The Unreasonableness of European Political Elites Prevents Peace in the Ukraine-Russia War

The war in Ukraine, now entering its fourth year, has left the European Union and much of the West on the wrong side of history. This conflict, deeply rooted in the complex geopolitics of Russia, Ukraine, and the broader Western alliance, was—at least from Russia’s vantage point—never merely about territorial disputes or nationalistic ambition. It was instead about NATO expansion and the ongoing subjugation of Russian populations in the Donbas by Kiev in the wake of the Maidan Revolution in 2014. The response to these legitimate Russian concerns by the US and Europe has been short-sighted and historically misguided, and owed to a substantial failure in the West’s security policy design and diplomatic foresight. 

Ukraine’s potential accession to NATO would have represented a significant shift in the balance of power on Russia’s doorstep. Rather than an imperial ambition, as often portrayed by the West, this was a matter of national survival for Russia.  Despite Russia's repeated warnings, Western policymakers, particularly in the US and the EU, dismissed these concerns, choosing to expand NATO right up to Russia’s borders.

 Maidan and the Neglect of Russia’s National Security Interests 

The situation took a decisive turn after the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine, which was largely instigated by the United States. The revolution overthrew then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who had been seen as pro-Russian, and installed the anti-Russian Petro Poroshenko as the new president. This shift, backed by Washington and much of the EU, sowed deeper divisions within Ukraine, particularly in the Russian-speaking eastern and southern regions.

Instead of seeking peace and reconciliation and preparing Ukraine as a neutral bridge for political exchange between Russia and Europe, the West pushed Ukraine into an arms race that ultimately escalated the conflict. [for the rise in Ukraine's defense budget from 2013 until before the outbreak of the war see https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2022/02/russian-statesmanship-against-ukraine.html]. Feeling its hand forced, Russia moved toward the annexation of Crimea in 2014. From Russia’s perspective, this move was a necessary and strategic response to the destabilization of Ukraine and the growing military presence of NATO forces near its borders. Crimea, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, held immense strategic significance. The possibility of Ukraine joining NATO posed a direct threat to Russia’s access to the Black Sea, making the annexation of Crimea an inevitable step in Russia’s security strategy.

As the Maidan Revolution unfolded, Russian-speaking minorities in these regions felt increasingly marginalized by the new Kiev government. Poroshenko’s policies, including restrictive language laws and the suppression of Russian cultural identity, led to a violent backlash that escalated into a full-blown civil conflict, with Russia stepping in to protect its ethnic kin and safeguard its strategic interests.

To quell the conflict and to seek a peaceful resolution, the Minsk agreements were established in 2014 and 2015 . These agreements called for a ceasefire, decentralization of power to the eastern regions, and the protection of minority rights. However, the West, particularly the United States, France, and Germany consistently undermined these agreements by funneling military aid into Ukraine, effectively transforming the country into a NATO proxy. The militarization of Ukraine, with the tacit support of Washington and Brussels, should prepare the country for an eventual confrontation with Russia.

The misinterpretation of Russia’s actions as purely imperialistic is one of the most glaring mistakes made by Western leaders. Moscow’s repeated claims about NATO expansion as a ˃red line˂ were not mere rhetoric. For years, Russia warned that the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO would lead to severe consequences. Yet these warnings were ignored, and the expansionist policies of the West continued unabated.

 The Biden Administration’s Role in Escalation

As the conflict intensified in 2022, the role of the Biden administration became increasingly central. The Biden White House, influenced by neoconservative ideologues, rejected proposals for peace and explicitly instructed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy—elected in 2019—to continue the war and reject neutrality with Russia. This hardline stance pushed Ukraine further into the conflict, with the United States actively supplying weapons, intelligence, and military assistance.

Despite Russia’s repeated calls for negotiations, the Biden administration, supported by European leaders, refused to consider diplomatic solutions, ensuring the war's continuation with Ukraine caught in the middle as a proxy in a broader geopolitical struggle.

In essence, the negation of Russia’s security interests set the stage for the conflict we have witnessed for the past three years.

