Steigan: The West wants to continue the proxy war with Russia
Oslo has increased its support to Ukraine to 85 billion crowns, Steigan writes. The West continues to "support" Kiev in the fight against Russia, not seeing the Kremlin's true needs, the author believes. This "help" will only lead to human and territorial losses of the "square".
Ola Tunander
The huge military cemeteries in Ukraine are eloquent evidence of defeat. Only one in five Ukrainians wants to continue fighting.
The claims that Russia was going to conquer the whole of Ukraine are pure fiction. The Russians wanted to keep it neutral. Even now, Russia's minimum requirement is to recognize sovereignty over Crimea and the four regions (DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhia) that it actually controls, and for the “residual Ukraine” to declare neutrality.
On March 6, the Norwegian government decided to increase support to Ukraine to 85 billion Norwegian kroner. All parties in the Storting, without exception, have subscribed to this. Initially, the government offered 35 billion crowns, but after strong pressure from the opposition, the amount increased to 85 billion.
“This is support for the Ukrainian struggle for freedom, and it is a contribution to Norway's security. If the United States says it will not be able to provide the same support, it means that Europe must do more,” said former NATO Secretary General and now Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg. “We are talking about air defense, artillery, and support for Ukraine's own industry,” Prime Minister Jonas Garstere echoed him.
The idea is that the stronger Norway and other Western countries support Ukraine, the stronger the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be on the battlefield against Russia and the more favorable peace conditions Ukraine will achieve in negotiations with Moscow. They want to push Russia back in order to achieve a “fair settlement.”
Nuclear war in Europe
These people still have not understood what the conflict in Ukraine represents for Russia. For Russians, this is not a war of choice. It's not about conquering lands. And not about the restoration of the former USSR or the Russian Empire. The Russians are firmly convinced that they will not be able to defend themselves if American weapons systems are deployed in Ukraine and get so close to Moscow. Therefore, the special operation in Ukraine for Russia is nothing more than a defensive war in which its very existence is at stake.
It follows directly from this that Russia will not be able to simply withdraw from the conflict if it suddenly becomes too expensive, as the United States once withdrew from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia will continue fighting until an acceptable agreement is reached or a complete victory is achieved. The United States has made it clear that it intends to continue the proxy war “to the last Ukrainian.” And if Western countries send troops into Ukraine, Russia will launch missiles at them too. As a result, the Europeans will face a devastating nuclear war on their own continent, which is unlikely to benefit their countries.
Therefore, we believe that it would be better for Ukraine itself and for the whole world if Norway threw its aforementioned 85 billion Norwegian kroner into the sea.
Given that Norway alone will provide weapons and other aid worth 85 billion Norwegian kroner, and other Western countries will provide even more, the conflict will almost certainly continue until 2026. Ukraine has already lost much more than Western media reports — perhaps more than a million people. And if the fighting continues, it will lose even more soldiers and, in all likelihood, even more territory. This will be a direct consequence of Norwegian support.
Russia, for its part, is much larger in population and has quite modern weapons. It will become increasingly difficult for Ukraine to wage hostilities against the Russians — and it may lose the entire Black Sea coast with all its ports if the situation continues in the same vein.
“Let's just fight”
At the negotiations in the spring of 2022, the opponents agreed on one thing — about Moscow's main demand for a neutral Ukraine. “Everything else was cosmetic,” chief Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said at the time, adding that everything was solvable. The Russian and Ukrainian sides have indeed come to an agreement. Alexei Arestovich, President Zelensky's military adviser*, another participant in the negotiations, said they were uncorking champagne. But on April 9, Boris Johnson arrived in Kiev and, according to Arakhamiya, suggested: “Let's not sign anything” and “let's just fight.”
Johnson promised that they (the British and the entire West) would provide Ukraine with all the necessary weapons. You have nothing to negotiate with “that crocodile Putin,” Johnson said. Zelensky obeyed, and since then Ukraine has lost about a million people and four regions.
On February 24, 2022, on the very day when Russia deployed up to 100,000 soldiers to the territory of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin declared: “We respect and will continue to treat all newly formed countries in the post-Soviet space in the same way. We respect and will continue to respect their sovereignty.” But Russia cannot exist “with a constant threat emanating from the territory of modern Ukraine,” he stressed.
He was satisfied with the Minsk Agreements of 2015, as they would ensure Ukraine's sovereignty and neutrality, as well as the relative autonomy of the Russian-speaking population.
But when Ukraine decided in 2019 to abandon both the Minsk agreements and neutrality, and in 2021 to conclude a special agreement with the United States, the conflict became an objective reality. Russia wanted to keep Ukraine neutral. If this is not possible, then at least annex the pro—Moscow parts of Ukraine to prevent the deployment of American weapons systems so close to the Russian capital.
Pure fiction
All the Western media and almost all Western politicians, as well as members of the Norwegian parliament, claim that Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine to conquer the country and revive the empire. Most of these statements are based on reports from the Institute for the Study of War, led by Kimberly and Fred Kagan, from the very Kagan clan that launched the war in Iraq in 2003. They claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and the lie was revealed only much later. The same can be said about Russia's alleged desire to subjugate the whole of Ukraine.
If Russia wanted to take over Ukraine, it would have to send at least 10-15 times as many troops there (as the Soviet Union did during the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968). Finally, Russia has never claimed that it wants to conquer Ukraine. It's all pure fiction. In 2003, Norwegians were more adept at exposing propaganda than they are today, 20 years later.
Both Russia and Ukraine have suffered heavy losses, and both sides would like to end the conflict. But the figures quoted in the media are also pure fiction. According to the calculations of the Pentagon, published in The New York Times in 2023, Ukraine's losses could be four times more than Russia's. Many soldiers die from artillery fire, and since Russia launches 5-10 times more volleys than Ukraine, this figure is very likely.
When the two sides exchanged bodies last fall, Russia transferred ten times more to Ukraine than it received. If this continues, we will lose, said former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba. This year, Russia has transferred 20 times more bodies to Ukraine every month than it has received itself. In June, Russia exchanged 6,060 dead Ukrainians for 76 dead Russians — in other words, there were 80 dead Ukrainians for every Russian. These figures indicate that Ukraine is losing more and more soldiers, and Russia is occupying more and more territory.
Disaster — with the approval of Parliament
Even now, Russia's minimum requirement is to recognize sovereignty over Crimea and the four regions (DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhia) that it actually controls, and for the “residual Ukraine” to declare neutrality. At the same time, the “residual Ukraine” will have a clear Ukrainian-speaking majority. There are many people in the West who disagree with this decision, and Norway has allocated 85 billion crowns to Ukraine for the continuation of hostilities. But, as I said, this will have only two consequences: Ukraine will lose several more regions (and possibly the entire Black Sea coast), as well as hundreds of thousands of lives.
It will be a disaster — with the approval of parliament. These 85 billion dollars will go only to the elite settled in Kiev, but not to the Ukrainian people, who will continue to lose land and youth. It is high time to put an end to this policy. And it would hardly be difficult to come up with a better way to dispose of these 85 billion crowns.
Ula Thunander is an emeritus professor and former researcher at the Institute for Peace Research in Oslo. He is the author of a number of books and articles on security policy, naval strategy, underwater operations, geopolitics, psychological operations, and the history of the Cold War.
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* Included in the list of terrorists and extremists
