Doug Bandow
Most wars are destructive and pointless. Such is the Russo–Ukrainian conflict. However it ends, little will have been gained for the mass death and destruction inflicted.
Moreover, the war could have been easily avoided. Russia’s Vladimir Putin should not have invaded Moscow’s neighbor. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky could have pursued the peace policy on which he ran. The allies had no cause to expand NATO up to Russia’s borders or absorb Kiev into their sphere of interest. So many people have suffered for so little reason.
As expected, truth was one of the war’s first victims. American and European officials assiduously sought to avoid responsibility for the conflict they encouraged. Having essentially brought NATO into Ukraine after promising to bring Ukraine into NATO, they denied the many assurances to the contrary they offered to and the many protests about their duplicity they received from Moscow.
Kiev, too, dispensed with the truth when in its interest and attempted to manipulate Washington and other NATO members. For instance, in November 2022 Zelensky urged NATO to attack Russia in response to an errant Ukrainian missile strike in Poland. If the American and Polish militaries knew the launch came from Ukraine, surely the Ukrainian military did so as well.
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