Tag: Zelensky
What to expect in Russia’s winter offensive in Ukraine
M. K. Bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline | November 29, 2022
Wading through the 18,000-word transcript of an hours-long meeting that President Vladimir Putin took with the “soldiers’ mothers” last Friday in Moscow, one gets the impression that the fighting in Ukraine may continue well into 2023 — and even beyond.
In a most revealing remark, Putin acknowledged that Moscow blundered in 2014 by leaving Donbass an unfinished business — unlike Crimea — by allowing itself to be lured into the ceasefire brokered by Germany and France and the Minsk agreements.
Moscow took some time to realise that Germany and France connived with then leadership in Kiev to scuttle the implementation of Minsk accord. Then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko admitted in a series of interviews with western news outlets in recent months, including on Germany’s Deutsche Welle television and Radio Free Europe’s Ukrainian unit, that the 2015 ceasefire was a distraction intended to buy time for Kiev to rebuild its military.
Read More »No end in view for Ukraine war
M. K. Bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline | November 10, 2022
The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s meetings with Ukrainian leaders, including President Vladimir Zelensky, in Kiev has created a lot of confusion and misperceptions. One one side, the White House maintains that the trip aimed “to underscore the United States’ steadfast support to Ukraine and its people.” The readout stated that Sullivan also affirmed “the continued provision of economic and humanitarian assistance, as well as ongoing efforts with partners to hold Russia accountable for its aggression.”
However, unnamed US officials gave the spin that Sullivan’s real mission was to “nudge” Zelensky to negotiate with Moscow and urge that “Kyiv must show its willingness to end the war reasonably and peacefully.” Politico later reported that Zelensky indeed heeded Sullivan’s “soft nudging”. The US media also reported that the US officials have been nudging the Ukrainians for sometime.
Read More »Jeffrey Sachs on NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine and attaining peace
Farooque Chowdhury
The Ukraine War is today’s most important geostrategic issue. Along with capital flow/investment, trade and profit, it’s impacting the global dominance map. At the end of the war, significant changes in geopolitics will appear. Different parts of world capital are behaving/moving in different ways; and a few parts are interacting with, pushing/pulling each other, at times, in antithetical ways. This is significant, and also dangerous for the world comity.
Jeffrey Sachs, 68, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, played a leading role in advising the Kremlin’s economic policy in the early 1990s. In a recent interview (Sachs: “On Ukraine, Joe Biden doesn’t want to compromise”, https://www.corriere.it/politica/22_maggio_01/sachs-joe-biden-doesn-t-want-to-compromise-67c95d0a-c8a1-11ec-85c4-7c8d22958d02.shtml, © RIPRODUZIONE RISERVATA), Jeffrey Sachs discussed the war in Ukraine, its background, the US approach to Russia and Ukraine, sanctions imposed on Russia, Russia’s position, and attaining peace in Ukraine. He said: “The big mistake of the Americans is to believe that the NATO alliance will defeat Russia.” Jeffrey Sachs finds US’ “tragic mistakes” regarding Russia.To him, the US forgot Keynes’s lesson on the long-term costs of humiliating a defeated enemy.
Read More »Monthly Review Editorial । April 2022 (Volume 73, Number 11)
Monthly Review | 2022, Volume 73, Issue 11 (April 2022)
War is a crime against humanity and today war between the great powers threatens total annihilation. The only answer is to give peace a chance, which requires finding a solution that guarantees the security of all parties to the civil war in Ukraine as well as Russia. In the longer view, we must recognize that war is endemic to capitalism, and both Russia and the NATO powers are capitalist. Only a return to the socialist path in both Ukraine and Russia can offer a lasting solution.
In light of the current events in Ukraine we have decided to make the Notes From the Editors for the April 2022 issue of Monthly Review immediately available. —Eds.
