What They Did
Over 1.5 million human beings have been killed or wounded because Western governments wanted this war. George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Victoria Nuland, Joe Biden, and Boris Johnson engineered this catastrophe through NATO expansion they were explicitly warned would trigger Russian invasion, orchestrated a coup to overthrow Ukraine’s elected government, used peace negotiations as cynical deception to buy time for war, then personally killed multiple viable settlements that would have ended the conflict in its first months. They did this to “weaken Russia” and enrich Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and the defense contractors who have extracted $771 billion from the carnage.
The casualty toll stands at approximately 1.5 million killed and wounded: roughly 1.1 million Russian casualties including an estimated 250,000 dead, 400,000-600,000 Ukrainian casualties including 60,000-140,000 dead, and over 13,000 verified civilian deaths. NATO’s own estimates confirm these figures, making this the deadliest European conflict since World War II.
Ukraine is being exterminated. Its population has collapsed from 42 million to below 36 million and demographers project 25 million by 2051, potentially 9 million by 2100. Male life expectancy has fallen from 65 to 57 years. The birth rate has collapsed to roughly three deaths for every birth. This is genocide by proxy, and the officials responsible call it “supporting democracy” while Ukraine’s government bans opposition parties, consolidates media under state control, and suspends elections indefinitely.
Every institution that still pretends to tell you the truth is lying to protect the killers. The press will not tell you that 85% of the “expert” commentary on Ukraine comes from think tanks funded by the weapons manufacturers profiting from the war. They will not tell you that the Atlantic Council, the most-cited source on Ukraine, announced a direct partnership with Lockheed Martin one month after Russia’s invasion. They will not tell you that former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett mediated peace talks in March 2022 and confirmed that the West explicitly “blocked” a viable settlement because they wanted to keep “striking Putin.”
They won’t tell you because they are complicit in mass slaughter.
Why I’m Writing This
I’m writing this because silence is complicity and I will not be complicit anymore.
The institutional press (the outlets that still expect deference despite forfeiting all credibility, the sources AI platforms amplify, the experts cable news quotes) has become a propaganda system serving defense contractors and war criminals. This article uses only mainstream sources, diplomatic cables, Western officials’ own confessions, verified casualty data, and testimony from international mediators to prove that Russia and Ukraine were goaded into this war by Western governments pursuing NATO expansion, regime change, and corporate profit.
Over 1.5 million people have been killed or wounded. Western leaders engineered it. The press is covering it up.
And I’m going to prove it.
PART I: THE PROVOCATION, Fifteen Years of Warnings, Deliberately Ignored
“Nyet Means Nyet”: The CIA Director Who Predicted This War
William Burns is now Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In February 2008, he was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow. On February 1, 2008, he sent a cable to Washington with the subject line “NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA’S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES.”
Burns reported that every faction of Russian political opinion (liberals, moderates, nationalists, the informed public) agreed on one thing: NATO expansion into Ukraine was an existential threat that would require a military response. He warned that Russia viewed Ukraine’s entry into NATO as “a line of last resort” that would complete Russia’s strategic encirclement. Dmitri Trenin, then-deputy director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, told Burns that NATO expansion to Ukraine would mean “Russia’s strategic space was reduced to the point where it could feel it had no recourse but a military response.”
This wasn’t Vladimir Putin talking. This was the assessment of Western-oriented liberal Russian analysts who spent the 1990s hoping for integration with Europe and the United States. The message was unanimous across the entire Russian political spectrum: NATO expansion into Ukraine would trigger war.
Even Angela Merkel understood this. In March 2008, after spending two hours with Vladimir Putin, Merkel reported that Putin had “argued strongly” against NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. Merkel herself opposed offering Ukraine a Membership Action Plan at the April 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit precisely because she recognized it would provoke Russia.
The warnings were explicit, consistent, and came from every credible source. NATO expansion into Ukraine would cause war. Period.
Bush Crosses the Red Line Anyway, Merkel Tries to Stop Him
The internal dynamics of the Bucharest Summit reveal something even more damning: Angela Merkel fought to prevent this provocation, and George W. Bush overruled her because he wanted confrontation with Russia.
According to a Der Spiegel reconstruction based on interviews with summit participants, the April 2008 NATO meeting became a showdown between Merkel and Bush over Ukraine and Georgia. Merkel assembled a coalition (France, Spain, Italy, Benelux countries, Portugal, Norway) to block immediate NATO membership action plans. Even the UK wavered.
