Ukraine could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths and lost less land if it had reached a peace deal with Russia before the conflict began last February, former US President Donald Trump told NBC News in an interview aired on Sunday.

The loss of Ukrainian territory to Russia is “something that could have been negotiated,” Trump told NBC host Kristen Welker, adding that “a lot of people expected” Kiev to abandon its claims to “Crimea and other parts of the country” in exchange for peace.

“So they could have made a deal where there’s less territory [lost] than Russia has already taken,”Trump continued. “They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

By “other parts of the country,” Trump was likely referring to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, whose sovereignty Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized three days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began. Following referendums last September, both regions have now joined the Russian Federation, along with the formerly Ukrainian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhye. Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in 2014.

https://www.rt.com/news/583113-trump-ukraine-avoid-war/

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By  M.K. Bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline

The ground war in Ukraine has run its course, a new phase is beginning. Even diehard supporters of Ukraine in the Western media and think tanks are admitting that a military victory over Russia is impossible and a vacation of the territory under Russian control is way beyond Kiev’s capability.

Hence the ingenuity of the Biden administration in exploring Plan B — counseling Kiev to be realistic about loss of territory and pragmatically seek dialogue with Moscow. This was the bitter message that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken transmitted to Kiev recently in person. 

But President Volodymyr’s Zelensky’s caustic reaction in a subsequent interview with the Economistmagazine is revealing. He hit back that the Western leaders still talk the good talk, pledging they will stand with Ukraine “as long as it takes” (Biden mantra), but he, Zelensky, has detected a change of mood among some of his partners: 

“I have this intuition, reading, hearing and seeing their eyes [when they say] ‘we’ll be always with you.’ But I see that he or she is not here, not with us.” 

Certainly, Zelensky is reading the body language right, as in the absence of an overwhelming military success shortly, western support for Ukraine is time-limited.

Zelensky knows that sustaining Western support will be difficult. Yet he hopes that if not Americans, the European Union will at least keep supplying aid and may be open to negotiations over the accession process for Ukraine possibly even at its summit in December. 

He also held out a veiled terrorist threat to Europe — warning that it would not be a “good story” for Europe if it were to “drive these people [of Ukraine] into a corner.” So far such ominous threats were muted, originating from low ranking activists of the fascist Banderite fringe.

But Europe has its limits, too. Western stockpiles of weapons are exhausted and Ukraine is a bottomless pit. Importantly, conviction is lacking whether continued supplies would make any difference to the proxy war that is unwinnable. Besides, European economies are in the doldrums. The recession in Germany may slide into depression, with profound consequences of “deindustrialisation.” 

Suffice it to say, Zelensky’s visit to the White House in the coming days becomes a defining moment. The Biden Administration is in a sombre mood that the proxy war is hindering a full-throttle Indo-Pacific strategy against China. Yet, during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Blinken explicitly stated for the first time that the U.S. would not oppose Ukraine using U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles to attack deep inside Russian territory, a move that Moscow has previously called a “red line,” which would make Washington a direct party to the conflict. 

[Related: It’s Hard to Think About the End of the World]

The well-known American military historian, strategic thinker and combat veteran, retired Col. Douglas MacGregor (who served as adviser to the Pentagon during the Trump administration), is prescient when he says that a new “Biden phase of the war” is about to begin. That is to say, having run out of ground forces, the locus will now shift to long-range strike weapons such as the Storm Shadow, Taurus and ATACMS long-range missiles. 

US Long-Range Missiles 

The U.S. is considering sending ATACMS long-range missiles that Ukraine has been asking for a long time with the capability to strike deep inside Russian territory. The most provocative part is that NATO reconnaissance platforms, both manned and unmanned, will be used in such operations, making the U.S. a virtual co-belligerent. 

Russia has been exercising restraint in attacking the source of such enemy capabilities but how long such restraint will continue is anybody’s guess. 

In response to a pointed query about how Washington would see the attacks on Russian territory with American weaponry and technology, Blinken argued that the increasing number of attacks on Russian territory by Ukrainian drones are 

“about how they’re [Ukrainians] going to defend their territory and how they’re working to take back what’s been seized from them. Our [U.S. ] role, the role of dozens of other countries around the world that are supporting them, is to help them do that.” 

Russia is not going to accept such a brazen escalation, especially as these advanced weapon systems used to attack Russia are actually manned by NATO personnel — contractors, trained ex-military hands or even serving officers. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the media on Friday that “we have detected foreign mercenaries and instructors both on the battlefield and in the units where training is carried out. I think yesterday or the day before yesterday someone was captured again.” 

The U.S.  calculus is that at some point, Russia will be compelled to negotiate and a frozen conflict will ensue where NATO allies would retain the option to continue with Ukraine’s military build-up and the process leading to its membership of the Atlantic alliance, and allow the Biden administration to focus on the Indo-Pacific. 

