Nitin Mehta
MORE than 700,000 Russians have been killed or injured, according to a January 2025 estimate. Another 48,000 are missing. On the other hand, 400,000 Ukrainians have been killed or injured and 35,000 are missing There have been 388 Russian civilian deaths and 12,500 Ukrainian civilian deaths. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced within Ukraine.
It seems that being feted by the NATO nations and treated like a hero, Zelensky wants to be known as someone who took on Russia and won. Riding high on misplaced euphoria, he thought he could even take on US president Trump. It is a typically narcissist behaviour. His disastrous falling out with Trump has resulted in the US aid being stopped for Ukraine. Crucially, the US has also stopped all intelligence-sharing.
Zelensky’s credentials as a leader were laid bare when he entered into an unnecessary verbal spat with President Trump. He seemed to have forgotten that the US had provided the highest amount of aid to Ukraine since the war started.
NATO’s proxy war
Zelensky came back to his NATO alliance friends and, to his delight, found them more than willing to assist him. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented to NATO leaders a €800 billion (£670 billion) plan to increase European defence spending.
NATO countries have for the last three years fought a proxy war against Russia. They have encouraged and aided Zelensky to keep fighting the Russians. In the process, Ukraine has suffered tens of thousands of deaths and the country has been virtually destroyed. President Trump was right in urging Zelensky to negotiate a peace deal with Russians or risk a world war.
We are at that phase now. One wrong move by the leaders of the UK, France and Germany could ignite a catastrophe. Does Zelensky not feel the pain of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen and women killed and maimed? Does he not feel for their families? His desire to win a war against Russia is a chimera.
The belligerence shown against Russia by Britain, France and Germany is unexplainable. Russia has no history of war with Britain or France. As far as Germany is concerned, it was Hitler’s Germany that invaded Russia during the World War II. There are no ideological differences either as Russia is no longer a communist state.
A red herring
NATO leaders are telling their citizens that Russia might invade Europe. People in the UK, France and Germany do not want wars but their leaders are trying their best to up the ante. It is axiomatic that Russia is in no shape to invade anyone. It has lost a lot of men in Ukraine and there are no reason at all for it to invade any country. What the NATO countries are doing is a red herring to create jobs in the defence industry and win lucrative contracts in post-war Ukraine. Ukraine has precious minerals, like lithium; and NATO countries would expect Ukraine to oblige them by signing favourable deals in sourcing these.
Ukraine is also a breadbasket for the world and companies from NATO countries have started buying agricultural land to profit from it. Lastly, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have done big damage to the transatlantic ties between the US and Europe. Instead of talking sense to Zelensky, they have egged him on. We are in a precarious situation. These leaders must de-escalate the situation and give peace a chance.