Bush accused Merkel of making a “serious historical mistake,” of “ingratitude” toward allies, of “emboldening Russia.” But Merkel held firm: “I am against it. I’ve thought things through carefully. It is not a tactical position, I am convinced.” She argued that “every step this alliance takes should mean more security and stability,” and that Ukraine and Georgia could join eventually, just “not now.”
The compromise declaration stated: “Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO”, no timeline, but a strategic commitment. Putin responded at Bucharest by telling Burns directly: “No Russian leader could stand idly by in the face of steps toward NATO membership for Ukraine. That would be a hostile act toward Russia.” After the summit, Putin told Bush: “You don’t understand, George, that Ukraine isn’t even a state.”
Four months later, in August 2008, Russia invaded Georgia.
The current CIA Director told the U.S. government in 2008 that pushing Ukraine into NATO would provoke Russian military action. Angela Merkel tried to prevent it. George W. Bush did it anyway. This was not ignorance. This was not miscalculation. This was deliberate provocation.
The Strategic Goal: Russia Must Never Rise Again
Carl Gershman, president of the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, made the strategy explicit in a September 2013 Washington Post op-ed. He called Ukraine “the biggest prize” and argued that pulling Ukraine into the Western orbit was a stepping stone toward regime change in Russia itself.
The logic was clear and had been consistent since the 1990s: Russia must never be allowed to re-emerge as a great power. NATO must expand to Russia’s borders. Pro-Western governments must be installed in former Soviet states. Ukraine was the lynchpin of this strategy.
Russia was told exactly what the West was doing. Russia warned exactly how it would respond. And the West did it anyway because Western leaders believed they could get away with it.
PART II: THE COUP, How Victoria Nuland Picked Ukraine’s Government
$5 Billion to Overthrow a Democracy
On December 13, 2013, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland stood before the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation and boasted that the United States had invested “over $5 billion” in Ukraine since 1991 to support its “European aspirations.” This was not humanitarian aid. This was regime change infrastructure: funding for NGOs, political movements, opposition groups, and media outlets designed to pull Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and into NATO’s sphere of control.
When Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, elected in 2010 in a vote judged free and fair by international observers, declined in November 2013 to sign an EU association agreement that would have required severing economic ties with Russia, the United States activated its networks. Protests erupted in Kyiv’s Maidan square, funded and organized by U.S.-backed NGOs and encouraged by visits from American officials.
Then Russian intelligence intercepted a phone call that exposed the entire operation.
“Yats Is the Guy”: The Smoking Gun
On February 4, 2014, three weeks before Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown, Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt had a phone conversation in which they discussed, in granular detail, who would hold which positions in Ukraine’s next government.
The call was intercepted by Russian intelligence, leaked online, and authenticated by the BBC and other Western media outlets. Here is what the architect of American policy in Ukraine said when she thought no one was listening:
Nuland: “I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience.”
She was referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, an opposition leader. Pyatt suggested bringing in “somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing.” Nuland responded that she had already been coordinating with Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser to “get the details to stick. So Biden’s willing.”
This is not diplomacy. This is regime change, planned and executed by the U.S. State Department.
The call became famous for Nuland’s aside “Fuck the EU,” which reflected her frustration that European governments wanted to move more cautiously than Washington. The BBC published the full transcript. The State Department confirmed it was authentic. And three weeks later, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Victoria Nuland’s handpicked candidate, became Prime Minister of Ukraine.
The Coup and Russia’s Response
On February 22, 2014, the Ukrainian parliament, in a session boycotted by Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, voted to remove him from office and install an interim government led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The constitutional process for impeachment was not followed. Yanukovych had not resigned. But the United States and European governments immediately recognized the new regime as “legitimate.”
Russia’s response was immediate and entirely predictable. On February 23, 2014, one day after the coup (Russian operations in Crimea began. In eastern Ukraine, the Russian-speaking population of Donetsk and Luhansk rebelled against the Kyiv government they viewed) correctly, as having come to power through an unconstitutional coup backed by a foreign power.
The war in Ukraine did not start in February 2022. It started in February 2014, when the United States overthrew Ukraine’s government and Russia responded by securing its strategic interests.
PART III: THE DECEPTION, Merkel and Hollande Confess to Eight Years of Lies
“We Needed to Buy Time to Arm Ukraine”
For eight years after the 2014 coup, the West claimed to be pursuing peace in eastern Ukraine through the Minsk agreements, diplomatic frameworks signed in September 2014 and February 2015. Russia participated in this process believing the West was negotiating in good faith. Russia was wrong.