However, Russia will not settle for a “frozen conflict” that falls far short of the objectives of demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine that are the key objectives of its special military operation. 

Faced with this new phase of the proxy war, the form that the Russian retaliation takes remains to be seen. There could be multiple ways without Russia directly attacking NATO territories or using nuclear weapons (unless the U.S.  stages a nuclear attack — of which the chances are zero as of now.)

Already, it is possible to see the potential resumption of military-technical  cooperation between Russia and the DPRK [North Korea]. That could potentially include ICBM technology. And it would be a natural consequence of the aggressive U.S.  policy towards Russia and its support for Ukraine — as much as of the current international situation. 

The point is, today it is with DPRK; tomorrow it could be with Iran, Cuba or Venezuela — what Col. MacGregor calls “horizontal escalation” by Moscow.  The situation in Ukraine has become interconnected with the problems of the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan. 

Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu said on state television last week that Russia has “no other options” but to achieve a victory in its special military operation and will continue to make progress with the key mission of mowing down the enemy’s equipment and personnel. This suggests that the attritional war will be further intensified while the overall strategy may shift to achieving total military victory. 

The Ukrainian military is desperate for manpower. In the 15-week “counteroffensive” alone, over 71,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. There is talk of Kiev seeking repatriation of its nationals of military age from among the refugees in Europe. On the other hand, in expectation of a prolonged conflict, the mobilisation in Russia is continuing. 

Putin disclosed on Friday that 300,000 people have volunteered and signed contracts to join the armed forces and new units are being formed, equipped with advanced types of weapons and equipment, “and some of them are already 85–90 percent equipped.” 

The high likelihood is that once the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” peters out in another few weeks as a massive failure, Russian forces may launch a large-scale offensive. Conceivably, Russian forces may even cross the Dnieper River and take control of Odessa and the coastline leading to the Romanian border, from where NATO has been mounting attacks on Crimea. Make no mistake, for the Anglo-American axis, encircling Russia in the Black Sea has always been a top priority.

Watch the excellent interview (below) of Col. Douglas MacGregor by Professor Glenn Diesen at the University of North-Eastern in Norway:

[SEE VIDEO]

M.K. Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat. He was India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey. Views are personal.

This article originally appeared on Indian Punchline.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

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A New York Times investigation revealed on Monday that Ukrainian forces were mostly likely responsible for a deadly missile strike at a market, which happened the same day US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the country.

The incident on September 6 in the Kiev-controlled Donbass city of Konstantinovka killed at least 15 civilians and injured scores of others.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky immediately accused Russia of launching the strike and claimed that any “attempts to deal with anything Russian” meant turning a blind eye to “the audacity of evil.” Many Western media outlets and some governments endorsed his statement.

The NYT said evidence pointed to a “tragic mishap” involving a Ukrainian anti-air Buk missile that apparently veered off course. The newspaper analyzed missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts, and social media posts to come to the conclusion. It noted that Ukrainian authorities tried to prevent journalists from accessing the impact site.

Some people unsympathetic to the Russian cause, including Bild journalist Julian Ropcke and the open-source intelligence analysis group CIT suggested Kiev’s responsibility shortly after the incident. The Ukrainian government indicated that it considered Russian guilt to be beyond any doubt.

“What would an investigation be needed for, if all is obvious for us?” Zelensky’s senior aide Mikhail Podoliak told the media at the time. He called any other scenario, including a Ukrainian error, “ridiculous.”

The missile was apparently one of the two fired by Ukrainian forces from the outskirts of the town of Druzhkovka some 15 km to the northwest of Konstantinovka, NYT reported. The projectile was likely a 9M38 model used by the Buk system, the newspaper concluded based on forensic evidence. Considering the short distance from the presumed launch point, it probably crashed with much of its fuel unspent, and the subsequent explosion left scorch marks at the scene.

Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia mentioned the incident in a speech last week, suggesting that Kiev may have orchestrated it deliberately to coincide with Blinken’s visit. He added that as the evidence clearly contradicts Zelensky’s accusation, “the Kiev regime and its sponsors are trying to hush up this story and keep it off radar.”

At least one Kiev official has been forced to resign after attributing a strike to Ukrainian forces that his government had pinned on Russia. Aleksey Arestovich quit his post as an advisor to the president in January, amid pressure over an interview in which he suggested that an apartment block in the city of Dnepr was hit by a Ukrainian interceptor rather than a Russian cruise missile.

The Russian military has maintained since the start of the conflict that it only targets military objectives in its operations.

https://www.rt.com/russia/583187-konstantinovka-missile-nyt-investigation/

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MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....