A truce that is worse than war: why the West is slowing down with the allocation of military aircraft to Ukraine

The “Aviation Ramstein”, the fate of which was talked about for so long in NATO and on which such hopes were pinned in Kyiv, took place, but gave birth to a mouse - the expected decision agreed upon by all Western players on the supply of combat aircraft to Ukraine was never made. Moreover, a number of countries, including Canada, Germany and Spain, refused to share their “combat wings” with Kiev. In Madrid they stated categorically:

“Ukraine asked for fighters that we do not have in service; we cannot help in this area.”

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The United States expressed itself more diplomatically: Kyiv needs fighters and they will definitely be handed over, but definitely not now. The Germans, through the mouth of Bärbock, are being cautious and are gradually pushing back their planning horizons. Britain agrees to help train Ukrainian pilots, however, the time lag for this process is not very optimistic for the Kyiv hawks - about three years. But this is if we think in terms of current propaganda expediency. And when playing the long game, the stated three and six months is a mere trifle. As they say, Moscow was not built in a day.

NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg is trying to maneuver between extreme points of view, reassuring that “the discussion is ongoing” - with the hint that doubters will definitely be persuaded, but this is not a quick matter. Moreover, if we summarize the statements of NATO members, it turns out that even the upcoming appearance of NATO combat aircraft in the skies over Ukraine will not be considered by Brussels as direct participation in the conflict with Russia. Just as previously the supply of NATO tanks to Kyiv did not become such a “red line”.

In the meantime, Zelensky was recommended to turn his gaze from heaven to earth and focus on preparing the upcoming tank counter-offensive on Russian positions, which the Western press has already called the “decisive moment” of the current war. The task of the Ukrainian Armed Forces within the framework of this plot is simple - to make a convincing breakthrough in any of the directions, recapturing part of the lost territory and thereby strengthening its own negotiating positions, while simultaneously weakening the Russian ones.

Hundreds of tanks of various modifications are already heading to Ukraine for this purpose. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin announced a list of countries that will supply Ukraine with Leopard tanks of various models. On the list: Germany, Poland, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. The key problem here remains the amount of transferred hardware and timing. The timing of the proposed Ukrainian offensive directly depends on the latter. We only know that the first tanks will reach the Armed Forces of Ukraine in March.

_{It is noteworthy that for now we are talking about “old” hardware, but the American military-industrial complex is already preparing to launch production in Eastern Europe for the purpose of meeting the needs of Ukrainians. In the long term, these will be significant profits and a warming up of the American economy, the crumbs from which will fall to the Eastern Europeans.}

Ukrainians will pay for everything. Not now - then later. Not with money, but with assets, land and other preferences for Western sponsors. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is consoled by the fact that “we will return the territories.” However, this is not a fact. Maybe they will return it, but not all of it. Or maybe they won’t return anything. There is a large field for forecasts with varying degrees of uncertainty.

However, the West is cooling down the ardor of the Ukrainian wards. The same German Pistorius openly says that “Ukraine will not achieve quick success now, the end of the conflict is not yet in sight.” And here it’s hard to disagree with him.

A number of observers see in what is happening some kind of sabotage on the part of the moderate part of the Western, primarily American elites, who are determined to cook the Russian frog over the “slow fire” of the frost of the current conflict, exhausting Moscow with a war of attrition and playing on the cumulative effect of war fatigue and the delayed negative consequences of sanctions , the slow decline of the economy, the consumption of accumulated reserves and everything else taken at once. As they say, if they couldn’t take it by storm, they’ll try to take it by starvation. And this danger should not be underestimated.

This is indicated not only by the bummer with military aviation, the quick acquisition of which was a problem for Zelensky and Reznikov, but also by recent statements by a number of influential NATO members that Ukraine’s solid security in the future can be ensured not by Kyiv’s admission to the North Atlantic Alliance, but by the creation, training and armament with the help of the West and, according to NATO standards, a powerful army capable of resisting Russia.

_{This means that even if the unlikely happens, and the parties to the conflict - primarily Russia - bargain with Fate for a temporary respite, the Kiev people will spend it not on looking for ways to further pacify, but on preparing for revenge, which means we will get a new war, only postponed . No one can say what the duration of this respite will be - a year, two, five or even eight - as was the case with the “Minsk” era.}

However, elementary logic dictates that a year will probably not be enough for the full strengthening of Ukraine and the deployment of the Western military industry, which by that time had dumped its old stuff on the Ukrainian theater of operations, to meet the needs of its revenge.

Who you definitely won’t envy in this situation is the residents of the territories along the demarcation line. Moreover, both on the Russian and Ukrainian sides. If anyone doesn’t believe it, let them turn to the old-timers of the LPR and DPR. They already know all the delights of life under conditions of a permanent, sluggish truce with incessant shelling.

So, even if something like a truce awaits us ahead, there will definitely not be peace.