In December 2022, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave an interview to Die Zeit that detonated what remained of Western credibility on Ukraine. Asked about the Minsk agreements, Merkel admitted they were never intended to achieve peace.
“The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine,” Merkel said. “It also used this time to become stronger, as can be seen today.”
Former French President François Hollande confirmed it: “Since 2014, Ukraine has strengthened its military posture. It is the merit of the Minsk Agreements to have given the Ukrainian Army this opportunity.”
Germany, France, and Ukraine signed peace agreements they never intended to honor. They used diplomacy as a stalling tactic to prepare Ukraine for war with Russia. For eight years, they negotiated in bad faith while arming one side of the conflict.
When Boris Johnson killed the Istanbul peace talks in April 2022, Russia had just learned that the last major diplomatic framework had been Western deception. Why would any rational actor trust another Western peace proposal after that?
PART IV: THE SABOTAGE, How Boris Johnson, Joe Biden, and NATO Chose 1.5 Million Casualties Over Peace
March 2022: Peace Was Within Reach
In late March 2022, barely four weeks after Russia’s invasion, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Istanbul and produced a framework to end the war:
- Ukraine would adopt permanent neutrality and forgo NATO membership
- Multiple states would provide security guarantees to Ukraine
- Russia would withdraw forces to pre-invasion positions
Ukrainian chief negotiator Davyd Arakhamia confirmed that Russia’s core demand was Ukrainian neutrality and that a settlement was achievable on those terms. Foreign Affairs reported that “Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement.”
The framework would have ended the war in its first month, saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and preserved Ukraine as a viable state.
Then Boris Johnson intervened.
April 9, 2022: The Day Peace Died
On April 9, 2022, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made an unannounced visit to Kyiv. According to Ukrainska Pravda, Johnson delivered two messages to Volodymyr Zelensky:
First: “Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with.”
Second: “Even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements or guarantees with Putin, they are not.”
Johnson told Zelensky that the West would not provide the security guarantees Ukraine was seeking. He made clear that Western governments preferred continued war to a negotiated settlement. The talks collapsed immediately after Johnson’s visit.
Naftali Bennett: Independent Confirmation That the West Chose War
The most devastating evidence comes from Naftali Bennett, who served as Prime Minister of Israel from June 2021 to July 2022. In February 2023, Bennett gave an extensive interview confirming that the West explicitly sabotaged peace negotiations.
Bennett personally mediated between Putin and Zelensky in March 2022. Both sides had agreed to significant concessions:
Russia agreed to:
- Drop the demand for “denazification” (removal of Zelensky)
- Putin personally guaranteed he wouldn’t kill Zelensky
- Drop the demand for Ukrainian disarmament
Ukraine agreed to:
- Renounce NATO membership aspirations
- Accept permanent neutrality
When asked directly whether the West “blocked” the peace deal, Bennett responded: “Basically, yes. They blocked it, and I thought they’re wrong.”
Bennett explained: “There was a legitimate decision by the West to keep striking Putin.” He clarified that “anything I did was coordinated down to the last detail with the US, Germany, and France.”
This is an Israeli Prime Minister, an independent third party, confirming that the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany coordinated to sabotage a viable peace settlement in March-April 2022.
Why the West Chose War: Lloyd Austin Admits the Strategy
On April 25, 2022, sixteen days after Boris Johnson killed the peace talks, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to Kyiv and stated publicly that the American goal was to “weaken Russia” to the point where it could no longer threaten its neighbors.
This was never about Ukrainian sovereignty. This was never about defending democracy. This was about using Ukraine as a weapon to bleed Russia in a proxy war, with Ukrainian and Russian lives as the ammunition.
International Mediators Confirm: The West Wanted War
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, whose government hosted the Istanbul talks, stated publicly:
“After the talks in Istanbul, we did not think that the war would take this long… But following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, I had the impression that there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia gets weaker. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine.”
Israeli National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata explained:
“The Western countries saw the Russians bleeding and saw it as an opportunity to strengthen NATO.”
Three independent mediators (Israel, Turkey, Germany) all confirm the same sequence: Peace was achievable in March-April 2022. The West killed it because they preferred a protracted war to weaken Russia.
