British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said London would be the first country to send long-range missiles to Kiev. Meanwhile, statements from top American and French officials indicate support for Ukraine in Washington and Paris may be weakening.
At the Munich Security Conference, Sunak said Ukraine "must win the war." During his speech, the British leader called on other Western leaders to "double down" on their support for Kiev.
A different message is coming out of the White House. Last week, The Washington Post reported that a senior administration official said, "we will continue to try to impress upon them that we can’t do anything and everything forever." Last month, CIA Director William Burns also told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a secret meeting, "at some point, assistance would be harder to come by."
Officials say the Biden administration believes that after the current Congressional funding for Ukraine is exhausted, it will be harder to rally more political support. In less than a year, Congress has authorized the White House to spend over $100 billion on the Ukrainian war effort.
Still, Sunak says London will press ahead. On Sunday in Munich, he announced "The United Kingdom will be the first country to provide Ukraine with longer-range weapons." He continued, "and it’s why we’re working with our allies to give Ukraine the most advanced air defense systems and build the air force they need to defend their nation."
He pointed to London’s ability to push its NATO partners to send arms to Ukraine during his speech. "We became the first country in the world to provide tanks," he said. On January 14, London said it would send its advanced Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. However, Poland had previously pledged to send German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Kiev.
After the British announcement on tanks, Washington and Berlin agreed to send M1 Abrams and Leopard 2 tanks. Germany then agreed to send up to an additional 178 Leopard 1 tanks.
Sunak claimed Putin’s strategy is to split the alliance but sticking together will break Moscow’s resolve. "When Putin started this war, he believed that our resolve would falter. Even now, he is betting that we will lose our nerves." He continued, "we will prove him wrong now."
Sunak went on to say the alliance should extend security guarantees to Kiev to help Ukraine defend itself "again and again."
Providing such assurances to Kiev will cross Russia’s redlines and drive Moscow closer to conflict with the North Atlantic alliance. French President Emmanual Macron said Paris wanted to avoid conflict with Russia in an interview published on Saturday.
“I do not think, as some people do, that we must aim for a total defeat of Russia, attacking Russia on its own soil. Those observers want to, above all else, crush Russia." He added, "that has never been the position of France and it will never be our position.”
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
I suppose I’ll need to send that bouquet of yellow roses to No 10 Downing when the first mushroom clouds appear here on the west coast.
When they do I can only hope I’ll be able to take some satisfaction that we’ll be following in DC’s footsteps.
As a fellow Bay Arean, I kind of hope I’ll be gone in the first round if it comes to it. General nuclear war would be too horrific to survive.
I think the bear is talking about the British West Coast…
For serious survivors, nothing is too horrific to not want to survive. but only escape farther away…….
Such a brave man that Sunak is. I don’t know what he thinks will happen if the Brits keep sticking the knife in Russia’s eye. Is he looking to have their isles 2B a demonstration event of Russia’s 200 megaton torpedo….????? Four thousand times the blast of the Hiroshima bomb that ended WWII…!!!!!!!!!! I sure would not want MY holiday there with him talking like that. OOOOO NO…!!!!!!!!!!
The Brits need a ’56 style smackdown … they are acting way way too big for their britches and writing checks they know they can’t cash w/o Uncle S.
As for Macron, he had his chance last year. He could have been at least minimally honorable like Chirac in 2003 and told the Americans to take their nonsense away, but that’s not the guy he is. Too late to cry now.
The Actual War begins in a few hours with the New Moon and will be over in a couple of weeks or so. It will terrify the Pentagon. Sunak will want to use Nuclear Weapons to try to save the Cecil Rhodes Plan for the World Government run by the “English Speaking People”, but “A Hornless Dunn Cow” will wipe out The City of London, one of the three City States that were planned to run the World Government planned by the Globalists.
If UK held an election right now, Sunak would lose by a hilariously large landslide per polling. And somehow the hawks remain in power…even when they have zero popular support…
The problem with Rishi Sunak, he is trying too hard to prove that he is one of THEM. He is not and and we know why he can’t be one of them.
Half-a*sed wars tend to go on and on and on. Does Biden realize that? He should because the evidence is right before him in Kiev. Does he realize what a full-a*sed war in Ukraine would look like? I am not sure.
These leaders of the Western world remind me of children who want to play catch with you tossing live grenades. I just can’t take them really seriously. The Insane Clown Posse of the Western World. Can’t wait for the release of their first hip-hop album.
They need more men on the front. Grab your rifle, Rishi, and go. Emanuel will be right behind you, backing you all the way, as long as it takes.
Poland or the UK for the first Russian nuclear bomb? The UK seems ahead, but Poland still has the rest of the week to catch up. Seriously people? Anyone else concerned about a nuclear Armageddon? (Sarcasm alert)
UK should concentrate on the Falklands.
