WHAT IS THE ANSWER TO THE UKRAINE QUESTION?
You can't get the right answer if you are asking the wrong question
In 1848 a dispute broke out over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Where these territories to be independent, or to belong to Denmark, or to Prussia? It was a very vexing question and Lord Palmerston famously declared: “The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.” In the end it required several wars and a referendum before it was finally resolved in 1920, with the bulk of the lands becoming part of modern Germany, and only the northernmost area (what is now known as South Jutland) going to Denmark.
It seems to me that the 'Ukraine Question' is today's equivalent. All I see and hear are muppets and puppets, mad men and bad men, and fantasies rather than facts. Nobody seems to know the answer (apart from me, so please read on!) and most people are not even asking the right questions.
What infuriates me more than anything else is the stupidity of those politicians and commentators who believe that this is a simple binary conflict and if you don't support Zelensky that means that you must support Putin. These people are mentally retarded. These is no other way of describing them.
There are three possible outcomes in any conflict: victory for one side, victory for the other side, or a messy draw leading to peace through compromise.
(i) Can Russia win? This is very unlikely. Since the Second World War we have all been brainwashed into believing that Russia is a great military power, but in reality they are a paper tiger. Their military is pathetic and derisory. They thought they could take Ukraine in “three days”, but here we are - three years later – and they are bogged down in a stalemate having only taken a sliver of territory in the east. If the West ended all military assistance to Ukraine, Russia might stand a chance, but realistically this isn't going to happen.
(ii) Can Ukraine win? This is even more unlikely. They have managed to stop Russia but, other than in a few pockets, have not managed to push them back. They have captured a tiny patch of Russian land, but don't really want this anyway and are just hoping to use it as a negotiating card. Just as Ukraine gets supplies from the West, Russia has the backing of China. Both Russia and Ukraine have a problem in finding a constant supply of new fighting men, but this is not going to prove fatal to either side. A battlefield stalemate is what we have now and I can't see this changing.
(iii) This therefore only leaves the messy compromise solution as a possible way to end the war. Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, taking Crimea and a small part of the eastern region known as the Donbas. It has now enlarged its territory in the east and added the southeastern coastal region too, creating a land bridge from Russia to Crimea. Zelensky says he wants these territories back, but is there any prospect of that? No. And frankly Ukraine only has itself to blame.
The (late) great Carl Sagan said: “You have to know the past to understand the present”, so let's briefly step back in time and look at the history of these areas. Crimea has belonged to the Greeks, Romans and Ottomans, but more recently, and relevantly, it was part of Russia since it was annexed by Catherine The Great in 1783. During the Stalin period the native Tartar population was purged and replaced with Russians, so that it became ethnically and culturally Russian.
In 1954 however, Crimea was transferred by the USSR from Russia to Ukraine. As these were both part of the Soviet Union this was just an administrative change. Ostensibly, the transfer was to celebrate the tercentenary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav, which initiated the union of Russia and Ukraine. In reality the transfer was the decision of Nikita Khrushchev, who had only become the First Secretary (effectively the head) of the Communist Party the previous year following the death of Stalin, and who wanted the support of Ukraine (where he had previously been in charge) in his internal power struggle with Soviet Prime Minister Georgii Malenkov (whom he successfully got rid of the following year).
Crimea was the only region of Ukraine where fewer than half of the electorate voted for independence from Russia in the 1991 referendum that created an independent Ukraine (54% of those who voted chose independence, but this represented only 37% of the electorate). A 2001 census showed that 58% of the population were ethnic Russians (with 24% being Ukrainians and 12% Tartars) In the capital Sevastopol, 71.6% were ethnic Russians. The census also showed that 77% of Crimea's population (and 94% of that of Sevastopol) were native speakers of Russian. A 2011 poll by the United Nations Development Programme found that a majority of Crimeans – 65.6% - approved the idea of joining Russia.
Following Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014, the population was given a referendum offering them either incorporation into Russia or back into Ukraine. The result was a 97% vote to be part of Russia (with an exceptionally high turnout of 83-89%). Although there are good reasons to view these precise figures with some cynicism, a multitude of subsequent independent surveys by western organisations have shown that an overwhelming number of Crimeans do believe the result was a true reflection of local opinion.
