Dnipro River in Kyiv
BY DAVE GUTKNECHT
I headed that earlier column with the Istanbul April 2022 agreement that would have left Ukraine intact except for Crimea. The West, through Boris Johnson, then told Ukraine that if it abandoned the negotiations, NATO would back it all the way. Ukraine, having some agency, accepted this weighty offer. There was no official acknowledgement of this, making it deniable, but specifics were covered at length in “Ukainska Pravda” (Kyiv) and at the U.N. by assistant secretary-general Michael von der Schulenburg and others.
Similarly, Pentagon-funded organizations such as RAND Corporation are revolving-door outlets that explore strategy while remaining deniable. RAND’s 2019 study, “Extending Russia,” is on the RAND website and details the war against Russia playbook that has been followed — through financial sanctions and the seizure of Russian assets. This latter illegal action is key to the subsequent breakdown of the SWIFT payment system; the rise of separate payment channels by Russia, China, and the BRICS nations; and the continuing decline of the U.S. global financial position.
The Minsk 2014-2015 agreement could have ended the war, but Oscar Peterson says, “both sides accused each other of violating them.” Yet co-signatories Germany (Merkel) and France (Hollande) in 2024 admitted that they never intended to enforce the agreement but rather used it to buy time in which to build up Ukraine for war. Violations in one direction: Kyiv suppressed the Russian language, religion and parliamentary opposition, and began eight years of bombarding eastern Ukraine.
Map of Dnipro (Dnieper) River in Ukraine
The EU just approved a 17th set of sanctions on Russia! But sanctions have indeed failed, greatly weakening international cooperation and leading to Russia’s economy reorienting away from the West. After the increased sanctions in 2022 and ongoing inflation challenges, Russia’s economy rebounded in 2023/2024 with 3.6 and 3.8 percent growth, according to the IMF.
Like many, Oscar Peterson refuses to acknowledge that Ukraine is has lost the war. Ongoing expansion of Russian-held territory and success in its strategy of attrition is destroying the Ukraine military and manpower. I watched a video showing the leading wartime U.S. general — Westmoreland 1967 on Vietnam; Petraeus 2011 on Afghanistan; and Cavoli 2025 on Ukraine. Each one testified that the enemy is being held back, our proxy army is steadily improving, and an end to the war is in sight. All three were knowingly lying, just as many others are today, to keep the war going. One recent U.S. commander, Gen. Milley, spoke the truth in fall 2022 when he said that Ukraine cannot win and should negotiate a settlement — but he was shuffled aside.
NATO expansion provoked Russia into launching the war, a point predicted and now acknowledged by many, even former NATO secretary-general Stoltenberg. But Peterson dismisses it as a “key Russian talking point,” illustrating the propagandist mentality.
Those of us opposed to American warmaking and endless provocations have good reasons. Overlooking NATO expansion is to ignore volumes of testimony and years of multiple warnings since the 1990s against bringing Ukraine into NATO — warnings by top diplomats, scholars, and military voices in the U.S. and Europe.
Shifting to another U.S. enabled war, an objection to calling Israel’s actions “genocide” — the term is “controversial and politically charged” and requires legal clarity (Oscar Peterson) — is sophistry and evasion. Genocide is “an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group” — and that is the publicly declared aim of the Israel government regarding the Palestinians. Ethnic cleansing and genocide have been documented thoroughly by South Africa, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israel’s B’Tselem.
I don’t have enough space to discuss either side’s war crimes: some are likely while others are unlikely. Russia’s war of military attrition is winning, at great cost. Ukraine is a terrible, sacrificial ground in the long war of the U.S. and U.K. on Russia (our intervention dates to 1940s–50s CIA support of Ukrainian neo-Nazis). As for “agency” (Oscar Peterson): the sooner Ukraine removes Zelensky; accepts neutrality as in the 1991 constitution; and acknowledges the previously avoidable loss of territory, the sooner the slaughter of Ukrainians will end.
