Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, Western commentators have spent a huge amount of time expressing moral outrage at Russia’s actions, but comparatively little time thinking about how the war could have been prevented.
This is puzzling. Even if Ukraine manages to win, this victory will have come at an enormous price – tens of thousands of lives, millions of refugees (many of whom may never return), and untold damage to the country’s infrastructure. No matter what the outcome, the war will have been disastrous for ordinary Ukrainians.
It therefore seems essential to ask whether it could have been prevented.
One possible way it could have been prevented is through deterrence. NATO members could have announced in advance, ‘We commit to defending Ukraine if it is ever attacked by Russia’. Alternatively, the U.S. and its allies could have armed Ukraine to the teeth by transferring huge quantities of offensive weapons.
The disadvantages of this approach are obvious. It might have caused Russia to invade even sooner to forestall the arrival of NATO troops or weapons. And if Russia did call the West’s bluff, it might have sparked World War III, as NATO would have pre-committed to entering the war on Ukraine’s side.
There’s another possible way the war could have been prevented: through the implementation of Minsk II. This was an agreement signed in 2015 by representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the two separatist republics, which aimed to bring an end to the fighting in Donbas. It was based on a plan drawn-up by the leaders of France and Germany.
Although Minsk II ultimately failed, since neither side honoured the terms, it was unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council.
Critics of Minsk II say it was too favourable to the Russian/separatist side. This is because the agreement would have granted significant autonomy to the two Donbas regions, allowing them to veto Ukraine’s future membership of NATO and possibly its membership of the EU as well. (Minsk II is roughly equivalent to the plan John Mearsheimer put forward in 2014, which emphasised Ukrainian neutrality.)
For Ukrainians who aspire to fully integrate with the West, not being able to join NATO or the EU represents a major loss. Yet a significant minority of Ukrainians want to remain close to Russia, and for them fully integrating with the West represents a loss.
As late as February 2014, the percentage of Ukrainians who wanted to join the EU was only 5 points higher than the percentage who wanted to join the Eurasian Customs Union. The balance of opinion then shifted after the ‘Revolution of Dignity’.
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Likewise, almost half of Ukrainians opposed the Maidan protest movement, including a plurality who “[did] not support it all”. For this reason alone, calling the subsequent change of government a ‘Revolution of Dignity’ is highly dubious.
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The fundamental problem for Ukraine was that a majority of citizens sought closer ties with the West, but a significant minority sought closer ties with Russia, and these two aspirations were mutually incompatible.
You might say that in a democracy, the majority gets to decide the future path of the country, so Minsk II was fundamentally unfair. Yet it’s widely understood that in ethnically divided countries, the majority often has to make concessions to the minority for the sake of overall stability. Half the parliamentary seats in Lebanon are reserved for Christians and half for Muslims, regardless of the ethnic make-up of the country (which no one quite knows), to prevent one group from dominating the other.
In any case, the European interest – as judged by the leaders of France and Germany – was preserving stability in Ukraine, rather than ensuring the country’s pro-Western majority got its way.
According to the New York Times, the plan for Minsk II emerged “in response to reports that lethal assistance was now on the table in Washington”. In other words, the U.S. wanted to start supplying Ukraine with offensive weapons, so France and Germany stepped in to broker a peace deal before that happened.
Why did Minsk II fail? As I’ve already stated, neither side upheld its end of the bargain. Yet historian Anatol Lieven argues it could have worked but for “the refusal of Ukrainian governments to implement the solution and the refusal of the United States to put pressure on them to do so”.
Lieven’s argument is consistent with numerous public statements made by Petro Poroshenko, the former Ukrainian President under whom Minsk II was signed.
In 2020, a Radio Svoboda journalist asked him whether he signed Minsk II in order to “buy time”. Poroshenko replied, “Of course”. He also said he was “categorically against” granting “special status” to the Donbas because it would lead to the “federalization of Ukraine”.
In June of this year, he told a different Radio Svoboda journalist, “We achieved what we wanted … our task was, first, to avert the threat, or at least to postpone the war – to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces” (skip to 00:20:20).