As for the Donbas, the 2001 census revealed that 39% of those living here were ethnic Russians, and Russian was the native language for 69-75%. Although over 83% of those who voted in the 1991 referendum opted for independence from Russia (around 65% of the electorate), they made it clear they wanted local independence within a federal Ukraine. The Ukrainian government however, demonstrating an unresponsive and inflexible intransigence which sowed the seeds for what was to happen next, flatly turned down all the Donbas's demands, including their desire for Russian to be the local administrative language.
In March 2014, following the violent overthrow of the democratically-elected President Yanukovich, who had overwhelming support in the east of Ukraine (but not the west, neatly demonstrating the political chasm between these regions), the Donbas became the battleground between Ukrainian government forces and separatists pledging allegiance to local, self-proclaimed, "People's Republics" – and who were supported by Russia.
This brief history lesson should make you realise that Russia will not willingly return these areas to Ukraine. And the military lesson on the ground shows that retaking them will be nigh on impossible. So the choice is very simple: a 'forever war' or a peace in which these regions are relinquished. That's it. There's no other alternative.
The choice must be left to Ukraine. After all – it is their country that is at stake and it is their lives that are being lost. Trump, and most western leaders, seem intent on pushing for a peace deal, but why? They say they want to end the casualties, but it really is none of their business. If Ukraine wants the war to continue then so be it. It really is up to them.
But just as Ukraine is free to choose what they want to do, we too are free to choose what we should do. Should we support Ukraine? And if so, how?
I don't know about you, but I am a British patriot. This means that I care about Britain. And only Britain. I don't care about Ukraine, Russia or Bong-Bongo Land. It is certain that none of them give a damn about us, and unrequited love is for cretins.
So what is in Britain's national interest? Some people claim that Russia is a threat to the UK so we must help Ukraine defeat them. This is utter bullshit. While it is certainly true that Putin's Russia is an enemy of Britain – he has committed assassinations on the streets of Britain and he regularly sends his military jets and ships into our territorial airspace and waters to test our defences, the fact is that there is zero prospect of him ever declaring war against us. It's all just a show of strength.
Ever since WW2 we have been conditioned into thinking that Russia is a great and terrifying military power on the brink of attacking us at the drop of a hat. Nothing could be further from the truth! When the Berlin Wall fell I visited Moscow and was shocked at how primitive life there was. Their technology had not advanced since the 1940s. The scales fell from my eyes and I realised that their military capabilities were so inferior to ours in the West that they were laughable. The Russian military is a pathetic, hollow, joke.
This has been proved true by their inability to conquer Ukraine – a country even more backward than their own, with a military only a fraction the size of that of Russia! 'But Russia has nuclear weapons!', the scaremongerers cry. But do they even work? After all, on paper Russia has 1,500-2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, to be used on the battlefield (as opposed to the intercontinental ballistic missiles that are fired against cities). But have they used any in Ukraine? No they have not. Even though they are suffering horrendous casualties there and making almost zero progress. So why don't they use this massive arsenal of battlefield nuclear weapons? Because either they are too afraid of raising the stakes or they are afraid that they will not work and the entire basis of their pretence of strength will be shown to be a fraud. This is why all talk of the Ukrainian war escalating into “World War 3” (as suggested by Donald Trump) is hyperbolic nonsense.
So no, Russia is NOT a threat to Britain. So I ask again: what is Britain's national interest in this conflict? Cynically, one could argue that a forever war, with Ukraine buying loads of British weaponry, which was then tested on the battlefield, would be the optimal outcome for us. But we know that Ukraine is not paying for the weapons we are supplying them, even though they have lots of natural resources (oil, gas and minerals) with which to do so. And we know that the British government is too weak, too stupid and too treacherous to ask them to.
Britain is in the midst of an economic crisis. We are completely broke and bankrupt. We have to go to the international money markets each month and try to borrow money simply in order to survive. This means we can't afford to give away a single penny to any foreign country. And yet we have so far spent some £13 billion supporting Ukraine. Why? This is madness! And to compound this insanity we are promising to give them over £3 billion more every year! This lunacy must end.
Our policy should therefore be to tell Ukraine that while we are very happy and willing to sell them whatever weapons they want, we cannot give them anything more. If they want to keep on fighting that's up to them, but this is not our war and we have no direct interest in it.
