The US goal has been to drive a wedge between Berlin and Moscow. Russia and Europe together could be a colossos, an economic, energetic and military powerhouse able to challenge current US hegemony.

The ruse has played out succesfully.

Russia took the bait and slammed its head against a Ukrainian wall.

Now that this wall is finally showing signs that it might crack – a breach may open at Pokrovsk – the US has seen Russia bleed enough.

The point was not to have Russia collapse and fragment. If that ever happens a nuclear arsenal risks getting into the hands of very unpredictable players across 11 time zones.

The goal was to let Russia bleed, at the expense of Ukraine.

Russia’s psychological architecture is such that it walked into this trap. It has a national myth that many of its menfolk are still willing to die for OR are unable to refuse the pressure of.

The US has achieved several major things:

– Nato has gained new members  

– Any chance of the EU, Russia and China building a natural alliance benefitting all three is off the table, no synergy in Eurasia to sideline US interests

– the EU is rearming. For decades the US has wanted to see bloated EU defense budgets to sell more weapons

– Europeans will pay more for their energy bills, because the flow of relatively cheap Russian energy sources has been hampered, in favor of American and Middle Eastern resources

– Even an amputated Ukraine will continue transforming itself into a bulwark armed to the teeth to resist further Russian claims on its territory

– By stopping the war now before the Ukrainian front collapses Russia gets nothing of serious strategic value. Russia doesn’t get Odessa. Luhansk and Donetsk are reduced to rubble. Their land bridge to Crimea is precarious.

– The US has sufficiently weakened Russia to call it a halt now, before Russia’s absurd willingness to play smash with the lives of its own citizens starts to really pay off

– Ukraine’s east is only of marginal importance to the US. Making the EU further dependent on the US, isolating Russia and having its hands free to focus on the biggest threat of all, China, are all more important. That Ukraine wasn’t a real priority to the US became painfully obvious when war materiel was deemed more important for Israel than for Ukraine and Israel was only facing outnumbered, embattled insurgencies and a struggling country that could barely throw a few rockets on it (Iran). While Ukraine was facing a begemoth, the US scrambled to help out Israel and did everything it could to deny or obscure Israel’s endless war crimes. Ukraine was a US sacrificial lamb and Israel is where the US really stands to gain by propping it up forever. Israel is used to have leverage over one of the most criticially important regions in the world. It’s a useful outpost to control and manipulate the Middle East with its resources and strategic position in trade routes and energy flows. Ukraine was primarily used to wound Russia, since Russia is fighting for its national soul, even if it hurts itself economically, politically, demographically, long term. The US owner class does what is in its material interest, Russia in the end favors mythological narrative over purely bettering its situation.

So at first glance the recently leaked US peace plan looks like the US is handing Russia a victory, but Russia ‘s gains are mostly symbolical and at least half the European population sees Russia as an archaic half barbarian half feudal state of blood lusting despots. The senseless horde sitting on the border of o so civilized Europe.

Russia walked into a trap.

Ukraine was screwed from the start, other than gaining sympathy from a significant part of the American and European population for stubbornly resisting.

And the EU has continued on its path of making itself more and more irrelevant. It always chose moral posturing over doing what could make it powerful. Europe is still suffering from two worlds wars. The idea is: ‘If we Europeans wield power, world wars erupt’. Europe doesn’t trust itself with power. So it allows Russia to waltz into Ukraine and refuses to see how America was very happy about that outcome. It doesn’t dare lift a finger to stop the mass slaughter of Palestinians by Israel, it even helps to keep the killing going materially and logistically and by giving a Israel a hypocritical media engineered moral frame and umbrella to operate under.

Ukraine will feel cheated.

The Ukrainians who left early and built more prosperous lives in the west – which many of them very succesfully accomplished – gained maybe the most on either side of the front.

Maybe Ukrainians fought valiantly, Ukraine did create a mostly effective army, it has a chance to further build on that reputation. For those who still value honor – not many do – Ukraine has defended its honor and has paid for it in a lot of blood and loss of property.

It could have ceded some territory without getting into any fight. We don’t know if that would have been enough for Putin to not invade anyway and try to take some more.

The will of the Ukrainian people was expressed. They wanted to make a stand and they did. And they got backstabbed by people who cheered them on.

The Russian leadership has gambled with the lives of its most powerless citizens. Its sacrificed some of its cannon fodder to win a symbolic victory.
It did manage to stabilize its economy, showed to the world that Russians still have an uncanny willingness to suffer.

A 20th century society with a national myth built on honor and sacrificial love for Mother Russia seems to be on the verge of winning a symbolic victory set up by the cynical self-serving upper class running the United States with a much sharper, much more money driven, 21st century mindset.

With the EU trying to be the world’s flawless lighthouse of morality, but without ever fighting for what it preaches.

We now wait to see if China will also take the bait and rams its head against Taiwan, so the US dream scenario can repeat itself.