He said the same thing on German TV: “What is the results of the Minsk agreement?” Poroshenko asked. “We win eight years to create army. We win eight years to restore economy. We win eight years to continue the reforms and to move to the European Union” (skip to: 00:07:20).
And just last week, he fell victim to two Russian pranksters (the same ones who pranked George Bush) and admitted, “I need this Minsk agreement for having at least four and a half years to build Ukrainian armed forces … to train Ukrainian armed forces together with NATO, to create the best armed forces in the Eastern Europe, which was built on the NATO standard” (skip to 00:05:00).
All this suggests that, even if the Russian/separatist side had taken the initiative in upholding their end of the bargain, Poroshenko never intended to implement Minsk II.
His stance was echoed by Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in February of this year. Mere weeks before Russian tanks rolled across the border, he told a Polish newspaper, “None of Ukraine’s regions will have a right to veto the state’s decisions. That is engraved in stone!”
But why, as the country’s main backer, did the U.S. not pressure Ukraine to implement the agreement? After all, the U.S. endorsed the agreement in its capacity as a member of the UN Security Council, and the U.S. pressures its allies to do things all the time.
The obvious reason is that U.S. interests were not served by the implementation of Minsk II.
From a Western perspective, preventing the war in Ukraine would have required the French and Germans to act more decisively, or the Americans to look beyond their own interests. Unfortunately, neither of these eventualities came to pass.
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Morning my fellow posters. I see the decline to mass poverty and totalitarianism continues unabated. I have a feeling we will look back on now as some kind of golden time, before things got really bad. Oh well, there’s always Argentina. Get your visa applications in early.!
Friday Morning Nine Mile Ride & New Wokingham Road,
Wokingham
Yesterday the Dutch government revealed their plans.
A few interesting snippets.
They plan to call an immigration emergency, and thereby circumventing EU rules to deal with the massive influx of migrants.
Plans for 2 additional nuclear power stations and a reduction in green subsidies.
They continue to want to cut livestock numbers because of Nitrogen, which will not go down that well with the supporters of the farmers party.
Let’s see if they deliver….
Yes I read that too. Also, I’m glad I work over the border in Belgium because the border controls for Germany come in on Monday so what sort of time that’s going to add to one’s commute due to tailbacks is anyone’s guess. It’s crazy isn’t it? How many people had to be sacrificed to ‘the regime’ and get murdered by West-hating hostiles before Germany *finally* thinks this uncontrolled immigration lark might not be all it’s cracked up to be? The all-round negatives irrefutably outweighing the benefits. I guess the Solingen slaughter was the final straw.
C S Lewis once wrote an essay in which he asked, what if this were the world’s last night?
Did the Labour manifesto in the General Election contain a policy of firing British missiles into Russia? Or did that, like so much else, come under the general heading of ‘change’?
Of course, I will have my last night. You will have yours. Everyone will have their last night. When we brush our teeth before laying our head on the pillow we won’t know that it will be so. Is your soul prepared?
In their election campaign, the Labour Party committed to ramping up support for Ukraine during 2024
Iran has just supplied Russia with ballistic missiles.
‘According to the report, the Fath-360 missile “can deliver a 150kg warhead to a range of 120 km with a claimed accuracy of fewer than 30 meters.” The system is highly mobile and can be “deployed on a variety of road-mobile launchers, including one capable of launching up to six missiles.”
British intelligence assesses that “the supply of Iranian ballistic missiles will supplement and enhance Russia’s ability to conduct precision strikes against Ukrainian military or civilian infrastructure targets close to front lines.”
Those ballistic missiles will be fired from Russia into Ukraine.
So why should Ukraine not return fire in self defence to try and destroy those missiles before they are used, just as it has done with stockpiles of North Korean missiles stored in Russia?
In the election Labour pledged many things that many people thought wpuld be a waste of money.
Small boys learn at school that it is not wise to fight big boys. It was always idiotic of Ukraine (small) to challenge Russia (big) to a fight, and for what reason – for the pleasure of joining NATO that never wanted it in the first place?
We all know that bully USA was always pushing small boy Ukraine to fight against Russia because USA is too cowardly, or perhaps too sensible, to challenge Russia directly to a fight. Now bully USA has gathered a small crowd of similar cowardly (or perhaps sensible) boys behind it to supposedly help Ukraine in its fight, the outcome of which is simply to keep bully USA unchallenged in the school playing fields.