 A Call for Negotiation and a Peaceful Resolution

The war in Ukraine has been devastating for all parties involved, with countless lives lost, entire regions of the country devastated,  and immense economic damage all across Europe. Yet, despite this, the EU and its member states continue to push for a military solution. The misconception that Russia is the sole aggressor has dominated European political discourse, ignoring the broader historical and strategic context.

However, a closer examination reveals that Russia’s military operation could even be justified under international law, particularly referencing Article 51 of the UN-Charter, which allows for self-defense in the face of armed attack. In this sense, Russia was acting to protect its nationals in the Donbass region and to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, which was perceived as an existential threat.

A peaceful resolution will require direct negotiations between the United States and Russia—ideally between the Trump administration and Putin—without European interference. France, Germany, and the UK risk prolonging the conflict by insisting on continued military engagement. A resolution that respects Russia’s security concerns while maintaining a clipped Ukraine’s sovereignty is the only viable path forward.

 A Lost War—What Now? The Way Forward

Although it was clear to unbiased observers from the outset that Ukraine could not win a military struggle against Russia, European political elites insisted otherwise. Now, the responsibility falls upon President Trump—who, unlike the European Commission, acknowledges the need for accommodating legitimate security interests of other nations—to negotiate peace directly with President Putin.

Ukraine's leadership, under Zelenskyy, has demonstrated an unwillingness to pursue diplomacy, making it imperative that external actors, particularly the United States, step in to broker a ceasefire. European leaders, including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron, continue to justify prolonging the war with baseless claims of a potential Russian offensive against Central and Western Europe.

The reality is that Russia has won this war; Ukraine has lost roughly a quarter of its territory, and only a swift ceasefire and peace agreement can prevent further loss of life and destruction. The notion that Russia intends to invade the Baltics or Western Europe is a fabrication promoted by warmongers and arms manufacturers who benefit from continued conflict.

For three decades since the end of the Cold War, Russia has adhered to agreements while the West has repeatedly broken its promises, from NATO expansion to the Minsk Accords and the INF Treaty. A peace agreement signed by the relevant parties should suffice to maintain stability without the need for external peacekeeping forces. It can be expected that at least Russia will abide by the agreement.

Europe must now acknowledge its policy failures and cease obstructing efforts to end the war. Once Ukraine is pacified, Europe can find its lost relevance in international affairs by contributing to Ukraine’s reconstruction and promoting a new security framework that avoids antagonistic policies and unnecessary military escalation while bringing Russia back into the Western orbit.

With Trump poised to correct the mistakes of his predecessor, the world has a renewed chance at peace. If the West learns from past miscalculations, a stable and cooperative security order could emerge—one that was envisioned in the early 1990s before being derailed by unilateral and imperial hubris in Washington and Brussels.

 

The Responsibility for this War in Ukraine is on the West's Side

---

Disclaimer: I am a friend of Europe and the US, but not necessarily of their ruling political class or policy decisions. None of my criticism is intended to be malicious or adversarial. It is only meant to enlighten the discourse, broaden perspectives, and improve political relations and decisions.

---

Although Western political elites and their media unanimously condemn President Putin's decision to recognize the breakaway regions of Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) in eastern Ukraine as autonomous people's republics, Putin's strategic maneuver can be seen as one of last resort.

Donetsk and Lugansk separated from Kiev following the Western-backed Maidan coup of 2014. They did not tolerate the deposition of the incumbent President Yanukovych and the installation of Poroshenko, whom they perceived as a puppet of Washington and Berlin. Poroshenko’s policies opened Ukraine to the political, military, and economic influence of the US and the West. Since then, the Ukrainian leadership has rejected—disregarding the Minsk I and II agreements—meaningful discussions on the status of its eastern territories, even resorting to a civil war-like conflict in an attempt to forcibly reintegrate the republics.

In 2014, following the Maidan revolution, it became immediately clear that Putin would not passively accept Ukraine's potential NATO membership, which could result in the expulsion of Russia from its Black Sea ports in Crimea. For the first time, Putin was confronted with an anti-Russian regime in Kiev. This prompted the annexation of Crimea and support for the separatists in Donbass, who opposed Ukraine’s transformation into a NATO base. The predominantly Russian population in these areas also resisted the Ukrainian regime's efforts to eliminate Russian traditions, language, and culture.

