Apparently inspired by Donald Trump’s success in seizing ships carrying Venezuelan oil and confiscating and selling the cargo, and now his success in completely blocking all shipping of oil products to Cuba, the EU has recently decided that it too wants to be part of this new world order and do the same with Russian oil. Has any thought been given to how Russia will react, and what the consequences will be for the right to freedom of navigation on the world’s oceans? A right on which the EU itself is critically dependent.

It has been announced that NATO will go to war with Russia in 2030. That is what Merz, Mette, Stubb, Rutte and all the others are saying. It is not a risk. It is a fact. The public must prepare themselves, they say. So how will this war unfold? We are given no explanation. But perhaps the US war with Iran might give us an idea of how it will happen.

The last few months have seen it become a fact that the tide of war in Ukraine has finally turned. So at last the hundreds of billions of Euro and dollars that NATO countries have poured into Ukraine, and the hundreds of thousands of sacrificed Ukrainian soldiers, are finally being justified, aren't they? Sorry to say it, but the answer is no.

The last few months have seen it become a fact that the tide of war in Ukraine has finally turned. So at last the hundreds of billions of Euro and dollars that NATO countries have poured into Ukraine, and the hundreds of thousands of sacrificed Ukrainian soldiers, are finally being justified, aren't they? Sorry to say it, but the answer is no.

As it is often stated, all wars must eventually end, and that is also valid for the Ukraine war. War fatigue is now clearly observable in Ukraine and among some of Ukraine’s Western backers, despite repeated insistence on continuing ‘as long as it takes’. There has up to now been a tacit agreement within NATO not to discuss the option of a negotiated peace openly, so the mantra is still that Putin is the new Hitler and anything but a Russian defeat is unacceptable. But rumours are that discussions are now ongoing in the corridors.

NATO has a deal with the Ukrainian government: ‘we provide money and weapons, and you provide the soldiers’. The Ukrainian government is now using increasingly harsh and violent methods to capture its unwilling citizens and send them to an almost secure death in the trenches. This effort is applauded by the NATO countries. The politicians, right and left, couldn’t care less about the fate of the Ukrainian men who against their will are sent to the killing fields. This is a necessary sacrifice for the good cause.

Disinformation campaigns are unfortunately normal parts of political rivalry, and they are certainly even more prominent during wars. Successful disinformation can be a powerful tool. However, there is a risk that you end up believing your own disinformation, and that means that fatal decisions are taken on false premises. That is what seems to be happening in the Ukraine war. And that is extremely dangerous.

The loss of lives of soldiers in the Ukraine war is horrific. We don’t know how many are dying, but nobody doubts the number is terrifying high. A recent study gives us a glimpse of what is going on. It shows that 63% of the Ukrainians respond that they have at least one close relative or friend who died, 78% if we include the injured. This is insane. The US, NATO and EU say this should continue for “as long as it takes”. Do they have a good reason for letting this bloodbath continue?

Most of the European and North American left considers itself as guardians of universal rights and values. They are campaigning for sanctions and – if needed – military intervention against countries or “regimes” that are not living up to these universal standards, and they expect their governments, the US, EU and NATO to carry out the necessary punitive measures to enforce the standards. They haven’t noted that this is no longer possible. It is imperial overreach.

The mainstream thinking in the West is that Ukraine and NATO are winning the war. So the main discussions is how a desperate, defeated Russia will act. You know, wounded animals are dangerous. But what if – hypothetically, of course, against all the clever military expert opinions – it is the other way around? How will NATO react to being defeated in Ukraine? Will it be total war?