Britain has lost in Ukraine and should prepare for the worst. That’s the advice of The Telegraph columnist Sherelle Jacobs, a “Tory journalist,” in a column posted yesterday. “The conflict is likely to come to an end sooner rather than later—and on terms that favor Putin. Britain must accept that the Ukraine war is all but over—and prepare for an even bigger brewing conflict,” she writes.
“The geopolitical dynamics that have enabled Ukraine to hold the line against Russia have shifted. The Biden administration was content to keep the war in permanent stalemate. The hope was that the West could sap Russia’s power over time, while minimizing the risk of a nuclear confrontation,” she continues.
But the Trump administration, complains Jacobs, “far from wanting to slowly destroy Russia, seeks to nurture Moscow as an ally, as it scrambles to contain the biggest threat to U.S. supremacy—a rising China. As Moscow becomes ever more reliant on Beijing’s oil purchases and investment, Washington fears that a cash-strapped and isolated Russia risks becoming a satellite state of China.”
About 11 hours earlier, Britain’s The Times had posted an article reporting that the Keir Starmer government was scaling back its plans to deploy a “reassurance force” to Ukraine in case of a ceasefire agreement. British military chiefs have given up on the idea of a 30,000-strong contingent to protect Ukraine’s ports and cities, The Times reports. They are now said to be proposing a more “realistic mission” involving air reassurance over western Ukraine, training support to the Ukrainian military and the clearance of mines from the Black Sea.
And sanctions. Starmer said that, in order to force Putin into concessions, “we do stand ready also to increase pressure on Russia, particularly the economy, with sanctions and wider measures as necessary. We in the U.K. are preparing our next packages of strong sanctions in that regard.”
