The UK and EU's worst nightmare
The US is walking away from Project Ukraine
Remember this?
What a difference a year and a new administration make! The UK and EU are shellshocked after Peter Hegseth punched a hole in their collective fantasy of defeating Russia by using Ukraine as the battering ram.
In remarks made to yesterday’s Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting in Brussels, the US Defence Secretary knows the Ukraine game is up. The west has lost its proxy war with Russia. He announced that diplomacy with Russia is back - Trump and Putin had their first telephone conversation - and laid out America’s opening bid to end the conflict:
there will be no returning to Ukraine’s 2014 borders;
robust security guarantees are required for both Russia and Europe;
Ukraine will not be a NATO member;
any peacekeeping troops will be non-NATO;
no US troops will be deployed to Ukraine.
Compare this to UK defence secretary John Healey’s puffed up and unhinged bluster:
This year, the UK’s total commitment has reached its highest ever level, standing at £4.5 billion [in military aid], ensuring Ukraine can achieve peace through strength and underscoring the new 100 Year Partnership between the UK and Ukraine.
This money is on top of the £12.8 billion the UK has already poured down the Ukraine hellhole. In an obsequious nod to Sir Keir’s futile quest for ‘growth’, Healey promised the spending would “boost” the UK’s sinking economy even though it goes straight to the bottom lines of defence contractors Babcock and BAE Systems, while pensioners freeze and 30% of kids endure poverty.
Predictably, the Baltic chihuahuas were apoplectic at Hegseth’s announcement:
The UK/EU leaders don’t get it - it’s over.
They’ve betrayed their own people in an effort to curry favour with Washington. They should have heeded Kissinger’s warning: “It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.”
As a result of blind obedience to the US, the EU/UK have knowingly and willingly sabotaged themselves. They cooperated with the CIA’s destruction of the Nordstream pipeline, losing access to low-cost Russian energy and paying 3-4 times more for US LNG. Their industries have become uncompetitive and are shuttering. The US is pressuring them to not only increase military aid to Ukraine but also commit to spending 5% of GDP on defence, which they can ill afford and which their people don’t want. And like nodding dogs, they’re going along with it!
Meanwhile, Russia’s economy has never been stronger. It grew 4.1% in 2024 - sanctions have actually been good for Russia. On yesterday’s news, Russian stocks surged and the ruble strengthened against the dollar.
Because Russia is winning, it is in the driver’s seat and will dictate the terms to end the war. President Putin stated these in his June, 2024 speech:
The essence of our proposal is not a temporary truce or ceasefire, as the West might prefer, to allow the Kiev regime to recover, rearm, and prepare for a new offensive. I repeat: we are not discussing freezing the conflict, but its definitive resolution.
Once Kiev agrees to the course of action proposed today, including the full withdrawal of its troops from the DPR, LPR, the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, and begins this process earnestly, we are prepared to commence negotiations promptly without delay.
Ukraine should adopt a neutral, non-aligned status, be nuclear-free, and undergo demilitarisation and denazification. These parameters were broadly agreed upon during the Istanbul negotiations in 2022, including specific details on demilitarisation such as the agreed numbers of tanks and other military equipment.
The rights, freedoms, and interests of Russian-speaking citizens in Ukraine must be fully protected. The new territorial realities, including the status of Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions as parts of the Russian Federation, should be acknowledged. These foundational principles need to be formalised through fundamental international agreements in the future. Naturally, this entails the removal of all Western sanctions against Russia as well.
In the same speech, Putin recalled a time when European leaders like Helmut Kohl emphasised the importance of partnership between Europe and Russia and expressed a hope “that new generations of European leaders will eventually restore this legacy.”
Serving as America’s poodle has made Europe and the UK poorer and less secure. The way to dig themselves out of their hole is to recognise that their real economic and security interests lie not in a retrenching US, but in normalising relations with their giant neighbour.
Good article.
I wondering how long it will be before the bluffing and blustering First Minion and Westminster lapdog John Swinney withdraws 'Scotland's support' from Ukraine now that the writing is very clearly etched onto the wall?
Another conflict which proves that peoples in self-determination conflict are usually linguistically divided, and that 'independence is a cultural emotion' (Fanon).
Institutions such as the Church of Scotland perhaps now need to ask themselves why some churches have been flying the Ukrainian flag and singing the Ukrainian national anthem at the end of each service over the past few years; meanwhile doing nothing for decolonization o oor ain Scots fowk as the only remedy for inequality, poverty and under-development of our own people and nation.