A few weeks ago, Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.K., former commander of Ukraine's armed forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi said, speaking at Chatham House, that insufficient Western aid has turned the Ukraine war into a protracted conflict getting out of which is doubtful or even impossible. Zaluzhnyi also noted that there is now a powerful coalition between North Korea, Iran and China, which Ukraine cannot successfully fight without Western assistance and which poses a threat to the entire Western world.

Talking about President Zelenskyy's victory plan, Zaluzhnyi said that the plan for exiting the war and what the collective West should do to get there is meant for the latter. It is the West that should have a strategy for managing the situation, Zaluzhnyi believes.

There was no clarity yet on whether North Korean soldiers would be fighting in Ukraine when the statement was made, while this new threat also requires analysis and decisions of how to react.

A shift in how political lines of force are interpreted also followed the BRICS summit in Kazan, attended, among 36 nations, by India, China, Iran and Turkey as a clear sign of the consolidation of the so-called Collective South.

The fact that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also attended the event – once again raising the question of the organization's purpose – speaks volumes. Putin scored several victories with the BRICS summit. The more than respectable turnout can be interpreted as the rehabilitation of war criminal Putin by the Third World and the binning of the West's second most powerful instrument – the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Above all, the summit demonstrated Putin's success in dismantling the international world order, which, globally speaking, is a bigger victory for Russia than would be defeating Ukraine.

On this backdrop, the Ukraine war can be seen as a mere instrument in the attempt to bring about a new world order. Eventually, what might be agreed as concerns Ukraine might not even matter all that much.

Logically then, things seem clear. The Third World has come together for a new bipolar world order aimed at tripping up the West. To avoid this development, the latter will have to demonstrate it is still capable of decisive action, especially by helping Ukraine, as it is there the lines of force of the future will be decided.

While there is war also between Israel and Hamas, Russia and Iran are fanning those flames to draw attention away from Ukraine in a situation where the latest episode of the perpetual Middle East conflict will hardly change the big picture, or if it will, the result will be Israel exiting the war even stronger than before. But two simultaneous wars have created in the heads of Western decision-makers an apocalyptic vision of a wider global war, rendering them especially timid in their steps, which we can file under another major victory for Russia. Unfortunately.

Word on the grapevine

Most of global politics gets decided in hidden government hallways and intelligence agencies. Voicing his view of what is happening in said hallways is former Ukrainian military intelligence operative, current opposition figure Oleksiy Arestovych.

Arestovych is a Ukrainian opinion leader and analyst who, the man himself claims, everyone wants to interview. Naturally, he does not reveal his sources, alluding instead to talkative taxi drivers near the Potomac (with the White House and the Capitol a stone's throw from there) or in European capitals.

Of course, what Arestovych says cannot be taken without a pinch of salt, as the man is in sharp opposition to the Ukrainian administration, has his own agenda and has become a proponent of a ceasefire, even though Zelenskyy sees no such possibility at present. His support for a post-haste ceasefire has seen Arestovych accused of pro-Russian sentiment and his statements have landed him two criminal investigations. It is little wonder then that Arestovych prefers to go about his business abroad.

Arestovych claims that there are cracks in the Ukraine-U.S. relationship, indicative of which is Biden's decision not to attend the Ramstein summit that was supposed to take place in October. Arestovych speculates that Biden reacted to promises Ukraine had failed to keep.

He points out as especially worrisome rampant corruption in Ukraine and estimates that up to 40 percent of aid made available to Ukraine is being diverted. Arestovych also points to the Americans' proposal of lowering the mobilization age from the current 25 years to 18 (previously 27) toward which Ukraine has not taken steps.

While these conclusions are hardly major revelations, Arestovych's next claims are decidedly less mainstream. For example, that Biden has convinced Zelenskyy to launch talks with Russia for a ceasefire even before the U.S. presidential election or by the end of the year at the latest, as it would positively affect the Democratic Party's campaign and help Kamala Harris win.

What is more, Arestovych believes that Western decision-makers, including USA, have left Ukraine no other choice but to sit down with Russia and draw a new map, whereas a refusal to do so would result in a reduction in Western aid.

He also claims that Russia has signaled preparedness for the talks by refraining from hitting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, based on an alleged agreement with the West. The only part of that which we might consider to be fact is that Ukrainian energy infrastructure either hasn't been attacked for a while or there has been little news about it (at the time the article was written).

Germany's policy makes for a separate topic. Arestovych believes Germany wants to return to the comfort zone facilitated by Russian natural gas and end the war quickly. There is allegedly a rift between Germany and Ukraine, caused by the latter's involvement in sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

Poland finds itself involved in a rather unpleasant manner after failing to extradite a person suspected of carrying out the act of sabotage. According to Arestovych, it is German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who is trying to promote peace talks to normalize relations with Russia and restore the Nord Stream pipeline, as cheap Russian gas is a key component in Germany's competitiveness. It may also be one reason why Germany is vocally against Ukraine joining NATO as that would constitute an escalation and a move away from any potential agreements.

Arestovych attaches meaning to Scholz meeting Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul immediately before the latter's trip to Kazan for the BRICS summit. He believes that Erdogan, as one of the chief prolocutors for a ceasefire, had a message to convey to Putin.

