Erupt and Collapse: Last Phase for Ukraine, NATO

Palestine

The official count for Israeli murders in Gaza now exceeds 33,000, a majority being women and children. Many were killed as a result of Israeli AI targeting software (“Lavender”) which ridiculously identified 36,000 Palestinians as Hamas fighters.

Washington doesn’t care and continues to send military aid to Israel both in contravention of international law, that requires that such aid should be used legally and responsibly, and in likely contravention of US law, which requires far more by way of congressional review and approval than is occurring.

Only after Israel murdered seven white people (OK, one may have been brown) working for a relief agency with close ties to Biden, one that was trying to seize a corner of the relief market - if one can call it that - after Israel had deceitfully edged out the world’s most effective and most legitimate of such agencies, UNRWA, did Washington feel compelled to issue a tepid threat by AIPAC agent Biden that the US might have to reconsider support for Israel.

Netanyahu’s tepid promise in response to a tepid threat (described by pliant Western media as an “ultimatum”) is to open up another border crossing in the north of Gaza to facilitate more aid. This has little to no real value for a government that may not even be in control of the young hooligans that apparently classify as IDF soldiers.

The shameful unwillingness by the ICJ on March 26 to back its call for more aid with an insistence on an immediate ceasefire, and Biden’s continuing insistence that Israel reach a deal for an immediate ceasefire with Hamas on condition that Hamas surrenders the remaining 100 or so Oct 7 hostages (a condition that Israel by itself cannot determine), play into Israel’s Zionist policy of genocide and/or expulsion.

Exploring the Boundaries of Negotiation

French defense minister initiated a call with Russian defense minister Shoigu yesterday in which France itself and some other sources (including today’s WSWS) claim that Russia sought peace negotiations over Ukraine. I think this is highly unlikely, but stand to be corrected. Far more likely is it that Macron is testing to see if Russia may be prepared to pick up from the 2022 Istanbul negotiations which ended when NATO, through lackey Boris Johnson, instructed Zelenskiy to back away from a settlement, or even, failing that, if Russia would be prepared to go back to the status quo ante before the SMO of February 2022.

Russia will have certainly told France that it is far too late to resuscitate Istanbul. There may be a new Istanbul initiative being proposed by Erdogan, but I suspect Russia has now finally learned its lesson that Erdogan is anything but an honest broker, instead a slippery eel who should never ever be trusted, especially as his own hold on power is threatened by the reemergence of a Turkish left in the recent municipal elections.

It is now very unlikely that Russia would be prepared to go back to February 2022, not least because in the Fall of 2022 it integrated four former Ukrainian oblasts into the Russian Federation. By now it is highly probable that Russisa has extended its requirements for safe borders to include Kharkiv, Odessa and, possibly, Kiev. Russia will need, at the very least, the entirety of the Donbass.

I must still insist that Russia will continue to place very high priority on the need for reconfiguration of the European security order (or, even, the global security order), and that for the time being, Russia will continue to exercise the greatest concern to protect its (new) borders from continuing (rump) Ukrainian and Western meddling, covert operations and the like, and that Russia has no reason yet to believe that there is any possibility open for Russia to have confidence that any of its Western interlocuters are sufficiently trustworthy, sufficiently competent, and sufficiently intelligtent to negotiate durable solutions. It will not be encouraged by continuing attempts by the likes of Richard Haas and other aspiring “backdoor negotiators” whose strategy appears based on an appeal to Russia to take into consideration Ukraine’s military weakness and shortages of shells as reasons for why Russia should negotiate. The Crocus City Hall terror attacks will have further enhanced Russian doubts about the integrity of potential Western interlocutors. On this, incidentally, Russian investigators claim to have found evidence on the cell phones of the attackers evidence of pro-Ukrainian ties.

We can expect that Moscow will not close the door on negotiations - unlike Ukraine, which retains its law criminalizing negotiation with Putin - but that its victory terms go far beyond anything that hapless EU leaders can publicly acknowledge at this time, and far beyond anything that a bit player like Macron, bloodied even in the Sahel, can expect to midwife.

