Jaw jaw is always better than war war

It is now a year since the start of Russian President Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Alongside the hideous hike in gas prices, maybe we have also been gas-lighted by the relentless demonisation of Russia.

The Ukrainian war can be seen as the result of US/Western policies, namely the aim of turning Ukraine into a client state.

The war did not begin when the Russian military rolled in on February 24, 2022. It was a USbacked coup in 2014 that tipped Ukraine into civil war.

Ukraine’s 2019 constitution had pledges to both NATO and EU membership.

US and NATO forces carried out joint exercises with the Ukrainian military. Russia’s incursion can be, not justified, but at least understood, as a defensive pushback against the prospect of a territory that had been part of Russia for centuries being absorbed into hostile alliances.

Ukraine was the culmination of decades of relentless NATO and EU expansion right up to Russia’s borders.

If a balloon was enough to cause a panic in the US, how was Russia supposed to react to hostile forces pitching up on its doorstep?

Jaw jaw is better than war war, as Winston Churchill once said.

In other words, if NATO Governments really cared about the Ukrainians, they would be seeking to end the carnage with a ceasefire and peace talks.

Instead, the policy seems to be to prolong the war to cause maximum harm to Russia.

US President Biden let the cat out of the bag when he said that Mr Putin “cannot remain in power”.

Clearly, President Putin is not going to leave office as part of a peace deal.

So Washington and NATO are not even going through the motions of actually trying to end the war.

President Putin may have many faults, but perhaps he isn’t quite the Prince of Darkness that we have been led to believe. David Akroyd, via email