A November 24 piece from Strategic Culture reports that the United Kingdom has added more fuel to the fire in Ukraine by committing more military forces to the conflict in that country. Strategic Culture’s Arkady Savitsky writes (emphasis added):
Ukraine’s Constitutional Court green-lighted a bill on amending the country’s main law by enshrining into it the final goal of obtaining NATO and EU membership. The decision was announced the next day after the UK and Ukraine’s defense ministries made a joint statement, stressing the need to expand military cooperation. The defense chiefs agreed that Operation Orbital, the Army training program started in 2015, was a success to be continued at least till 2020. Instructors from the British Army, most of who have significant experience in participating in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, have trained over 9,500 Ukrainian servicemen. An unspecified number of UK soldiers would be sent to train Ukrainian special forces and marines, in addition to the 100 personnel deployed currently in the country.
A multi-role hydrographic survey ship will be deployed in the Black Sea next year to demonstrate Britain’s support for Ukraine and ensure “freedom of navigation”. HMS Echo is not a warship but it flies the naval ensign. In September, Great Britain made known it planned to increase the warships’ presence in the Black Sea next year with increasingly frequent port calls to Odessa.
NATO naval presence there is seen as provocative by Russia amid increasing tensions in the Azov Sea. A conflict appears to be imminent and the West has taken the side of Ukraine despite the fact that it was Kiev who has been provoking it. EU High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini believes many vessels flying European Union flags were threatened to make Brussels consider “appropriate targeted measures” to be taken as a signal to Moscow.
The increase in UK military presence goes against the letter and spirit of Minsk accords, which state that the conflict in Ukraine should be managed through diplomatic and political means…
Arkady then makes a very important point. Why does Ukraine need more military forces from outside the country? After all, it is an industrialized nation and according to its own nationalist news agency, UNIAN, it is a large and successful arms exporter:
Nobody in Washington or London asks why an industrialized nation and a large arms exporter, with abundant resources and fertile land should depend on foreign assistance unable to defend itself. Weapons are supplied and training is provided to the country, where corruption is rampant. Even the US State Department’s recent report says it is. Popular protests are commonplace. The conflict in Donbass is used to distract the people from domestic woes. The frustration with Kiev’s reluctance to introduce much-needed reforms and curtail the political influence of the oligarchs is rapidly growing. The common people of Ukraine need political and economic reforms, not increased foreign military presence on their soil.
The only reason for the West to keep the failed Ukraine afloat is its obsequiousness and readiness to be converted into a springboard to threaten Russia with an aggression. Despite Ukraine’s multiple problems, the country has recently been rewarded with an official status in NATO. The 2018 North Atlantic Alliance’s summit confirmed its support for Ukraine’s full-fledged membership to make a mockery of the so called “NATO standards.”
As to why this commitment to increased military forces, at least from the UK’s point of view:
The UK government is going through hard times. It has just achieved as a draft agreement on post-Brexit relations with the EU. The deal has a little chance to make it through the Commons. Nobody knows exactly how it will end up if the MPs say no. There may be no Brexit at all finally. Chancellor Philip Hammond believes “If the deal is not approved by parliament, we will have a politically chaotic situation… In that chaos that would ensue, there may be no Brexit.” Or there may be endless negotiations, reconciliation conferences, delays and postponements. It’ll be a large order for the government to stay. There are supporters of no-confidence vote in parliament. You never know how it’s all going to pan out.
Nothing unites a divided nation better than an external threat, such as Russia. The Brexit deadline is March 29 to launch a 21-months transition period with Britain still a member. The events in Ukraine are needed to fuel the fire. Making people think that the UK is lending a helping hand to a poor nation under attack is a way to improve the government’s image and approval ratings. The cabinet members never tell their people that by rendering military assistance to Kiev their country becomes an accomplice to a conflict that has nothing to do with its national security or interests. The UK military aid eggs the Ukrainian government on to seek a military solution.
Russia is not watching idle. If the Minsk accords are washed out, it will have each and every reason to recognize the Lugansk and Donetsk self-proclaimed republics as independent states eligible for military cooperation agreements, including stationing Russian military bases on their soil, if their governments ask for it. No international law would be violated.
Ukraine’s government is ramping up tensions because President Petro Poroshenko is running for re-election in March 2019 on a national security platform. So he takes a tougher line on Azov. Those who rush to provide him with military assistance become accomplices in his adventurist actions that could have disastrous consequences. The UK will bear responsibility for goading Kiev into taking a confrontational approach and turning the Azov Sea into a flashpoint that can spark at any minute.
There are some problems with this sort of view, though. For one, the West is loath to completely reveal the nature of this particular conflict. The news-media go on and on about how it is necessary to send military forces to “keep an aggressive / assertive / monstrous Russia in line / at bay / knowing who is the boss”, but it is never reported in mainstream media how the effort here is to contain and isolate Russia. And why?
Because Russia, without aggressive language or actions, simply refuses to play the globalist game. Russia came through seventy years of anti-Christian communism and the nation still bears the scars of what a strictly secular life does. Russia still suffers a flat population growth, large parts of its land feature people living in primitive conditions (despite the atheist triumph of technology under Communism), and the nation has generally come to understand that this way of governance did not work.
Instead, now, there is a strong resurgence of the ancient Orthodox Christian faith in form and practice. Orthodox Christians do not hold with abortion on demand. They do not support homosexuality being normalized. What was a sin six thousand years ago remains a sin today. In addition, the nation did preserve a strong cultural tradition even during Communism, and as President Putin said to George Stephanopolous in Sochi back in 2014, “The Russian people have their own cultural code, their own traditions. We don’t interfere. [We] don’t stick our noses in their lives. And we ask that our traditions and culture are treated with the same respect.”
Therefore the story is muddled. Because it is muddled, it is not likely to become a rallying cry for the Britons any more than it would be for the Americans.
The West does not yet realize this.
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