NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

The content in this article does not represent the views of El Reportero or its staff, it is the opinion of the writer.

by Paul Craig Roberts

June 27, 2024 – Has anyone noticed that Putin is conducting his “limited military operation,” by which he means limited to Donbas and the former Russian territories that are again part of Russia, as a response to US/NATO/Ukrainian initiatives? When the Russian military strikes outside the limited combat zone, it is usually a response to a Ukrainian strike into Russia out of the combat zone. After 2.5 years of conflict, Putin has made no effort to win the war. He doesn’t even seem to understand that Russia is at war, not engaged in a limited police action.

Putin has left the Ukrainian government in functioning order and has not interfered with Zelensky’s ability to continue the conflict. Kiev is intact. The government in Kiev is intact. Nothing has been done to close Ukraine’s borders from Western armament supplies. The entire initiative of the conflict is with the West. The West acts, and Putin responds. There are no Russian initiatives. Indeed, Russia was forced into the conflict by the West’s initiatives.

This is not the way to fight a war.

It is Putin’s refusal to fight and win a war that is causing the enormous expansion–the ever widening–of the war.

Notice that the Kremlin’s response to the US missile attack on Crimean civilians and a public beach is to call in the American ambassador and complain, to investigate, to send condolences, not to destroy and occupy Kiev. After all this time haven’t the Russians learned that no one pays any attention to their complaints? Why does Putin think he can shame the shameless West? Why does the Kremlin worry about over-responding to attacks? https://sputnikglobe.com/20240627/putin-will-not-take-the-bait-russia-will-respond-prudently-to-crimea-attack-1119148707.html Washington doesn’t worry about over-provoking Russia.

Let me be clear, I am on humanity’s side. I don’t want nuclear war. Putin should never have entered a conflict when he did not intend a quick victory before Washington/NATO could get involved and widen the war.

Now that French troops are in Ukraine, now that US/NATO personnel are conducting the targeting of the US long-range missiles on Russian civilians, and now that Russia is faced with the likelihood of NATO troops entering Ukraine, Putin’s response is to play into Washington’s hands by speaking of bringing North Korean troops into the conflict. Imagine the propaganda damage. North Korea is even more demonized than Russia and Putin.

Why does Putin want to widen the conflict instead of quickly winning it?

Is the reason that his central bank director convinced him Russia lacked the resources to conduct a real war? Is this why Putin endlessly emphasizes Russian nuclear capability? Does Putin lack the resources to conduct conventional war? With his central bank director’s 16% interest rates hindering the Russian economy, perhaps it is so. Putin’s central bank director left Russian central bank reserves in Western depositories where Washington could seize them. Was this incompetence or an act of treason? Washington has decided that the interest income earned by the seized Russian central bank reserves will be given to Ukraine to continue the war. So Russia’s own central bank reserves are financing Ukraine’s ability to conduct war against Russia.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia, especially the youth, were corrupted for years by Washington’s propaganda. They lost their national consciousness and became “citizens of the West.” Has Russian youth escaped from this delusion, or does it still rule?

The question before us is: Does Russia have leadership capable of comprehending that Russia has an enemy intent on her destruction and dismemberment, or will the Kremlin finally realize this at the last minute, too late to avoid nuclear war?

It is extraordinary that the fate of the world rests on Russian misperception and inadequate response to the West’s intent. As a result of Putin’s inability to act decisively, he was drawn into a conflict that has become open-ended, involving, at least in plans, troops from foreign countries. To pretend that such a conflict is a “limited military operation” is an act of irresponsibility, even evidence of reality denial.

Russia is at war with the West. She got there because she refused to acknowledge the fact. Grasping reality remains a challenge for the Kremlin which continues to enable the Ukraine conflict to spin out of control rather than use the force to decisively terminate the conflict before it ends in World War III.

Russia Considers, Russia Considers, but Never does anything.

And so the provocations continue and worsen and “are edging closer to the point of no return.”