The Cost of That Choice
Since the Istanbul talks collapsed in April 2022, an additional 1.4 million casualties have been inflicted. Russia’s casualty toll has reached approximately 1.1 million killed and wounded, with NATO estimates placing Russian deaths at around 250,000. Ukraine has suffered 400,000-600,000 total casualties, including an estimated 60,000-140,000 dead. The UN has verified over 13,000 civilian deaths, though this is acknowledged as a severe undercount.
Ukraine’s negotiating position has only deteriorated. The territories Russia controls have expanded from roughly 7% of Ukraine in March 2022 to over 20% today. Ukraine’s population has collapsed by 10 million people. Its economy is destroyed. And peace is further away than it was in March 2022.
Boris Johnson, Joe Biden, Lloyd Austin, and the NATO foreign policy establishment personally chose 1.5 million casualties over a negotiated settlement. They did it to serve American and British strategic objectives, not Ukrainian interests.
PART V: THE CASUALTIES, Industrial-Scale Slaughter and Ukraine’s Demographic Extinction
The Body Count
As of January 2026, the verified casualty toll from this war (engineered by Western provocation, escalated by a Western-backed coup, prolonged by Western diplomatic deception, and cemented by Western sabotage of peace) has reached approximately 1.5 million killed and wounded.
Russian military casualties:
NATO estimates place Russian total casualties at approximately 1.1 million, with around 250,000 killed. The BBC, using cemetery analysis and obituary records, verified between 243,000 and 352,000 Russian soldiers killed, acknowledging their methodology captures only 45-65% of actual deaths.
Russia has lost more soldiers in Ukraine than in all Russian and Soviet wars combined from 1945 to 2022, including Afghanistan, both Chechen wars, and the 2008 Georgia conflict. The daily casualty rate averages 1,000-1,500 killed and wounded, with peaks during major offensives reaching over 2,000 per day.
Ukrainian military casualties:
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates Ukraine has suffered 400,000 to 600,000 total casualties, including 60,000 to 140,000 killed. Volodymyr Zelensky claimed in December 2024 that Ukraine had lost 46,000 killed and 380,000 wounded, but these figures are almost certainly severe undercounts designed to maintain morale and Western support.
Civilian casualties:
The United Nations has verified 13,883 civilians killed, though the UN acknowledges this is a severe undercount because verification in occupied or contested territories is impossible.
Combined total: Approximately 1.5 million casualties, killed and wounded.
This is approaching the casualty scale of the Western Front in World War I. This is industrial-scale slaughter. And it was preventable at multiple decision points (in 2008, in 2014, in 2022) if Western leaders had chosen peace over empire.
Ukraine’s Demographic Extinction
The casualty figures, as horrific as they are, understate the true catastrophe. Ukraine is not just losing a war. Ukraine is ceasing to exist as a nation.
Since February 2022, Ukraine has lost over 10 million people, nearly one-quarter of its pre-war population. Ukraine’s birth rate has collapsed to roughly three deaths for every birth. Male life expectancy has fallen from 65.2 years to 57.3 years, a drop of nearly eight years in less than three years of war. Female life expectancy has fallen from 74.4 to 70.9 years.
Long-term demographic projections are apocalyptic. Ukraine’s population is expected to fall from 42 million in 2022 to 25 million by 2051. The UN’s worst-case scenarios project Ukraine’s population could be as low as 9 million by 2100 if current trends persist.
This is not war. This is extinction. And Western leaders are doing it while claiming to “defend” Ukraine.
PART VI: THE PROFITEERS, Who’s Making Billions from 1.5 Million Casualties
Defense Contractors: Blood Money at Industrial Scale
The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft found that just five weapons manufacturers received $771 billion in U.S. government contracts from 2020 to 2024:
- Lockheed Martin: $313 billion
- RTX (Raytheon): $145 billion
- Boeing: $115 billion
- General Dynamics: $116 billion
- Northrop Grumman: $81 billion
The Ukraine war has been a bonanza for these companies. Lockheed Martin raised its 2025 profit forecast, explicitly citing “escalating demand” from ongoing wars. RTX increased its 2025 revenue projection to $86.5-$87 billion, driven by missile and munitions sales. Northrop Grumman raised profit forecasts for the second consecutive quarter.
