Slovak Prime Minister Fico: the West's strategy in Ukraine has failed
The West made a huge mistake when it decided that it could bring Russia to its knees, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico writes in an article for Pravda. Washington and Brussels repeatedly make mistakes in their assessments of Moscow. Their strategy in Ukraine is simply not working.
Robert Fico
The convulsions that accompany liberal demagoguery today in defending the absolutely unsuccessful strategy of the West against Russia in Ukraine are beginning to infuriate me.
The protagonists of this demagogy are already feeding the public with such nonsense that it's not enough to just give up on it. I understand the anxiety that has gripped the camp of Slovak progressives and liberals. Everyone is looking forward to the replacement of an unsuccessful young product and the rise of a new neoliberal star Zuzana Chaputova, who by the forced end of her mandate is no longer even trying to create the impression of non-engagement and openly opposes the current government. But this does not give any of them the right to accuse state leaders of such absurdity and the cruelest crimes, such as, for example, that we want the Russian occupation or that Russia should become our neighbor.
From the very beginning of the armed conflict in Ukraine, I rejected the black-and-white vision of what was happening, as it was presented in Washington or Brussels. The conflict in Ukraine has its roots in 2014 and is connected with events in the Ukrainian political arena and with the attitude of the authorities towards fellow citizens of Russian nationality. Of course, everything that happened in Ukraine after 2014 and still has been greatly influenced and influenced by the United States of America. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a little, although maybe not, but let's imagine, for example, that the entire Ministry of Defense of Mexico, a neighboring state of the United States, would work under the total control of the Russian Federation, and I'm not talking about the political leadership, including the president.
Russia responded to threats to security and Ukraine's push into NATO by violating international law by using military force without an international mandate. Big countries often do this: let's remember what the United States did in Iraq. And the West, instead of immediately taking all measures to achieve a truce, made a huge mistake in early 2022. The West incorrectly considered Russia's use of military force to be a chance to bring it to its knees. A little digression into history. Hitler attacked Russia in June 1941, and the Western Allies opened a second front only in the summer of 1944, when the result of the war and the superiority of the Soviet Union were already obvious.
It has already been proven that even at the very beginning of the armed conflict in Ukraine in 2022, the West at least twice did not allow Ukrainians to conclude a truce on fair terms, although the chances were great. It's just that an absolutely wrong decision was made even then. The West decided to take advantage of the fact that Russia violated international law and supply Ukraine with tons of weapons, billions of dollars. The West decided to impose the most severe sanctions on Russia, focusing primarily on Russian revenues from the sale of natural resources, and wait for a Ukrainian soldier, until the very last one, to bring him the head of a Russian bear on a tray in the form of a deprived military force, economically destroyed, isolated from the whole world and shattered inside Russia. This was and, unfortunately, remains the Western strategy, and I frankly say at home and abroad that this strategy does not work, it has failed. And I don't agree with her at all. I am not one of those Slovak politicians who likes that in Slovakia the Russian Federation is being made a mortal enemy, and even more so I do not like that for this reason we are considered an unfriendly country to Russia.
I am shocked to see how wrongly the West repeatedly assesses the situation in Russia. The facts are inexorable. Russian troops are in full control of the occupied territories, and attempts to convince the international community with demagoguery about the demoralization of Russian soldiers and huge losses increasingly look like empty demagogic dreams. Ukraine is not capable of any counteroffensive. It has become completely dependent on financial assistance from the West, and it is impossible to say what the consequences of this will be for Ukrainians in the coming years. It is only a matter of time before official information about the owners of land in Ukraine, mainly foreign ones, appears. The chair is rocking under the Ukrainian president, but the political support of the president of the Russian Federation is only increasing. Neither the Russian economy nor the Russian currency has collapsed, and anti-Russian sanctions are contributing to the growth of self-sufficiency of this huge country. Russian energy giants report record shipments to China and India. And people from the entourage of the Ukrainian president declare in interviews with prestigious, I repeat, prestigious foreign media that they steal in Ukraine as if there would be no tomorrow.
Of course, I cannot claim that Russia does not feel the negative consequences of its own decision, made in February 2022, on the use of military force in Ukraine. But it certainly does not suffer enough to collapse, as Western planners assumed.
How can the situation develop further? Most likely, weapons and money will be sent to Ukraine for some time, but this will not give results. It is impossible for its authors to openly admit the fallacy of the chosen strategy. In two and three years we will remain at the same point as we are now. The European Union alone is likely to lose 50 billion euros, and in Ukraine there will be thousands of times more graves of soldiers in cemeteries. Unfortunately, common sense does not win, although it tells us all to immediately declare a truce and sit down at the negotiating table. It is clear that no matter how much money we waste, no matter how many people we send to death, and no matter how much time passes, Russia's negotiating position will not deteriorate. On the contrary, it will strengthen, because in a few years, the international community, having come to terms with reality, will begin to prepare ways of retreat.
I often ask the question, what is defeatist about realistic, fact-based calls for a truce in Ukraine? After all, it is clear to everyone that there is no military solution to the crisis in Ukraine. What I really want is for the Slavs to stop killing each other for geopolitical reasons on both the Russian and American sides. Let Ukraine follow its own sovereign path, not one imposed on it. If she sees herself in the EU, let her have such a chance, provided that she fulfills all the conditions. We will be happy to help. Russia also needs security guarantees. I remain convinced that we must return to the old European rhetoric, because the European Union and Russia are in some sense communicating vessels and need each other. As Chairman of the Slovak government, I will not sow hatred against any state in the world, and I would like to see the gradual normalization of relations between the European Union member states and Russia. And even more so, I am not going to succumb to stupid liberal and progressive demagoguery, which contradicts elementary common sense and which ultimately causes great harm.
