Ukraine and the EU at a vital crossroads

[yankeedoodle]

Ukraine and the EU at a vital crossroads
Petru Romoşan
https://ioncoja.ro/s-u-a-n-a-t-o-si-u-e-occidentul-in-general-si-au-asumat-riscuri-majore-chiar-existentiale-prin-implicarea-totala-pe-fata-in-razboiul-din-ucraina/

MECHANICALLY TRANSLATED FROM ROMANIAN

The United States, NATO, and the EU, the West in general, have taken major risks, even existential ones, by being fully involved in the war in Ukraine. It is clear that the United States, Britain, and the entire US-dominated West have long been involved with the Kyiv Maidan, the 2014 coup and even since 2004-2005, with the Orange Revolution. Since 2005, with the election of Traian Băsescu as president, the orange revolution has spread and implemented in Romania as well.

Between 2014 and February 2022, the Ukrainian attacks on the autonomous Donbas claimed nearly 14,000 lives, which were completely ignored by the West, especially by France and Germany, the guarantors of the Minsk agreements, which had direct responsibility. Which they didn't honor. On February 16, 17, 18, 2022, before the Russian invasion of February 24, Zelensky's Ukraine carried out thousands of bombings in the Donbas, a territory he claimed to be his national. The separatist republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, inhabited mostly by Russian-speakers (who have been banned from using Russian in public life since 2018), along with Russia, have been forced to make a huge front-line displacement to shelter women. , especially children and the elderly. From the beginning of 2022 until today, more than 1,300,000 people have been displaced within the regions and in Russia. In addition, in early March 2022, the Russian secret services were expecting a large-scale offensive by the Ukrainian army in the Donbas.

Today, three months after the beginning of the invasion, Russia's goals, announced by Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022, seem to have been largely achieved, especially the first goal, demilitarization. We recall that, according to Vladimir Putin, the objectives of the "military operation" were demilitarization and denazification (in fact, the elimination of anti-Russian attitudes), to which was later added decommunization (abandonment of recessive communism, inherited from the USSR). Ukraine no longer has a Black Sea fleet and, with the exception of the blocked Odessa, has lost control of its coastline. Ukraine's sky is Russian, airspace is almost entirely controlled by the Russians. Ukrainian aviation was also almost completely destroyed. Ukrainian infrastructure (railways, major roads, supply stations, repair shops and weapons and ammunition depots, fuel depots, power plants...) was bombed remotely or directly by Russian artillery. Western armament can only reach the front with great difficulty, where it is needed.

By handing over the nearly 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers, namely 2,439, from the pharaonic Soviet Azovstal plant in Mariupol (from the regular army, from the Azov political regiment, a kind of reinvented SS, mercenaries and foreign instructors), to another 1,300 regular army soldiers. who had previously surrendered in Mariupol, Ukraine, and its NATO protectors suffered a severe blow to the image. And the Ukrainian troops, a moral blow. The mainstream press and media, generously funded by the Western oligarchy and national budgets, are no longer able to cover the dramatic, tragic situation in which Ukraine and its overexposed president, Volodymyr Zelensky, find themselves.

But not only Ukraine, but also NATO and the United States are on the verge of suffering a huge defeat in the most important military confrontation since World War II in Europe. That's after the catastrophic withdrawal of the US and NATO from Afghanistan. In addition, economic sanctions, too little balanced before they are decided, inadvertently prepare a financial, economic and food crisis primarily in Western Europe, the US ally, but also in the rest of the world. The ruble has come out stronger from Western economic sanctions (US and EU), and Russia's revenues from exports of gas, oil, chemical fertilizers, wheat and other agricultural products, metals (nickel, palladium, aluminum...) have almost doubled. Russia is thus supporting its war without great difficulty, to a large extent being financed by the West itself.

The war gives Russia the opportunity to rotate (roll) all its troops in Ukraine, strengthening their combat readiness in a real war. The Russians are also testing their new weapons on the ground, such as the already famous hypersonic missiles. In Ukraine, Russia does not use more than about 10% of its staff at the same time.

"On May 13, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin held talks with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for the first time since February 18. Secretary Austin called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and stressed the importance of maintaining lines of communication. Austin is the one who initiated the call and the United States wants to get a ceasefire in Ukraine! Yesterday, senior US and Russian officials also had a conversation that the United States also initiated: General Mark Milley, Joint Chief of Staff, and General Valeri Gherasimov, Chief of the Russian General Staff, had a conversation on which the Pentagon refused to present in detail, only admitting that the event took place.

Things must be going wrong in Ukraine for these talks to take place. Indeed, if we take into account the "bomb list" published daily by the Russian Ministry of Defense, all the positions of the Ukrainian army are subject to heavy artillery fire, and the Ukrainians lose about 500 people a day. In fact, effective Russian strikes are being carried out on training camps, weapons storage sites and transport platforms across the country. " [1 ]

The advantage that the United States and the West have had over Russia - propaganda, image war - may turn into the opposite in the future. With the worst consequences, especially economic ones. The New York Times reportedly urged President Joe Biden to give up bragging and get down on his feet. An operation that can be very difficult for the current Washington Administration: "Overall, Ukraine's socio-economic situation is catastrophic. The military situation is even worse. Mariupol has fallen, and Russian troops operating there will soon be able to move elsewhere. The Propasna cordon threatens to cover the entire northern front line, with the core of the Ukrainian army [...]. These reasons explain why Austin and Milley called their Russian counterparts. There are also reasons why New York Times editors are urging the Biden administration to stop bragging and take a more realistic stance [2],  such as Washington's recent belligerent statements - President Biden's statement [3]  Putin "can't stay in power" enthusiastic support, but not close to negotiations. Ultimately, it is the Ukrainians who have to make the difficult decisions. They are the ones who fight, die and lose their homes because of the Russian aggression, and they are the ones who have to decide what the end of the war will look like. If this conflict leads to genuine negotiations, it is the Ukrainian leaders who will have to make the painful territorial decisions that any compromise will impose " [4] .

