I couldn’t help hoping, but it was predictable that the talks between Trump and Putin in Alaska would not lead to a breakthrough in the Ukraine war. The cabal of the Ukraine regime, Rutte, and various European capitals continues to be willing to throw countless Ukrainians to their pointless deaths on the battlefield for no realistic aim. Trump, unfortunately, for all his talk is not ready to throw the Kiev regime under the bus and tell the Europeans where to go. He can’t fully break ties with Europe on this one.
These are some of the comments from Ukraine and Europe:
This is Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia, quoted and reported in the Guardian:
When Putin talks about the ‘root cause of war’, it’s an independent Ukraine on the map of Europe. That’s the only cause of war for Russia,” he said.
Putin is just out there on his mission to revive the Soviet Union, to revive the Russian empire, and it can’t be revived without Ukraine. Just overnight, as we speak, Russians have attacked many Ukrainian cities, sent many drones. So we don’t really see any indication of him ending his war.
This is the Norwegian Foreign Minister:
President Putin of Russia reiterated known arguments, such as emphasising the so-called ‘root causes’ of the war, which is code for the Russian justification for the illegal invasion of Ukraine.” He added it was important to keep pressure on Russia and listen to Ukraine’s wishes and needs.
The Czech Foreign Minister:
The Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavský said he was “glad that President Trump is trying to stop the war” but that there has been “propagandistic nonsense about the ‘roots of the conflict’” from Putin in the subsequent press conference.
“The problem is Russian imperialism, not Ukraine’s desire to live freely,” he continued. “If Putin were serious about negotiating peace, he would not have been attacking Ukraine all day today.”
And so on.
In other words; from Russia; rational analysis (and explanations) about the root causes of the conflict; NATO expansion right up to their borders, the attempt to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russia bulwark on Russia’s doorstep, (complete with CIA listening posts [1], NATO trained forces etc.) and justifiable complaints about the non-fulfilment of the Minsk accords. And, on the other hand, this mythological (non-rational) claim that Russia is motivated by “imperialism” to rebuild the Tsarist Empire or the USSR. This flies in the face not only of analysis but of what Putin says. Time and time again, including in his much mis-cited online essay about the Ukraine situation, Putin has acknowledged that Ukraine can remain sovereign and has repeatedly said that he does not object to Ukraine joining the EU. One can say that he is lying, of course, but – why not test it? If Putin signed a treaty which stated that Russia would not seek to prevent Ukraine joining the EU, then he would be exposed to the world as a liar, if Russia went back on that. In fact; Putin has a good record of saying what he means.
One cannot, it seems say it often enough; everyone knows and understands that the US would never stand for a Russian or Chinese military presence in, say, Mexico or Venezuela. Why should Russia be any different?
Another lie in this Ukraine-Euro war mongering is the idea of a unified Ukraine. As per the Norwegian Foreign Minister; “it is important to listen to Ukraine’s wants and needs”. But, this is putting the cart before the horse. What is “Ukraine”? Many people in the East of Ukraine do not want to be part of a Ukrainian nationalist state. Ukraine is a split country. [2] Until the war started joining NATO was not especially popular in Ukraine. [3] One of the roots of the conflict is, of course, the organised denial of this by European elites – who, like Ukrainian nationalists, dismiss out of hand, the different outlook of the Russian-leaning people in the East. This itself is curious, since it is EU policy, and practice, to respect minorities and to accord them rights, including language rights.
What exactly the Kiev regime and the European capitals are hoping to achieve by dragging out the war is not clear. Russia is, albeit slowly, making gains on the battlefield. The Russian economy is not showing signs of imminent collapse. It is the case that the longer this goes on the more pressure the Russian economy will come under; their are using up their reserves and when these run out, (I’ve seen predictions that this will be in two years), they will have to increase taxes to make up the shortfall. But this in two years time; is Kiev going to last that long? The only hope for those who are hoping to break the Russian economy would be Trump imposing secondary sanctions on China with the aim of preventing China from buying Russian oil, even gas. But; Trump has shied away from this so far, and that is for a reason. It turns out that Trump was unable to impose his wished-for tariffs on China, quite apart from this. This is because China has quite a strong hand in trade negotiations with the US. Is Trump going to cause immense damage to the US by blocking all trade, (including in rare earth minerals), if China continues to buy Russian oil? It seems that the answer to that is no. He has increased the tariff on India, in this regard, but notably not China. Even if he did; it seems unlikely that China would bow to US demands – that would be a huge humiliation, after publicly stating their eternal friendship with Russia. It seems unlikely that economic pressure is going to cause Russia to drop their demands. And; we have not even talked about how Russia sees these demands as existential, meaning that were their economy to come under such pressure as to look like it would force a defeat on the battlefield, they would not, in fact, just accept that; rather, they would escalate the war. There is no path, either military, or economic, for Ukraine to win this war, or even, achieve the mythological “defeat Russia in Ukraine”.
Obviously, Europe doesn’t want to lose to Russia. The elites will suffer a huge loss of face and prestige, as well as a crisis of confidence; they really thought they could defeat Russia. Likewise, the Kiev regime will face an acute crisis were it to accept Russian demands, or some kind of negotiated settlement based on these. This is why these parties are trying to sabotage peace. But; it is just putting off the inevitable. Meanwhile, in order to keep these futile dreams alive, the lives of thousands of Ukrainian, and Russian, men continue to be sacrificed weekly.
Profound folly
It continues. A group of these war mongers have just released a statement saying that Russia cannot have a veto on Ukraine joining NATO. These are the signatories: French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, the European Council president, António Costa and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. [4]
Stop. Before the war only 51% of people in Ukraine wanted to join NATO, and this probably excluded people in the East. In 2014 the figure was 34%. [3] Joining NATO in Ukraine has only become popular because of the war. The war is not being fought to defend the rights of a majority in Ukraine who want to join NATO. Ukraine in NATO is the desire of Euro-NATO elites, and George Bush, who forced in on NATO members in 2008. And again; all this talk about the wishes of a sovereign Ukraine is nonsense; sovereignty is not the absolute it is put forwards as. Sovereignty has to be balanced against the legitimate security interests of neighbouring states, as the US insists on in their own sphere of influence, and nor does sovereignty allow a state to trample on the rights on minorities, as the UN Charter, EU policy and countless interventions by Western countries all testify to. This line about Ukraine’s sovereign right to choose to join NATO is palpable nonsense. In reality, it masks, what is simply a kind of Russia phobia, the principle that Russia cannot ever be allowed to have any legitimate rights of its own. It isn’t even clear to me exactly where this phobia comes from. A primitive fear about ‘hordes from the East’ perhaps? (The irony being, that one way to ensure that we do have ‘hordes from the East’ arriving is to do exactly what they are trying to do; drive Russia into a corner).
Notes
- https://responsiblestatecraft.org/cia-ukraine-russia/
- https://thenewobserver.co.uk/some-people-in-ukraine-want-to-be-part-of-or-linked-to-russia/
- https://thenewobserver.co.uk/the-lie-about-ukraine-and-nato-that-has-led-to-tens-of-thousands-of-deaths/ https://thenewobserver.co.uk/how-popular-was-joining-nato-in-ukraine/
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/aug/15/trump-putin-alaska-meeting-summit-news-updates