Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US President Trump in Washington on Friday to sign an agreement granting the US access to Ukraine’s rare earth mineral deposits. Trump claimed the deal would allow US taxpayers to “get their money back” from wartime aid to Ukraine, while insisting that Europe should bear responsibility for Kyiv’s security. However, tensions flared, and Ukrainian President Zelensky was ordered to leave the White House after a heated confrontation with Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia has become a devastating tragedy for the Ukrainian people, exposing the strategic miscalculations and hubris of the United States and its allies. Widely regarded as the architects of this proxy war by prominent American intellectuals such as Professor John Mearsheimer and Professor Jeffrey Sachs, these Western powers now seem to be deflecting blame onto Ukraine to save face. Their bold assurances of unwavering support until Russia’s defeat have collapsed spectacularly. Far from being defeated, Russia has emerged as an unstoppable force, having captured nearly 25% of Ukraine’s territory. If the war continues, projections suggest Russia could seize up to 40% of the land east of the Dnipro River.
This conflict has exposed critical vulnerabilities in Western military strategies, highlighting the intricate complexities of modern warfare and shattering the illusion of Western military invincibility. Over $118 billion in Western military aid, announced with great fanfare, has been poured into Ukraine, yet the outcome has been little more than a graveyard of overhyped weaponry. Systems like Javelins, NLAWs, HIMARS, ATACMS, Leopard 2 tanks, Storm Shadow missiles, and even F-16s have been systematically neutralized by Russian forces. What many fail to recognize is the historic significance of this war: it marks the first time a private military contractor—Russia’s Wagner Group —has effectively defeated a government military trained, equipped, and supported by NATO and its intelligence networks. The Battle of Bakhmut, a brutal and pivotal chapter in this war, will undoubtedly be studied in military academies for generations, serving as a stark lesson in the evolving dynamics of modern warfare.
The human toll is staggering. Unofficial estimates suggest Ukraine has suffered around one million casualties, with a third of its population displaced. This war, which has brought untold suffering to millions, could have been avoided. It seems clear now that the US and UK lobbied aggressively to pull Ukraine into NATO’s orbit—a move few Europeans genuinely cared about—igniting tensions with Russia that spiraled into full-scale conflict. Even more damning, a near-finalized peace agreement in the war’s first week was derailed by former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Istanbul. His intervention reportedly pressured Ukraine to abandon negotiations, promising instead that Russia would be defeated by the western support.
The lesson is stark: as former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once noted, “To be an enemy of the U.S. is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.” Ukraine has been left devastated, its people betrayed by the very allies who claimed to champion their cause. The U.S. and its main ally, the UK, may deflect responsibility, but the wreckage of their failed strategy speaks for itself. Any rational observer can see the absurdity of escalating a conflict with a nation holding the world’s largest nuclear arsenal—an escalation that risks triggering World War III and catastrophic destruction.
The West must awaken from its delusion that the world remains unchanged. The days of coasting on past dominance, accompanied by drumbeats and bagpipes, are long gone. Even tribes like the Yemeni Houthis, capitalizing on last-mover advantages in technology, have developed hypersonic missiles capable of striking targets as far as 2,040 kilometers away, reaching Tel Aviv—one of the most defended cities in the world—in just 11 minutes. The global power landscape has shifted, and this war stands as a painful testament to that reality.
faznotes.com 
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