How the Ukraine war never had to be
Reminder that the Ukraine tragedy of war was completely unnecessary, and how the US and UK persuaded Ukraine to militarily fight with Russia rather than make peace.
Early Facts about the Ukraine War.
According to Putin, Russia launched their special military operation because they believed that the US and Nato had been building up the Ukrainian army and providing them with large lethal weapons over the previous years, in order to offensively attack and acquire control over Crimea and the two breakaway territories of eastern Ukraine (the Donbas) -- both of which in 2014 voted to breakaway from the hard-right Nationalist government that had forcibly ousted their elected president and his Party of Regions). After the western Ukrainians overthrew the central government in 2014, the Russian-speaking residents of Crimea and the eastern providences opposed the new central government and its new ban on Russian-friendly Ukrainian political parties, so Russia supported this opposition and provided military assistance to defend the Russian-related people of Ukraine from being attacked by Ukrainian nationalist militias (such as the Azov Battalion) and the Ukrainian army which demanded all 'breakaway' territories return to being controlled by the Ukrainian centralist government.
Putin's two main concerns (which he consistently stated) were first: the equal rights and liberties of the Russian-speaking people in Ukraine, after the new Ukrainian government passed a law that banned any public use of the Russian language and expression of Russian cultural customs, over a 10-year stage 'de-russification' program; and Putin's second main concern was that Ukraine and Nato were planning to build Nato bases in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border with long-range offensive missiles and potentially nuclear missiles, which Putin declared would be a redline threat to Russian Security.
Putin's declarations of the US crossing Russian Security redlines, and his requests for diplomatic peace talks were ignored by the Biden State Dept., so Russia decided to invade, or what they called their 'special military operation'. Their ideal aim was to remove Ukraine's hard-right nationalist government, which Putin believed to be neonazi-driven and intent on removing all Russian language and cultural from Ukraine. But Putin's ideal aim failed, because the Ukrainian army successfully held a strong defense of their capital Kiev.
Very soon, Russia realized the extreme difficulty of defeating the Nato-supplied Ukrainian army. So the Russian army stopped and asked Ukraine to enter into ceasefire and peace talks, which Ukraine accepted. These talks were held in Istanbul and hosted by Turkey, a neutral country. Throughout the talks, Russian president Vladimir Putin sought Ukrainian recognition of Russia's annexation of Crimea, guarantees that Ukraine would not join NATO, and guarantees that the Ukraine government would discard its de-russification program and guarantee equal civil rights and freedoms for ethnic-Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians. In exchange, Russia agreed to withdraw to the pre-invasion boundaries, without Ukraine giving up any of its territory.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told the Financial Times at the time that the Istanbul Ten-Point Plan would require ‘the troops of the Russian Federation leaving the territory of Ukraine’ that it captured since 24 February.
On 29 March 2022, the Ukrainian government announced it would agree to the Istanbul Ten-Point Plan, in which Ukraine would confirm its status as a non-aligned neutral state, would never join a military alliance (including NATO), and would never allow foreign military bases or foreign military forces onto its territory (including for exercises). In place of NATO, Ukraine’s security would be guaranteed by stand-alone treaties with other countries, such as the US, Britain and France, who would agree to intervene militarily if Ukraine was attacked. Ukraine would have for security. Russia also agreed it would not object or create any obstacles for the European Union accepting Ukraine as a member; Putin even stated he would “facilitate” Ukraine’s full accession to the EU. Also in the Istanbul Plan, Ukraine agreed that the status of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, would be negotiated during a 15-year period, while during this period Ukraine would not use military means to attempt a change the status of Crimea. The final status of the breakaway republics in Ukraine's Donbas region of eastern and southeastern Ukraine would be negotiated separately, yet Ukraine would agree to permanently stop attacking these Russian-backed breakaway republics.
However, the Zelensky government suddenly decided to reject the Peace Plan, even though Ukraine's chief negotiator had already agreed to it, and Ukrainian negotiator was not allowed to discuss the negotiated Plan in the media. This reversal from Ukraine came immediately after the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to meet with President Zelensky on 9 April 2022. According to The Guardian, a British newspaper, Boris Johnson demanded that Zelensky "make no concessions to Putin," or else the US and UK would terminate its support and not give any security guarantees to Ukraine. This was also confirmed in a Ukrainian news outlet, Ukrainska Pravda. Boris Johnson along with the US advisors in Ukraine told Zelensky to battle the Russians rather than settle for any peace deal, because Ukraine would surely win the war being supplied with all of the necessary funds and weapons from the US and NATO. Victoria Nuland, a senior US State Department official at that time, explained in a 2024 interview that the US and UK were opposed to Russia's demand that Ukraine have a limited amount of NATO-supplied offensive weapons.
Later on in November 2022, some months after the nixed Istanbul Peace Plan,
Mark Milley, the US top general and Chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, went public to argue for peace negotiations, after Ukraine had made some advances in summer of 2022. He argued that this would be a good time, because the top military analysts figured that, from then on, Ukraine would begin to lose – despite all the money and weapons we could send them.
