{"id":1469900,"date":"2024-06-07T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1469900"},"modified":"2024-06-07T07:30:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T11:30:00","slug":"the-estonian-prime-minister-redefined-the-wests-terms-for-victory-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-estonian-prime-minister-redefined-the-wests-terms-for-victory-in-ukraine\/1469900\/","title":{"rendered":"The Estonian Prime Minister Redefined The West’s Terms For Victory In Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Estonian Prime Minister Redefined The West’s Terms For Victory In Ukraine<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is considered one of the most hawkish anti-Russian figures in the West, yet it was none other than her who just redefined this bloc\u2019s terms for victory in Ukraine. She recently told the\u00a0BBC<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cVictory in Ukraine is not just about territory. If Ukraine joins Nato, even without some territory, then that\u2019s a victory because it will be placed under the Nato umbrella.” This is a far cry from restoring Ukraine\u2019s pre-2014 borders like the West hitherto claimed is its goal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are several background briefings concerning the lead-up to what she just said:<\/p>\n

* 24 May: \u201cThe US Is Now More Openly Allowing Ukraine To Use Its Arms To Strike Inside Of Russia<\/a>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

* 25 May: \u201cRussia Is Open To Compromise But Won\u2019t Agree To A Ceasefire That Doesn\u2019t Meet Its Interests<\/a>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

* 26 May: \u201cThe US Is Playing A Dangerous Game Of Nuclear Chicken With Russia<\/a>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

* 30 May: \u201cPutin Expects NATO, And Possibly Poland In Particular, To Escalate The Proxy War In Ukraine<\/a>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

* 31 May: \u201cIs Ukraine Going Rogue Or Did It Attack Russia\u2019s Early Warning Systems With American Approval?<\/a>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

They\u2019ll now be summarized for the reader\u2019s convenience.<\/p>\n

Basically, the West fears Russia achieving a military breakthrough across the front lines (particularly around Kharkov Region), so it\u2019s now more openly allowing Ukraine to use their arms to strike targets inside its neighbor\u2019s universally recognized territory. <\/strong>Poland is also flirting with shooting down Russian missiles over Western Ukraine and commencing a conventional intervention there too. All the while, Ukraine started attacking Russia\u2019s early nuclear warning systems, which is unprecedentedly dangerous.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0NATO-Russian<\/a>\u00a0proxy war<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0is therefore poised to intensify, though the West\u2019s intent appears to be to \u201cescalate to de-escalate\u201d in order to then freeze the conflict afterwards on comparatively better terms for their side, provided of course that the escalation remains manageable. The upcoming Swiss \u201cpeace talks\u201d are doomed to fail, but a parallel joint Sino-Brazilian peace process might arise in their wake as explained\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and culminate in a grand diplomatic gathering during November\u2019s G20 in Rio.<\/p>\n

Kallas\u2019 latest comment should be interpreted in this context as signaling an interest in compromising via the\u00a0Korean-like armistice scenario<\/a>\u00a0that was prominently floated by former NATO Supreme Commander Admiral James Stavridis in November in his op-ed about this for Bloomberg. <\/strong>Ukraine\u2019s bilateral \u201csecurity guarantees<\/a>\u201d with NATO members, especially the ones that it\u2019s negotiating with the US and Poland, could be spun as\u00a0de facto membership<\/a>\u00a0that importantly doesn\u2019t cross Russia\u2019s red line of formal membership.<\/p>\n

As for Article 5, Kallas recently told the Financial Times that those who dispatch troops to Ukraine on their own as members of implied \u2018coalitions of the willing\u2019 do so at their own risk, arguing that the bloc\u2019s mutual defense clause\u00a0wouldn\u2019t automatically be triggered<\/a>\u00a0in that scenario.<\/strong> That said, it\u2019s unlikely that the US would\u00a0hang its allies out to dry<\/a>\u00a0if Russia pulverizes their forces, so this sequence of events would likely provoke a crisis that could only realistically be defused through Ukraine\u2019s\u00a0asymmetrical<\/a>\u00a0partition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Depending on if or when this happens, there might be a several-month-long gap between freezing the conflict in that way and the potentially planned grand diplomatic gathering in Rio this winter, during which time bilateral negotiations could take place between Russia and the US to hash out the details. To be clear, Russia might not achieve a military breakthrough, NATO members might not conventionally intervene, no brinksmanship might occur, and the conflict might continue raging at its present tempo.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the significance of Kallas\u2019 statement is that it represents the first signal from the West\u2019s most hawkish anti-Russian faction that they might be willing to freeze the conflict instead of continuing to fight until the last Ukrainian at the risk of sparking World War III by miscalculation.<\/strong> The only reason why she\u2019d do this is because she knows that Russia has already won the \u201crace of logistics<\/a>\u201d\/\u201cwar of attrition<\/a>\u201d with NATO\u00a0by<\/a>\u00a0far<\/a>\u00a0and that the West\u2019s planned maximum victory is thus unattainable.<\/p>\n

Considering the military-strategic dynamics that were earlier described in this analysis, everything is likely about to get a lot worse before it gets any better, but the incipient Sino-Brazilian peace process leaves hope that a compromise is possible by November\u2019s G20. For that to happen, the impending NATO-Russian escalation in Ukraine must remain manageable, but that can\u2019t be taken for granted given how desperate some Western hawks still are to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia despite the odds.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 06\/07\/2024 – 03:30<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/estonian-prime-minister-redefined-wests-terms-victory-ukraine<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Estonian Prime Minister Redefined The West’s Terms For Victory In Ukraine Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is considered…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1469901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1469900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1469900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1469901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1469900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1469900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1469900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}