Somewhat more likely than negotiation, right now, are diverse demands for a ratcheting up of NATO feet on the ground in Ukraine, supported by a reintroduction of compulsory conscription in NATO countries, and a doubling down, in other words, on what is already a massive loss for Europe, even after the near-depletion of European weaponry and military resources amidst the continuning likelihood of nuclear war. Even more likely than either negotiation or doubling down, given these considerations, is the fragmentation and termination of NATO itself.

Biden-Jinping

The French call to Shoigu falls hot on the heels of the call that Biden initiated the other day to Chinese leader Xi Jinping in which Biden seems to bemoan what he claims is Chinese support for Russia over Ukraine and Chinese involvement in trade related to Russia’s military-industrial recovery. The US is seeming to apply pressure on China to move away from Russia and cease its trade in dual-use products and the like. Jinping sounds as though he is highly unlikely to succumb to any such pressure. The US continues to misunderstand that the trade war with China foolishly initiated by Donald Trump has had the inevitable result that the importance to China of its trade with the US has declined and that the importance to China of other trading relationships, including its relationship to Russia, is increasing.

On the battlefield, western commentators have suddenly decided that Russian entry into Chasiv Yar signals the beginning of the end. They think this because they see French reaching out to Shoigu as an act of desperation.

I think they are far too precipitate. It will take weeks or months before Chasiv Yar is finally taken, and it is too soon to say that the fall of Chasiv Yar is remotely sufficient to allow the conclusion that this war is over. But we should certainly concede there are significant Russian gains to the West of Avdiivka around Umansk, and north and south of Umansk (making a Russian cauldron around Berdychi more imminent or, more likely, a Ukrainian evacuation thereof), as well as Pervomaiske to the south (almost fallen); intensifying pressure on Siversk, Vuhledar and Novomykhailivka (almost fallen); Chasiv Yar and Bohdanivka -where today Dima is reporting mass Ukrainian surrenders - and Ivanivske. Bilohorivka is proving to be a challenge but will very likely be surrounded; and Ukrainian counterattacks in Urozhaine and in Robotyne areas seem to me to have poor prospects.

Aid, Loans and Theft

In the US, Republican House leader Mike Johnson will likely allow a vote in a few weeks on the $61 billion aid package. Like the $100 billion NATO aid package soon to be confirmed in Brussels this will be camouflaged as a (forget-about-it) loan.

These sources may delay but will not prevent the inevitable Russian victory; the US money goes mainly to Raytheon,Lockheed and their brethren who will charge absurdly OTT prices for their dated produce, for delivery some time after the likely end of the war. The European money is spread over five years so will hardly last to Ursula’s Pfizergate departure. Ukraine’s likely insolvency (moaned about by the World Bank even as it advanced a further $1.5 billion) may be a sticking point to assurances from NATO that Ukraine will at last be offered membership. Zelenskiy will be able to pay the rates on his Mediterranean palaces and may try harder to push through the mobilization of a few more hundreds of thousands of 25+ year olds for the killing fields (if there is anything like that number of men still easily to be found in Ukraine). Ukraine may both erupt and collapse at that point. Followed by NATO.

There is still the question as to whether the US and Britain and Brussels can get their greasy hands on the $200-$300 billion of Russian Central Bank and other money frozen mainly in Europe, or at the very least on the interest on such money. There are clear legal impediments to such larceny but the collective West cares not one whit for legality (think its inaction in face of Israeli genocide in Gaza) when its hegemony - its top-dog caste status in the hierarchy of nations that it has contrived oer the past 500 years - is threatened by China-inflected multipolarity. However, it does have to take account of the massive corruption that will likely manifest in the wake of such purloining, the ability of Russia to retaliate by seizing western assets in Russia, still considerable, the collapse of trust by the Global South, and even further afield, in the western banking and financial system that would most likely benefit China and the BRICS.

China: ROBOT Central

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