In his February 28, 2024, editorial for Il Fatto Quotidiano, Marco Travaglio vehemently criticizes Western strategies and media narratives regarding the conflict in Ukraine, pointing out how these have proven not just ineffective but counterproductive. Travaglio paints a picture of the Western intervention in stages, from supplying weapons to Kiev, imposing sanctions on Russia, to the expectation of an internal collapse in Russia that never materialized. He highlights the current Russian advance that contradicts the narratives of supposed Russian weakness and lambasts recent statements by Zelensky and Macron as either desperate or delusional. Particularly, Travaglio skewers Macron’s proposal to send ground troops to Ukraine as an example of political madness that risks bolstering support for extremist movements in Europe. He concludes by spotlighting the irony of the situation where the only peaceful and rational solution, negotiation, remains overlooked, despite having been considered by Zelensky himself in the early stages of the conflict.
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It all began with weapons to Kiev to defeat Russia and sanctions to drive it into default. Then there were the seventy-three ailments of Putin to send him to his grave. Followed by the Prigozhin coup, or whoever was supposed to overthrow him like the Tsar. Then came the first, second, and third Ukrainian counter-offensives, each more unstoppable than the last. Then the “Broken Army” ran out of men, uniforms, ammunition, missiles, tanks, ships, and everything else, “fighting with 1869 shovels” and “fingers instead of bayonets,” beating a retreat. Now, as the Russian advance through what remains of Ukraine sweeps away the last shreds of European and especially Italian media fairytales, a desperate need for new ones emerges. Enter the official supplier, Zelensky, who announces lists of Putin supporters to silence (initially thought to be pacifists, later revealed to be Russians to be expelled: essentially furious because Russians are pro-Russian) and repeats that Putin is ready to invade Europe. Nobody knows with what means, men, and especially reasons, given he struggles even to take the whole Donbass and attacked Ukraine precisely because it had not yet joined NATO and did not risk nuclear war. But these are trivialities: a second Recovery plan of hundreds of billions for the war against Russia is needed. That is, since Navalny is dead, let’s kill tens of thousands more Ukrainians. Macron gets ahead of the game: “Send ground troops to Ukraine so Russia does not win this war,” even though “there is not yet consensus.” That this man, the guiding spirit of our little centrists, was known as the dumbest politician in Europe was already known: now it’s clear he’s also the maddest. With the current mood and polls, the idea of sending thousands of young Europeans to slaughter in an already lost war to save his and other dying leaders’ face will only inflate the support for Le Pen and all the right wings of the EU. Thus, at the European elections on June 7, we will see what kind of support his war garners in a continent definitively fascistized thanks to him and those like him.
The only option these swindlers categorically exclude is to negotiate before Kiev and NATO’s defeat turns into a rout, with a compromise that saves what can be saved (the pieces of Ukraine still standing and the Ukrainians still alive). That’s what was being done two years ago in Turkey right after the Russian invasion. On March 28, 2022, a dangerous Putin supporter declared: “We are ready to accept Ukraine’s neutral and non-nuclear status: if I remember correctly, Russia started the war to achieve this. Then it will be necessary to discuss and resolve the issues of Donbass and Crimea. But I understand that it’s impossible to make Russia withdraw from all the occupied territories: that would lead to World War III.” His name was Volodymyr Zelensky.
Il Fatto Quotidiano, February 28, 2024
