Who Lost Ukraine?

Gregory J. Wallance, The Hill: Who lost Ukraine? 

Ukraine hasn’t been lost yet. But it will be if Congress fails to pass a Ukraine military aid package this month. Without U.S. weapons and equipment, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky bluntly put it, “we will lose the war.” 

Who will get the blame if U.S. aid ceases and Russian President Vladimir Putin triumphantly enters Kyiv, executes or imprisons tens of thousands of Ukrainians, wipes out the Ukrainian identity, and starts menacing Western Europe with his newly-captured, Western supplied armaments?  

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WNU Editor: This is one of those conflicts that could have been avoided. Minsk 2 was an agreement that all parties had signed onto, and it would have defused tensions and put an end to the ongoing war with Ukraine's Russian majority populations in the east.

Before the war I always felt that the solution to Ukraine's ongoing war and conflict with its Russian minority population would be a federated system like Canada's, where linguistic and cultural rights will be protected and respected. Minsk 2 was a pathway that would have lead to such a system. Why Ukrainian leaders choose to break this agreement and pursue a military option thereby opening the door for Putin to order the invasion of the country is one of those questions that I hope will be answered when the war is finally over. 

As to who lost Ukraine? 

 On top of my list is Ukraine President Zelensky and Ukraine's hard-core nationalist leaders. This is then followed by US President Biden and the leaders of most Western governments. 

They all underestimated Putin, and they also completely underestimated and misread Russian public opinion on Ukraine and the war. They were also clueless on Ukraine itself. Not appreciating the simple fact that a third of the country regard themselves as Ukrainian-Russians with deep linguistic/cultural/and religious ties to the Russian identity, and that they would fight and go to war to protect their rights.

Update: I did not expect this public admission .... US would be responsible for Ukraine’s defeat – Treasury Secretary (RT).

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