How else can one describe such a truly idiotic, senseless and hopeless war?
The problem is that Russia is not fighting for playground superiority because it has no need of such false titles, but it is now forced to fight for survival.
And long-range missiles cannot be operated by Ukraine on its own, quite the reverse: ATACMS require US programming, Storm Shadows require British programming, both require US and British intelligence inputs. All a Ukrainian can do is perhaps push the ‘fire’ button but even that is not likely to happen. So now the cowardly boys can no longer hide behind the Ukrainian boy, they have to fight themselves – quite a different set up.
Quoting Simplicius (https://simplicius76.substack.com/):
Thus, Putin is saying that for these systems to strike deep into Russia would necessarily mean NATO would be directly involved as a combatant in striking Russian territory in a more express way than ever before. The most obvious immediate Russian response would likely be to arm the Houthis with advanced anti-ship missiles which would straightaway endanger the entire US fleet.
The ramifications of this are far greater than most can imagine, given the cascading effect it would have. The US fleet is there to deter Iran and Hezbollah in protecting Israel. Should the Houthis possess an ability to completely cripple the US fleet, the falling chips would be: Israel’s defeat, which would mean the entire Empire’s defeat in the Middle East as Iran would reign supreme. This catastrophic sequence of events would result in the entire eventual collapse of the Western order. As such, the US obviously would not like to risk this scenario.
And if this all results in a nuclear war then I wish everyone well, except for the bullies, of course.
Small boys at decent schools learn to stand up to bullies.
You know nothing about Storm Shadow.
Very much like Ukrainian indigenously developed missiles, it is pre-programmable and has a terminal inertial navigation guidance system.
Target coordinates are readily available from local intelligence sources inside Russia.
‘Battles are underway in Vesyoloye, the enemy is consolidating its positions. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are dragging their equipment to the settlement of Novy Put, dismounting troops and retreating back. Information is being clarified. Our contacts assess the situation as serious.”
Even Sasha Kots is putting out revelations about the constant sending of Russian specialist UAV operators as riflemen, despite their specialisation, to assault squads. Things must be desperate.
Oops!
The military experts appearing on https://www.youtube.com/@judgingfreedom have frequently stated that operation of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles requires processes and data that are only available to the armed forces of USA and UK, respectively.
Quoting Wikipedia, for what it is worth, on the Storm Shadow:
The missile is fire and forget, programmed before launch. Once launched, it cannot be controlled or commanded to self-destroy and its target information cannot be changed. Mission planners program the weapon with details of the target and its air defences. The missile follows a path semi-autonomously, on a low flight path guided by GPS and terrain mapping to the target area. Close to the target, the missile climbs to increase its field of view and improve penetration, matches the target stored image with its IR camera and then dives into the target.
Climbing to altitude is intended to achieve the best probability of target identification and penetration. During the final maneuver, the nose cone is jettisoned to allow a high resolution thermographic camera (infrared homing) to observe the target area. The missile then tries to locate its target based upon its targeting information [DSMAC – comparing camera inputs during flight to maps computed from spy satellite images]. If it cannot, and there is a high risk of collateral damage, the missile is capable of flying to a crash point instead of risking inaccuracy.
Quoting, for example, Col. Douglas Macgregor, it is an ‘open secret’ that these sophisticated weapon systems are actually operated by either contractors or soldiers and officers from NATO states.
If you know better, maybe you should phone President Putin because he is threatening retaliation against UK if one of these missiles hits Russian territory.
‘Bakhshaish Ardestani, a member of the Parliament’s National Security Commission, responded to the question that “the news of sending ballistic missiles from Iran to Russia could bring more sanctions and the possibility of the trigger mechanism being activated,” he told Iran Watch: “We give rockets to Hezbollah, Hamas, Hashd al-Shaabi, why not give them to Russia.’
He stated that the country is “forced” to barter with the Russian Federation: Moscow gives Iran soybeans and wheat, and Iran gives it missiles and drones.
