West’s hypocrisy paraded for public consumption
The touching words some visiting Western leaders offered a group of Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv on Saturday, in an attempt to show their solidarity and enhance the morale of the Ukrainian military, only served to do the opposite. The frowns and doubtful looks of their listeners indicated they hoped to hear concrete plans to end the fighting rather than promises of new financial and military assistance and training that can allow them to fight “for as long as it takes”, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised.
To better explain to Kyiv as well as their own people why their “generous assistance” had not yet materialized into Ukraine’s victory, or even progress on the ground, after so many Ukrainian lives have been lost, the G7 leaders have tried to pass the buck to third parties.
Apart from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Iran, which were as before criticized for their support of Russia in the document issued by the G7 leaders to mark the second anniversary of the outbreak of the conflict, China notably appeared for the first time as a cause for “concern”, due to its alleged material support for Russia.
“We express our concern about transfers to Russia from businesses in the People’s Republic of China of dual-use materials and components for weapons and equipment for military production,” the document reads. That charge is testimony to the group’s rising guilt at the nightmare of attrition they are prolonging in Ukraine.
China has maintained normal, legal and productive trade with the two sides of the conflict from day one of the Ukraine crisis. The G7’s accusations have no validity.
The G7 leaders would do better explaining why there is no mention of India in the document, whose imports of Russian oil and gas rose markedly after the crisis began, enabling it to become a reliable reseller to the West over the past two years. The West’s price capping of Russia’s oil exports, aimed at reducing Moscow’s energy income, has actually contributed to the tremendous profits India has been making through its buying low and selling high of Russian oil.
They are also silent on the fact that many US refineries have actually never stopped processing Russiasourced crude oil that has been ceaselessly flowing into the US market through Indian agents, and that oil is resold to the European market at a high price in many forms of refined energy products.
Kyiv should have seen through the West’s hypocrisy a long time ago, as the sanctions it tries to impose on third-party country entities for their alleged support to Moscow, with the United States’ sanctions being the representative, are not to help Ukraine as it claims, but serve the West’s own narrow ends.
The G7 members were well aware, from the very beginning, of the use value of the Ukraine crisis, the porous structure of their self-serving “sanctions”, and the inevitability of the protraction of the crisis. But they still demand that the Ukrainians continue to fight.