There wil not be, nor would there ever have been a happy end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Mathew D. Rose is an Investigative Journalist specialised in Organised Political Crime in Germany and an editor of BRAVE NEW EUROPE
I fear many people assumed at the beginning of Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine that this was going to be like a Hollywood “Happy End” movie: the Ukrainians would push the Russians back over the border, the rouble would crash, the Russian economy would collapse, the world’s nations would unite against Russia, the Russian people would rise, toppling Putin then elect an LGBQT president, and we would all return to our old routines. It was going to be a lovely war with good triumphing over evil.
If you have ever been anywhere near a war in your life, you do not say “Yay war” unless you are a psychopath, an arms manufacturer, or politician. There is nothing good about a war, even it it is for a just cause, such as liberating Europe from the German’s reign of terror in the Second World War. In a war people die and suffer, things are destroyed. That’s it. There are certain groups I would not like to belong to at this moment: Ukrainian citizens in Ukraine, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, and last but not least, the poor in so-called developing nations who will become victims of extortionate food and fuel prices due to the war.
Wars do not usually work out as planned or hoped. Look what followed George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech in Iraq. I have no idea of military matters, but I am very experienced at filtering media reports in search of a synthesis that gives something of a realistic snapshot of events.
Through the propaganda curtain of Western corporate media we are catching glimpses of a war that may not be going well for Ukraine. After a botched initial invasion, the Russians have put a new, apparently more competent general in charge. Not only did the Ukrainian forces in Mariupol surrender, but it appears that the Russian army is systematically advancing through Donbas.
The word “victory” with regard to Ukraine has disappeared from corporate and most of social media. Now a stalemate appears to be the optimistic goal, which implies that things could become worse for the Ukrainian government. It is asking the US for long range weapons to attack Russia in its own territory. If you are winning a defensive war, why do you need these? And what would come next – strategic atomic weapons? It appears that Western nations have come to a similar conclusion and accept a stalemate. Many critical voices said early on that this was the military goal of the US from the beginning, a second Russian Afghanistan.
Then there is the much feared war fatigue in Western nations as Russia’s invasion slowly slips down the news priority ladder. This is no wonder as the economic war against Russia by the NATO nations is proceeding as poorly as the ground war in Ukraine.
For years the German economist Heiner Flassbeck has been trying to explain with regard to climate breakdown that if Germany or the EU stop using oil to reduce CO2, it will simply be sold to other nations, probably at a discounted price. Thus reducing fossil fuels consumption has to be an international project. We are now seeing how right he is. Russia now sells massive amounts of its oil – at a discounted rate – to other nations. One of these is India, who apparently refines this and exports it to the EU. The EU continues to buy billions of euros worth of Russian gas monthly, because its gas supply is worth more to them than the lives of all the Ukrainians and always has been. Beside NATO member states, other nations have not been drawn into the conflict. For them Ukraine is just another humanitarian crisis that they know all too well from first hand. The Russian people have not risen, but the rouble has.
In fact, the tables seem to be turning on the economic front as well. Putin has not used an economic blitzkrieg as the West did, but appears to be turning the screws slowly, which may have to do with securing alternative markets for Russian fossil fuels before terminating deliveries to the EU. He is inexorably reducing gas exports to the EU, where there is now panic he will close down Nordstream 1 and other major pipelines in the winter. This could well mean that governments, especially in Germany, will be faced with the dilemma of heating its citizens homes or keeping German factories running. Already NATO nations are facing high inflation and other economic problems in connection to the war. The main burden is being borne by the poor of their nations. Government relief is not in sight. Does anyone ask what their citizens will think when they see billions being given to Ukraine and they have to turn off their heating in winter because they cannot afford it.
What happened to good triumphing over evil? Every NATO head of state is now running to Gulf State dictators to secure fossil fuels. Now Putin is evil, but Saudi Arabia’s bin Salman, previously a pariah autocrat, is now good: a friend of the “free world” and “democracy”. Hey presto!
Nothing has been learnt. The hypocrisy goes on at an amazingly rapid rate and once again it is questioned by a small minority, many who are abused as Putin’s fifth column. The NATO nations are not offering world leadership with its virtue signalling. Most nations who have been at the receiving end of US imperialism know this hypocrisy all to well. We can see this in the fact that Argentina and Iran have applied to join Russia and China in BRICs. Indonesia is very happy to have Russia’s Sergei Lavrov attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of 20 biggest economies (G20), which it is hosting.
What will the Ukrainians have from all this? When it is convenient for the US or the Ukrainians realise that they are not going to win this war and wish to seek peace, they will be airbrushed from current history, just like the Kurds who provided the US with boots on the ground for the US to stop ISIS. They purportedly suffered 11,000 troops killed in the fighting and saw another 20,000 wounded and have since been abandoned to invasion by another autocrat now cherished friend of democracy, Recep Erdogan of Turkey, also a NATO member state. Ukrainian membership in the EU? Don’t count on it.
Repeatedly one reads a simple rule that military experts have formulated: Before you start a war, you need to have an exit strategy. Besides a total Ukrainian victory and the collapse of Russia, I have not seen any, and both of these no longer seem feasible. So to which end are we are accepting unnecessary suffering of Ukrainians, Russians, and the world’s poor? We know the pernicious motives of Russia, the US, and weapon producers. And the rest of us? The satisfaction of the white race’s middle class narcissism?
It is not long ago that we witnessed to our horror NATO’s exit in Afghanistan. Not much EU moral posturing about women’s rights there these days. Nor the fact that the US stole Afghanistan’s foreign reserves leaving the nation in absolute penury to the detriment of the same people we had been “protecting” for over twenty years. Alright, they are not blonde haired, blue eyed Christians. Things will be different this time. Or will they?
Support us and become part of a media that takes responsibility for society
BRAVE NEW EUROPE is a not-for-profit educational platform for economics, politics, and climate change that brings authors at the cutting edge of progressive thought together with activists and others with articles like this. If you would like to support our work and want to see more writing free of state or corporate media bias and free of charge. To maintain the impetus and impartiality we need fresh funds every month. Three hundred donors, giving £5 or 5 euros a month would bring us close to £1,500 monthly, which is enough to keep us ticking over.
Be the first to comment