[Salon] [Mbrenner] WAR IN UKRAINE?

Michael Brenner

UKRAINE: What’s going on?

Russia is NOT preparing an invasion. Washington and its vassals are shouting ‘WOLF’ because that are panicked that the internal situation in Ukraine is spinning out of control – and they’re setting up Putin as the scapegoat in the event that the crazies in Kiev launch their own assault on the secessionist Donbass provinces.
Ukraine is well on its way to disintegration as a state. Its President, Mr. Zelensky, is a professional comedian who receives no respect – from the hardline neo-Fascists who dominate in the security services and in the street, the oligarchs or the populace in general. The economy is on the brink of collapse thanks to incompetence, rampant corruption, the rupturing of commercial ties with the successor states to the Soviet Union, runaway inflation and the spike in spot market oil prices it must pay after breaking long-term supply contracts with Russia at the behest of the U.S., Brussels and ‘expert’ consultants from the UK. Moreover, it soon will see a drop in the transit fees it currently receives for the natural gas pipeline that runs from Russia to the West because its dilapidated condition will accelerate the shift to much more efficient Nordstrom II now on line.
Ultra-nationalist and neo-Fascist elements in Kiev are tempted to try a political ‘hail Mary’ by attacking the Donbass. Preparations were made for such a move last spring, with the encouragement of some in the West, but the Ukrainians were forced to back down when Moscow sent a blunt message that it would respond massively. That would mean the end of post-Maidan Ukraine, the country’s fragmentation, and humiliation for the West. For there is absolutely nothing that the U.S., NATO or EU could do about it. The loudmouths in Washington, Brussels (both ends), London, et al would have to eat crow before a global audience.
The West entered this strategic trap willingly and voluntarily; also, sealed in their own ignorance and hubris.
The alternative is to reactivate the Minsk II accords which Kiev

has adamantly refused to honor over the past 7 years with the backing of the US and its European allies/vassals. The Biden administration rejects this diplomatic tack as it rules out the obvious step of pressing the Zelensky government to do so. Why? The powerful anti-Russian lobby in Washington and Biden’s dread at being labelled an ‘appeaser.’ Instead, it has sent one senior American official after another to Moscow (Blinken, Sullivan, Wendy Sherman, and finally William Burns) to cajole Putin to bury the Minsk accords in favor of some as yet unspecified plan that would spare Kiev the agony of decision, keep Ukraine intact, and lure Russia into an all-party series of meetings led by the United States. Nothing doing.
Fears have grown in Washington because their grip on Kiev decision-makers is slipping. They now are sweating over the possibility of a Ukrainian strike against the Donbass. A major objective of the Burns mission, in addition to convincing the Russians to drop Minsk, was to extract a pledge that in the event of such an assault Moscow would exercise restraint and not respond with the promised massive military retaliation.
Despite having failed at this futile mission, the White House still effuses to rein in the Ukrainian red-hots. Hence, their desperate contingency plan to blame it all on Russian aggression. That’s what all the alarums about a Russian troop buildup are all about.

Conclusion

American leaders, and our political class in general, are now facing the consequences of their living in a comfortable and convenient fantasy world divorced from reality. If by sheer luck, they avoid a catastrophe in Ukraine, they still are on course for an even greater disaster in the Taiwan Straits.

The country at large is complicit in this tragic indulgence of amateur theatrics.