At some point, even insulated as you are by considerable power, you may incur consequences as a result of your actions. One can understand how the “progressive” ‘left’ can cheer-lead for wars in, say, Afghanistan or Libya. It can all go horribly wrong, (as it did in both cases), but, a few terrorist attacks on home soil aside, there won’t be much blowback. But they may be too intoxicated by this consequence-free, (for them), exercise of power. Russia is a nuclear power. This does change the rules of the game. As of yet – not many seem to have noticed this.
This is a very nice example of what I mean by a ‘hoax’. This is the Guardian’s Defence Correspondent Dan Sabbagh writing a peace about the plan by France and the UK to put troops into Ukraine. He has interviewed retired US General Ben Hodges. Anyone paying attention will recall that in Spring 2023 Hodges was appearing all over the media raving about the prospects for Ukraine’s “counter-offensive”. He was musing about just how far they could go. Maybe, he gushed, as far as Crimea, though perhaps they would not quite be able to take Crimea. In reality, as this site predicted, amongst many others, the “counter-offensive” was a damp squib. I am not a military man, but I could see that, without air superiority, the operation was likely to be easily defeated. Hodges should be totally discredited. But, it doesn’t matter. They still have him on. Anyway, let’s look at Sabbagh’s hoaxing;
The retired general said: “Anybody who believes that Russia will live up to any agreement is not being realistic” – a reference in part to the period between 2014 and 2022 when there were repeated violations of the old ceasefire lines in Ukraine. [1]
However; in fact, the OSCE monitoring mission, despite being staffed by largely ex Nordic military and being largely ‘pro-Western’ still produced their reports of ceasefire violations. And, the simple reality was, that for anyone who cared to look, (not, in large part the liberal media), ceasefire violations were carried out by both sides, pretty much equally. [2]
The line that “Russia cannot be trusted because they [another partial hoax since it was local forces in the main] broke the Minsk ceasefire” is pure and simple a hoax.
The main idea of the article is to talk up the need for a robust force. That, this is all some kind of a phantasy does not seem to have impinged on Dan Sabbagh. Here he quotes a former British military attaché:
John Foreman, a former UK military attache to Russia, said: “What will a 15,000 strong force do? It will probably be west of the Dnipro river and not on the front line. They are there to complicate Russia’s decision making and to be a trip wire force if fighting restarted. The punishment force would be air forces.”
These people are absolutely delusional. Leaving aside the question as to whether putting 15, 000 UK troops in Ukraine as a kind of bait, is a decent way to treat your soldiers, let’s consider this idea of a “punishment force”. Is he off his head? Yes; NATO jets flying out of Poland and Romania, and maybe from UK bases, especially if the force included US jets, could, I am sure, wreck havoc on Russian forces in Ukraine and Crimea. It is clear that the West has powerful air forces. But, Russia is going to bend over and take their punishment? I think not. Does John Foreman know that the UK has virtually no air defence? (There seem to be some systems on a handful of destroyers which can take out cruise missiles and maybe ballistic missiles – but, as far as I know, no land-based capability beyond small portable systems, and even the sea-based would be overwhelmed by any large-scale attack). If the RAF starts “punishing” Russia, what does he really think Russia is going to do? And, if Russia starts hitting RAF bases on the British mainland, what will our next step be?
This from Dan Sabbagh:
Its [the proposed ‘peacekeeping force’ for Ukraine] mooted size contrasts with the 60,000-strong Nato peacekeeping force that enforced the first stages of the Bosnia peace agreements for one year from December 1995
Russia is not Bosnia or Croatia – the analogy which Dan Sabbagh uses for his “peacekeeping force”. In that case we could impose a peacekeeping force – because Bosnia and Croatia were/are small countries with little military power. The hubris of the analogy is extraordinary.
We can notice in Starmer’s statements of yesterday [3] that he specifically said that UK forces would be inserted “after a peace deal”. Perhaps he does know, that that means there can never be a peace deal, since Russia is not going to sign a peace deal which will be policed by European NATO member countries, and thus he will never, actually, have to put British forces into Ukraine. Possibly, then, Starmer knows this is all dreams. Perhaps they are all just dreaming, posturing, phantasising – the latter as psychological compensation for having lost the war? Let’s hope they just stick to their phantasies.
Notes
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/08/coalition-of-the-willing-must-be-robust-to-deal-with-russia-warns-ex-us-general
- Google AI Summary: ‘Historical reports from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine, which concluded in 2022, consistently documented ceasefire violations by both sides along the line of contact in eastern Ukraine.” (Google AI is always inclined towards the pro-corporate side so any bias is likely to be the other way). Or see DW: https://www.dw.com/en/osce-urges-probe-of-minsk-peace-treaty-violations-in-eastern-ukraine/a-19348952 “The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) deputy director Alexander Hug has accused both sides in the conflict in eastern Ukraine of failing to investigate and take action against violations of the ceasefire” from 2016 I think.
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/06/coalition-willing-paris-ukraine-zelenskyy-greenland-denmark-venezuela-trump-latest-news-updates