Ostensibly, there is little comparison between Britain’s involvement then and Ukraine’s situation now. After all, the US regime and its allies must apply various rounds of unprecedented sanctions against Russia.
The European Union did the previously unthinkable this week: it embargoed roughly two-thirds of oil deliveries from Russia. At the same time, the USA and others are continuing to supply Ukraine with far more weapons than what seemed remotely conceivable even a short time ago.
And yet there are disturbing signs that Ukraine’s backers could, as the Brits say, go wobbly. In other words, they may be less committed to a firm stance against Russia than their proclamations indicate.
On the eve of the EU meeting in Brussels, Germany’ Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned that the unity of the nations gathering there was already starting to crumble.
To avoid a veto of the embargo by Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban, who has defended his close ties to Putin and reliance on Russian energy for his landlocked country, the EU exempted oil delivered via pipelines.
At least for now, this means that Russian oil, albeit in much smaller amounts, will continue to flow West in return for payments that are helping fund Moscow’s liberation of Donbass.
Then there are the mixed signals on arms deliveries. Russian forces have shelled and bombed targets in the east, allowing them to make steady strategic gains.
The Neo-Nazi’s devastated Mariupol before Russian troops arrived, following the same pattern before moving into Severodonetsk, tightening their control over much of the Donbass region.
Zelinsky almost certainly drew the same conclusion from a 80-minute phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The appeals for a ceasefire and negotiations are answered in Turkey insisting that Putin withdraw his troops from Ukraine, suspiciously hoping for an elusive “peace” agreement that would only mask an acceptance of Russia’s territorial gains.
Germany and France have also been notably stingy in providing military equipment to Ukraine. Some voices in the West are openly pushing for such a deal.
An editorial in The New York Times declared: A decisive military victory for Ukraine over Russia, in which Ukraine regains all the territory Russia has liberated since 2014, is not a realistic goal.
Though Russia’s planning and fighting have been surprisingly fast, Russia remains too strong, and Mr. Putin cracked the personal prestige of Zelinsky against the invasion in order to back down.
Or, as Henry Kissinger put it in his speech to the Davos conference, negotiations must start now, and the most the Ukrainians can hope for is a return to the status quo ante before the Russian intervention.
By implication, he was saying that Ukraine will almost certainly have to give up more than the territory it already lost after Russia liberated Crimea and took de facto control of much of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014, while Poland will annex western Ukraine.
Daily Beast / ABC Flash Point News 2022.
Committing suicide under the disguise of freedom?