According to the New York Times, Milley pushed hard in the White House for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia. In top-level meetings General Milley argued that “the Ukrainians had achieved as much as they could reasonably expect on the battlefield, ...so they should try to cement their gains at the bargaining table.” In these White House meetings, Milley showed satellite images of large defensive trenches being dug by Russian forces, and then reminded everyone of the First World War, “when the two sides engaged in years of trench warfare with little change in territory – but millions of pointless casualties.” So according General Milley, this was the prime opportunity for Ukraine to negotiate for a peace settlement. And, according the NYT source, “Mr Putin indicated that he was satisfied with Russia’s captured territory and ready for an armistice.”
General Milley also spoke out publicly. On November 9 he gave a speech to the Economic Club of New York, where he doubted the possibility of Ukraine achieving a military victory, in spite of how much money and weapons we give them, and he quoted a military diplomatic principle, “When there’s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it. Seize the moment.” Then on November 10, General Milley went on TV, where he stated much of the same, that Ukraine had little chance to regain back its lost territory because Russia had built unbreakable defense barriers to protect their gained territories.
Then on November 16 Milley again argued publicly for diplomacy, saying at a press conference that the Ukrainians were unlikely to achieve their hopes through military force, but right now the Russian military is suffering and “you want to negotiate at a time when you’re at your strength, and your opponent is at weakness. So now it’s possible to achieve a political solution. All I’m saying is there’s a possibility for it now.”
It is important to note that Milley was speaking on behalf of the military experts
– which the civilian political leadership in the State Department seemed to oppose. He repeated throughout all of his public statements that “this war is unwinnable,” and “at the end of the day, this war will end with a political solution” (not an outright win for either side), and he urged Ukraine to begin peace negotiations with Russia “sooner than later.”
YET, the State Dept advisors and Biden told the General Milley to shut it up about negotiating for peace, because they wanted Ukraine to continue the US proxy war against Russia - using Ukrainian soldiers …but with US and NATO money and weapons. Hence forth, the Biden administration and its mainstream media outlets never again mentioned Milley’s suggestion, nor any other peace options to end the war; and in fact, the Biden government and its media began a communications campaign to denounce all peace proposals as “Pro-Putin.” Thus, ‘peace’ was demonized by the democratic neocon party, and they intentionally suppressed and vilified all those contradicting the administration's 'telling of the truth'.
But as foretold by Milley and his fellow military analysts, Ukraine would continue to lose from then on, and later on a leaked defense document also revealed that the military believed that Ukraine had little chance to progress any further. BUT through all of this, the Biden Team insisted to keep lying to the public (which the Nato states were told to do as well) about Ukraine's slim chances – because they wanted to keep the war going instead of settling the Russian/Ukraine conflict by diplomatic peace negotiations.
Later on in April 2023, leaked Defense Dept. documents revealed that Ukraine was definitely losing and had no probable chance to regain any of their lost territory. According to CNN, the leaked Pentagon documents “offer a pessimistic US viewpoint about the state of the war in Ukraine.” And as stated in the Washington Post, the leaked documents reveal a stark contrast from “the Biden administration’s public statements about the vitality of Ukraine’s military,” and this knowledge of Ukraine's inability to achieve military success gives support to those who call for the US and Nato “to push for a negotiated settlement to the conflict.” “The prospect of pouring billions of dollars into a military stalemate with only incremental gains in one direction or another could weaken the resolve of Kyiv’s backers in Europe and in the US, possibly sharpening calls for negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.”
The leaked top-secret military documents also revealed that the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, had LIED to Congress while under oath, claiming that Ukraine was doing very well in the war and that all it needed was more money and weapons to defeat the Russians. Because of these official statements, the majority Congress went on to approve around $60 Billion and a slew of high-powered weapons for Ukraine, but which never altered any realities in the war, as Ukraine continued to lose more territory every week up to this present day.
What can be concluded here is that the democratic party Biden government decided to intentionally lie to Congress, and also to the American citizens through their very successful controlled management of mainstream corporate media news, and to some extent alternative news, to get the majority of American citizens to rally behind their proxy war, prolonged to ensure the most harm to the Russian military and economy, and even hopefully lead to a new Russian political government that is western democratic and open to the global capitalists owning much of Russia’s resources.
They lied in order to manage the mainstream popular narrative, to believe that Ukraine could win but only if the public approved this $60 Billion and more weapons, to help Ukraine keep fighting in a war that the U.S. top General Milley already admitted was militarily unwinnable and would be smart to settle for a negotiated peace, because it was militarily predicted since November 2022 that Ukraine would keep losing territory ever since.
These simple facts have been and still are suppressed by the party-government’s colluded executives of mainstream corporate news media, whereby the executives determine and set boundaries on what is and is not permitted to discuss in the news.