We also need to recoup all the money we have already spent. Given that Zelensky is too mean and too entitled to do the decent thing and pay us, and given that Starmer is too weak and too stupid to insist, the best we can do is recover our money by taking it from the Russian funds that we are holding. The UK has frozen approximately £26 billion of Russian central bank assets which we now need to officially confiscate. Half of this sum will refund the costs we have already incurred, and the other half can be seen as a penalty for Russia's criminal behaviour in the UK.
The British (Conservative) government also froze around £18 billion of individual Russian assets, such as oligarchs’ homes and bank accounts. This was based on the moronic belief that these oligarchs had influence over Putin and that freezing their assets would persuade them to force him to end the war. The truth, as usual, is the very opposite of what the government says. The fact is that it is Putin who controls the oligarchs, not the other way round. The oligarchs live in fear of Putin and are obliged to do what he tells them.
So all we have done is drive out dozens of millionaires and billionaires, who were a huge asset to our economy. This was an act of immense self-harm and the Conservatives are clearly complete cretins. We should, in fact, have done the opposite: we should have welcomed all the oligarchs to Britain, offered them a safe haven, got them to move all their assets here, and benefitted from the wealth that would have brought us. So we should now unfreeze all their assets and try to persuade them to come back.
These are all the things we should do, but of course, the Labour government will not do any of them. They are traitors and scum, and will continue to give our money away to Ukraine. And they will try to negotiate a peace deal. As I have explained, Putin will not give up the territories he has taken, so the only possible peace deal is to freeze the conflict and draw the new partition where it is now (with maybe a few tiny changes). Will Zelensky accept this? Who knows. Possibly, but he will want some very definite guarantees that the peace will be maintained by the West. We should tell him to get stuffed on this point. The way that Ukraine should guarantee ensure no more Russian intrusions on their remaining territory is to build a defensive 'Maginot' line along the entire border between them and Russia. But Starmer the Stupid Traitor will probably agree to send some British troops to defend the front line. I hope not, as this would be madness, but I fear the worst.
In summary, the war in Ukraine is really not our concern. It does not affect us in any way. Russia is certainly not our friend, but it is not a danger to us either. Ukraine claims to be a friend but is just an entitled, ungrateful, tight-fisted scrounger that does not care about us and is of no use to us. We are throwing away billions and billions of pounds pointlessly, and getting nothing in return. We should simply offer Ukraine weapons if they are willing to pay us, or else walk away. Anything else is epic stupidity and not in the best interests of Britain and the British people.
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An interesting postscript worth noting is that after its independence from Russia in 1991, Ukraine became the third largest nuclear power in the world, inheriting all the nuclear missiles that had been located there by the USSR. The Ukrainian government however declared that it would be a non-nuclear weapon state and sign up to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In return however for surrendering all its nuclear weapons, Ukraine demanded security guarantees.
These 'guarantees' came in the form of a number of international agreements, including the 1994 Trilateral Statement between Ukraine, Russia and the US, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum between Ukraine, Russia, the US and the UK, and the 2009 Joint Declaration by Russia and the US, in all of which the signatories agreed not to attack Ukraine. [Why the UK decided to declare in the Budapest Memorandum that we would not attack Ukraine is utterly bizarre – as if we ever would!]. Ukraine is understandably upset that these repeated pledges by Russia were not worth the paper they were written on (and the realisation that they should have kept their nuclear weapons!). Hence their desperate pleas for a more substantial guarantee this time. But this is pathetic. Ukraine needs to stop whining and just build up its defences.
Ukraine's situation is the perfect proof of the need to be self-sufficient militarily and not dependent on any other country. We too therefore need to build up our military capabilities, starting with a surface-to-air missile defensive shield, and followed by a doubling of our naval strength. We need to invest in new technology (such as drones), and make sure that everything is fully designed and built in the UK. The British government is responsible for Britain's safety, not that of any other country!
And let's have a nuclear deterrent that is genuinely British and completely independent, rather than our current Trident missiles which are built and maintained by the United States and which we only lease! To add insult to injury, although our four Vanguard nuclear submarines have the capacity to hold 64 missiles (16 each) the US only allows us to lease a maximum of 58! But then again, given that we only have 40 warheads (which we do produce ourselves), we do not even need this many. What a joke our treasonous politicians have turned Britain into.
Excellent and informative post as usual BP!
Thanks for this. You may find this timeline helpful. let me know if you find any errors. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CPCBAG1a-w4Xb2IlV3-HMDQa3VwJnjqy/edit