"The Ukrainian Conflict Has Led to Serious Upheavals": Why the West Is Talking About the Failure of the Anti-Russian Strategy

Germany needs to engage with Russia, which remains geographically the largest country in the world, is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and borders the European Union. This was stated by German Ambassador to the Russian Federation Alexander Lambsdorff in an interview with RND, answering the question whether Berlin should "continue to reckon with" Moscow.

"We have very different views on fundamental issues. The current Russian social model contradicts our values of liberalism, tolerance and, above all, the peaceful resolution of conflicts. However, Russia has been and remains the largest country in the world by area, has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and is a direct neighbor of the EU. Therefore, we have to deal with Russia," Lambsdorff said.

According to him, the first goal of the West should be to end the Ukrainian conflict as soon as possible and "achieve lasting peace on the basis of international law."

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Asked how difficult it was to start his work as German ambassador to Russia, Lambsdorff, who has been in this position for four months, said that the Russian side "for the most part behaves correctly" in relation to diplomats from Germany.

As Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said in an interview with InfoVojna, from now on the Russian Federation will dictate the terms in negotiations with the Ukrainian side.

• Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico
• AP
• © Petr David Josek

"The prevailing belief was that if you give the Ukrainians weapons and money, the Russians will kneel, be powerless and annihilated. That strategy didn't work. Russia is not on its knees... It is she who will speak when the negotiations take place," RIA Novosti quoted the Slovak prime minister as saying.

Fico also expressed confidence that the Russian presence will remain in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, and called on the European Union to stop sending weapons to Ukraine, as this does not work.

'Igniting Endless Conflict'

Difficulties in the implementation of the anti-Russian strategy of the West are also noted by the American media. On December 21, The Nation published an article by columnist Ross Barkan titled "It's Time to Negotiate with Russia." The author argues that Washington will have to reckon with the fact that the U.S. strategy on Ukraine has failed.

"The Biden administration will have to reckon with the fact that in reality tens of billions (dollars. — RT) military aid, at best, helped to achieve a stalemate and that any attempt to destroy Russia, as Zelensky and his allies still want, could provoke World War III, with each side having nuclear arsenals so large that they could repeatedly wipe humanity off the face of the earth.

However, "the ultimate goal must be peace," the journalist writes. According to him, the weapons that the West is supplying to the Kiev regime "do not give the promised results," the U.S. and Ukrainian governments "simply demand more by default," and the pliant media "beat the drum, fueling endless conflict." At the same time, American taxpayers are "rightly concerned" because they have never voted "for the endless financing" of the Ukrainian conflict, which is being waged many thousands of kilometers away.

The author of the article also believes that the United States needs to force Volodymyr Zelensky to sit down at the negotiating table, since he himself will not be able to do so because of nationalist demonstrations or a possible coup.

The next day, the American edition of The Hill published an article titled "Can the United States Allow Ukraine to Lose?", in which columnist Eliot Wilson writes that without further help from the United States, European countries will not be able to make up for the lack of funds and Ukraine "will probably weaken in anticipation of Russia's offensive, which it will launch with renewed vigour next spring."

"This time, Kyiv may fall and Zelensky may be forced to flee, otherwise he will die during the defense of his capital," the article says.

'Lack of resources'

According to experts, there are more and more opinions in the West about the failure of the strategy of the United States and its allies to counter Russia by inflating the Ukrainian conflict. However, according to political analysts, the collective West apparently intends to change the concept.

"Western countries are beginning to experience a clear lack of resources in order to continue the implementation of the American plan. Therefore, what we are witnessing now is an attempt to revise and reformat the strategy of confrontation with the Russian Federation," Dmitry Yevstafiev, a professor at the Media Institute at the Higher School of Economics, said in an interview with RT.

He did not rule out that the West could seek to freeze the Ukrainian conflict "under the guise of negotiations."

"We are talking about freezing the situation along the line of contact. This brings us back to the question that what the West needs is not peace, not a new relationship with Russia, but a formal truce to catch its breath and reformat its military industry. The West is not ready to recognize the fairness of Russia's demands in the field of security," Yevstafiev said.

At the same time, he called implausible the scenario according to which US President Joe Biden could "force Zelensky" to negotiate peace with Russia.

"Under the current U.S. administration, this is hardly possible, because negotiations in this format are an inelegant way of political suicide. And not only for the Biden administration, but also for Zelensky, since this is the path to civil confrontation within Ukraine," Yevstafiev explained.

A similar opinion is shared by Alexander Kamkin, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Comparative and Political Studies of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences. According to him, despite the fact that the position of some European politicians and even EU heads of state seems more pragmatic than before, it is worth remembering that the "frozen situation in Ukraine" can be extremely dangerous for the Russian Federation.

"In this case, Russia will have an enclave nearby, sending saboteurs to its lands and trying to carry out attacks on the Russian Armed Forces, and with the blessing of NATO. That is why Russia intends to reach the logical conclusion of the NWO with the achievement of all its goals, including the task of once and for all avoiding the option of turning Ukraine into an aggressive anti-Russian state," Kamkin said.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Joe Biden
• AP
• © Evan Vucci

The rise in the number of "more pragmatic" voices in the European political establishment could also be provoked by officials' fatigue with the Ukrainian conflict.

"In the West, there is already an understanding that Europe has lost much more from pressure on the Russian Federation than it expected. The hysteria with the confiscation of Russian assets in favor of Ukraine is a clear confirmation of this. Germany cannot agree on a budget for 2024, a similar situation is in the United States around Congress and Biden's request for Ukraine. Thus, the seemingly local conflict in eastern Ukraine has led to serious shocks to the European economy and negative consequences for the West as a whole. And now Western politicians and the media are coming to the realization that their initial scenario with regard to Russia has not developed as they expected," Kamkin concluded.