Vitaly V. Kuzmin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Would that Churchill be still among us
A close friend with excellent credentials to discuss international politics and economics recently told me that with possible settlement talks starting between Russia and Ukraine it appears Ukraine will gain the same result they could have obtained without war. Perhaps so.
I believe Russia will not stop until they have established proto states in the Donbas region (which will eventually join Russia) and taken the entire southern coast of Ukraine, tying Russia directly to Crimea and also to the Transnistria district bordering Moldova. They may take Ukraine east of the Dnieper River as well. With or without east Ukraine, this would enable Russia to control “neutral” Ukraine economically by controlling exports and imports via the Black Sea. Control of the Ukrainian breadbasket of wheat and other grains will add to his commodity armamentarium. A puppet friendly government will not be necessary. Once successful, he may consider taking Moldova as well in a few years, or more likely turn his attention to taking at least part of Estonia, where Russia has a naval base and would like better access and control similar to Crimea. Years ago, he noted the many Russian speakers in Estonia (some significant %) and his pledge to defend and support any and all Russian speakers no matter where if he felt they were being treated badly.
Western nations set the stage for Hitler taking back the Ruhr and taking Sudetenland, finally Czechoslovakia and Austria, by their fumbled and short-sighted revenge in the Versailles Treaty; now we and NATO have done similar with our pledges not to move NATO1 inch east in 1990 then rapidly threatening Russia by extending NATO to prior Warsaw Pact countries. We finally put the nails in Ukraine’s coffin by repeatedly encouraging them to enter NATO as well as engineering an anti-Russian Coup in 2014. Prior Presidents including Obama, Trump, and now Biden did not take Putin seriously after Georgia and especially after Crimea. We have led the Ukrainians to the slaughterhouse, and now we cluck-cluck in disapproval as they are shredded for the Russian landfill.
© Nik Bednarski, M.D. 2022
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