The annexation of Crimea and support for the eastern territories should have been predictable had the US and Europe taken the time to consider Russia's legitimate strategic interests and conducted an overdue, intelligent evaluation of the region’s security dynamics. How would the United States react, for instance, if Mexico allied with Russia and Putin stationed massive troops along the southern border?

Western political elites have not made a single meaningful effort to address Russia's legitimate security concerns. Instead, they have pursued ruthless regional and global dominance, which has shaped international relations—and particularly relations with Russia—for over a quarter-century.

Resolving the crisis in Ukraine would have only required a reassessment of Washington, Brussels, and Berlin’s strategic miscalculations and a respect for Russia’s legitimate security interests. Unfortunately, the current political leadership in the US and Europe lacks the necessary restraint to peacefully resolve the conflict.

For example, neither the weeks-long Russian troop build-up on the Ukrainian border nor Russia’s security demands—outlined in a letter to Western leaders prior to the military action—led to any acknowledgment of Russia’s national security concerns by the US, EU, or NATO. They denied Putin any opportunity for diplomacy. The blame for the collapse of dialogue and the first step toward Russian aggression lies solely with the West.

While public and international discourse on this issue often focuses on the Kremlin and the White House, little attention is paid to Ukrainian President Zelensky’s role in the current crisis. Had he defined his country’s national security interests wisely and sensibly within the broader geopolitical context, particularly in relation to Russia, he might have avoided the conflict and preserved his country’s territorial integrity. Instead, driven by his Western backers and perhaps megalomaniacal ambitions, he pushed Ukraine toward NATO membership and the stationing of nuclear weapons—decisions that overstepped the reasonable limits of an adequate security strategy.

A historical analogy might help illustrate this point. In 1955, a decade after World War II and following ten years of Allied occupation, Austria was asked to choose between NATO membership or accepting neutrality as a prerequisite for regaining its sovereignty. Had Austria rejected neutrality and joined NATO, it would have provoked the Soviet Union, which had already expanded its defensive alliance, the Warsaw Pact, to Hungary and Czechoslovakia. This would have been seen as a direct threat to the security of the USSR, inevitably leading to a military response.

In a geopolitically precarious situation, no country should use political resolve to fulfill power-hungry ambitions. In Ukraine’s case, a neutral stance—eschewing NATO membership and halting arms-related support from the US and its allies—could have paved the way for a diplomatic solution. Had President Zelensky pursued this course, he would have gone down in history as a statesman. Instead, he will likely be remembered as the comedian he once was before his presidency, a role he has stubbornly maintained in office.

In truth, Zelensky and his predecessor Poroshenko, along with their American and European allies, have been undermining the country since the Euro-Maidan coup of 2014. In just eight years, they have managed to destroy Ukraine’s economy, militarize the nation, and exacerbate a series of crises. According to the Ptukha Institute for Demography and Social Studies, Ukraine’s defense budget at the start of the war was six times higher than it had been in 2013, and the country experienced significant economic recession, energy crises, and demographic shifts. Between 2014 and 2021, over one million Ukrainians obtained Russian citizenship, and more than 600,000 received work permits in the EU. One in four Ukrainians wants to leave the country, and nearly two-thirds believe the nation is heading in the wrong direction—issues barely mentioned in Western media.

Putin never intended to go to war with Ukraine or NATO, nor is he driven by a desire to resurrect the borders of the old Soviet Union. These are absurd accusations, often repeated by the US president and European governments under the influence of the arms lobby and irrational Russophobia. The bottom line is that Western leaders missed their opportunities to de-escalate the situation, and now they must bear the consequences of their folly. They have tormented the Russian bear for far too long, neglecting its concerns, and now the bear has taken the strategic initiative.

The senile Biden, the neoconservative warmongers in the US State Department, the subservient EU leadership, and NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg—all now stand like doused poodles, helpless in the face of their own failures. In their desperation, they have imposed a new sanctions regime on Russia, further alienating the country, driving it into the arms of China, and hastening the economic decline of much of Central and Western Europe. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who follows US directives to the detriment of his country and its neighbors, immediately halted the ratification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was meant to provide much-needed natural gas to Central and Western Europe at low cost.