As we write these notes at the beginning of March 2022, the eight-year limited civil war in Ukraine has turned into a full-scale war. This represents a turning point in the New Cold War and a great human tragedy. By threatening global nuclear holocaust, these events are also now endangering the entire world. To understand the origins of the New Cold War and the onset of the current Russian entry into the Ukrainian civil war, it is necessary to go back to decisions associated with the creation of the New World Order made in Washington when the previous Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Within months, Paul Wolfowitz, then under secretary of defense for policy in the George H. W. Bush administration, issued a Defense Policy Guidance stating: “Our policy [after the fall of the Soviet Union] must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor.” Wolfowitz emphasized that “Russia will remain the strongest military power in Eurasia.” Extraordinary efforts were therefore necessary to weaken Russia’s geopolitical position permanently and irrevocably, before it would be in a position to recover, bringing into the Western strategic orbit all of those states now surrounding it that had formerly either been parts of the Soviet Union or that had fallen within its sphere of influence (“Excerpts from Pentagon’s Plan: ‘Preventing the Re-Emergence of a New Rival’,” New York Times, March 8, 1992).
Read More »Behind the thick cloud over Ukraine
Farooque Chowdhury
Countercurrents | March 12, 2022
“…In some countries, the political turf for governance will turn hot for the present faction of the ruling capital – a part of arithmetic of this war.
“Whatever the last calculation of gain and loss, the work of redrawing the map of hegemony by the world imperialists has begun as Russia will make a gain in a number of terms. At the end of this part of fire spewing war, as compromises will follow, the dominating part of the world capitalist system has to give away a certain amount of space to Russia – a net gain that will be made by Moscow. Now, that, extent and form of space, is being ascertained in capital cities and cities including Versailles in formal and informal meetings.
“Ukraine has been made a pawn in this weeks-long war…
A thick cloud is now shrouding Ukraine, once a part of the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Sufferings of about two million people from Ukraine are now overwhelming all around the world, as sufferings of refugees in many parts of the globe always pain humanity. There’s the dark cloud of a confrontation over the land. The darkness of imperialist intrigues and intervention covers everything in and around Ukraine.
Two million people have been made homeless. They are fleeing away from their abodes, but they don’t know their destiny, and address of a peaceful life. There’s cold, there’s hunger and there’s fear haunting them all the time. The old, the infirm, the persons unable to walk don’t know the path to survival and shelter. The children, walking along parents or being carried by parents, don’t understand the intricacies behind their suffering, background of the burning buildings they are leaving behind.
Read More »Ukraine Crisis: Aspects You will not find in the Mainstream Media
There are many aspects to the ongoing Ukraine crisis which are not reflected in the mainstream media coverage. JoP feels that it is its duty to bring analyses of those aspects to the attention of our readership. In that spirit, we publish four posts from Indian Punchline which may help readers understand the ongoing situation in Ukraine. However, we would like to clarify that the articles posted here are for non-profit, non-commercial, educational purpose. The views expressed in this article are that of its author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the JoP
Russia adjusts to “sanctions from hell”
Zelensky rubbishes Biden’s war on Russia
China’s signposts post-Ukraine
Ukraine faces defeat
War in Ukraine: We all lose
Jean McCollister
Countercurrents | March 13, 2022
We are all losers in this conflict.
It didn’t have to come to this. If leaders and policymakers had shown some wisdom and understanding over the last few decades, things never would have reached this point. In fairness, a few of them did, only to be overridden by the short-sighted, the greedy, the arrogant, the ignorant, the power-hungry and the downright evil.
Clearly we all lose in a nuclear conflagration, a distinct possibility in these chaotic, reckless times.
Read More »On a Knife’s Edge in Ukraine
Joe Lauria
Consortium News | March 11, 2022
The choice is stark for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: accept that his defeat is inevitable and accept Russian terms for surrender or continue to seek a way for NATO to become perilously involved in his fight against Moscow.
Russia is making three demands of Kiev to end the war on its terms: recognize Crimea as part of Russia; grant independence to Lugansk and Donetsk in the Donbass and enshrine Ukraine as a neutral state in its constitution, meaning it will never join NATO. A 90-minute meeting in Turkey on Thursday between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers resulted in no progress at all towards a solution, as this phase of the war enters its third week.
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