STOP WASTING BILLIONS ON WEAPONS FOR UKRAINE

Why is West stoking war? It will do NOTHING to solve this crisis

By Lauren Michaels

IT WOULD be helpful if there was at least one voice of sanity in British politics calling for a peaceful settlement of the war in Ukraine.

The embarrassing sight of British MPs – and the new King no less – fawning over former comedian and now President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, dressed up in his perennial military costume, highlights a stifling of any independent and innovative thinking and a lack of any effective leadership or opposition in UK politics.

Increasingly, only one “officially approved” and “fact-checked” point of view is permitted across a whole range of vitally important subjects.

A stark example of this was the removal of the Tory whip from MP Andrew Bridgen over his expression of concern about people injured by Covid injections.

A grey uniformity of thought is being imposed throughout the Western world. The leaders are at best performers, mouth-pieces. Anyone who dares to disagree with this New Orthodoxy, this one point perspective is slapped down.

With regard to Ukraine, the concern is that the provision of tanks and worse, (hopefully it won’t materialise) jets and so forth to the Kiev authorities, however intended, will only prolong and exacerbate the conflict, resulting in more deaths of both Ukrainians and Russians.

In effect, the West is funding a dangerous and costly proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.

According to the UK Government, in terms of military assistance, the US is the largest donor, having committed $27.4billion since the start of the Biden administration, with $26.7bn of that provided since February 2022.

Meanwhile, the UK is the second biggest military provider, committing £2.3bn in military assistance to Ukraine so far and pledging to match that sum in 2023.

Is this a wise use of UK funds?

It is questionable whether the current economic, military and geopolitical impact worldwide is of any benefit to the West.

For one thing, Russia once aspired to stronger relations with Europe, but now, owing to Western hostility, it has been forced towards deeper alliances with others, China, the BRICS countries and so forth.

The war is blamed for disruptions in trade and for food and fuel price shocks, which in turn lead to higher inflation and contraction of world financial conditions.

So who, if anyone, benefits from the conflict? It is widely agreed that the biggest beneficiaries are US defence contractors, such as Lockhead Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.

Yet so far, large swathes of the public in the West are still silently acquiescent over their governments’ unconditional support for Ukraine. This is a testimony to the power of the corporate media to shape public perceptions.

The conflict in Ukraine is far more complicated than the picture widely portrayed by politicians and in the media in the West. Also, Russia’s perspective has been silenced in an unpleasant shift towards censorship, which sharply worsened with the Covid restrictions.

It is alarming that not a single politician appears to be aware that there are at least two sides to this Ukraine story. In the end, the two parties, Ukraine and Russia, will need to reach an agreement and the West will need to have a stable, positive and calm relationship with Russia again, as well as with Ukraine. This would be a positive outcome.

The Minsk Agreements were a sensible UN-approved settlement but unfortunately it now appears, from a comment made by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel (above) in German national weekly newspaper “Die Zeit” in December last year, that there may never have been any intention of implementing the Minsk Agreements. Instead, they were a way of “buying time” to allow Ukraine to build up its strength/ military capability.

In other words, the war in Ukraine was not a sudden invasion by Russia but part of a longer process, like the West-backed overthrowal of the democratically elected Ukrainian government in early 2014.

The glorification of Zelensky and Ukraine (ignoring the complex history and real nature of what’s been going on in that part of the world, since late 2013 and earlier), and the peculiarly reverential reception the Ukrainian leader receives from Western parliaments and politicians, is frankly uncomfortable, perplexing and even excruciating to watch.

Why is this Ukrainian politician given such wild attention, such obsequious receptions? It is unprecedented.

What is the real aim of the West in Ukraine? If it is economic gain, geopolitical aspirations or the expansion of NATO, it would be best just to say so openly, rather than pretending there is some moral motivation or that Russia has proven ambitions beyond securing the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics, Crimea and its own borders.

Peace is what is needed, with rational solutions and an honest recognition that there are at least two sides to this problem.

Perhaps most importantly so far as Britain is concerned, the country has plenty of pressing problems at home. The NHS is in dire need of support, people are struggling with a cost of living crisis and many are unable to heat their homes.

This is not the time to be spending billions on weapons for Ukraine that will do nothing to solve the crisis.