Ukraine First
tribunemag.co.uk
Britain is four and a half years into a proxy war with a nuclear-armed Great Power, and those who want peace are still being vilified. This mindless jingoism must be stopped.

Another fortnight, another British Prime Minister, but there is one firm point of continuity: Ukraine. Keir Starmer’s last day in office was spent in Kyiv, where as a parting gift he announced another £255 million of funding, reaffirming his ‘unwavering’ support for the war effort. Just seven days after Andy Burnham took office, he hosted President Zelensky as his first international visitor, intoning that Britain was still ‘one hundred percent’ behind him. The signal to the Euro-Atlantic establishment was clear. Whichever fraction of the British political class happens to be in government — Johnson or Sunak, Starmer or Burnham — they will continue this endless proxy war.

These incantations are becoming increasingly absurd as the conflict drags on inconclusively. John Healey, now pulling the nation’s pursestrings, has said that the defence of Britain begins in Ukraine. The House of Commons Library estimated that Britain’s financial assistance to the country as of February of this year was £21.8 billion, with £13.06 billion in military financing. This includes offensive military equipment and long range strike capabilities. In 2024 Starmer allowed Ukraine to use British-French Storm Shadow missiles to strike deep into Russia, in what amounted to a significant escalation. NATO weapons and intelligence are used by the Ukrainians to strike energy facilities, warehouses and other targets on Russian territory.

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Nor can one find mainstream discussion of the dangers posed by the intense proxy war we are waging. Were Russia providing long-range weaponry to a third country striking energy facilities and cities within Britain, we would of course be at war by now. What happens if Russia decides to end its policy of containing the conflict to Ukraine and to strike at NATO weapons depositories in Poland and Romania? We already know the answer. Armies start wars and citizens finish them. It may be in the interests of the British political class to pursue a policy of escalating conflict with a nuclear-armed Great Power — if only to please Washington — but it is not in ours.

That’s why peace advocates should be pushing for an end to the proxy war with Russia as soon as possible. While we will get little hearing in Parliament or in the mainstream press, that makes it all the more necessary to raise our voices above the throng of reckless jingoists. A foreign policy rooted in the interests of the British people would support a negotiated end to the conflict and an immediate halt on weapons and funding to Ukraine. For the past four and a half years, those committed to this unwinnable war have been on the moral high ground. It’s about time that we dislodged them.

  • Alex@lemmy.ml
    11·
    15 hours ago

    I don’t think the UK wants the war in Ukraine to continue without end but the proscription by the writer in this piece seems to be Ukraine can’t win so we should stop giving them weapons to defend themselves and force Ukraine to capitulate.

    There does seem to be a desire to get to a ceasefire but so far Russia hasn’t backed down from demanding territory they haven’t taken as a precondition to that. Does anyone seriously trust Russia wouldn’t just use the ceasefire to rebuild before taking the next chunk out of Ukraine? It takes two parties serious about peace to stop the fighting.

    • freagle@lemmy.mlEnglish
      7·
      7 hours ago

      Funnelling weapons into the losing side of a war is how you get a forever war that devastates the losing side. The West has done it for years. They are killing Ukraine with this strategy.

      The idea that Russia isn’t serious about peace sort of flies in the face of the last 30 years of Russian diplomacy. Since 1992, Russia has only had military conflicts with a handful of countries and only at their borders and never to occupy or ethnically cleanse. In the same time, the US has had military conflicts with over a dozen countries none of them around their border, with some countries completely devastated and leveled, at lease one active genocide, and with massive extractive occupation. Russia spent the 90s and early 2000s trying to join NATO to establish a framework of mutual security with the West and the West not only refused but basically strung them along saying that maybe someday if they’re good. Eventually Russia realized the West has no intention of establishing mutual security and now we’re here, where Russia is running out of options if it wants national security.

      Security assessments from Western intelligence organizations has repeatedly stated that Russia is not discussing, is not planning, and has not the capacity to invade and occupy all of Ukraine, or any more of Europe. The idea that Russia is just trying to win territory and then it’ll just keep doing it is the premise of Command and Conquer: Red Alert, not a serious assessment of the reality of Russian capabilities and plans.

      The path to peace was exactly what Russia was asking for over decades - a mutual security framework. All security is mutual. The reason France and England are at peace with each other is because they have a security framework that incorporates the security needs of both countries. The reason Europe and Russia are not at peace is precisely because the European security framework excludes Russian security needs and does so knowingly and explicitly. How many times have we heard “Russia cannot decide who gets to join NATO”. That’s literally saying “Russia has no legitimate national security concerns that we have to take seriously”. In essence, Europe cares if Europe feels threatened by Russia, but Europe does not care if Russia feels threatened by Europe. That imbalance is the cause of the conflict.

      So yes, if we want peace, the answer is to stop the fighting, and the fighting would have stopped over a year ago if the West had stopped propping up Ukraine with weapons, but also, the fighting would not have even started if the West hadn’t been bringing in weapons and military and nuclear readiness to Ukraine in the first place. So it’s sort of silly to say the West should stop arming Ukraine to end the war because the war exists because the West was arming Ukraine in order to create the conditions for war in the first place.

      It is the West that is untrustworthy here.