Be those speculations as they may, we have little reason to doubt the West is tired of the Ukraine war and a part of Western politicians would welcome a ceasefire. Ukraine sees a possible ceasefire as little more than a chance for Russian to catch its breath before attacking again after a while.

And so, there are no good solutions for ending the war. On one hand, ceding territories Russia has seized would amount to admitting defeat and a likely continuation of hostilities in the future, while Ukraine has no realistic chance of taking back the territory lost. Hence Zaluzhnyi's conclusion that a protracted war is virtually inescapable.

Washing his hands of the whole thing?

With his victory plan, Zelenskyy sent the ball flying to the West's court only to have Scholz swiftly kick it back by saying that Ukraine will not be getting into NATO in the near future. Still, the cauldron keeps bubbling behind the scenes. Zelenskyy presenting his victory plan could be seen as an attempt to wash his hands of the whole thing like Pontius Pilate, likely in the knowing that the answer would be a resounding "no." That said, Zelenskyy is out of levers with which to put pressure on the West.

It constitutes a "take it or accept the consequences" plan from where Zelenskyy is standing, as failing to take the necessary steps to protect Ukraine, the West takes responsibility for the consequences. Here is where one is hard-pressed not to agree with those who say that escalation and potentially even another world war will follow failure to help Ukraine and prevent its defeat in the hands of Russia, as opposed to providing the necessary level of aid, as it will motivate Russia to keep going and expand its ambitions, including using political means, as could be seen in Belarus and Georgia.

To sum up the first three parts of Zelenskyy's victory plan, a Ukrainian victory would require inviting Ukraine into NATO right away, the Alliance giving it enough weapons and freedom to operate in Ukraine and in Russian territory and enough deterrence against Russia.

Thinking back to what Ukraine wanted NATO to do when the war started, it was, above all, to deny Russia access to the Ukrainian airspace and defend against aerial attacks. This aspect has come up again in light of the U.S. and other allies doing it for Israel but not for Ukraine.

NATO clearly does not want to tie itself to a country at war, while the reasoning given for refusing to grant Ukraine permission to hit targets in Russia has been less convincing. Next to any serious fears of escalation, it has been claimed that restrictions on the use of long-range Western weapons are the last lever the West has for putting pressure on Russia, whether in the face of a nuclear escalation or the destruction of Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

In summary, Ukraine expects from NATO or its core members decisive intervention in Ukraine and the use of overwhelming force against Russia as the only way to force it to cease its military activities. The West has no such preparedness today.

There have been discussions on why Zelenskyy proposed his victory plan before the U.S. election. It would likely have been naive to hope for Biden to support Ukraine's NATO ambitions before the election or the end of his term. Rather, Zelenskyy calculated that a Trump victory would render presenting the plan pointless to begin with.

Trump, who styles himself Putin's friend, sees little purpose for NATO and likely does not support any new ways in which it could help Ukraine. Instead, Trump has accused Ukraine of causing the war and threatened to pull military aid altogether, possibly as an attempt to pre-emptively wash his hands of Ukraine in his turn.

In connection with Zelenskyy's victory plan, attention has been drawn to the necessity of ramping up sanctions against Russia, which have in some cases been ineffective to say the least. For example, the West has no serious interest in keeping Russian oil products off the world market as it would hike their price, and the goal instead is to keep them down by maintaining a price cap on Russian oil. That is also why Ukraine has been urged to refrain from destroying Russian oil infrastructure.

It is not hard to imagine the effect soaring fuel prices would have on the election in America. For example, the cheapest type of gasoline costs just €3 per gallon or 79 U.S. cents per liter there. While the matter of Russian nuclear fuel imports has been raised, speaking of it seems to be downright taboo.

Unresolved drifting or nuclear weapons?

The Ukraine war has entered a phase of aimless drifting, with no clarity in terms of how to end it or where to draw the line. Different positions have been presented as to where the latter might be.

The most radical assessment suggests the West is willing to tolerate Russia advancing all the way to the Dnipro River, which would mean losing a part of Kyiv and the rest becoming a border city. That is the line the crossing of which would directly jeopardize Poland and Western Europe.

As things stand, Russia does not have what it takes to conquer the eastern shore of the Dnipro, while this may change in the long term. If we think back to the first days of Putin's Blitzkrieg, it did not take Russian troops long to reach the outskirts of Kyiv.

On this backdrop, it is possible to understand Zelenskyy who said during his meeting with Donald Trump that Ukraine will either be given the chance to join NATO or it will restore its nuclear capabilities for the purposes of self-defense, harking back to USA's Budapest Memorandum obligation to ensure Ukrainian security.

In Arestovych's interpretation, Zelenskyy, instead of agreeing to a ceasefire, has only turned up the temperature under his rhetoric. Still, Zelenskyy seems to have walked back some of what he said since, noting that he merely aimed to demonstrate the inevitability of the NATO path for Ukraine.

It is indeed possible to treat Zelenskyy's remarks as an effort to turn up the heat or a sign of desperation, and they have clearly irritated the West, instead of helping Ukraine make progress.

But if we think back in history, the West used to be just as standoffish toward Israel when it was working on its nuclear capability. But Israel got there and the West has since accepted it. Mind you, Israel has not confirmed it has nuclear weapons nor is it willing to discuss relevant topics. Could that be Ukraine's path to restoring its security? In a situation where there seems to be no other option on the horizon.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!