5 March 2025
Vol. 27 No. 8

Trump clashing with Zelensky in the Oval Office. Zelensky and his European
backers are desperate to keep the Ukraine war going. Photo: AFP/Saul Loeb

The extraordinary scenes from the White House on Saturday morning (Australian time) showed the explosive tensions in play as two opposing worldviews collide. Despite being an agent of chaos, Donald Trump’s attitude to ending the Ukraine war is in part informed by decades of serious analysis that the war should never have started, as it was a consequence of American and British, not Russian, foreign policy. Volodymyr Zelensky on the other hand is the titular head of a war propaganda enterprise entirely created, funded and controlled by the USA and UK, but because of a shift in US politics, he’s stranded out on a limb now being sawn off by Trump.

Zelensky’s backers in the UK and Europe—and for some reason Australia—are trapped out on the same limb. The governments of these nations are doubling down on their self-delusional propaganda slogans demonising Russia and supporting Ukraine, refusing to accept the reality of what Trump’s actions represent. Like Zelensky, they risk exposing themselves to the rage of their own people, who in Ukraine have suffered pointless death and destruction, and in Europe have suffered economic hardship for the cause of defeating the supposedly existential threat of authoritarian Russia.

The British, as usual, are leading the damage control. More than any other country, the Ukraine war has been Britain’s imperial project, as was NATO from its inception: Britain’s Lord Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General, said in 1949 that Britain’s purpose for NATO was to “keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out”. The British orchestrated the expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders; PM Boris Johnson stopped Zelensky taking the far-better deal he’d wanted to sign two months into the war; and Britain escalated the conflict late last year by encouraging Ukraine to fire missiles into Russia.

UK PM Keir Starmer consoled Zelensky when he fled back to Europe from the White House, with a display of faux public adulation straight from the handbook of Grigory Potemkin, and the apparently deep honour of a personal audience with His Britannic Majesty himself, King Charles III. Laying it on thick, Starmer announced the UK will lead a “coalition of the willing”—yes, he actually invoked the farcical moniker for the perpetrators of the Iraq war crime—to support Ukraine continuing to fight the war, and that the UK would stump up a £2.2 billion loan to Ukraine (a fraction of the $200 billion in US support that hasn’t been enough for Ukraine to win the war).

Also desperate to keep the USA involved in the conflict, the European Union announced a massive defence fund for Ukraine. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that this would be provided by empowering EU member states with “extra fiscal room” by activating (as during COVID) the “escape clause” in the EU Stability and Growth Pact which limits the spending of all EU states. The EU enforced this mechanism after the global financial crisis to crush the poor in member nations like Greece and Italy, but it’s now willing to suspend it to fund more slaughter and profits for weapons companies.

Not to be left out from over the other side of the world, Australian PM Anthony Albanese leapt to offer Australia’s willingness to consider “any” proposal, going forward, including deploying Australian troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers. Backed up by shameless propaganda in Australia’s media, such as Sydney Morning Herald columnist Peter Hartcher’s 4 March declaration that “Trump is an agent of Putin”, Albanese is clinging to his own self-delusion that saw him openly fraternising with Nazi apologists to promote the Ukraine war.

For decades, the ACP has exposed the truth about Russia, and Ukraine. The AAS documented the circumstances that actually caused the war. Nobody could have predicted Trump’s actions, but he’s right that this war, which should never have started, must end.

In this issue:

• CBA sneaks in the hated $3 cash withdrawal fee because the banks don’t fear the government!
• The Australian Citizens Party’s solution to the looming cash crisis
• Free speech for all, or none at all
• Simandou ramp-up demands Australia break the ‘resource curse’
• Australia scrambles for tariff Trump card
• If not war, economic fascism
• USAID: The good, the bad, and the horrendous
• Communities desperately need ACP solutions
• BRICS will fund Kra Canal, diplomat tells Thailand

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