The amateurish circles of American and European policy experts—the so-called national security officials in the US State Department and the European Commission—still insist on the correctness of their failed strategic paradigm. They call Putin an imperialist invader and a violator of international law for recognizing the breakaway provinces in eastern Ukraine and coming to their aid. Yet, they conveniently forget that the US and its transatlantic partners have often violated international law in recent decades. They based much of their foreign policy on the deliberate disregard of international law, especially the principle of non-intervention. Despite having no legitimate justification for their interventions—such as in Libya and Syria—they now demonize Putin for a strategic move he was cornered into making, one with legitimate reasons from the perspective of Russia’s national survival.

The true causes of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as briefly outlined here, remain entirely ignored in the public discourse. Western governments, particularly the United States, refuse to acknowledge their role in this crisis.

If Western foreign policy circles fail to recognize that any approach to international relations—whether bilateral, multilateral, or global—that ignores the geopolitical and strategic interests of other nations is destined to fail, the consequences for European and global security could be catastrophic.

For now, it is crucial that the political centers of power in the transatlantic world maintain composure, admit their role in the escalation, and avoid plunging the world into a potential Third World War.

 

 

 

 

 

 

UKRAINE AND THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY

After the follies in the Middle East – letting down the established political leaders in Egypt, Libya, and Syria and supporting dubious insurgent movements – the U.S. and the European Union's irreparable foreign policy screw-ups continue in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

The Ukraine debacle, instigated by the U.S. and the European Union, is being exacerbated by the U.S. The respective governments have maneuvered themselves into seemingly irreversible positions. In the U.S., the disregard for geopolitical factors and geostrategic interests appears to be ubiquitous. In addition to the always clueless U.S. president and his administration – this author has long stopped wondering what type of "experts" advise this government – a host of senators and congressmen from both parties joined the inane chorus of foreign policy ignorance. Many pundits and op-ed writers set the stage for yet another policy failure when they pushed Russia's pathetic hostility and the Russian president.

How about some perspective on the whole affair? Besides the historical fact that the Crimean peninsula has been Russian and under Russian influence ever since Catherine the Great?
 
Mr. Yanukovych, the legitimate president of Ukraine, was elected in 2010 in free and fair elections as attested to by the OSCE.  However, he sealed his fate when he chose a custom union offered by Putin over a deal presented by the E.U. - $15 billion in loans and favorable rates on natural gas and oil versus loans and credits tied to economic reforms monitored by the IMF but no certainty of full E.U. membership.

The protesters subsequently forming in Kyiv – not all of them, but many of them – struck up tents and quarters, set up barricades, engaged the police in violent struggles by using Molotov cocktails, seized and burned down the headquarters of the ruling political party, and demanded the overthrow of the regime. It didn't help President Yanukovych much that he approved a full amnesty to all those arrested during the uprisings and offered to form a coalition government with the opposing party until the new presidential elections scheduled for 2015. The radical left overthrew Viktor Yanukovych, impeached him after seizing the parliament, and chased him out of the country. Does this look like democracy in action or rather like a coup d'etat no sovereign nation could accept? Is this the kind of political demonstration to which US-senator McCain should lend his support by flying into Kyiv and help taking sides against a legitimate government?

It is not the alleged old-Soviet type of imperialism of the ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin that has maneuvered him into this precarious situation of possibly losing Ukraine and forcefully annexing the Crimea and perhaps the eastern parts of Ukraine, alienating himself and setting the stage for a new Cold War. The transatlantic realm's failed policies generated this quagmire and pushed it to the point of no return. If anybody finds themselves on the wrong side of history in all this, it is Mr. Obama in conjunction with Democratic ideologues and Republican neocons.

This author participated in the educational civil-military efforts within the framework of NATO's Partnership for Peace initiative in the 1990ies in eastern and southeastern Europe. He knows all too well what would have to happen now had the proponents of ignorant foreign policies gotten their way and brought Ukraine (and Georgia for that matter) to full NATO membership.

The military outreach of Russia to Crimea and probably other parts of Ukraine would invoke Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, meaning an attack on one is considered an attack on all. Armed intervention and an outright war would now be inevitable.