This morning a journalist in the Mumbai studios of the Indian television broadcaster WION offered me the opportunity to explain in a 10 minute live interview what the Russian perspective is on the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive to date. This took in why the Ukrainians have not met their own and US-NATO expectations on the battlefield, whether this failure will lead to a ‘blame game’ that splits the Western alliance supporting Ukraine and what we may anticipate as the next developments in the conflict in the coming months.
I am delighted that this premier English language broadcaster sees value in bringing to its global audience what the Russian side is thinking and saying. Let us remember that WION has 7.7 million subscribers on youtube. The viewer figures in the first three hours after the interview was posted on the internet are already 10,000 and demonstrate that there is a strong appetite in the “international community” for news and analysis that deal with the views of all sides to an issue, not just government handouts from one side.
Gilbert Doctorow 
It is true that there is keen interest in the Russian logic behind what’s happening in Ukraine. That is why I wrote, just nine days after the far-right coup in Kiev of February 22, 2014, the article “The staggering blindness of world power America”: https://geopolitiekincontext.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/de-onthutsende-verblindheid-van-wereldmacht-amerika/
The piece concludes that for the first time superpower America faces a global player on which it cannot impose its will. With the credibility of the American president at an all-time low, it says Washington has maneuvered itself into an impossible position and is showing itself a sore loser. Reckless US policy put a damper on the nascent recovery of the world economy, and all that for a game of geopolitics in which it has overplayed its hand.
Today, more than 9 years later, the op-ed appears to be as topical and to-the-point as it was then, the only difference being that the Russian initiative has produced worldwide followers, the most recent being former European colonies in Africa.
With 500+ overwhelmingly innocent Ukrainians being killed daily, to quote Douglas Macgregor: “This is a catastrophe, this must end. Make Peace You Fools!”
LikeLike
Very pertinent comments on the looming impact of the US electoral cycle on continued NATO support for Ukraine.
I don’t know whether you saw CNN broadcasting its poll on public support for “..more funding to support Ukraine” (the response was 55% in the negative). What I found fascinating was the very fact that this Democrat media organ *conducted and then broadcast* such a poll at all. Surely this is a sign of a narrative reset ahead of a forthcoming policy change, i.e. “as long as it takes” will be replaced with ‘we did all we could’.
Elsewhere in the interview, which concerned the (lack of) progress in the counteroffensive, the interviewee brought up ‘as long as it takes’ and followed this immediately with “The problem is that doesn’t really jive with our political cycle here”. CNN, of all people, seem to be highlighting your point.
LikeLike