Stock prices tell the story: Lockheed Martin’s stock rose 37% in 2022 alone. Northrop Grumman rose 41%. Over the 21 years from 2001-2022, Lockheed’s stock increased tenfold. While profits soared, Lockheed Martin returned $9.2 billion to shareholders in 2023 ($4 billion in stock buybacks, $5 billion in dividends) even as workers at its Orlando facility went on strike over stagnant wages.
How Arms Dealers Control the Media: The Think Tank Scam
The Quincy Institute found that 85% of think tank expert commentary cited in media articles about U.S. arms and the Ukraine war came from organizations funded by Pentagon contractors who profit directly from the war’s continuation. The two most-cited sources, the Atlantic Council and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, are both heavily bankrolled by weapons manufacturers.
Atlantic Council:
- Announced a direct partnership with Lockheed Martin in April 2022, one month after Russia’s invasion
- Received at least $10 million from major Pentagon contractors
- Mark Esper, co-chair of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense initiative, is a former Raytheon lobbyist who served as Trump’s Defense Secretary
CSIS:
- Received at least $2.2 million from Pentagon contractors in a single year
- A 2016 New York Times investigation revealed that CSIS produced content that “reflected the defense industry’s priorities,” then “initiated meetings with Defense Department officials and congressional staff to push for the recommendations” of its military industry funders
These organizations do not disclose their conflicts of interest when their analysts appear on CNN, NPR, or in New York Times articles. Journalists treat them as neutral expert authorities rather than paid advocates for corporations profiting from the war.
The Quincy Institute’s conclusion: “Media outlets are deceiving their readers, listeners, or viewers” by failing to report that the experts they rely on are funded by corporations that profit from the very policies those experts advocate.
PART VII: THE EUROPEAN ACCOMPLICES, How Brussels, Paris, and the Eastern Hawks Chose Profit Over Peace
The narrative that America and Britain dragged a reluctant Europe into prolonging Ukraine’s war is a lie. European Union leadership has been equally complicit, blocking peace negotiations, threatening nuclear escalation, and enriching European defense contractors while Ukrainian and Russian soldiers die by the hundreds of thousands.
Ursula von der Leyen: Using Russian Blood Money to Enrich European Arms Dealers
In January 2026, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a €90 billion loan to Ukraine€60 billion for military aid, €30 billion for civilian support. The funding source reveals the cynicism: frozen Russian assets, allowing von der Leyen to boast that “Russia is paying for the weapons Ukraine is using.”
But the real agenda became clear in the loan conditions: Ukraine must give “Buy European” preference to EU defense contractors. If European manufacturers can’t deliver quickly enough, only then can Ukraine purchase American weapons. Von der Leyen explained the reasoning without shame: “These are billions and billions that are being invested. And these investments should have a return on investment in creating jobs, in creating research and development.”
Translation: The EU is using Ukrainian casualties as a captive market to build European defense industrial capacity. The war is not a humanitarian crisis, it’s a business opportunity.
The numbers prove it. EU defense spending exploded from €251 billion in 2021 to €343 billion in 2024a 37% increase. European defense sector turnover surged 13.8% to €183 billion in 2024. The EU’s next seven-year budget proposes €131 billion for defense, up from €10 billion in the previous budget, a 1,310% increase.
This is not security policy. This is war profiteering at industrial scale, and Ursula von der Leyen is the chief salesperson.
Josep Borrell: “Whatever It Takes” to Keep the War Going
If von der Leyen represents European war profiteering, Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, represents its ideological fanaticism. In February 2024, Borrell delivered a speech to the Ukrainian parliament that reads like a declaration of permanent war.
“We need to change the paradigm from supporting Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’ to a commitment to support Ukraine ‘whatever it takes,'” Borrell proclaimed. He explicitly rejected the idea that Ukraine might not be able to win militarily: “We must reject the claims that Ukraine cannot win. I hear this message of defeatism. ‘Why continue to support Ukraine if it can’t win?’ This is not true.”
Borrell’s logic for prolonging the war was chilling: “For the war to last less time, our support must be stronger.” In other words, escalation is the path to peace, the same argument used to justify every failed American military adventure from Vietnam to Afghanistan.
By November 2024, Borrell was pushing even harder. “We have to do more and faster,” he told reporters after a meeting with Ukrainian officials. “More military support, more training capacities, more money, faster supplies.” He explicitly advocated for strikes on Russian territory: “It’s not enough to stop the arrows, you have to attack the archers.“
The EU has delivered on Borrell’s promises: €28 billion in military aid, €90 billion in total assistance, and €63.2 billion in combined EU military support by the end of 2024. The European Peace Facility, supposedly designed for conflict prevention, mobilized €6.1 billion for Ukraine’s military needs between 2022 and 2024.
