Ukraine what now

Now, today it has been announced that Germany will allow its Leopard tanks owned by NATO countries to be exported to Ukraine and in addition will supply a dozen or so of its own. The UK has promised 14 tanks and possibly the USA will send some Abraham tanks. The stated assumption is that Ukraine will, with the assistance of these tanks, take back land that Russian forces have occupied and push them back to the border including retaking Crimea.

In order to consider the future we must also consider the past. When the Soviet Union broke up agreements to maintain peace were soon made between the ‘West’ (meaning the behest of the USA) and the emerging democracy of Russia. One agreement was that nuclear weapons based in the old Soviet of Ukraine would be removed and in exchange NATO would not advance through the new free nations of the Balkans and Ukraine. Over the years this agreement has been broken by the West as they steadily approved NATO membership of the old Soviet nations and advanced ever closer to the borders with Russia. Behind NATO followed the EU. This is all an obvious threat to Russia’s security. With new governments in Ukraine including a coup accompanied by overtures towards the West when previously it had very close ties with Russia, Putin could see the threat closing in on Russia as Ukraine had the great sea ports of the Black Sea including Crimea. He expressed his alarm eventually turning to threats that were ignored and was basically pushed into annexing Crimea and finally invading Ukraine. I suggest this was a deliberate plan of the West.

We must now throw in a few facts, most of which are not disputed when even a sliver of honesty is about. Ukraine is one of the world’s most corrupt countries not only government but also in business, it’s endemic and Zelenski is not immune making it fertile ground for capitalism. Next, the people of eastern Ukraine are largely of Russian origin and a happy mix of Russian/Ukrainian and have gone about their lives in a spirit of neighbourliness with those over the border. Indeed movement across the border for trading, family, friendships were the norm. Ukraine has never been one big nation but made up of several ethnic groups, the ones to the east being, as I said, Russian and a majority were opposed to the Ukrainian government moving closer to the West, NATO and the EU. They decided to secede and form their own regional state which was opposed by the government Kiev and eventually shelled by the army. Russia assisted secessionists which given their closeness in ethnicity is understandable but still held back from actually going over the border and absorbing Donbass and Donetsk into the Russian Federation as requested by the majority of the people.

The West seeing a perceived opportunity to weaken Russia (Capitalism requires weak subservient states) maybe as Russia had a bad pandemic, agitated the situation, building up Zelenski while goading Putin until he had virtually no choice but to move into the Eastern region and war soon followed as predictable as a sunrise.

So where are we now? We have over a quarter of a million people dead which probably means a million injured, countless cities and towns destroyed, 3 million Ukrainians living in exile, agriculture severely curtailed meaning hunger for many in the developing world and rising prices elsewhere. The West has supplied vast monetary sums to the corrupt government and a steadily increasing supply of weapons and ammunition. Not only this but the destructive fire power supplied has also been escalating with tanks just being the latest example. It can easily be argued that the West is also testing weapons with the lives of Ukrainians as neither Russia could ‘win’ and take over the entire Ukraine nor can Ukraine ‘win’ against the might of Russia. With every consignment sent the risk of open warfare between the West and Russia rises with all the imagined horrors that could mean. That we haven’t as yet arrived at that terrible confrontation is as much down to Putin’s self control as it is to luck.