The Ukraine War is Over...Here is What Happens Next

It’s hard to imagine a bigger story than the Israel and Hamas war, but in an absolute shocking turn of events, US and EU officials are now quietly talking with the Ukrainian government to shift strategies and broker a deal with Russia to officially end the war. According to NBC News these conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to GIVE UP to reach a deal with Russia.

Just look at the incredible reversal from Time Magazine who last year named Zelensky the 2022 Person of the Year. But much like the public sentiment across Western countries has changed, Time Magazine now reports the situation as “The Lonely Fight of Volodymyr Zelensky”.

Times Magazine states Zelensky feels betrayed by his Western allies and goes on to quote one of Zelensky’s advisors who has this to say about the Ukrainian President: “He deludes himself. We are out of options. We’re not winning. But trying telling him that.” This is the beginning of the end for Ukraine and as I’ll explain in today’s video, we will look back on this failure for the US and NATO as a defining moment when the world moved away from American hegemony and officially shifted to a multipolar world. Let me explain:

For the past two years the US government has pledged hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine. We’ve donated so many weapons that we’ve depleted our own ammunition reserves and we’ve convinced every Western ally to join the American led sanctions against Russia. For the better part of two years, we’ve heard nothing from Western media other than: Ukraine is winning, Putin is losing, the Russian economy is on the verge of collapsing. But the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

First of all, the vast majority of the world refused to join Russian sanctions. Over 100 countries around the globe, including the world’s largest democracy, India have NOT sanctioned Russia. Why? Because sanctions never work and Russia is too important of supplier for energy resources. Before the war, India imported less than 3% of crude oil from Russia. Fast forward to today and India buys more than 40% of crude oil from Russia!

Even the United States, who ironically lead the charge to force sanctions on Russia is still doing business with Putin’s government. According to the NY Times, American companies are paying around $1 billion a year to Russia’s state-owned nuclear agency to buy the fuel that generates more than half of the United States’ emissions-free energy. The Russian ruble has recovered to its pre-war exchange rate against the dollar, and most significantly, Russia has positioned itself to endure this war for however long it takes. Over the past few months, we’ve seen a significant shift from US senior officials who have started to use the world “stalemate” to describe the war in Ukraine.

Essentially the war in Ukraine has come down to one simple question. Which side can maintain a military force the longest? According to the NBC article: "Manpower is at the top of the administration’s concerns right now,” The U.S. and its allies can provide Ukraine with weaponry, “but if they don’t have competent forces to use them it doesn’t do a lot of good”.

Ukraine simply doesn’t have enough manpower to win this war against Russia and with a larger and more important war in the Middle East escalating every day, Zelensky is left with the harsh reality of the situation. Israel is a much more important ally for the United States than Ukraine ever was. Sure, the US was happy to support Ukraine when it was the only major conflict happening in the world. According to US officials, supporting Ukraine was a “good investment”. The US could weaken one of its largest adversaries in Russia and do so without risking any American lives. Of course, everything changed on October 7^th when Israel was attacked by Hamas.

Almost overnight Ukraine went from being the biggest geopolitical story for the past 18 months to an afterthought and barely receiving coverage in Western media. To further confirm this shift, a new poll released this week shows decreasing support for sending additional aid to Ukraine. 41% of Americans now say the U.S. is doing too much to help Ukraine, which is a significant change from just three months ago when 24% of Americans said they felt that way. 

      With the US and EU officials now pushing Ukrainian officials to accept a peace deal, this will be a loss of face for NATO and the United States, who started the war with full confidence, stating they would "drive Russians back to pre-invasion lines". Now it looks Ukraine will probably end up losing at least a fifth of its country, a territory half the size of the UK!  

      Now once again we’ll see Western media try to spin this narrative and say it wasn’t a defeat in Ukraine merely a “stalemate”. They’ll tell the world that NATO has emerged from this conflict stronger than before with the addition of Sweden and Finland as new members. Ultimately Western media will probably just blame Zelensky for poor leadership and walk away from yet another failed war. But like I mentioned at the beginning of the video, there is a much larger story unfolding here. If the US and our NATO allies can’t defeat Russia, despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars to help Ukraine to win the war, it sends a message to the world the US and NATO aren’t as powerful as we many thought they were.

Of course, US neocons will never admit this and instead are already planning their next war. Despite the US being involved in both Ukraine and Israel wars, some Republicans think this isn’t enough and now want to take on China over Taiwan. But let’s stop and ask a simple question. If the US can’t stop Russia, which economically is only 10% that of China, how on earth can the US feel confident that it could contain or even compete with China in a new war?

      If I were Taiwan I would be thinking very carefully about the future, especially with the upcoming 2024 Presidential elections. Joe Biden said the US would militarily protect Taiwan if China invaded, but once again this failure in Ukraine should make every Taiwanese question just how good is this US security guarantee? It’s time for Taiwanese people to elect government officials who know how to manage the relationship with Beijing and NOT listen to the far-right Republicans in America who want to push the island towards independence and use Taiwan in a future proxy war against China.

      But ultimately this failure in Ukraine has proved costly for the United States. People are starting to wake up from the mainstream media’s narrative they’ve been preaching every day and ask simple questions. Why did we send hundreds of billions to Ukraine with almost nothing to show for it while our own economies and countries are falling apart? What would Ukraine look like today if we listened to the words of John Mearsheimer who correctly predicted 6 years ago that if the US pushes Ukraine to NATO, the result would be the destruction of Ukraine?

While the US is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on wars around the world, other superpowers like China are also spending hundreds of billions of dollars, but are doing so on investments to help countries around the world develop and find their place and their voice in this new multipolar world. It’s why over 130 countries from around the globe sent representatives to Beijing, China last month to attend China’s 10 Year Anniversary Belt and Road Forum. The BRI Forum was a massive success, and it wasn’t a coincidence that just last month at the same time China was hosting this huge world forum a report broke the Chinese Yuan has surpassed the Euro to become the world’s second-most used currency in SWIFT trade settlements.

This is a huge deal and marks a significant milestone in China’s efforts to internationalize its currency. 20 years ago, China was the leading trading partner to only a handful of countries, fast forward to today and China is the top trading partner to over 120 countries around the globe.

China now exports more to the Muslim World (over $42 billion dollars a month) than to the United States (just over $38 billion dollars a month) meanwhile China exports as much to the Global South as it does all developed markets. This is the new multipolar world and with the stalemate in Ukraine, and US and NATO failures, it makes we wonder an even bigger question. Does this mean China is the biggest winner from the US and NATO failure in Ukraine?