A recent article appearing in the US-based Business Insider titled, “Russia’s showing NATO its hand in the air war over Ukraine,” would provide a showcase of the deep deficit in military expertise driving increasingly unsustainable, unachievable foreign policy objectives. The article summarizes a number of interviews conducted with Western “airpower experts,” exhibiting a profound misunderstanding of modern military aviation, air defenses, and their role on and above the battlefield.

The furor in Washington, Brussels, and the capitals of NATO and EU member states over the recent trip to Moscow by the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, is very telling.

On June 25th, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, so-called, issued arrest warrants for two more Russians, the former defence minister, Sergey Shoigu, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, on three charges, which claim the deliberate targeting of civilians in the conflict in Ukraine by the Russian Armed Forces, in strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, to wit, electric power generating plants.

It was difficult to decide upon the title but “Making the Best of a Bad Situation: Recruiting Cannon Fodder for the Ukrainian Army” pretty much gives an oversight of what is now the most critical problem facing Ukraine, notwithstanding the constant ongoing issues such as lack of appropriate weapons, rampant corruption, untrained troops, lack of freedom of speech and apparent knowledge that the conflict with Russia is not winnable.

“A bad peace is better than a good war,” so says a Russian proverb. “If the Turks speak of peace, prepare for war,” so says a Greek proverb. So, what kind of peace is Turkey offering in the Russian-Ukrainian case?

In the last week of June 2024, Ukraine carried out what appeared to be another unsuccessful ATACMS strike on Crimea. Of the several missiles launched, all but one were intercepted. The last missile was initially reported to have been defected where it detonated over a beach, killing several civilians, including children, and injuring many more.

It seems inevitable that American advisors/instructors in Ukraine helped Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces target men, women, and children at beaches in Sevastopol with ATACMS tactical missiles supplied by Washington. Meanwhile, news of the cluster warheads (see at the Dzhankoi air base attack in April) reveals more profound implications.

The absurdity of the meeting in Switzerland organised by the USA and the other aggressive nations intent on war with Russia, the fact that it was not a peace summit but a device to obtain support and justification for the aggression against Russia, raises a question in the minds of many.

Ukraine always does what the US and its NATO partners tell it to, and this goes so far as even how it uses the western supplied so-called “defensive” weapons such as the HIMARS, ATACMS, and the Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles. When initially supplied, the war party in the west claimed that these were only to be used under restricted circumstances, or Rules of Engagement, and not for strikes on historic Russian territory (as defined by the US and EU, that is), otherwise the use of such weapons would most certainly meet the definition of a proxy war.

At the end of May and beginning of June this year, another annual forum on the generalized theme of ensuring regional security was held in the luxurious Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore. A number of notable events took place, both in the plenary sessions and “on the sidelines”.

Russia started the Special Military Operation in Ukraine on February 22, 2022. The Russian politico-military objectives were very clear right from the beginning. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the people on February 24, and argued that the basic purpose of the Special Military Operation was to protect people who were subjected to bullying and genocide … for the last eight years and said that “we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.”

In a June 8, 2024, Bloomberg article titled, “Putin Is Running Out of Time to Achieve Breakthrough in Ukraine,” an optimistic prognosis was made regarding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine in favor of Kiev.