Kiev’s maximalist demands make peace impossible

Among the many items of collateral damage of the way in which the Russia-Ukraine war that began on 24 February has developed is a collapse in the credibility of western media outside the West. Western governments take as gospel truth any utterance made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In turn, practically all media outlets regurgitate what their governments say Zelenskyy said. For whatever be the suffering that has been inflicted on the people he administers, Zelenskyy has been elevated to sainthood in a manner that suggests that a Nobel Peace Prize is not far distant. Given that it is his insistence on not talking to Russia unless the military of that once and possibly future superpower vacates every bit of the territory now occupied by it. Next, what the saintly President of Ukraine seeks is for the Russian military to step aside while Ukrainian militias flooded with arms, cash and training from NATO member states subsequently make short work of local formations that are averse to having their language and culture cancelled by Kiev, as has been occurring since the 2014 coup against an elected (albeit Russian-speaking) President that regime change enthusiast Victoria Nuland is proud of. That Ukrainians overall have had their lives upended by that act of divine intervention is of little consequence, as is the reality of the population of Iraq, Syria and Libya having descended into hell after having been liberated courtesy NATO. Afghanistan is a special case, where the population saw its situation improved after the Northern Alliance with mainly US support liberated that country from the Taliban, only to have that militia revive as a consequence of serial errors made by that alliance since then, climaxing in the Trump Surrender Document signed by the US at Doha in 2020 and operationalised by President Biden. The Afghan people and their military were left to dry, much as Najibullah had been once President Clinton first installed the Taliban in office in 1995, partly if not majorly on the urging of US-based oil companies and their lobbyists. For some reason, their travail, not to mention that being endured by populations across the world, seems not to have caught the attention of Biden, Macron, Scholz and possibly now Sunak in the way that what is taking place in Ukraine has, a point noted by many in Asia, Africa and South America, and increasingly by several within the US as well who in 2020 had voted Joe Biden into the White House.
Zelenskyy has now claimed that a “dirty bomb” (an admixture of conventional explosives and radioactive substances) is in the process of being used by Vladimir Putin on Ukrainian territory so that the Kremlin can blame the future Nobel Prize man for such an atrocity. The world has seen what took place in Bucha, when rows and rows of corpses were strewn across streets, none of whom has been identified by the Ukrainian authorities, something that ought to be easy. The bodies once identified could give clues as to who carried out the atrocity, and if it were Russians who did it, there needed to be an inquiry involving them, so that they may seek reek in shame. By simply asking the world to take Zelenskyy’s word that it was a Russian atrocity, those numerous parts of the world where Zelenskyy has not yet been canonised are sceptical of such an allegation absent a transparent, independent inquiry. Were any “dirty bomb” explosion to take place on territory controlled by the Kiev regime, it is certain that only those powers active in supporting the regime would participate in the investigation, with Russians and those seen as less than zealous in blind backing for the Kiev regime would be excluded. It would as usual only be the word of the Kiev regime, although that is sufficient to ensure that CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and other such media outlets fall in line without demur. Sadly, the credibility of such media outlets has been so damaged by their Pyongyang-style reliance on the official line that few outside the charmed circle that has elevated every word of the saintly President Zelenskyy and his associates into holy writ. Meanwhile, a war that has caused havoc in the matter of climate action, food security and overall growth continues to drag on as a consequence of the refusal of President Zelenskyy to budge even a smidgen from the maximalist position he has taken since the start of this horrible war.
MDN