At what point does simple spill over into simplistic? It’s not always an easy call, least of all amid the fog of war – any war, let alone the shifting currents and swirls of one linked in diverse ways to a WW3 some say has already begun – but here’s my overarching take on where we’re at with the proxy war on Russia in Ukraine.
- The war was provoked over decades by a US-led West which …
- … underestimated Russia’s economic and military capacity to fight a long war of attrition, while overestimating its own ability to defeat her through punitive sanctions and arming Ukraine. It matters not here whether the West truly thought Ukrainians could win, or used them as cannon fodder to weaken Russia while tying her down in a ‘forever war’ to allow the US to pivot – with Europe picking up the Ukraine bill and Israel managing, however ineptly, its interests in the Middle East – to its main rival, China. 1
- After three years of deceiving us on both the causes of the war and its progress, ‘our’ media have these past few months been coming clean on the latter. Russia will win.
- Trump took office bragging he’d end the conflict in a day. When his belief – that his deal-making acumen would prove more powerful than both Russia’s security needs and an RF president holding all the cards – hit a brick wall nyet, his limited attention span hit stack overflow. “Biden’s war” became his, and Trump proved – in Ukraine as in Iran – more the continuity president than either his critics or admirers had believed. To put it another way, even in this duopoly masquerading as a democracy, nominally elected presidents do not really run foreign policy. It’s the deep state, stupid!
- Meanwhile on the other side of the pond, the same European leaders telling their citizens there is no alternative to ‘austerity’ leap to do Washington’s bidding by raising ‘defence’ spending from 2% to 5% of GDP. Since the why of that was the focus of Road to WW3: Part 3, I’ll add only that stoking Russophobia is now driven not just by DC diktat but by their own political survival. What else do Merz and Starmer, Macron and von der Leyen, have to offer?
Again: simple and simplistic aren’t always easily separated (except in hindsight). But give my take a provisional acceptance, why don’t you, as you hear the two Alexes speaking yesterday for twenty-five minutes at The Duran? The dialogue, an interview of Alexander Mercouris by Alex Christoforou, proceeds as follows:
- the military situation between Bhakmut and the all important River Dnieper to the west;
- when and how Zelensky will be replaced – probably by Zaluzhny, the military chief he fired two years ago;
- how a new face in Kiev will alter neither battlefield realities nor Russia’s peace terms;
- how both EU and UK leaders are now committed not so much to war with Russia in 2027 as, only marginally less alarming in a nuclear age, they are to threatening it.
* * *
- As Part 4 of Road to WW3 will argue, it’s a mistake to view Ukraine in isolation. See the 2019 Rand Report, Extending Russia, cited in my post on the failed Kazakhstan coup of January 2022. Note also how US Senator Lindsey Graham – who receives $millions from America’s military industrial complex – defended the $billions in military aid to Kiev as “the best money we ever spent“.
“What else do Merz and Starmer, Macron and von der Leyen, have to offer?”
An interesting question in the light of this report which has been doing the rounds over the past few days:
https://www.theinteldrop.org/2025/08/04/britains-secret-war-russian-commando-seizes-high-ranking-british-agents-in-ukraine-war/
Particularly in the light of the SMO (Special Military Operation) now being reclassified by the Russians as an ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation).
“The deliberate misrepresentation, invocation of diplomatic immunity, and demand for prisoner-of-war status for what were clearly covert military actors constitute a serious abuse of international norms and treaty obligations.
If proven, these acts represent not only a violation of the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, but also a brazen attempt by the United Kingdom to fuel proxy warfare under the guise of NATO solidarity.
The case of Colonels Blake and Carroll must be interpreted as part of a broader pattern of illegal hybrid warfare tactics employed by Western powers that continue to undermine global stability and erode the integrity of international law.”
Larry Johnson……..
https://sonar21.com/russian-special-ops-forces-capture-three-british-soldiers/
…….suggests that Witkoff may be being prepared for a mission to Moscow over the matter and goes so far as to outline the likely conversation between Putin and Witkoff:
” Putin: Mr. Witkoff, if the Mexican drug cartels were launching drones into Texas and killing civilians in San Antonio and Austin, would the United States take steps to eliminate that threat?
Witkoff: Yes Mr. President, we would not permit those attacks to go unanswered.
Putin: And what would Mr. Trump’s reaction be if, after he ordered Delta Force to raid the headquarters of the drug cartel, your soldiers captured two Chinese military officers and one Chinese intelligence officer, and that they possessed detailed documents outlining plans for future attacks inside the United States?
Witkoff: Well… uhh, umm… I am pretty sure that President Trump would want to make an example of them in order to send a strong message to the Chinese to cease all actions that threaten the lives of American citizens.
Putin: Precisely. Now you understand our position with respect to these British terrorists. They were not operating under the protection of the Geneva Convention, they are terrorist instigators and will be punished according to Russian law. However, there is a way out of this dilemma for both Britain and NATO: End your financial and military support for Ukraine immediately; recognize Russia’s sovereignty over the Republics of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporhyzhia and Kherson; withdraw your missiles from Poland and Romania, which present a potential existential threat to my country; end the economic sanctions the West has unjustly imposed on Russia; return our stolen assets, including the properties in the United States that President Obama wrongfully seized; and agree to sit down and negotiate, using the draft treaty I presented to President Biden in December 2021.
Witkoff: (Gulp and stuttering) Mr. President… I… uh… I’m not empowered to make any of those concessions. I must consult with President Trump.
Putin: Good. Make sure he understands our position, and thank you for your attention to this matter. Have a safe trip home.”
A situation which brings to mind an old school playground rhyme from sixty years ago:
“Have you ever had your balls trapped in a mangle
When some silly bugger turned the handle?”
Looks like the CTD (Crash Test Dummy (Starmer)) is finding out what that means.
Another possible explanation for the raid which captured those UK ‘official mercenaries’ (if it occurred) is that Russia has warned that the UK is planning a ‘tanker provocation’ false-flag incident to try to limit Russian oil sales. So: if UK false-flag goes ahead = Russian public trial of British Army mercenaries, release of captured documentation, followed by sentence and execution (or last minute Presidential reprieve to 20 years hard labour in Siberia, followed by repatriation in return for substantial UK concessions) = ‘Collapse of stout party!’