Presented below, via Consortium News, is link to a discussion conducted this morning about the war and its contexts. The  introduction below begins about 7 minutes in, and the discussion itself begins at about 11 minutes in. Visitors can listen and watch by clicking HERE. — MCM

–   –   –

Watch: CN Live! — ‘What’s next for Ukraine?’

In Moscow: Mark Sleboda, international relations and security analyst and U.S. Navy veteran in nuclear engineering; in New York State: Scott Ritter, former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer and U.N. weapons inspector; and in Canberra, Australia, Tony Kevin, retired Australian ambassador to Poland and diplomat in Moscow.  Hosts: Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria. Produced by Cathy Vogan.

The war in Ukraine began in 2014 as civil conflict when Russian-speakers in the east resisted a coup that overthrew a democratically elected president. The post-coup state launched a war against the resisters for eight years, which Russia entered nine months ago on Feb. 24.

It was an expansion of the war that could easily been prevented. A peace accord was never implemented by the Western-backed Kiev regime. Instead NATO armed and trained Ukrainian forces that included extremist groups, began amassing at the conflict line with the east, poised for an offensive Peace treaties Russia presented to the US and NATO that would have seen NATO deployments of troops and missiles in Eastern Europe rolled back were ignored even as Russia spoke of a technical-military response.

The U.S. got the invasion it wanted and needed. Without it, it could not have launched its economic, information and proxy war on the ground designed to “weaken” Russia. Make no mistake about it. This is a U.S. war against Russia. Ukraine is simply the stage on which it is being acted out.

However the war is not going according to U.S. plans. The economic war, intended to bring down the Russian government, has backfired with dire economic circumstances and growing popular discontent in the West instead.

The information war is being lost outside of territories controlled by the West – which comprises the vast majority of humanity. And the war on the ground is not being won.

But the war hasn’t gone according to Russian plans either. Moscow sought negotiations with Ukraine almost immediately upon entering the war. In March they had a deal in which Ukraine would remain neutral and Crimea would be recognized as Russian and Donbass as independent. But Western leaders, wanting to bleed Russia, scotched it.

A restrained invasion, insofar as invasions can be restrained, is now on the verge of a major Russian offensive. It is being preceded by widespread Russian strikes against power infrastructure, raising troubling questions about the effect on civilians.

Despite continuing propaganda that Ukraine is winning the war, Western leaders know what they are facing: freezing Ukrainians and Europeans and the looming Russian offensive. This had led to talks about talks to end the war but is it now too late?

Is Russia committed to reabsorbing all of Catherine the Great’s imperial conquests in Ukraine or will keeping Ukraine out of NATO, recognition of Crimea and Donbass as part of Russia and withdrawal of NATO’s forward deployments of men and missiles in Eastern Europe still be enough for Russia?

Is the U.S. and NATO still committed to a long war in the vain hope that it will bring down the Russian government?