On November 4, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute hosted an online discussion with me and CodePink co-founder, Medea Benjamin, about the paths to peace in the Ukraine war.
I argued that the West’s approach to the Ukraine war should be based on reality, and that Western governments continue to ignore the reality that NATO provoked this war and that Ukraine cannot win it. The humane and rational approach to this war would be for both Ukraine and Russia to seek a negotiated resolution, and a negotiated resolution will require meaningful compromises by both sides.
In the Q&A part of our discussion, we also discussed the possibility of creating a new political party in Canada that would be truly committed to peace and anti-imperialism.
Our discussion, including the Q&A, can be watched here:
Yes, western governments have been ignoring/denying reality of the Ukraine situation and prospects. Compounding that is the pathetic (and betrayed) trust of the population in western countries in their governments and media on this issue. It seems hard to determine whether all of the politicians are really badly informed or simply going with the narrative which has been largely accepted by the citizens.
Not one of the candidates in the recent Conservative Party of Canada leadership race expressed any doubts about the West’s narrative on Ukraine. Is this due to the influence of the organized Ukrainian community in Canada?
This is why the war happened in Ukraine
Putin referred to Novorossiya during his annual phone-in on 17 April:
… what was called Novorossiya (New Russia) back in tsarist days – Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Nikolayev and Odessa – were not part of Ukraine then. These territories were given the Ukraine in the 1920s by the Soviet Government. Why? Who knows? They were won by Potemkin and Catherine the Great in a series of well-known wars. The centre of that territory was Novorossiisk, so the region is called Novorossiya. Russia lost these territories for various reasons, but the people remained.