Time for reassessment and a change of course.

At the year-end news conference on Thursday lasting four hours, Russian President Vladimir Putin made some key remarks on the conflict in Ukraine which throw light on the likely trajectory of the war through 2024. To be sure, Russia will not accept a “frozen conflict” that falls short of realising the objectives Putin had laid out at the commencement of the special military operations in February last year. 

On December 14, Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine‘s Foreign Minister, and President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, both published accounts of what is happening in the War in Ukraine that tell us a lot about the delusion the Collective West is living in.

Wartime unity hasn’t healed the wounds of the country’s past.

Were Biden to indicate a desire for compromise, Putin might judge that his best bet lies with the current administration.

They came in the middle of the night, a handful of municipal employees manning a crane which they used to dismantle the bronze statue of Empress Catherine II, known as “Catherine the Great.” The statue was part of an assembly of bronze figures collectively known as the “Monument of the Founders of Odessa.” One of these figures was of José de Ribas, a Spanish naval officer who joined the Russian Imperial Army in 1772, leading it to victory against the Ottoman forces. Ribas led the assault that captured the territory which would be, in 1794, under an imperial edict issued by Catherine, Odessa. Ribas was the first administrator of the city. Another figure depicted François Sainte de Wollant, a Flemish engineer who was the first architect of Odessa. Platon Zubov was a Russian nobleman and believed to be Catherine’s closest advisor (and secret lover), while Grigory Potemkin, another Russian nobleman, was Catherine’s most influential advisor (and secret lover), who was the first Governor of the territories of New Russia, including Odessa, that were captured from the Ottomans.

Over the weekend, border-policy negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans fell apart. The talks were meant to firm up Republican support for the president’s massive $105 billion military support proposal ahead of Wednesday’s vote by including additional funds for border security in the spending package. Now, with no imminent approval of further aid to Ukraine, hawks in government and the media are trying to stoke panic about what will happen if Kyiv is cut off from US support.

A leading Ukrainian politician said in a November 24 interview that as early as April 2022, Russia was “prepared to end the war if we agreed to…neutrality.”

Zelensky’s fame and glory in the West are indisputable, and his rise to celebrity status is remarkable. The transition from a comedian who played the piano on stage with his pants down to a politician who was compared by the media to Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, and many other famous politicians will earn him a noted place in history. The big questions are what would this particular place be and at what price for achieving it.

In his Chicago Tribune op-ed (‘If we don’t approve more aid for Ukraine, the conflict in Europe will grow), Illinois 5th District Congressman Mike Quigley offered every national security state trope for squandering an additional $61 billion in weapons for Ukraine’s lost war with Russia.