According to Ardestani, Europe knows the strategic position of Tehran. The official was also asked if the transfer of these missiles could lead to increased sanctions against Iran, to which the official replied: “It can’t get worse than now.
https://www.didbaniran.ir
Iran has form on this. At first, Iran officially denied accusations of supplying weapons to Russian forces, but in November 2022, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian admitted that his country supplied Russia with its drones.
Ukraine receives weapons (free of charge) from about 30 NATO countries. Russia receives weapons from Iran, perhaps, from North Korea, perhaps, and even from China, perhaps: it is outrageous!
Typical western hypocrisy …
Iran is reported to have supplied missiles by West intelligence services and the MSM. There is no independent confirmation and Iran flat-out denies it.
Today, the United States is designating three entities and two individuals for their connection to Russia’s destabilizing actions abroad.
According to new information, much of which originates from employees of Russian state-funded RT (formerly “Russia Today”), we now know that RT moved beyond being simply a media outlet and has been an entity with cyber capabilities.
It is also engaged in information operations, covert influence, and military procurement.
These operations are targeting countries around the world, including in Europe, Africa, and North and South America.
Antony Blinken personally announced sanctions against RT for the reasons you specified: being an entity with cyber capabilities (i.e. internet access), engaging in information operations (unusual for a media company), covert influence (maybe RT attended the presentation given by UK’s Counter Disinformation Unit, as reported in today’s Daily Sceptic?) and military procurement (wow, has RT been buying tanks?).
Unfortunately, Blinken’s announcement comes at a time when he is being suspected by the House of Representative’s Judiciary Committee’s chairman, Jim Jordan, of being behind the “Hunter Biden Laptop is Russian Disinformation” campaign!
So much hypocrisy …
No mention of the Rotherham rapes in the Times today.
A conspiracy of silence is what causes riots.
The former Thunderer was so proud of its reporting the earlier cases after ignoring reports for years because they came from people it didn’t like.
Only one (independent) journalist in the press gallery, apparently.
https://www.gbnews.com/money/winter-fuel-payment-disabled-pensioners-energy-bills
A typical late Friday announcement. At the end of the day, for those who are no longer eligible for the ‘bonus’, it will roughly cross balance the “triple lock” basic state pension increase (460 – 300), so it all depends on their real inflation on their balance sheet.
So where do pensioners look to for keeping up with inflation if the triple lock increase is to cover the costs of keeping warm this winter? There is no way of spinning this to make the government look fair, especially as the have already conceded the argument for public servants to eventually make up for the decrease in their income for losses over the “14 years of Tory misgovernment”.
They might say that this time they are linked to wages, not inflation. This is another view of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YLsi1Ng8gk&list=WL&index=1 . Probably not popular, though.
John Campbell’s latest update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFWWuB7qi74&list=WL&index=3 Based on up to date output from Florida.
”Doctor who helped convict Letby previously said there was ‘no objective evidence’ against her”
This is a huge development in the case.
“At Letby’s trial, Dr Ravi Jayaram was said to have caught the nurse “virtually red handed” dislodging a breathing tube from a baby at the Countess of Chester Hospital in February 2016.”
“At the original trial, Dr Jayaram told the court that what happened was “emblazoned” in his mind.”
“However, documents leaked to The Telegraph show that the consultant paediatrician did not mention the incident when interviewed by Dr Christopher Green, the hospital’s director of pharmacy, during a grievance procedure brought by Letby in the autumn of 2016 after she had been removed from the ward.”
“When asked if he heard any suggestion that Lucy had been deliberately harming babies, Dr Jayaram said there was “no objective evidence to suggest that at all”.”
“Kate Blackwell KC, representing the management at the Countess of Chester, said that despite a number of reviews and investigations, he did not bring the matter to the executive team.
“There was never any suggestion by Dr Jayaram that he had witnessed an event in February 2016 involving Letby that raised suspicion about her behaviour to Child K,” she said.
Peter Skelton KC, representing the parents of children, also questioned why Dr Jayaram had not raised his suspicions of Letby at an inquest into Baby A in October 2016.”
Well done to those King’s Counsels !!!
Here’s the article on MSN, for those of us without access to the Telegraph paywall.
Doctor who helped convict Letby previously said there was ‘no objective evidence’ against her (msn.com)