Alexy Navalny’s tweet this morning looks like the breakthrough moment for the Russian opposition that will end Putin’s war of aggression. Navalny set forth 15 theses on the Ukrainian war recognizing that Russia’s defeat is inevitable, calling for Russian withdrawal, reparations for reconstruction of Ukraine and recognition of the 1991 borders, including Ukrainian Crimea. Here is the tweet:
https://twitter.com/navalny/status/1627632098608644099?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1627632098608644099%7Ctwgr%5E2d8c4eef7d2cbc7061855b877da50a0f5b934844%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dantiwar-newst_i%3D12680820https3A2F2Fnews.antiwar.com2F3Fp3D126808t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fnews.antiwar.com2F20232F022F192Fus-france-and-uk-divided-on-support-for-ukraine2Ft_e%3DUS2C20France2C20and20UK20Divided20on20Support20for20Ukrainet_d%3DUS2C20France2C20and20UK20Divided20on20Support20for20Ukrainet_t%3DUS2C20France2C20and20UK20Divided20on20Support20for20Ukraines_o%3Dpopularversion%3Deac01b9b5184420d2a458e5de23912b6
This is a tremendous act of courage for Navalny whose life is literally on the line. I hope it augurs the beginning of the anti-war movement that will produce a leadership that will recognize that Putin’s was was a terrible mistake. One of Nalalny’s points is that an end to the war will be profitable as well as just, even with Russia paying to rebuild Ukraine.
You make me laugh! Navalny is nobody. He did everything to try tiling up Russians. He tried being liberal , pro-West. He could not get support even from his immediate family, and US money used to provide food and drink for bis gatherings did nothing to change that. Then he became cinservative overnight! Thougt he was going to rile up Russians. No takers. Then he tries super conservative racist bigotry and went to Siberia to peddle it. Called Moslems all kinds of zoological names. Still no cigar. And then his mentors organized a stunt of his being poisoned. What a stupid stunnt it was! First itvwas claimed that an agent was at the cofee shop at airport that gave Navalny poisoned tea.
When a camera footage showed that it was his friend that brought two teacups to the table, and no way of anyone knowing which one Navalny eventually took, the shrill accussations stopped. For a moment. Then his friends supposedly went back into their hotel room to retreive a water bottle he presumably connsumed. Really? Hotel room was cleaned ling time before, and they had no key, not ever asked hotel to admit them to the room they stayed. In other words a lie. Whatever botle they produced was not the one he had in the hotel. The comedy continues, in and on, all the way to Germany, When Merkel had her Polish roots show by giving legitimacy to the obvious and unintelligentt scam,
And he was convicted for an obvious scam, using money laundered to him via a Western retailer.
And now, this fount of wisdom is speaking?
Whatever grievances Russians may have with their Govvernment — they will not fall for cheap tricks US serms to be fond of,
We are in dangr of underestimating Russia and Russians. There is already plenty of evidence that Russia is not only surviving sanctions but thriving in them. Plenty of evidence that it is hurting us through inflation.
And what is our beef with Russia? Our beef is that Russia eventually intervened militarily after the failure of Ukraine to adress issues of Russian-speaking Ukraine, How does it concern us? Sacred sovereignity and territorial intgrity? Remember, we violate those routinely, from Vietnam to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, we broke up Yugoslavia into six statelets, and kept in meddling until we brazenly bombed Serbs to force it to give up its province of Kosovo. We recognized its independence! We are still illegally in Syria, We let Israel annex Golan Heights,
And having done alm that we are declaring Rusdia’s intervention to be unprovoked and illegal, It is neither. Itvwas lrovoked by Ukraine shelling of Donbas. And it is not illegal. Rught of people to self-determunation under Un Charter ha been enshrined into the law to prevent countries like Ukraine use the excuse of sovereignty to disenfranchise half of its population.
The tropes served to us daily in media are tiresome in their capacity to lie and lie. When such things happen in any country — it means that the powerful feel threatened. By muzzling media they keep power,
And do not look at the elected fools for answers,. They merely serve the real power. They may act like they like the servitude — at least they can lie to thrmselves to kerp some dignity.
Every war is provoked and every war has a justification. But a just cause does not justify a war. The consequences of war are almost always worse than whatever injustice caused the war.
You lost me. Injustices have to be tolerated because war is worse? This leads to utter impunity.
Mature people recognize that war is almost always worse than whatever the war maker believes is his justification.
The civil war in Donbas produced 3,000 civilian casualties in 2014-1015 and 78 civilian casualties 20219-2021 leading up to Putin’s invasion which has already killed tens of thousands of people, created millions of refugees and spread universal devastation.
On a cost/benefit analysis or ethical balancing only three things justify war (i) self defense against an actual or imminent armed attack, (ii) action to stop or prevent a holocaust level genocide* or (iii) a war of national liberation against a colonial or neo-colonial overlord. *By “holocaust level genocide” I mean mass murder with hundreds of thousands of victims, like the 1994 Rwandan genocide or the 1971 Bengali genocide or the Nazi Holocaust.
It can be frustrating to refrain from war in the face of oppression. But war is the wrong choice except in the three exceptional cases I cited above.
Don’t blind yourself to the devastation Putin’s war has brought to Ukraine and the world and that it will bring to Russia unless Putin is stopped.
Ukrainian movement toward the West was a legitimate concern for Putin. But his war has cemented Ukraine’s connection to the West and expanded and strengthened NATO. Putin should have remembered that, almost always,:
A bad peace is better than a good war.
