Reprinted with permission from Consortium News.
We are on the eve of the possible final act of the tragicomedy that is Ukraine.
It could come at the end of the month during the general debate at the U.N. General Assembly when the odd couple of the lame-duck and expired presidents of the U.S. and Ukraine could reveal to the world its fate.
On one side, there will be Joe Biden, who Robert Gates, a former C.I.A. head and secretary of defense in several Republican and Democratic administrations, once said: “He has been wrong on nearly every major issue during his political career.”
Next to him will be Volodymyr Zelensky, whose presidential term expired last May.
The former comedian was catapulted to the presidency by corrupt oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, whom the U.S. State Department had previously accused of using his “political influence and power for personal benefit” and sanctioned him in March 2021 for his alleged involvement in “corrupt acts that undermined the rule of law and the Ukrainian public’s faith in their government’s democratic institutions and public processes.”
Let’s review what these two have done to bring humanity to the edge of the abyss, starting with the one whom his son has called the “Big Guy.”
After the end of the Cold War, every U.S. president, starting with Bill Clinton, contributed in one way or another to closing the short historical window of opportunity for integrating Russia into the West.
Many pragmatic or idealistic people in U.S. administrations, Congress, the media, and in other public circles have been trying to promote this integration. Regrettably, they have been losing on the whole to more powerful forces, often in the Deep State, who, for political, economic, or ideological reasons, prefer to have Russia as foe rather than friend.
When it comes to Ukraine and U.S.-Russia relations, few have done as much damage as Biden during his eight years in the White House, first as vice president and then as president.
It is not only close to $200 billion that he took out of U.S. taxpayers’ pockets to send to Kiev, or using his son Hunter to make millions in Ukraine and China for his family, but indeed the war he provoked in Ukraine and prevents its end — which might ultimately bring us to Armageddon.
Vice President Biden visits Kiev on June 7, 2014. (U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine, Public domain)
Here are three key dates to remember (there were other important dates, but I believe these three were crucial):
February 2014 – Vice President Biden coordinated the regime change coup in Ukraine to replace an administration that preferred the country’s neutral status with a pro-NATO one, and which led to civil war;
December 2021 – President Biden rejected Russia’s call for strategic, stability negotiations based on Ukraine’s neutral status that could have prevented Russia’s February 2022 intervention in the civil war;
April 2022 – President Biden derailed, with the help of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Istanbul peace negotiations that took place in the weeks after Russia intervened, from February to April 2022, and prevented resumption of these negotiations ever since.,
The second participant, Zelensky, should be credited with taking his popular, but provincial, comedy show 95th Quarter, funded by the above-mentioned criminal Kolomoisky, onto the world stage with an audience of Who’s Who in the West.
To achieve such huge success, Zelensky has paid with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives, millions of wounded and refugees, destruction of the country’s infrastructure, the ruin of its economy – while selling off remaining Ukrainian wealth to Black Rock‘s sharks.
Now, he wants to do what he did to Ukraine to the rest of the world by involving the U.S. and NATO in a direct military confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia, basically plagiarizing Wag the Dog.
Already at War
The Russia-West war is actually already on, with the West training Ukrainian troops, supplying them with weapons, advisers, intelligence, and mercenaries, but so far not regular military units.
No one seems to care about killed mercenaries, while Ukraine, in the words of John Wight, in Consortium News, is “merely a convenient and blood-soaked proxy – a cat’s paw whose manhood has and is being sacrificed on the altar of U.S.-led Western hegemony.”
An additional grim context of this story is not just what this odd duo and the Deep State are doing by pushing us to the brink, but also the obedient flock of sheep that is called leadership of the collective West that applauds and follows them. What happened to their dignity, traditions, culture, and values that were admired?
Many in Europe and the U.S. (particularly in the Pentagon) understand what is happening and, like Wight, are unafraid to speak out. So far the Pentagon is winning Biden over against the neocons, led by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Blinken with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink before leaving Kiev on Sept. 11. (State Department/Chuck Kennedy)
Instead of granting Britain the right to let Ukraine fire its Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russian territory, while refusing to allow Kiev to launch U.S. long-range ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System), as both The Guardian and The New York Times reported he would, Biden sent British Prime Minister Kier Starmer packing to London with his tail between his legs.
Round one went to sanity as Russian President Vladimir Putin had warned that these advanced U.S. or British missiles being fired into Russia would require U.S. technology and British or American soldiers to operate, thereby making it a direct U.S.-Russia confrontation. And Russia, he said, “will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
Biden and Starmer at the White House on Sept. 13. (White House/Adam Schultz)
Not that this topic – the possible end of the world – is garnering the screaming headlines it deserves. As a result, the threat of nuclear war is not the main subject bothering the electorate, including the one in the U.S., where elections are very close.
Do we want to keep poking the bear in the eye and check when his patience runs out or try to find a way out?
Such a way exists, and Russia is ready to negotiate with Ukraine based on the Istanbul agreements mentioned above. Moscow has never refused a diplomatic solution to the crisis – we cannot precisely tell on which terms – but wouldn’t it be interesting to find out by agreeing to start the negotiation?
That’s not something either Biden or Zelensky are interested in.
Though Starmer angrily returned to London without permission from the Big Guy to shoot his rockets into Russia, he hasn’t apparently given up. Blinken, who gave out the false story that the U.S. would give Starmer permission, probably hasn’t either.
They are likely still working on Biden as the U.S. president prepares to meet in New York with Zelensky, who desperately wants those British missiles to fly.
If they eventually do, no negotiations will be possible and it will indeed be time to worry about humanity’s fate.
Edward Lozansky is president and founder of the American University in Moscow and the U.S.-Russia Forum. He is also a professor at the Moscow State and National Research Nuclear Universities.