Josep Borrell didn’t just support the war. He became its chief European evangelist, dismissing any talk of negotiation as “appeasement” and demanding escalation “whatever it takes.”
Emmanuel Macron: Nuclear Threats and Troop Deployments
If Borrell provided the rhetoric, French President Emmanuel Macron provided the threats. In February 2024, Macron refused to rule out deploying European troops to Ukraine, triggering immediate nuclear warnings from Vladimir Putin. Putin responded: “All that raises the real threat of a nuclear conflict that will mean the destruction of our civilization.”
Macron doubled down in March 2025 with a national address that stands as one of the most reckless statements by a Western leader during the entire conflict. He announced plans to extend France’s nuclear deterrent to European partners and proposed deploying European troops to Ukraine after any peace deal “to guarantee it is fully respected.”
“Russia has become, at the moment I am speaking to you and for the years to come, a threat to France and Europe,” Macron declared. “It would be madness to remain a spectator in this world of danger.” He asked rhetorically: “Who can believe that this Russia of today will stop at Ukraine?”
Macron’s escalation didn’t stop at rhetoric. He acknowledged that “France is within range of the Oreshnik” Russia’s hypersonic missile system, and stated that Europe needs to “acquire such weapons capable of changing the situation in the short term.” This was a French president openly discussing matching Russian hypersonic nuclear-capable weapons while simultaneously threatening to deploy troops to Ukraine.
Macron’s position was clear: “Peace cannot be agreed at any cost.” For Macron, the risk of nuclear war was preferable to a negotiated settlement that left Russian security concerns partially addressed.
Poland and the Baltic States: The Hawks Who Blocked Peace
The most damning revelation about European complicity came from an unlikely source: Angela Merkel herself. In October 2025, Merkel gave an interview to Hungarian media outlet Partizán in which she revealed that in June 2021eight months before Russia’s invasionshe and Emmanuel Macron had proposed resuming EU-Russia dialogue to prevent war.
Poland and the Baltic states blocked the proposal.
Merkel explained: “They feared we wouldn’t be able to develop a common policy toward Russia.” She added: “Some at the European Council did not support that. They were primarily the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) but Poland was also against it.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov endorsed Merkel’s account: “The EU and Brussels are obviously held hostage by the Baltic states and Warsaw’s rabid policies.”
Poland and the Baltic states are described as “the most ardent supporters of Ukraine against Russia and the most hawkish in terms of hitting Russian economy.” They have consistently opposed any peace negotiations that don’t result in complete Russian capitulation and have demanded that Europe support Ukraine “as long as it takes.”
When Merkel’s revelation was reported, Polish officials erupted in fury. Former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called Merkel “an open lobbyist for Putin” and “one of the most harmful German politicians of this century.” The reaction confirmed exactly what Merkel had said: Poland and the Baltics will destroy anyone who suggests that diplomacy might have prevented this catastrophe.
A diplomatic initiative that might have prevented 1.5 million casualties was killed by Eastern European governments that prioritized confrontation with Russia over peace. And Western media will not say so because it undermines the narrative that Russia’s invasion was “unprovoked.”
The EU’s “Buy European” Scam: Integrating Ukrainian Arms Production for Profit
The EU hasn’t just profited from selling weapons to Ukraine, it’s integrating Ukraine’s defense industry into the European production base to create a permanent profit stream.
Ukraine’s defense sector exploded from $1 billion in 2021 to $35 billion by 2024a 35-fold increase. But Ukraine uses only about one-third of what it produces domestically due to funding constraints. The EU saw an opportunity.
In November 2025, EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told European Parliament legislators: “Ukraine’s defense industry needs us. But we need Ukraine’s defense innovations even more.” The EU Parliament approved a €1.5 billion program to integrate Ukrainian defense production into EU procurement, allowing the EU to “procure defense equipment in, with and for Ukraine.”
This is not aid. This is colonization of Ukraine’s defense industrial base. The EU is using the war to gain access to Ukrainian military technology and production capacity, ensuring that even if the war ends, European defense contractors maintain a revenue stream from Ukrainian arms manufacturing.
