Counting the culprits, losers and victims of the Ukraine war

Having endured devastation by Russian forces for three years, Ukraine has seen its share of victims and political figures to blame for its devastating war, writes Adriano Tedde.

PRESIDENT TRUMP, in his declarations of 20 February, called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator who provoked Russia and lured the U.S. into the war, stealing money and weapons.

Then, Trump pushed Zelenskyy out of the door when the two met in Washington on 28 February. From hero and brave defender of liberal democracy, Zelenskyy is now painted as the only one to blame for the senseless tragedy of the past three years. The war is therefore coming to an end while the Ukrainian President is ridiculed and the faults of many other illustrious leaders are swept under the carpet.

The Ukrainian President's willingness to accept the invitation by the major Western leaders to push his nation into the fight against Russia, a much bigger military power has been his main fault. The war could have ended already in March 2022, had former UK PM Boris Johnson not flown to Kyiv to prevent Zelenskyy from signing an agreement in Turkey that could have delivered a more favourable conclusion for Ukraine than the one that is now being prepared.

Ukraine stands defiant against Trump and Putin's aggression

Despite President Trump's bullying tactics and a war that still devastates his nation, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy leads a nation displaying true heroism.

Johnson was one of the early European leaders who espoused war propaganda that persuaded millions of Europeans that the only way to achieve peace was to provide weapons and more weapons to Ukraine in the hope of a military victory. In doing so, Johnson followed the will of former U.S. President Joe Biden who had taken up the baton of previous U.S. administrations which, since Clinton, had slowly prepared a political trap against Russia through the enlargement of NATO and interference in the political affairs of Ukraine.

Antony Blinken, Biden’s Secretary of State, was one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine’s military efforts, asking Zelenskyy to sacrifice his young people for the good of the free world.

Blinken was so adamant about this sacrifice that he even embraced an electric guitar on a spring night in front of a young Kyiv crowd to sing the refrain of Neil Young’s ‘Rockin' in the Free World’.

In another masterful example of how politicians can turn a message around, Blinken had the audacity to use an anti-American song to promote his government’s war politics. (You can read the lyrics of the song, which the Secretary of State obviously didn’t pronounce on that memorable night.)

And then there’s Putin, the autocrat who has reinstated power politics with his “special military operation”, inflicting a fatal blow to a fragile world order that had clung desperately to a feeble international law for more than seven decades. The man will now happily sit at the peace table, dictating terms that will fortify his victorious Russia.

For the time being, we can be sure that none of those culprits will pay for three years of avoidable tragedy. No one except the poor comedian-cum-President Zelenskyy, the easiest target of powerful doublethink Orwellian world leaders.

And while the winners are imposing their peace as the history of war stipulates, who are the losers and the victims of the last war?

The main loser is the whole continent of Europe. Led by a handful of tepid figures, from Macron to Scholtz, Meloni and Von der Leyen, the continent has blindly followed the United States against its immediate economic and geopolitical interests. Europe has wasted three long years embracing a total rejection of dialogue with Russia, which severed decades of vital commercial ties through backfiring sanctions that have crippled its own economy.

What a Trump Presidency means for Ukraine

Having bragged about his ability to end the Russia/Ukraine war in a day, it has yet to be seen whether President Trump can bring peace and end the conflict.

The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, nominated late last year, was built around delirious proclamations that raved about a war economy and rearmament against an imminent extended war with Russia. They have reawakened Napoleon’s and Hitler’s impossible dream of the subjugation of the cumbersome Eastern neighbour and cancelled Immanuel Kant's sublime call for peace that was based on the inclusion of Russia in the great European concert.

In light of that strategy, the key EU positions of high representative for Foreign Affairs and Defence commissioner, traditionally entrusted to the main countries, have been assigned to two minor figures from Estonia and Lithuania, whose only merit is in their Russophobia.

Impoverished and politically irrelevant, Europe must now come to terms with a harsh reality. Excluded from the negotiating table, it will have to bear the costs of reconstruction of a destroyed Ukraine while voters, facing years of economic austerity, are turning en masse to extremist political parties.

The next big test for a continent exhausted by three long years of conflict will be the commercial policies towards China. If Europe were to follow the path of Trumpian trade warfare, political collapse will be complete.

While we are approaching the end of a story with no good characters but only villains, one last thought goes to the real victims of the biggest European tragedy since the Balkan Wars. That is, the Ukrainian people with their children, women and young soldiers who died in the thousands while almost half of the population fled from a country in the grip of warmongers and history’s dark forces. Our Western governments owe them an apology.

As American economist Jeffrey Sachs reminded the EU Parliament last week, we in the West stubbornly and childishly refused diplomacy for too long and we messed up grandiosely.

Adriano Tedde is a researcher in American studies with a background in political science and cultural studies. He is currently working on a project on neoliberalism and culture.