Does it ever occur to the Kremlin that doing something, rather than “considering,” might stop the march to the point of no return?

by Paul Craig Roberts

British Foreign Minister Says “We must go after everything Russian.”

“We will show Putin that we are completely behind Ukraine: we will chase the money and the oil, we will stop the gas, we will stop the ships,” declared British Foreign Minister Cameron.

The UK is “hunting” companies that do business with Russia “all over the world,” Cameron said. “We will sanction companies in China, in Turkey, in Kyrgyzstan, even in Israel, that we believe are supplying dual-use material” to Russia, he added.

This is the consequence of Putin’s ill-considered “limited military operation in Ukraine.” It is extraordinary that Russian intelligence failed to inform Putin that a slow-poke war would permit the West to become involved, thereby turning it into a war between NATO and Russia.

Putin still speaks of negotiating a peace with Ukraine despite the fact that Ukraine, NATO, and Washington have made it completely clear that the only terms for peace are Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine including Crimea, payment for damages and dead Ukrainians and acceptance of NATO membership for Ukraine.

One can only wonder at the complete lack of realism as the West brings war to Russia.

Is it the Kremlin’s plan to be a sitting duck and only respond defensively after Russia is attacked, or has Putin issued a final warning? Two days ago Putin said that the selfishness and hypocrisy of the West has produced a dangerous situation “bringing the world close to the point of no return.” Putin’s words call to mind Serbian President Vucic’s statement that “the train has left the station and no one can stop it.” https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/06/13/the-train-has-left-the-station-and-no-one-can-stop-it/

Putin said that the calls of Western leaders “to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the extreme adventurism of Western politicians. They either do not understand the scale of the threat they themselves create, or they are simply obsessed with the belief in their own impunity and their own exclusivity. Both can turn into a tragedy.”

It is extraordinary that not only the Western world but the entire world ignores the dangerous situation described by Putin. Why hasn’t the UN imposed sanctions on Washington for provoking nuclear war? Why is it patriotic to promote war but not peace? I have been warning much longer than has Putin, and my reward has been to be called names and put on lists of Russian “agents/dupes.”

The pending war could have been avoided if the West had abided by the Minsk Agreement. The agreement kept Donbas in Ukraine by providing the two republics with some autonomy to stop Ukraine’s attacks on the Donbas population. Putin supported the agreement for 8 years despite continuing provocations. As the German Chancellor and President of France admitted, the West only pretended to support the Minsk Agreement while the West built a large Ukrainian army capable of subjugating the Donbas republics.

Before intervening in February 2022, Putin and Lavrov made a last effort to negotiate a mutual security agreement with the West, but was cold-shouldered by the West. Clearly, the West intended a conflict from the beginning.

What was the West thinking?

Why did Putin think Russia’s intervention could be limited to Donbas? Putin watched Washington overthrow the Ukrainian government, insert a puppet, demonize and attack the Russian population of Donbas, refuse all Russian proposals to avoid conflict, and force Russia into protecting the Russian areas that had been attached to Ukraine by Soviet leaders. The West certainly knew that the Kremlin could not simply sit on its hands while the Russian population was massacred.

In Putin’s defense, perhaps he is too humane to comprehend the evil that has the West in its grasp. Perhaps his central bank director and Russian neoliberal economists told him Russia could not afford a war. Perhaps Putin thought the West would come to its senses.

But the West hasn’t come to its senses. The West is intentionally driving toward a war with Russia. As President Vucic says “no one is attempting to stop the war. Nobody is speaking about peace. Peace is almost a forbidden word.”

It is an extraordinary situation. As the late Steven Cohen and I emphasized once we saw the West fomenting the conflict with Russia, the situation is more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that time Washington understood the necessity of defusing tensions. Today Washington intentionally worsens tensions, and there is no concern about the consequences.

My conclusion is that the West has lost touch with reality and is bringing death and destruction upon itself.