Certain ‘sources’ in our NATO-aligned world worry about ‘Ukraine-Fatigue’. By which they mean that the people may wake up and demand that their governments stop funding this war with Russia on Ukrainian soil. As you will, no doubt, understand, my own ‘Fatigue’ started somewhere around 2014, with this Nuland-coup in the country, so count me out. But this fear is odd, considering that the people in NATO-aligned countries so far failed to protest against the ‘Endless War’, launched at the start of this new century, almost twenty-five years ago, with one war after the other, offering all kinds of halfwit excuses, leaving a long line of countries in tatters, with millions of dispersed people. Why would it be different this time?
Because NATO-aligned countries are at the end of the line economically, bleeding white. Our leaders miscalculated. The first twenty years of ‘Endless War’ were extremely costly, but those costs were kept hidden by artificially suppressing the interest-rate on borrowed money, and various other tricks designed to milk the ‘PetroDollar’ for what it was worth. A ‘War of Attrition’ with Russia, partnering with ‘the Rest of the World’, is too much to bear. Technically it would be possible, perhaps, if the NATO-countries switched to a ‘War-Time’ economy, slashing every notion of wealth, and introducing massive suppression of every possible human right for the ‘Collective Good’, but even then the outlook is bleak, or wishful thinking. Russia is already ‘up to speed’, and has a head start. All these predictions that they would run out of ammunition, and various crucial weapon systems, as well as soldiers, were wrong. Not simply wrong as in ‘falling short’, but as in ‘fatal error’. Or so it seems to me.
As highlighted previously, NATO sold us this war as Putin’s attempt to regain ‘lost territory’, and restore the Soviet empire. It was a lie, and our leaders knew it was a lie, but since they expected that their economic sanctions, coupled to ‘Stay Behind’ terror groups in Ukraine would harm Russia beyond repair, at very limited costs to the NATO-aligned countries, and only a few months before Russia would be ‘toast’, it didn’t matter. Now it does. They need to tell us that gaining territory from the Russians signals Russia’s defeat to stay with their own narrative, even when the Russians vacate certain areas without a battle they lost, but grinding down Ukrainian forces and their ‘soldiers of fortune’, paid for by NATO-aligned countries and through massive fraud at this ‘Bitcoin exchange’ everybody in the financial world is talking about. It is my impression that the Russians are in a different kind of war, not at all about territorial gains, but about saving a people which was ‘shortlisted’ to be driven from the ‘Donbas’, with designs to conquer Crimea, formally incorporated in the Russian Federation since 2014, when this violent, Nuland led coup terminated Ukraine as a democracy, at least at the ‘Kremlin’-level of thinking. A focus on the front-lines therefore is a distraction, irrespective of which party you want to ‘win’, and it hurts the chances for a peaceful resolution.
At the moment the front-line is relatively stable, which is presented as something of a ‘draw’, or a pause at ‘halftime’, and not as leaving an opening to some kind of negotiated settlement. What is missing from this picture, is that Russia is turning up the volume with missile and drone strikes laying the entire Ukrainian infrastructure to waste, and is now also targeting ‘official buildings’, signaling that they are on the verge of going after the political and military leadership. With the visiting Dutch minister of foreign affairs shaken, but not stirred, as he was crammed into a bunker during the latest barrage, while our prime minister and minister of finance descended the stairs of the Dutch equivalent of ‘Airforce One’ in Bali, where they ‘discussed’ the war with their ‘friends’, ignoring others, hearing nothing but the echo of their own propaganda. But they are a sideshow anyway.
Elsewhere, in military circles in the United States, in Germany and France, recalibrating NATO’s strategy is at least being discussed, since a ‘War of Attrition’ is, increasingly, considered to be a losing proposition. The political leadership in the US and UK want to press on, but all the signs reflecting the state of their economy are bright red, while military planners keep telling them that rebuilding the military-industrial capacity to confront Russia in the areas where the Russians dominate is simply not possible. Throwing wave after wave of soldiers, and ‘the kitchen sink’, at the Russian artillery, while the Ukrainian infrastructure is being destroyed, is about postponing the inevitable. This ‘wing’ within NATO which is pushing for a resolution is fully aware of the hardship Europe faces even if the fighting stops right now, and some sort of deal is being struck to prevent it from reigniting in the near future, while getting convinced that NATO has no chance to win this war on the battlefield, using conventional weapons only. General Milley was forced to ‘correct’ his call for talks, and associated assessment, publicly ascertaining his media-audience that support for Ukraine would go on ‘for as long as it takes’, a term borrowed from tough-talking central bank directors which are no longer in control of anything, really.
This desperate attempt by Ukraine to use this missile which struck Poland as an excuse for NATO to get involved has an increasing number of people talking about a ‘False Flag’ event. The consensus now is that this S-300 was a Ukrainian missile which veered off course, and that Ukraine tried to use it to its advantage. But Zelensky is pushing his luck as he is maintaining it most certainly wasn’t a Ukrainian missile, because his commander of the Ukrainian Air Force says it wasn’t. Like I wrote yesterday, this blatant lie does come at an awkward moment, with the verdict of a Dutch judge passed in this case of flight MH-17, if you consider that Ukraine was given veto-power in the subsequent investigation, while it was one of the main suspects from the start. I do understand the desperation in Kiev, and anger, considering that they were near the completion of a deal early in the year, when Boris Johnson and the Biden administration insisted Ukraine had to go on.
Rumor has it that Ukraine has lined up another offensive, from Zaporizhzhia, but considering that Russia is said to be ready, and that they have designs of their own to take over the initiative the moment they get the upper hand, there is a very real risk that Ukraine will regret it if they don’t listen to the call of reason. On the other hand, we shouldn’t forget that ‘certain powers’ in Ukraine stand ready to murder Zelensky, or anyone in his government who commits ‘treason’, and NATO cannot be trusted to save their ‘friend’ from such a fate, as NATO itself is a snake-pit riddled with ‘forces’ thinking they run the show, and not the people ‘briefing’ the press. And if bleeding the NATO-countries white is what is needed to topple Putin, so be it! Tell your political representative, and anyone who isn’t preoccupied by the ‘World Cup’ about to kick off, or some ‘Netflix-series’, that you think this is not a good idea.