MSM.
This is an excellent analysis, Craig. It’s disgraceful and plain stupid for the West to expect Russia to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine while Ukraine is continually being funded and armed by the West and there are no promises to stop doing that – quite the contrary in fact. The PFI-like ‘buy now pay later’ scam which makes $10 billion of weapons actually cost $30 billion is taking the piss. What I disagree with you on is the suggestion that the war has to be ‘funded’ or ‘financed’ – a country’s money supply, which should of course be invested in peace not war, is unlimited. Please read MMT authors like Richard Murphy and Stephanie Kelton.
The US led NATO policy is to surround and intimidate its perceived enemies/competitors i.e. Russia with bases in the far north with new additions Sweden and Finland. Iran, with bases all over the Middle East with the new possibility of US control over that strip of land between Armenia and Azerbaijan, next it wants to pivot to Asia to “contain” China, to this end it is forming alliances with Japan, Korea, Philippines, and arming Taiwan etc. All this to ensure US hegemony. This might have worked in the past, but now the BRIC’s are overtaking the west in economic output and already gaining members who have vast amounts of oil, gas and other natural resources to fight back against sanctions/tariffs imposed by the US bully. Example Holland supplied China with a special machine necessary for producing chips, the US wanted those sales stopped. The US wanted the sale of Russian Gas to Europe stopped, so they blew up Nord Stream 2 pipe line, the Germans accepted this as part of the price of doing business and now have to pay four times more for gas from the US while watching their economy collapse because they are not competitive. That is the price of being a vassal. In the latter case the German Chancellor stood next to Biden like a small child when Biden announced to the audience what he was about to do with Germany’s vital economic source of energy Schultz offered not a peep, pathetic. Is it any wonder all the Euro leaders had to line up outside the head masters office to receive their marching orders, personally I would have given them 1000 lines, ” Who is your Daddy, You are Mr Trump” as for that stroppy Ursula Von Der Leyen, over his knee and a good spanking.
Is it not funny how the western media/politicians frame and reduce Hamas and Hezbollah as just some pawns for Iran and that the israel/palestine conflict is really somehow a made up, artifical “proxy-war” initiated by Iran and that Hamas and Hezbollah have no agency whatsoever? Meanwhile, when it comes to Ukraine the western media would never call Ukraine a proxy-state controlled by the west even though, western leaders obviously groom Ukraine in every aspect even to the point where they decide what Zelensky should wear:
Starmer instructed Zelensky how to behave around Trump – media
The UK prime minister reportedly also helped the Ukrainian leader choose his wardrobe
https://swentr.site/news/623252-keir-coached-zelensky-trump/
Yeah look at the photo, what a pathetic display of suberviance by the europeans – it is telling that they need to send half the EU to speak with Trump, that is how low they think of themselves. It’s so telling that the EU are the blockage for peace breaking out in Ukraine: every time Russia and US speak, Zelensky rush to his parents in the EU like some spoiled child just to become more emboldend and more maximalist than ever before making the diplomacy track null-and-void – even after the recent meeting Zelensky still do not understand that some regions will not go back to Ukraine, sitll do not understand that Ukraine will not be part of Nato. It is like Zelensky do not get it, he sit there besides Trump in his all-too-tight jacket, with his typical sulky and obstinate attitude. For 3 years the wars have been going on and Russia still hold some 20% of the land. In what world would somehow Ukraine manage to drive out the russian soldiers?? It is impossible, it will not happen! Ukraine and EU somehow wish for a war between Russia and the US, not realizing that such a war would be fought not on US but on european soil.
It is however annoying that not only EU give Trump so much power and credit but also that Russia is so eager to please Trump, when Trump attack and sanction BRICS nations like India, Brazil, South Africa, BRICS should stand together and reply with equal sanctions, instead Trump manage to divide the BRICS and make them weak and fragmented much due Russia’s passive attitude. Trump simply cannot be trusted, he flip-flop everyday to appease both sides.
As regards the scale of Britgov’s agreement to pay huge sums to its masters, comparators for the excuse known as “Ukraine” might be the excuses known as
1. the “global financial crisis” of 2008, and
2. “Covid” (from rich bastards’ point of view, the Covid lollapalooza) of 2020-22.
But geopolitically and global-economically we are nowhere near the end of the excuse known as “Gaza”.
Meanwhile in Britain, anyone who hasn’t noticed the ramping up and stoking up of brutality isn’t paying attention.
I won’t be surprised if very soon most of what still deserves to be called the radical left is in prison. Already many are scared of being harassed under terrorism legislation if we re-enter the country after leaving for a bit. As the media whip up hatred against immigrants who are supposedly living in five-star “hotels” and only venturing out, probably carried in sedan chairs, to molest white teenage girls. (I don’t mean to be funny here about what is essentially fascist discourse.)
I hope you’re right about the international courts, @Craig, because the English ones seem to be hand in glove with the Home Office, Daily Telegraph, BBC, and Combat 18. (Ref. to “Mr Justice” Stephen Eyre.)
The photo goes to the same brutality shift. The message is “if you ain’t got so much power as someone else, your role is to do what they say, or else, and we don’t want any intellectual wokey ‘everyone’s equal’ arguments about it either, loser face.”
Same message as in “Game of Thrones” etc. etc. Probably in most video games too.
The private thing would presumably be a lease arrangement. Presumably the argument is that the private sector can take some of the risk of obsolescence and damage etc., since they know how to manage and mitigate risk. I’m not saying that’s how it actually ends up happening nor even whether it’s a good idea. But I think the private sector role can be more complicated than you suggested.
What do I pay the government for if they don’t know how to manage risk?
No, wait, I was wrong. We must all thank the rich, because they’re the ones who take the risks. They’re a fine group of auntie-prenners. They’re not like us parasites who want to get paid for nothing, believing the world owes us a living, acting as if we’re entitled to be looked after from cradle to grave at the expense of hardworking Daily Mail readers who get tax-robbed to maintain us, and who always get viciously criticised by leftwing “diverse” trendy vicars and bolshie troublemakers – by the usual suspects who don’t understand economics because they’ve never had any real money. The poor private sector deserves to be stood up for. Then there’s the “king” too – he suffers so much…but does he complain?
An admission of where the blame lies.
“As Trump hosts Zelensky, an international monitor blows the whistle on what he says is a root cause of the Ukraine war: the NATO-backed Kyiv government’s post-2014 assault on Russia-backed eastern Ukrainians in the Donbas region, and refusal to implement the European-brokered Minsk peace deal.
Benoit Paré, a former French defense ministry analyst, worked as an OSCE monitor in eastern Ukraine from 2015 to 2022.
“I will very clear. For me the fault lies on Ukraine… by far,” Paré says.”
https://nitter.poast.org/aaronjmate/status/1957473277741257065#m
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7tgwlhXWw
If Russia does annex parts of Ukraine, then the international community has an obligation to ensure that people living there can go to Ukraine with their possessions and compensation if they wish, without interference, as happened in Finland after the Winter War, rather than being deemed Russian “citizens” by .default.