Ukraine war: The real issue is NATO and Russia

So long as Volodymyr Zelensky is president of Ukraine, it is a waste of time and effort to try and get a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

Zelensky is frozen into an immovable position as his internal support and survival are tied to strident Ukrainian nationalists who oppose any concessions to Russia. They want to fight to the last man (and woman).

If a negotiation between Russia and Ukraine is impossible, is there any solution to stopping the bloody war in Ukraine?

The facts are straightforward. The first, now abundantly clear, is that Ukraine cannot win its war against Russia. It lacks the manpower and firepower to push the Russians out of Ukrainian territory.

The recent four-month-long Ukrainian counteroffensive has yielded almost no positive results other than to sacrifice huge amounts of war materiel and close to 20,000 troops killed and wounded.

It is now reported that, on the urging mostly of the United States, Ukraine will start yet another offensive operation by crossing the Dnieper River in the area of Kherson with the hope of cutting off Russia’s land access to Crimea.

Also reportedly this offensive will include an attack on the massive Zaphorize nuclear power plant (Zaporiz’ka atomna elektrostantsiia) in order to create a nuclear incident, which Ukrainian propaganda will blame on Russia.

There is little time for any new offensive because seasonal rains and cold weather will soon cover Ukraine. But the tactic seems to be based on the idea that Ukrainian infantry can follow paved roads and survive against concentrations of Russian artillery.

Russia will still retain air dominance over the battlefield, although there is a report that the UK is transferring Typhoon Eurofighter jets to Poland that might be seconded to Ukraine. (The promised F-16s won’t make it to Ukraine in time.)

Ukrainian pilots are not trained on Typhoons and could not operate them, suggesting that they would have to be operated by UK pilots and be based outside of Ukraine.

The Typhoon story is closely tied to a proposal by the UK’s relatively new defense minister Grant Shapps to send UK troops to Ukraine to better train Ukrainian troops in situ and to help the Ukrainians prepare and execute its current offensive and the new one planned for the Dnieper river and Zaphorize.

The British defense minister also proposed to take an active naval role in the Black Sea against Russia. Britain is already planning on sending UK fleet ships to clear mines in the Black Sea put there by the Russians.

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