Russian President Vladimir Putin told African leaders last week that Moscow will never allow Ukraine to become a member of NATO, despite bluster from the West that its membership into the anti-Russia alliance is inevitable. 

Putin noted the 1990 declaration that “it is written in black and white that Ukraine is a neutral state” and he called its neutrality “of fundamental importance.”

“Why the West began to drag Ukraine into NATO is not very clear to us. But this created, in our opinion, a fundamental threat to our security,” Putin said, according to Russian news outlet RT. 

TREND FORECAST: Russia sees Ukraine as the ultimate red line and considers the West’s military relationship with Ukraine as an existential threat and is willing to go to war over the issue.

“We saw how the military infrastructure was unfolding, how hundreds of foreign advisers had begun to work there, with the most modern weapons being regularly delivered from NATO countries,” Putin said during his Victory Day speech in 2022, weeks after the invasion. “The danger was growing every day. Russia offered a pre-emptive rebuff to the aggression—this was a forced, timely move and the only correct decision, one taken by a strong and independent country.”

The irony is that NATO does not want Ukraine as a member because it means a fight with Russia and the official start of WWIII. 

The only reason Western governments can continue to sell the talking point that Putin envisions himself as the second coming of Peter the Great is because of Presstitutes in the Western media. 

About three weeks before the first Russian tank rolled into Ukraine, we forecast that, “Despite its bluster, NATO is not interested in taking on Ukraine as a member, and everyone knows this, so it is unclear why the Alliance is grandstanding on the matter.”

Other than the few who know the facts and study trends, the vast majority in the West do not question what happens when Ukraine continues to lose their fight against Russia, since the mainstream media continues to sell Washington and NATO’s propaganda that Ukraine is winning the war. Anyone else providing contrary data is banned from the mainstream media.

Putin’s Sober Assessment 

While the West wants you to think that Putin is some kind of madman, if you actually listen to him you see much of what he says is based on established fact. 

Putin told members of the Russia-Africa summit that the West has been plotting this war for years and Ukraine has been given several opportunities to negotiate for some kind of resolution to the conflict, but has rejected the proposals after the West got into its ears. (See “MERKEL ADMITS THAT MINSK AGREEMENT WAS A RUSE, RUSSIA CALLS FOR TRIBUNAL” 13 Dec 2022 and “FRANCE, U.K. VOW WEAPONS SUPPORT FOR UKRAINE SO KYIV ‘WINS’” 14 Mar 2023.)

Putin also noted how the U.S. organized a coup in Ukraine in 2014 to make sure that Kyiv stays out of Moscow’s orbit. (See “VICTORIA “FUCK THE EU” NULAND WHO SPEARHEADED OVERTHROW OF DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE IN 2014, STILL IN POWER,” 22 Feb 2022.)

African leaders presented Putin with a new peace proposal that Putin said looked promising. But he said the ceasefire is impossible to establish because Ukrainians are on the offensive in the south of the country.

“They are attacking,” Putin said. “They are implementing a large-scale strategic offensive operation… We cannot cease fire when we are under attack.”

Zelensky has said he wants Russian troops to retreat to prewar lines before facing war crimes charges. He also said Ukraine will not stop fighting until it retakes Crimea.

Putin said hostilities across Ukraine have intensified and Ukrainians are incurring “heavy losses” in their attempt to retake ground.

WSWS wrote, “Ukraine has suffered enormous human losses, and the war continues only because it is being massively armed by NATO. Whatever meager gains Ukraine is making in isolated areas of the vast front have required a reckless expenditure of lives. You are dying from no other purpose than to advance the interests of imperialist powers.”

The report cited a grim article in The New York Times that was “buried” in the paper that reported on a Ukrainian unit that saw a “200 percent casualty rate,” which means all its troops died and the troops that replaced them also died. Young soldiers died first, and then their older replacements.

U.S. President Joe Biden has said Washington’s support for Ukraine is unwavering. The WSWS report, citing leaked Pentagon documents released earlier this year, noted that there are hundreds of U.S and NATO active-duty military and intelligence personnel in Ukraine, along with possibly thousands of so-called “volunteers” from NATO countries. 

TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has reported extensively on how the U.S. and the collective West are not fighting a proxy war against Russia. They are at war with Moscow and it will only become official with the first flash of a nuclear bomb. (See “U.S. AT WAR WITH RUSSIA: WASHINGTON SENDING $1.3 BILLION FOR UKRAINE” 25 Jul 2023, “BULLSHIT BIDEN SAYS RUSSIAN PRESIDENT DOESN’T HAVE THE STOMACH FOR A LONG WAR” 18 Jul 2023, “U.S. AT WAR WITH RUSSIA: UKRAINIAN MILITIAS USE AMERICAN VEHICLES IN ATTACK IN RUSSIA” 30 May 2023, and “UKRAINIAN WAR ESCALATES: KYIV PLANS TO TAKE OVER CRIMEA. BLOWS UP RUSSIAN OIL DEPOT” 2 May 2023.)

An unnamed Ukrainian infantryman told The Kyiv Post last week that morale is falling among troops because they are losing up to five men—on average—for every 100 meters of land they gain.

The source, who was fighting in Russian-occupied Donetsk, told the paper that the fighting has been brutal and—while they’ve trained at retaking Russian trenches—they were not trained on how to hold the newly recovered land and often give it back up shortly after a small victory. 

“In one month, we have only advanced one kilometer and a half. We move forward by inches, but I don’t think it’s worth all the human resources and material that we have spent,” he said.