One of the lines that gets trotted out repeatedly by the Western political-media nexus, (the PR wing of the corporate-financial-military elites), is the one about “Ukraine has a right to decide which troops they have in their country”. They make this argument with great confidence, as if stating some absolutely self-evident and unarguable proposition. Rutte, the mad head of NATO made it the other day:
But why are we interested in what Russia thinks about troops in Ukraine? It’s a sovereign country. It’s not for them to decide. …
Russia has nothing to do with this. … Ukraine is a sovereign nation. If Ukraine wants to have security guarantee forces in Ukraine to support the peace deal, it’s up to them. Nobody else can decide about it.
I think we really have to stop making Putin too powerful. He is the governor of Texas, not more. So let’s not take it too serious. [1]
This episode of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive show includes a clip of a BBC reporter sounding like he thinks he is being so smart making the “argument” to Peskov that “if Russia can have North Korean troops in Russia why can’t Ukraine have NATO troops in Ukraine?”. [2]
Peskov, in his reply, based on the extract, just stuck to his guns. NATO forces in Ukraine are a threat to our country. NATO is our enemy. We can’t accept it. He handled it well, not getting drawn into the BBC reporter’s point scoring game. That said, these are some of the things he could have pointed out:
- You go on about Ukraine’s “right” to have NATO in their country – but, are you aware that until the war started, joining NATO was not a strong demand of Ukrainians? For example; your fellow liberal outlet, the Guardian, reported in 2008, the year when Bush started all this trouble, by issuing an invitation to Ukraine to join NATO, that opinion polling reported only 30% of Ukrainians wanted this outcome? [3] Or, in 2014 a Western polling organisation asked people in all the regions of Ukraine, accept Crimea, whether they wanted to join NATO. In only one region of Ukraine did the figure get over 50%. That was 53% in Western Ukraine. [4] At the same time, another Western organisation’s polling gave an overall figure for joining NATO across Ukraine as 34%. [5]. Don’t you, the BBC support democracy? Why have you aligned yourself with this undemocratic position?
- So, Ukraine is sovereign and can do what it likes? But; there was an elected President in 2014 who, while he participated in partnerships with NATO stopped short of joining. It was only in 2019 that a government committed to joining NATO. In between these two governments was a coup. This coup saw the elected President, who had resisted joining NATO, chased out of the country. Again; I was sure I heard you say somewhere you were on the side of democracy?
- And, I hate to mention “real-politick”, but are you seriously going to tell me that the US would accept a strong Russian military-intelligence presence in, say, Venezuela? Well, we know they wouldn’t. They have told us that. [6] So; can you explain why we should?
- And, finally, the cases are, of course different. We objected to Ukraine joining NATO, (and the presence of CIA intelligence posts all along our border), prior to the war, in peace time. We did this because it posed a threat to us. Your example is about our actions in war time. North Korean troops in Russia were invited in when our country was attacked by Ukraine. You want to put NATO troops into Ukraine in peace time. Your analogy fails.
Probably, we could go on. The line about “Ukraine has a sovereign right….” is so fantastically easy to demolish that its very repetition serves to illustrate how the entire Western media operation, virtually, is a propaganda operation. The sickeningly smug BBC reporter in Moscow trying to score a point off Peskov can make this ridiculous “argument” which stands up to no intellectual scrutiny at all, precisely because he knows he can rely on the entire weight of the UK media not to subject it to any degree of rational analysis at all. To be honest, it makes my blood boil, this false, dishonest and immoral pseudo-intellectualism. It is lucky the BBC is blocked in Russia so I can’t watch it anyway. I wouldn’t have the time to keep calling out their lies.
One final point. It was noticeable how the Guardian, in follow-up reporting, dropped the absurd, embarrassing, revealing and provocative comments by Rutte about Putin “being the governor of Texas”:
The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, said it was not for Putin to decide if European troops would be stationed inside Ukraine. He said: “I think we really have to stop making Putin too powerful.”
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, described Putin as the most severe war criminal of our time….
[7]
They know perfectly well that that comment was dangerous and all too revealing. If they were doing journalism they would home in on it and comment on it. In fact, they edit it out. They are not doing journalism. They are doing war journalism. Which, surprisingly enough, they do even in peace time.
Notes
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/sep/04/ukraine-russia-security-guarantees-coalition-of-the-willing-paris-europe-live-news-updates?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-68b944ce8f087bf4418b543b#block-68b944ce8f087bf4418b543b
- https://podcasts.apple.com/ru/podcast/proof-positive-the-russia-ukraine-war-will-continue/id1761369345?i=1000725180617 – the extract is in the first few minutes of the show.
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/01/nato.georgia
- https://www.usagm.gov/wp-content/media/2014/06/Ukraine-slide-deck.pdf
- https://www.iri.org/news/iri-ukraine-poll-strong-majorities-believe-in-victory-over-russia/
- https://www.wlrn.org/news/2022-01-13/u-s-pledges-decisive-response-if-russia-deploys-military-in-cuba-venezuela-over-ukraine-crisis
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/04/european-leaders-pressure-trump-to-reveal-how-much-support-us-will-give-ukraine