You and whose army Kier?

It’s getting more and more embarrassing.

From The Guardian 20.03.25:

‘Starmer warns Putin of severe consequences if he breaches peace deal’.

What peace deal is this? Is this the one where Russia says it is in favour of a ceasefire …. as long as a well documented set of conditions are met, namely: demilitarization and de nazification of Ukraine; no Ukraine membership of NATO; and acknowledgement that the four oblasts formerly of Eastern Ukraine plus Crimea are now part of Russia? Oh, and a commitment to the development of an overarching security framework for Europe that meets everyone’s interests.

Is this the ceasefire proposal from the US that has no structure for implementation or monitoring and naively expects Russia to allow Ukraine to regroup, re-equip and generally have a little rest from the battering its armed forces are receiving from Russia before going again?

Why would Russia, currently winning the war, agree to a ceasefire without its key war aims being met? Why would Russia trust the West not to be back for more in the immediate / medium / long term future? As they say, past behaviour is the best predictor of future actions and The Kremlin has been stung far too many times to make that mistake again.

But back to Kier Starmer, our Prime Minister (for those of us living in the UK). I mean what is he like?

Even as the US, the main initiator, funder and facilitator of the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, seeks (however ineptly) to reduce its own involvement, up steps Starmer to be the West’s most belligerent leader. Initially focusing on supporting Ukraine to keep fighting until it is utterly spent and exhausted, he then shifted to proposing that a joint European military force could act as peacekeepers in the above-mentioned ceasefire. Such a force was suggested to comprise around 30,000 soldiers, a tenth by my calculation of the Russian army currently in the field. That the West in general and Europe (including the UK) is pretty much out of weapons and has far from battle hardened troops, appears to escape his attention. What would Starmer be throwing into the pot from the UK? A couple of brigades (6,000 soldiers), 40 Challenger tanks (already shown to be death traps) and a couple of squadrons of fighter jets with pilots who have been unable to maintain the required hours of flight time to maintain combat effectiveness due to cuts in airforce budgets?

So even if this was a good idea, the UK is manifestly unable to contribute a military force that would be effective in this conflict and would be vulnerable even in a peacekeeping role.

But this is not a good idea, in fact it is a very bad idea. Putting aside the obvious, that peacekeeping forces should be drawn from neutral countries, Russia has made it absolutely clear that European forces on the ground and in the air would be viewed as belligerents and would be treated as such.

However, Kier is adaptable to changing circumstances (or more accurately to the changing reality of the situation) and has argued that such an enterprise would have to have a ‘US backstop’ that would provide it with a safety net – something that the US is clearly ruling out as it only provides a trip wire for future direct US involvement.

His latest idea seems to be back to providing more support to a Ukrainian army which he views as among the strongest in Europe, ignoring the parlous state that that army finds itself in. Has no one told him that this war is lost? That this has been evident since the failure of the Ukrainian offensive in 2023 and that the US now feels that it has done what it can to weaken Russia and now needs to move on to other priorities such as Iran and China?

To be fair, Kier is not on his own, as many western European leaders are demonstrating, but the man is beyond embarrassing.

What is the justification given for this vacuous sabre rattling and the need to slash welfare spending in the UK to pay for all this? Starmer’s stock response is dismissive of any alternative views – he states that it is ‘self-evident’ that Russia poses a direct threat to the UK and Europe. Well, it is not self-evident to me, but then I don’t rely on our mainstream media to keep abreast of geopolitics – and I would have hoped that Starmer, with all sorts of intel available to him, doesn’t either.

Russia is turning away from economic engagement with Europe, focusing increasingly on the development of a multi polar world. The attempt to isolate it through Western sanctions has strengthened its economy and its trade with BRICS countries. It doesn’t need the Collective West anymore – it’s got the whole of the rest of the world to engage with and is successfully developing mechanisms to so do.

Its frequently stated war aims regarding its incursion into eastern Ukraine have consistently focused on the need to eliminate the threat of a heavily armed neighbour acting as an outpost for a western hegemon that has been hostile to it for decades. Russia is only a direct threat to the UK and Europe if we keep poking it with a stick, if we continue to try and weaken it to promote regime change and facilitate a re-opening of its economy to a rampant western imperialism a la the Yeltsin years.

In agitating for continuing the face off between Russia and the West, Starmer is a lead contributor in risking a direct confrontation between nuclear powers and all that goes with that. He is well beyond embarrassing, he’s a menace.