EU officials openly celebrate this arrangement. Kubilius explained that allowing Ukrainian companies to participate in European defense projects “allows us to inject Ukrainian military innovation in the European defense industry.” The EU’s ReArm Europe plan explicitly seeks to use Ukrainian defense production to achieve “strategic autonomy” from the United States, meaning Europe is using Ukrainian blood to reduce dependence on American weapons.
This is the same extractive logic that American defense contractors use, transplanted to Brussels. Ukrainian soldiers die. European defense companies profit. And EU bureaucrats call it “strategic partnership.”
Macron and Merz: “No Peace Without Europeans”
In December 2025, as peace negotiations between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine appeared to be progressing, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz issued a joint statement rejecting any peace deal “without Ukrainians and Europeans.”
Macron stated that any “peace plan concerning the Russia-Ukraine conflict could only be finalized with both Ukraine and Europe involved in negotiations.” Merz declared: “No decision about Ukraine and Europe without Ukrainians and without Europeans.” Both leaders rejected any “dictated peace over the heads of Ukraine.”
On the surface, this sounds like solidarity with Ukraine. In practice, it’s a veto on any settlement that doesn’t serve European geopolitical interests. The EU is demanding a seat at the negotiating table not to facilitate peace, but to ensure that any deal advances European strategic objectives, primarily continued confrontation with Russia and sustained demand for European weapons.
Is Europe Deliberately Sabotaging Peace?
In September 2025, Responsible Statecraft published an analysis titled “Is Europe deliberately sabotaging Ukraine War negotiations?” The conclusion was damning:
“European leaders did not voice their support for ending the war before Donald Trump assumed officethey only began doing so once Trump had cajoled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into calling for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, leaving them with little option but to fall in line.”
The analysis continued: “European calls for a ceasefire appear to be rooted not in conviction but rather convenience. The real purpose of the coalition’s ongoing plans for a postwar troop deployment to Ukraine may be to sabotage the possibility of successfully negotiating an end to the war.“
The evidence supports this assessment. European leaders have threatened sanctions but offered no sanctions relief as an incentive for Russian concessions. They have demanded participation in negotiations while simultaneously arming Ukraine and threatening troop deployments that would make any peace deal unenforceable. They have integrated Ukrainian defense production into European supply chains, creating long-term economic incentives to prolong instability.
Europe is not working for peace. Europe is working to ensure that any peace serves European interests, and if that means prolonging the war, so be it.
The European Accomplices: Summary
Ursula von der Leyen engineered a €90 billion loan that uses Russian frozen assets to enrich European defense contractors through “Buy European” procurement requirements, openly stating the goal is “return on investment in creating jobs.”
Josep Borrell demanded Europe support Ukraine “whatever it takes,” rejected any suggestion Ukraine might not win militarily, pushed for strikes on Russian territory, and delivered €63.2 billion in military aid.
Emmanuel Macron refused to rule out troop deployments, threatened to extend France’s nuclear deterrent to Europe, announced plans for European troops in Ukraine after any peace deal, and stated “peace cannot be agreed at any cost.”
Poland and the Baltic states blocked EU-Russia dialogue in June 2021 that might have prevented the war, have been the “most hawkish” EU members demanding continued war, and attacked anyone suggesting diplomacy as “Putin apologists.”
EU defense contractors saw sector turnover surge to €183 billion in 2024, with EU defense spending jumping from €251 billion (2021) to €343 billion (2024), and the next EU budget proposing €131 billion for defense, a 1,310% increase.
The EU integrated Ukrainian defense production into European supply chains, creating permanent profit streams from Ukraine’s $35 billion arms industry.
Responsible Statecraft concluded that Europe’s real purpose in demanding participation in peace negotiations may be “to sabotage the possibility of successfully negotiating an end to the war.”
The European Union is not a reluctant participant in this catastrophe. Brussels, Paris, and the Eastern European hawks are full partners with Washington and London in engineering, prolonging, and profiting from a war that has killed or wounded 1.5 million people and exterminated Ukraine as a nation.
And like their American counterparts, European leaders will never be held accountable, because the press that should expose them is too busy selling their propaganda.
PART VIII: THE PROPAGANDA, How Western Media Became a War Crime
The Foundational Lies
Western propaganda on Ukraine is systematic institutional lying designed to manufacture public consent for a war that serves NATO expansion, defense industry profits, and U.S. geopolitical objectives. Here are the specific lies being told:
LIE #1: “Russia’s invasion was unprovoked.”
