Ukraine Appears Now to Have Lost Its War With Russia

12 October 2024, by Eric Zuesse

Ever since a year ago, when Ukraine’s offensive against Russian forces failed, no possibility has existed for Ukraine to win its war unless the U.S. would violate Russia’s national-security “red lines” — such as by making Ukraine, which is a mere 300 miles away from The Kremlin, a NATO member, or else by allowing Ukraine to use NATO weapons to strike far enough into Russia so as to be able to bomb The Kremlin and decapitate Russia’s Government. On 12 October 2024, U.S. President Joe Biden, after a month of indecision (ever since September 13th) about whether to allow Ukraine to use NATO weapons so as to cross Russia’s national-security red line by using these weapons in that way, finally had his agent, the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, tell Ukraine’s leader Volodmyr Zelensky, that Zelensky will not get U.S.-and-allied permission to do that — use NATO-supplied weapons in that way. Consequently, the only way in which Ukraine can continue to receive support from The West is to avoid violating Russia’s national-security red line. To put this short: NATO has now, finally, refused to escalate Ukraine’s war into a nuclear war between Russia and The West if and when Russia is about to conquer (defeat) Ukraine. The West has given up on Ukraine.

I have held off till now saying that Ukraine’s defeat in this war is virtually inevitable, until now. On October 10th, I headlined “Biden’s plan calls for WW3 to start after Election Day.”, and argued that Biden “does want WW3, but not before November 6th,” but now I know (unless today’s news-report that Starmer had rejected Zelensky’s request for that permission turns out to have been deceptive) that Biden has given up on Ukraine.

Furthermore: another indication that the U.S. Government has given up on Ukraine is the news-report on October 12th from Ukraine’s Kyiv Independent, “House Speaker has no 'appetite' for more US support for Ukraine”, which quoted the Republican Speaker of the U.S. House, Mike Johnson, who has in the past waffled on the Ukraine matter, as saying now, "I don't have an appetite for further Ukraine funding, and I hope it's not necessary.” Basically, he represents the view of Donald Trump, but if the war-hawk Kamala Harris will win on November 5th, then the vast majority of House Republicans will almost certainly oppose passing anything from President Harris that would get the U.S. into a nuclear war against Russia so as to prevent Russia from achieving victory there.

The key question in the lone Trump/Harris Presidential nominees debate wasn’t asked: “Might it be worth a preemptive blitz nuclear attack against Russia &/or China if that's what's needed in order for the U.S. to retain its position as the most powerful nation?” However, if it were to be asked of the contestants now, I would expect that both of them would say no to that question. If, however, even Harris would instead say yes to it, then it’s inconceivable to me that she would now agree to have another debate with Trump. On October 10th she had publicly accepted CNN’s invitation to debate with Trump on October 23rd, but Trump said no. If he won’t now reverse that and take the offer, subject to CNN’s publishing ahead of time what the questions will be, and requiring CNN to include this one, then by his continuing simply to say no to CNN’s offer, he would be displaying that he thinks that the horrid debate-performance he gave on September 10th can’t even possibly be greatly improved next time. He might then be casting aside the possibility of winning an electoral landslide on November 5th. Here’s why: If Harris were to say yes to the question, then who would be so stupid as to vote for her? And if she were to say no to it, then all that Trump would need to do is to memorize and repeat all of the statments by her that the U.S. Government must do everything to back Ukraine’s war-effort. She would be trapped, either way. And if CNN would refuse to include that question, then Trump would have a field day by accusing CNN of protecting Harris. Both Harris and CNN would thus be trapped by him if he now reverses himself and accepts CNN’s offer — subject to that question’s being included in the debate. After all — NOTHING can be worse than World War Three. And, then, Trump would have both CNN and Harris trapped — and Harris would come off looking like an extremist war-hawk, so that Trump could pound her with that until November 5th, and drive more and more of her supporters to abandon her.

Given that even inside Ukraine, it is now publicly known that the likelihood of the U.S. Government’s going directly to war against Russia in order to prevent Ukraine from being defeated, the already-low morale of Ukraine’s troops will be substantially lower even than before, it would be obviously better for the Ukrainian people now if their government would seek to negotiate the best deal from Russia that they still can get.

I had expected Biden to try to delay letting that cat out of the bag until after the election, but, for whatever reason, he isn’t doing that, and, since the morale on the Ukrainian side will now be significantly lower, the battlefield reports between now and November 5th will likely depress still further the chances of the war-hawk Kamala Harris becoming elected. 

PS: If you like this article, please email it to all your friends or otherwise let others know about it. None of the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media will likely publish it (nor link to it, since doing that might also hurt them with Google or etc.).

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.