I know. Look all the deaths in Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Serbia, and Afghanistan.
“Look all the deaths in Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Serbia, and Afghanistan.”
Every one of those countries, except Syria, was defendi ng itself against a foreign invasion or an ISIS invasion. Serbia was engaged in state terrorism and war crimes including mass murders based on ethnicity approaching genocide..
Skywalker, I would contend that at least your #1 and #2 conditions that would justify war were definitely on the table in eastern Ukraine. Invasion of the Donbas by the Ukrainian army was reasonably assumed to be imminent, and it’s perfectly reasonable to think that it would have resulted in a massive death toll of Donbas citizens.
Ukraine did not have the capacity to attack Russia nor did Ukkraine have any motive to attack Russia before Putin’s invasion. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Ukraine intended a holocaust level genocide in Donbas. That is crazy talk. In the three years before Putin’s invasion therewas an annual average of 26 civilian deaths each year in Donbas fighting.
The Donbas secessionist movement was an internal Ukrainian affair and Russia had no right to intervene. And certainly no justification for a war.
100,000 Ukrainian troops along with elaborate fortifications on the border of the Donbas. That looks like the plan for an invasion to me. Otherwise why bother? The separatists weren’t going to leave their territory to advance west.
There is nothing about Ukraine’s military buildup that suggested Ukraine was preparing to invade Russia. Donbas is part of the Ukraine. Secession is an internal Ukrainian matter. Oppression of ethnic Russians is likewise an internal Ukrainian matter. There is also nothing to suggest that Ukraine was planning a genocide. Absolutely nothing about the situation in Donbas in February 2022 justified a Russian invasion.
Moreover, as Naftali Bennett , Putin’s main concern is NATO’s expansion, not de-Nazification or Ukraine or the hardships of ethnic Russians in Donbas. Every imperial war of conquest has some humanistic justification. The Post WWI I world order outlawed wars of conquest, like Putin is waging in Ukraine.
I didn’t say that they were going to invade Russia. What you say about oppression of ethnic Russians being an internal Ukrainian matter, implying that there is no right of anyone else to intervene, is so absurd that it’s hard to take you seriously. That’s like saying that if your neighbor is beating his children to death with a club you have no right to intervene, because it’s an internal matter to be settled by your neighbor’s family.
Johnny, foreign intervention does not work. Imagine if Britain invaded the US to end slavery in 1859. It would have destroyed the abolitionist movement and Abe Lincoln, Jeff Davis and Robert E. Lee would have united against the British invasion and slavery would have lasted a lot longer in the USA.
Next to holocaust level genocide, war is the worst thing human beings do. There is lots of oppression around the world. There would be eternal war and chaos if countries were allowed to invade other. Russia has no right to interfere in internal Ukrainian matters in the Donbas.
Did he include his application for a “post war” job at Goldman Sachs?
This:
“Navalny’s tweet this morning looks like the breakthrough moment for the Russian opposition that will end Putin’s war of aggression.”
Versus this:
“I hope it augurs the beginning of the anti-war movement that will produce a leadership that will rec-”
And this:
“it could take a very long time for opposition to surface.”
Steady now, lads, Skywalker’s got the barbed wire fence for ya – (Wha-? letter to mum and dad? Chuckle – why sure i’ll hold it til ya get back). Fear not, in ya go! Remember, Victory is just around the corner! Onward with the good forever war………foreeeeeeeeever!!!!
It’s interesting, but Navalny seems unlikely to head any kind of successful opposition, and even if he did, he’d be just as likely to go ultra-Russian-chauvinist as western-toady once in power.
Assuming that Bakhmut eventually falls, it will be interesting to see whether Putin declares “victory” and concentrates on a defensible line of control encompassing the Donbas oblasts, or re-pivots back from the attrition warfare that only works on a static enemy to a combined arms / maneuver warfare approach. And if the latter, whether the Russian forces get their asses handed to them again or whether they’ve figured out how it’s going to be done in the new age where tanks and manned fixed-wing aircraft are obsolete.
The probable fall of Bakhmut won’t end the war. Putin and his choir of Russian chauvinists have no idea what they are fighting because they don’t believe in Ukrainian nationalism or understand the effect of 800 years of oppression on the psyche of the Ukrainian people.
I am still expecting the Ukrainian army to eventually collapse. But the best outcome Putin can hope for in a victory over the Ukrainian military is for Russia to become a permanent occupying power in hostile territory.
Won’t be hostile territory for the Russians, in the portions of Russian speaking Ukraine.
Russian speaking Ukrainians are no more loyal to Russia than English speaking Irish are loyal to the UK. Wake up and read the reports about Russian speaking Ukrainians committing to learning Ukrainian because they are disgusted by Putin’s invasion. You and Putin’s other acolytes need to understand the reality of Ukrainian nationalism that Russian chauvinists have been denying for centuries.
Sunak says he wants to keep the allies united. That must be why he supported Brexit. His comment here remind me of an old west movie where some loudmouth has riled up a lynching mob. Eventually, he and Boris will have to be dealt with.