“It Is Not Our War”

It is not our war”. That was US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He was speaking to reporters in Paris after his meeting with French President and EU officials, in connection with the Trump-proposed peace plan in Ukraine. America threatened to withdraw from the peace process if there is no progress within days. Given the present ground reality, neither Russia nor Ukraine showed any urgency to sign an agreement as both sides think they have invested too much in the war to gain little in return, as per Trump’s formula of division of Ukraine. Americans say ‘it is not their war’, but the war continues because of their military support to Ukraine. While talking of peace, the Trump administration never stopped supplying sophisticated military hardware to Ukraine. Ukraine has no option but to buy America-sponsored peace in exchange for territory. This settlement could have been achieved much earlier, when the war was just 3 months old, if Ukraine had agreed to accept the Russian offer. The present Trump deal is almost identical to what Moscow urged Ukraine to accept at the start of the war. Ukraine's president Zelensky, is mainly responsible for prolonging this bloody war that has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. Also, this comedian President, who is living on borrowed time as he is running the office through martial law, has become the rallying point for anti-Russians. Then it may take a decade, if not more, to rebuild Ukraine. The scenarios in many places look like devastated Gaza; particularly, the destruction of energy infrastructure is horrible. The plight of thousands of Ukrainian refugees scattered in different European countries defies description, and for all practical purposes, they are a forgotten people in Zelensky’s jingoistic rhetoric.

It’s not ‘America’s war,’ and yet America’s military-industrial complex is the major beneficiary of this brutal war at the expense of Ukrainians and Russians. In truth, for America, a new phase of the war is to begin soon as the Trump administration is in a hurry to mine Ukraine’s critical minerals after China stops selling rare earths to America in view of Trump’s tariff war. China’s retaliation was designed not only to safeguard its legitimate rights, but also “to protect the common interests of all nations, to prevent humanity from regressing to a lawless jungle where might makes right”. In case of tariff tantrums, America is already in a situation of self-isolation and China is trying to ally with EU in a bid to shift the balance of power. All this suggests the decline of the empire seems irreversible. Zelensky has virtually mortgaged the Ukrainian economy to America’s defence establishment. He has already sold five million hectares–the size of two Crimeas–of fertile land to American agro-industries. And now about 50 percent of its critical minerals and ores will go to American firms.

For one thing, Zelensky forced Russia to act militarily by the Nazification of his army and inviting NATO at the Russian border, albeit the western media is hailing him as a great patriot. Even if America withdraws from this war, the possibility of which seems remote, EU is ready to finance this war. They are stakeholders in this game right from the beginning. America will get minerals and fertile agricultural land, but it is not yet clear how the EU will get back its dues when the war is over. So, they continue to pump money into Zelensky’s war machine by maintaining their perennial hostility to Russia.

In the absence of real military targets, in most cases, both sides are now waging a reckless offensive against civilians who are in no way involved in the fighting. Ordinary people are forced to choose between death and displacement. For Russians and Ukrainians the word “war” for what is going on at the moment is misleading and distorted.

28-04-2025

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 47, May 18 - 24, 2025