The simplistic and violent attacks on Putin and Russia by the American and European press and media (imitated by the Romanian press and media) are no longer of much use. The reality on the ground, the reality in Ukraine, but also the economic reality and, very soon, with the coming of winter, the energy and food reality will show their fangs. Inflation had reached mind-boggling levels since before the war in Ukraine, unmatched in 40 years. The American and Western European stock exchanges will not be able to live long in their parallel reality until now, the one stimulated by cheap money. Money, even if it remains cheap for a while, loses its value. November 2022, with the elections in America and the coming of winter in the northern hemisphere, will be a difficult threshold to cross.

Polls show a clear victory for Republicans in the US midterm elections in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Joe Biden's term may end at the end of the year, an event much anticipated for reasons of physical incapacity, age weakness. But Vice President Kamala Harris does not seem ready to take on such a difficult task. A serious political crisis in America can have a devastating effect on the stock market and the economy as a whole. The adventure of the war in Ukraine (stimulated by the Americans) can prove even more expensive than the 53 billion dollars already allocated (of which 40 recently allocated by Congress).

As we have seen, Lloyd J. Austin, the head of the Pentagon, called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, the Minister of Defense, demanding a ceasefire. But apparently, according to Russian sources, the two also discussed the biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine in which the American army is involved. Terrifying evidence began to be made public. But we don't know what Generals Milley and Gerasimov discussed.

Western propaganda is thus beginning to be seriously discredited. And even more. Three hundred such bioprocessors, funded and controlled by the Americans, would be found all over the world. Lots around the Chinese border. China has begun demanding US accountability for these facilities. The American press has moved on to consistent revelations, which have not appeared in the Romanian press.

Will the US and Britain, the de facto leaders and the "owners" of NATO, try a big blow that will take them out of the blind spot in which they are in Ukraine? What could be that blow? Direct involvement of some of Ukraine's neighbors (Poland, Romania, NATO countries, but also the Baltic countries and possibly Sweden and Finland)? It's a hypothesis that comes up in many analyzes. Both the EU (created in the 1950s by the US - Coal and Steel Community) and Ukraine (created in Soviet origins - by Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev) are artificial constructions that will withstand the current and future shocks with difficulty. .

The civilizationally torn Ukraine between Western and Eastern Europe, with its attempt to integrate into the EU and NATO and to permanently break ties with Eurasian Russia, risks disappearing from the map again. Russia can annex, and has already integrated (Russian language, ruble, economic and humanitarian aid, administration) much of eastern and southern Ukraine. Poland can recover western Ukraine, Galicia and beyond. Romania and Hungary were more restrained in their eventual territorial claims, Romania being primarily interested in the integration with Bessarabia snatched by the Russians. But without forgetting Transcarpathia, Northern Bukovina, Herţa and Bugeac. It is not yet clear what fate will be reserved for Odessa, the pearl of the Ukrainian coast.

The looming rupture between the EU and Russia, plus possible border changes in Eastern Europe could create existential problems for the EU Nordstream 2, the connection between Russia and Germany, seems dead and buried, as Victoria Nuland well anticipated. Russia's gas and oil cannot be replaced by Europeans in the next three to five years. The dependence of the EU, Germany in the first place, on Russian energy and raw materials is very real. For the time being, European countries are "quietly" paying for gas in rubles, but the delivery conditions set by the Russians may tighten at any time.

Peace talks today seem hopeless. With unlimited US funding, the war in Ukraine could be extended as long as possible. Ukraine and, with it, the EU as a whole are on a potentially fatal scale.

French Moscow correspondent Xavier Moreau (Stratpol website), a former military man and Sant-Cyr graduate who has been reporting regularly on the situation in Ukraine since 2015, writes on Twitter: "We will remember this day on Monday 23 May 2022 as black day for the Kiev army. " These are decisive breakthroughs in the Liman area. The information is confirmed on the spot by the Canadian war reporter Neil Hauer, also on Twitter. Severodonetsk and Lysichansk thus become accessible to the Russian army. The assault on Slaviansk is being prepared. In other words, the Russians broke up the front in the Donbas .

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[1] ,,Ukraine SitRep - Russians break through US bolsterism,  https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/05/ukraine-sitrep-russians-break-through-us-bolsterism.html  - 20.05.2022.
[2]  https://www.nytimes.com/issue/todayspaper/2022/05/19/todays-new-york-times - 19.05.2022 ):
[3] nytimes.com, 28.03.2022
[4]  Idem,  https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/05/ukraine-sitrep-russians-break-through-us-bolsterism.html  - 20.05.2022.
[5] Published -  https://www.ziuanews.ro/editorial/ucraina-i-ue-la-or-scruce-vital-1570461  - May 24, 2022