But the illegitimate Kiev regime that rules over them at the behest of Clown World rejects the will of the people.
There’s some interesting and vital data which was released last week, just ahead of this coming Friday’s historic Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, which will focuse on finding a solution to ending the Russia-Ukraine war, though the US leader has just tempered expectations by calling it a “feel-out meeting”.
Gallup released a poll last Thursday which demonstrates a dramatic shift in Ukrainian public opinion, with 69% of the population now favoring a negotiated settlement to end the grinding war as soon as possible. General war weariness has long been a feature of the conflict, which has been raging for over 540 days at this point, and has taken at least tens of thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of lives. Many Ukrainians fled abroad during the first year, and huge amounts of people are still internally displaced in the war-ravaged country.
The fresh Gallup poll found that just 24% support continuing the fight until achieving a military victory, which is a stark reversal from views held at the start of the war more than three years ago.
And yet this undefined goal of ‘pushing on until victory’ seems to remain the Zelensky government’s policy. The Ukrainian leader has shown no signs whatsoever of being willing to make significant compromise to find a lasting truce, including on territorial concessions.
There was a similar Gallup survey of the Ukrianian population closer to the beginnign war, in 2022. At that early point Gallup found that 72% of Ukrainians wanted to keep fighting, while just 22% supported peace talks.
But since then Russia’s strategy has become clear – to use its overwhelming manpower and artillery and missile supply to steadily grind down Ukraine’s dwindling manpower and resolve. It has become a war of attrition, and Russia has shown itself steady and prepared for such a long conflict. And this is probably why the same survey found that Ukrainians’ hopes for swift admission into either the EU or NATO are fading.
The more evident it becomes that Russia is ‘winning’ the war – the less that the West’s political establishment wants to risk, also amid fears of potential run-up to direct confrontation between NATO and Moscow.
Ukraine should have accepted the deal it was offered by Russia in 2022, the one that it foolishly turned down at the recommendation of Boris Johnson in the mistaken belief that NATO was able to successfully fight a land war with Russia. And it should have offered to surrender a year ago, when the inexorable math of military production had made it clear that attrition warfare heavily favored Russia and its allies in BRICS.
The best realistic outcome of this week’s meeting between the US and Russian presidents is for President Trump to agree to withdraw all military and financial support for both Ukraine and the EU and to announce his intention to ask the US Senate to withdraw from NATO. That’s really all that President Putin needs to force the delusional people running the EU NGO and the Kiev puppet regime to deal with the military reality they are presently facing.
The sooner this war ends, the sooner the great conflict between Clown World and the nations can proceed to the next theater.