Like so many of the neoconservatives, former Ambassador John Bolton loves seeing the rivers of blood flow. He tweeted, on Wednesday, February 12th:
It is unconscionable to allow Russia to assault Ukraine’s sovereignty, recruit enemies like North Korea to aid in their fight, and then sell out the Ukrainians by conceding the loss of their territory and NATO security guarantees or membership. By making these and others concessions before negotiations even started, Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin on Ukraine. 1/3
I warned many times that Trump will favor Russia in negotiations between Zelensky and Putin. Russia’s military performance has been miserable, but Trump is vindicating Putin’s decision to invade. The harm to US security interests will extend well beyond Central Europe, as our adversaries in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific can plainly see. 2/3
It is incumbent on U.S. leaders to stand unequivocally with Ukraine and whatever NATO allies stick with Kyiv. It is not in our national interest to let the Kremlin’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine prevail. Shame on the Trump administration. 3/3
Let’s tell the truth here: while Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion has been brilliant and stout, it has been precisely that: defense. Ukraine has managed to hold the Russian Army to a stalemate, with Russia gaining only a little bit of ground — in a war everyone assumed would be a walkover — but with the Ukrainians unable to expel the Russians from their land either. Ukraine’s only real offensive move, a surprise incursion into Kursk, achieved some initial success, but it, too, ground to a halt.
The eastern third of Ukraine that Russia seized in 2014 remains in Russian hands.
We have said many times before: Ukraine cannot defeat Russia without American or NATO troops on the ground, in direct combat with Russia. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has basically admitted that:
Ukraine’s survival can only be ensured by joining NATO or giving Kyiv nuclear weapons, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said…“Who gave up nuclear weapons? All of them? No. Ukraine. Who is fighting today? Ukraine,” he added. “Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons and that will be our protection or we should have some sort of alliance. Apart from NATO, today we do not know any effective alliances. “NATO countries are not at war. People are all alive in NATO countries. And thank God. That is why we choose NATO. Not nuclear weapons,” Zelenskyy said.
That was last October, but he reiterated it only last week.
So, were President Zelenskyy to have his way, what would that mean? It would mean either direct war between NATO and Russia, or Ukraine obtaining and using nuclear weapons!
What has most recently piqued Ambassador Bolton’s ire?
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he did not think it was practical for Ukraine to join NATO and that it was unlikely Ukraine will get back all of its land.
Trump discussed the war in Ukraine on Wednesday in phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in the U.S. president’s first big step toward diplomacy in a conflict he has promised to end.
Apparently Mr Bolton’s ire was piqued by President Trump doing something really radical, telling the truth. Ukraine has shown no ability to recover lost territory in the east militarily, nor to push Russian troops back out of Ukraine along the northern border. The war continues to be fought, and it’s fought almost entirely in Ukraine.
We see an interesting parallel to our own War Between the States. The Confederacy was always at a military disadvantage to the Union, but that disadvantage was exacerbated by the fact that the war was fought almost entirely in the South, and the destruction caused by the war was in the South, weakening the Confederacy economically as well as militarily. General Robert E Lee’s failed attempt to carry the war to the North, through the move of the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland and Pennsylvania, a move defeated at Gettysburg, reminds us of the Ukrainian move into Kursk. General Lee at least had the opportunity, had he won at Gettysburg, to advance on Washington, DC, and force the United States to accept Confederate independence. Ukraine could never even have that hope, because Moscow is around 300 miles from Ukraine!
Just like the Confederacy, Ukraine is getting weaker every day that the war rages in their territory. Russia, too, is getting weaker, in money, men, and equipment expended in Ukraine, but to a lesser extent, because it is not Russia’s infrastructure and economy being burned and bombed.
The Russian invasion began on February 24, 2022, just eleven days short of three years ago. Russia isn’t really winning, not if winning is defined as conquering Ukraine or getting Ukraine to surrender. And Ukraine isn’t winning either, if winning is defined as kicking the invaders out of their country. Our War Between the States ended with the military surrender of General Lee to Union General Ulysses Grant just three days short of four years after the war started, though some skirmishing continued as not all Confederate forces learned of the surrender. Is it going to take another year of destruction in Ukraine before this war ends?
President Biden sent money and equipment to Ukraine, to enable the country to fight the war; President Trump is trying negotiations to try to end it.