November 21, 2024

Unpopular opinion: Ukraine should surrender to avoid pointless horror and perhaps a nuclear war

Volodymyr Zelenskyy – an eastern European Churchill for the modern generations.

Few Western consumers of Zelenskyy’s ‘fight them on the beaches’ rhetoric have known the horrors of war. It’s easier to buy into bellicose war rhetoric when you have no experience of war and when someone else has to do the fighting – and the dying. 

Observers are warning of an ‘unimaginable tragedy’ in Kyiv. Not so unimaginable to those who bore witness to Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria and Yemen – but certainly as tragic.

The crocodile tears of BBC and Sky News are juxtaposed alongside Pathe News broadcasts of Ukrainians digging trenches and making Molotov cocktails. ‘Special news programs’ beam with delighted sadness (corporate media types LOVE wars!) at the wreckage and the refugees.

All the media outlets agree (and have from the outset) that nothing can save Kyiv. Plenty can actually be done, but vested interests mostly outside of Ukraine have little interest.

We have been here before.

Nothing can be done to save Syria – except perhaps stopping the flow of arms to the U.S backed Islamist fanatics.

Nothing can be done to save Yemen – except perhaps stopping arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Nothing can be done to save Palestine – except perhaps ceasing the flow of arms to Israel.

Nothing could be done for the victims of Pinochet in Chile – but perhaps the West’s fulsome support was a factor.

The modern West’s imperialism  uses dishonestly framed proxy wars against bogeymen. Hussein in Iraq, Assad in Syria, Hamas in Palestine, The Taliban in Afghanistan,  the Houthis in Yemen, Maduro in Venezuela.

The West advances its geopolitical goals by using other nations as battle grounds.  If local people will not do the fighting…terrorist groups and religious fanatics are flown in. Russia operates from the same play book – but in Ukraine, Russia is directly involved.

NATO by contrast will happily designate Ukraine a sacrifice zone and allow the Ukrainians to fight for them.

A bloody war in Ukraine gives NATO a reason to exist, drives the eternal war economy, weakens Russia, keeps Ukraine free of Russian influence and buffs the West’s good guy pretensions. Don’t expect the West to be at all interested in peace.  

Western media portals frame this battle as evil Goliath vs angelic David – but its the same old story. The superpower mafioso are squaring off. There will be no winners and the civilian population will pay a brutal price.

The horror about to engulf Kyiv can be avoided thus:

(a) Ukraine could surrender and decline to fight battles THEY HAVE NO HOPE OF WINNNG.
(b) The West could stop putting arms into the hands of neo-Nazi battalions
(c) The West could give Russia the security guarantees – regarding Ukrainian neutrality, nuclear weapons and NATO membership. 

TV pundits talk up a Ukranian victory, but without air power this war will end in death and horror for its defenders. NATO isn’t coming, they dare not push Putin too far.

If we really care about avoiding mass murder in Ukraine, then The West must admit its mistakes and climb down.

It is not Putin who has misjudged Ukrainian resolve but the West which has misjudged Russian resolve. Buoyed by its expansion in Eastern Europe, the West imagined that Ukraine would be its victory roll – but just as the U.S did in 1962 over the Cuban missile crisis, the Russians have drawn a line in the sand.

In 1962 a secret deal was struck,  Khrushchev withdrew missiles from Cuba and Kennedy agreed to withdraw missiles from Turkey. We need a new face saving deal urgently.

Without a settlement there are only two outcomes. Ukraine will either descend into hell on earth and hundreds of thousands will die – or NATO will misguidedly intervene…

and if that happens…

…there may be no future for any of us.


Since 2013 I have worked on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and speaking simple truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.

I am a home schooling parent on a low income – paying for the domain, web hosting and security entirely out of my own pocket.  

If you find this website useful and could spare us a few shillings to help keep our lights on, it would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.     


Click here to follow Sodium Haze on Facebook