This is the foundational lie that makes all other propaganda possible. The United States and NATO spent fifteen years provoking Russia through eastward expansion despite explicit warnings from U.S. diplomats, including current CIA Director William Burns, that pushing Ukraine toward NATO membership would trigger military response. George W. Bush declared in 2008 that Ukraine would join NATO, crossing Russia’s stated red line. The U.S. engineered a coup in 2014 to overthrow Ukraine’s elected government and install an anti-Russian regime. Russia invaded after being told that the Minsk peace framework was Western deception to buy time to arm Ukraine for war.
None of this justifies invasion. But “unprovoked” is a deliberate lie designed to erase Western culpability.
LIE #2: “Ukraine is winning” or “Ukraine can win militarily.”
Ukraine has suffered 400,000-600,000 casualties, its defensive lines are collapsing, its population is fleeing (10 million gone), and it is being ground down in a war of attrition it cannot win against a larger adversary with superior artillery, air power, and industrial capacity. Western military analysts privately acknowledge this. The press reports the opposite to justify continued arms shipments.
LIE #3: “We’re supporting Ukraine’s democracy and sovereignty.”
The United States overthrew Ukraine’s elected government in 2014. Victoria Nuland picked the replacement prime minister in a phone call intercepted by Russian intelligence and authenticated by Western media. Boris Johnson killed a peace deal in April 2022 that would have preserved Ukrainian sovereignty minus NATO membership. The U.S. goal, stated openly by Defense Secretary Austin, is to “weaken Russia” Ukraine is the weapon, not the client.
Supporting Ukraine’s democracy would mean letting Ukrainians negotiate peace. Instead the West is forcing Ukraine to fight until the country ceases to exist demographically.
The Inconvenient Truths Western Media Won’t Report
Ukraine’s Authoritarian Turn:
In March-May 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky banned 11 opposition political parties, including the second-largest party in Ukraine which held 44 of 450 parliamentary seats. Zelensky consolidated all national TV channels into a single state-controlled broadcast. Elections have been suspended indefinitely under martial law.
The “democracy” the West claims to be defending has banned opposition parties, seized control of all media, and suspended elections.
Neo-Nazi Militias Integrated Into Ukrainian Military:
The Azov Battalion, founded in 2014 and associated with White supremacist ideology and neo-Nazi insignia including the Wolfsangel and Black Sun, was incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard in May 2014.
CNN reported in March 2022: “The battalion was associated with White supremacists and neo-Nazi ideology” and “Neo-Nazi affiliations…have not been entirely eradicated following its incorporation into the Ukrainian armed forces.” The U.S. State Department labeled Azov’s political wing, National Corps, a “nationalist hate group” in 2018.
When Russia cited “denazification” as a war objective, Western media screamed that this was absurd propaganda. They will not tell you that Ukraine’s military formally integrated a neo-Nazi militia that the U.S. State Department designated a hate group.
CONCLUSION: Accountability or Complicity
Approximately 1.5 million people have been killed or wounded. Ukraine is being demographically exterminated. Defense contractors have extracted $771 billion. And every institution Americans are taught to trust (the press, the foreign policy establishment, the “independent experts”) is lying.
The criminals:
- George W. Bush pushed NATO expansion despite unanimous warnings it would trigger war
- Barack Obama and Joe Biden orchestrated the 2014 coup through Victoria Nuland
- Victoria Nuland personally selected Ukraine’s post-coup government
- Angela Merkel and François Hollande admitted using the Minsk agreements as deception
- Boris Johnson killed the Istanbul peace talks in April 2022
- Lloyd Austin stated openly that the goal was to “weaken Russia,” not defend Ukraine
- Naftali Bennett confirmed the West “blocked” peace to prolong the war
The profiteers:
- Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Boeing have made $771 billion
- Atlantic Council, CSIS selling contractor-funded propaganda as “independent analysis”
The propagandists:
- The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NPR, BBC citing defense-funded think tanks without disclosing conflicts
This is not foreign policy. This is organized crime. And the casualty toll is 1.5 million and counting.
Related reading
- Six Billion People Can See What CNN Won't Tell You: Ukraine Is Losing, and the West Wants the Killing to Continue
- TEN IRREFUTABLE TRUTHS: HOW THE WEST ENGINEERED UKRAINE'S WAR
- THE FORTY-DAY MASSACRE: How Boris Johnson Sabotaged Peace and Caused 1.3 Million Casualties for Personal Profit
- Russophobia and The West’s Forgery That Launched Two Centuries of War
