By David Sole
The hard reality of Ukraine’s mounting military losses is not likely to be reversed by Donald Trump’s promotion of a ceasefire. Ukraine provoked this conflict in accordance with a U.S./NATO plan to weaken the Russian Federation in a proxy war. The CIA organized coup in Kiev in 2014 set the stage. The West deceived Russia with the Minsk I and Minsk II peace treaties which were agreed to in order to buy time to build up Ukraine’s military. NATO membership for Ukraine, with the establishment of NATO military bases on Russia’s border was also expected.
Russia, however, has proven to be a powerful military foe with a much larger population than Ukraine and an enormous military-industrial complex. After three years of bitter fighting Ukraine’s military is being defeated along the thousand-mile line of contact.
The latest news, acknowledged by both sides, is that the much-touted Ukrainian invasion of Russia’s Kursk province is now near an end. Tens of thousands of Ukraine’s best troops along with hundreds of tanks and other heavy weaponry crossed the border in the lightly defended Kursk region back in August 2024. They never were able to reach their apparent goal of seizing the Kursk nuclear power plant.
Since then, the Russians have built up a powerful force that has decimated the Ukrainian ranks and destroyed much of the Western supplied hardware. Of the sizeable area originally seized by Ukraine only a small sliver of the Ukraine-Russian border remains in Ukraine’s hands. The New York Post reported on March 13 that “Russia has taken back the biggest town in Kursk from Ukrainian soldiers, with President Vladimir Putin warning that Kyiv’s remaining force in the region is now trapped and must ‘surrender or die….Moscow took the town of Sudzha on Thursday and all but erased the massive gains Ukraine made during its surprise incursion last summer, whittling away at Kyiv’s largest bargaining chip in the strained cease-fire talks.’”
The Russian news agency TASS reported on March 14 that President Putin visited the Kursk front calling for a security zone be created by Russia on the Ukraine side of the border. “It is crucial that this zone be no less than 20 kilometers wide [about 12.5 miles], and preferably 30 kilometers, extending deep into Ukrainian territory.” A Russian battalion deputy commander told TASS “To be frank, it is already in the process of being created. We have entered the Sumy Region [of Ukraine] and secured several settlements to push the Ukrainian forces further away from our border.”
While Trump recently cut off arms shipments to Ukraine and broadcast a verbal attack on Ukraine’s President Zelensky at the White House earlier this month, he partly reversed himself. The Kyiv Independent reported on March 14 that the “US to resume shipping long-range bombs to Ukraine.” The weapon referred to is the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB) in a new, upgraded model that has a range of up to 100 miles. Trump also announced that his ‘administration agreed to resume security assistance to Ukraine, including military aid and intelligence sharing” in exchange for Zelensky committing to Trump’s proposal for a temporary 30-day ceasefire.
Trump has also encouraged the European Union states and the UK to commit more funds and weapons to keep Ukraine fighting the proxy war.
While Russia has welcomed overtures from the Trump administration, Trump’s promise of making peace in 24 hours is just another lie he is telling an uninformed U.S. population. The very idea of a temporary ceasefire would only benefit the retreating Ukrainian military. It would give them time to rearm and dig in for future fighting. Even “Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia was excluded from high-level talks on ending the war after the Kremlin said it didn’t want him there” Retired Lt. General Keith “Kellogg is a former American general, too close to Ukraine. Not our kind of person, not of the caliber we are looking for” a Russian official told NBC news.
Russia’s goals have been clear from even before its Special Military Operation against Ukraine. Real, guarantees of Ukraine neutrality, no NATO membership for Ukraine, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine top the list. Also, Russia is not going to give up the four Ukraine provinces with majority Russian ethnic populations that voted to join the Russian Federation.
The issue of “denazification” is not a trivial issue. Russia lost over 30 million people in World War II fighting the Nazi invaders. It is well known that the Western build-up of the Ukrainian army started with the incorporation of pro-fascist militias that the CIA used to carry out the 2014 Ukrainian coup.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on March 13 “that there had been violations of the right to life/investigation on account of the [Ukrainian] authorities’ failure to do everything that could reasonably be expected of them to prevent the violence in Odesa on May 2, 2014, to stop that violence after its outbreak, to ensure timely rescue measures for people trapped in the fire, and to institute and conduct an effective investigation into the events.”
The ruling concerns attacks on progressives in Odessa shortly after the right-wing coup in 2014. Demonstrators, attacked by a pro-Nazi mob, took shelter in the Odessa House of Labor building. The mob set fire to the building killing 48 and injuring over 200 people. Three survivors and relatives of 25 of the victims filed suit with the ECHR in the case of Vyacheslavova and Others v. Ukraine.
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