Support for Ukrainians?

You don't have to be a Putin or Russia apologist to hate war

Mar 03, 2025

All of these people expressing their support for Ukraine, the nation-state, what do they actually mean by “support?”

What does it mean to stand with Ukraine? Does that mean to continue the war against Russia? If so, I must beg to differ.

Let’s recap U.S. involvement in this manmade disaster

NATO Enlargement

1990 February 9 “Baker told Gorbachev that ‘if we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO 1 inch to the east.’” PolitiFact
Now many argue, including PolitiFact, that the assertion made by the U.S. Secretary of State was not put in writing; it was not formally agreed to, therefore the thinking goes, it does not matter. To which I would counter; then please let the world know that nothing coming out of the mouth of any U.S. representative, including its Secretary of State and President, can be believed. As a nation we have proven to agreement-incapable, we’ve broken as many treaties as we’ve signed. And by my count we’ve added 16 countries to NATO since 1999.
1999
- The Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia)
- Hungary
- Poland
2004
- Bulgaria (formerly of the Warsaw Pact)
- Estonia
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Romania (formerly of the Warsaw Pact)
- Slovakia
- Slovenia (successor to Yugoslavia)
2009
- Albania (formerly of the Warsaw Pact)
- Croatia (successor to Yugoslavia)
2017 Montenegro
2020 North Macedonia (in 2020)
2023 Finland
2024 Sweden

Give the U.S. an inch, and it will take much, much more. Something else I would suggest we keep in mind; in effect, through Article 5, every country in NATO has agreed to go to war in the event that any other country is subjected to an “armed attack.”

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

In Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, Pat Buchanan makes a solid argument that such a “war guarantee” made by the UK in the case of Poland actually caused WW II. Basically, the war guarantee emboldened Polish leaders, and they refused to negotiate with Germany regarding the formerly-German lands ceded to Poland after WW I. Let’s just say it didn’t end well for the Poles. It didn’t end well for the British either.

Provocative Militarism

Then of course, we put bioweapons labs in various countries, Ukraine being a prime example.

The Pentagon said … that it has operated 46 biolabs in Ukraine handling dangerous pathogens, after previously dismissing the charges as Russian propaganda.

Let’s be clear, “biodefense” cannot be developed without first having developed the bioweapon itself; that’s what “biolabs” are up to.

And naturally we, the U.S., have nuclear weapons in NATO countries, including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Why?

Yet we wonder why Russia gets anxious about NATO enlargement.

Regime Change (2014)

It can be argued I suppose, that it wasn’t a coup. But what is certain is that the U.S. was involved. Certainly today it would be called out as election interference at a minimum, more likely intentional regime change, and included but was not limited to Senator John McCain (R‑AZ), Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. The second link is the infamous phone call between Nuland and Pyatt discussing who should lead Ukraine in U.S. interests, “fuck the EU,” and how that might be brought about.

Following the overthrow of President Yanukovych in 2014, ethnic Russian regions broke away from the post-coup government and appealed for protection and autonomy. The Minsk II agreement, endorsed unanimously by this Council <UN Security Council> in Resolution 2202, called for regional autonomy to be incorporated in Ukraine’s constitution, but the agreement was never implemented by the Government of Ukraine despite the UN Security Council backing.
—Jeffrey Sachs

In effect, a civil war broke out in Ukraine, across a north-south line, between the “ethnic Russian regions” in the East, and the U.S.-installed government of Ukraine. Then, as should have been expected, and probably was hoped for…

Between October and November 2021, he <Putin> amassed troops and military equipment along Russia’s border with Ukraine and made various demands that were rejected, including de facto veto power over NATO expansion. On February 21, 2022, Putin recognized the independence of the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and ordered Russian troops into Ukrainian territory as “peacekeepers,” and on February 24 he launched a full-scale invasion that he called a “special military operation.”
— Britannica

Britannica’s explanation of the immediate causes is a bit suspect; Putin was asking, again, as Russia had been asking for over 20 years, that NATO not expand eastward, certainly not to Russia’s border, and absolutely not to include Ukraine in particular, which was clearly a bright red line. All of which the U.S.-led West ignored.

Aggression at What Price?

It’s hard to find reliable statistics on the dead and wounded, as each side is more than hesitant to share such information, except for inflated estimates of the enemy’s losses. But perusing the sites that do offer estimates, I think its safe to say that at least 1,000,000 have been killed or injured, military and civilian, including both sides. Eight million Ukrainians have been displaced internally, and another eight million refugees have left the country outright; this from a population of just over 43 million in 2021.

Not to mention all of taxpayer treasure the U.S. has poured into Ukraine, and will pour into Ukraine after the war ends.

It is a disaster by any measure. As are all wars.

Support Ukraine and Ukrainians How?

Anyone who thinks that support for Ukraine means a continuation of this war, is quite frankly, completely insane. The first thing that needs to happen is that we, the West in general and U.S. in particular, need to own our role in bringing this war to Ukrainians.

Very early in the war, negotiations were started.

By the end of March 2022, a series of in-person meetings in Belarus and Turkey and virtual engagements over video conference had produced the so-called Istanbul Communiqué, which described a framework for a settlement. Ukrainian and Russian negotiators then began working on the text of a treaty, making substantial progress toward an agreement.
A final agreement proved elusive, however, for a number of reasons. Kyiv’s Western partners were reluctant to be drawn into a negotiation with Russia, particularly one that would have created new commitments for them to ensure Ukraine’s security. The public mood in Ukraine hardened with the discovery of Russian atrocities at Irpin and Bucha. And with the failure of Russia’s encirclement of Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky became more confident that, with sufficient Western support, he could win the war on the battlefield.
Foreign Affairs

Just like the Poles before WW II. Overconfident, cocky even, assured of “western” support. And therefore unwilling to negotiate. And how was the West worried about “new commitments for them to ensure Ukraine’s security?” We maintained through the Biden administration that NATO membership was not off the table, and NATO membership is nothing less than a guarantee of Ukraine’s security. A war guarantee.

Now, after all of the death and destruction, it is likely that the 2022 Istanbul Communiqué will form a cornerstone on which to build terms for peace in 2025. The positions of both sides have hardened in the meantime, and it seems reasonable to assume that Ukraine will give up more than it was willing to in 2022. If anyone is to guarantee Ukraine’s security it will have to be the EU, assuming Trump keeps his word, and as Great Britain was wholly incapable of guaranteeing Poland’s security from the Germans, the EU is wholly incapable of militarily defending Ukraine against the Russians; Europeans have been totally dependent on the U.S. for their security since WW II.

So. In support of Ukraine and Ukrainians: 1) Take ownership of U.S. role in bringing about the war; 2) end the war, now; 3) assist Ukraine in rebuilding after a war we had a hand in starting; and 4), were I king for a day, we would be negotiating an end to U.S. involvement in NATO, an “entangling alliance” if there ever was one, we should leave Europe to Europeans.