John Varoli is a former foreign correspondent for New York Times, Bloomberg and Reuters TV. Trained as a U.S. foreign policy expert with a focus on Russia and Ukraine.

By John Varoli, Substack, 7/17/23

Kiev, April 2019 — I was dining in an upscale restaurant and warned my wealthy Ukrainian friends not to let their country become a pawn in NATO’s deadly chess game with Russia. Some said they understood what I meant, but others said the following words that sent chills up and down my spine: “We will fight the Russians even if it means that all of Ukraine will burn”.

This was the first time I encountered suicidal nationalism. Previously, I wasn’t convinced by Moscow’s claims of “Nazis” in Ukraine. But at that moment in Kiev everything became clear. Truly something dark and evil resides in the soul of Ukraine’s intellectual and political elite. Nationalists in Lvov and Kiev who openly glorify World War II Nazi collaborators are ready to accept their country’s destruction and see their people slaughtered just to insist on their ‘right’ to join NATO.

Most [independent] geopolitical experts know that this war between Russia and Ukraine was easily avoidable — it’s necessary only to guarantee political autonomy and human rights for the ethnic Russians of the Donbass region; allow Crimea the right to self-determination as enshrined in international law; and keep Ukraine geopolitically neutral and end all talk of NATO membership.

The solution really is that simple. Except it isn’t, because self-destructive Ukrainian nationalism and American imperial ambitions have found common cause. I ended that dinner in April 2019 by predicting to my Kiev friends that NATO will eventually betray Ukraine and it will be discarded on the gutter of European history, mauled, battered and violated.

Fast forward to July 2023. Last week’s NATO Summit in Lithuania sealed Ukraine’s sad fate. Despite the encouraging words and public praise, behind the scenes it was clear that Ukraine will never join NATO and that the country is merely a geopolitical ‘pawn’ in the hands of Washington DC and Brussels.

NATO’s cynical conditions

Ukraine’s shameless con man and president, Vladimir Zelensky, finally woke up to the fact that he’s been out-scammed by more devious western leaders. Zelensky took to social media and responded with petulant outbursts about no NATO membership. His masters, however, quickly put him in his place, reminding who calls the shots.

Still, Zelensky returned home from Vilnius with vague and empty promises that Ukraine might be accepted into NATO if it fulfills “certain conditions”, which of course are inherently unattainable and will never be met.

One cynical ‘condition’ for NATO membership is the defeat of Russia and conquest of the breakaway regions of Donbass and Crimea. This, of course, requires the slaughter and ethnic cleansing of the 4 million Russian citizens who live there. While Kiev can easily stomach such genocide, the fact remains that neither it nor NATO have the military might to do so.

The Kremlin won’t let such atrocities happen, and that’s why Russian troops vigorously hold the line against the Ukrainian/ NATO invasion. The lives of millions of innocent Russian civilians are literally at stake.

Bye bye Zelensky?

Zelensky’s popularity is plummeting at home and abroad. I have a feeling that the White House might soon dispatch him to the Underworld, and proclaim him a ‘martyr’ in the cause of ‘democracy’ — though, of course, pin the blame on Moscow.

Biden can’t afford to go into the presidential election with Zelensky and the Ukrainian war around his neck. He must end this war in the next six months. Zelensky’s timely demise could be the catalyst to freeze this conflict until the November 2024 election, after which the NATO crusade against Russia will resume.

What’s one more Ukrainian death, even if it’s a prominent comedian? The deaths of nearly 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers hasn’t been sufficient to satisfy the bloodlust of NATO’s vampire elite, who constantly call for more death and destruction.

Sadly, many Ukrainians are brainwashed, blinded by hatred and a desire for revenge, and unable to realize that they’re being ‘played’ by NATO. Meanwhile, Ukraine is becoming a land of the dead: Cemeteries are overflowing, funeral processions are ubiquitous, hospitals and morgues swell with the maimed and dead; and the corpses of forgotten and abandoned soldiers fertilize the fields.

In the aftermath of the NATO summit, Ukraine’s future is now almost certain — the country will slowly be depopulated and turned into a desolate wasteland. Ukraine is a failed state, having lost nearly 50% of its pre-2014 population, nearly 23% of its pre-2014 territory, and seen its economy pulverized.

Western media as sinister sirens

Despite all the western media disinformation about Russia’s imminent collapse, NATO elites in fact now understand that they’ve awakened a sleeping giant (Russia) whose feet are made of steel, not clay. Kiev’s six-week old ‘counteroffensive’ has been an absolute disaster, with a large part of its invading army already destroyed or knocked out of commission by the Russian army and air force.

Still, from across the ocean sinister sirens demand more war, enticing hapless Ukrainians to their death. White House propaganda outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington Post exhort Ukrainians to continue to die “for freedom and democracy”. Of course, these media companies earn enormous sums from major news events; they have a vested interest in fueling the war. That’s just how the media business works today. What has happened to the liberal American press of the 1980s that once preached peace and coexistence with Moscow?

In order to deceive and prod Ukrainians to march to their certain deaths, western media have concocted a bizarre parallel universe claiming that Ukraine is winning the war and that no sacrifice is too great to defeat “Putin’s autocratic Russia”. Just a little more effort, send more weapons and Kiev will be victorious over Putin’s “demoralized and poorly equipped army”.

Meanwhile, in the real world, where real people pay the price for the sins of a greedy and heartless ruling class, millions of Ukrainian families have seen their lives shattered. A recent Ukrainian survey says that nearly 70% have a family member or close friend who has been killed or injured in the war. Such collective trauma will impact current and future generations for at least half a century.

The informal army of young widows and orphans grows rapidly each day. But their suffering fails to melt the callous hearts of oligarchs, politicians, Pentagon generals and journalists in Washington DC and New York who demand: “Go fight and die!”

As far as my wealthy Kiev friends who in 2019 were so eager for war with Russia — Where are they now? They’re living in Europe and the U.S. of course. Neither they nor their children are fighting and dying.

Are liberal regimes the new Nazis?

I spent a decade (2011-2021) promoting Ukrainian cultural, business and educational projects, and I always noticed how western elites hate Ukrainians just as much as they hate Russians. Ukraine’s destruction is a desirable goal for most NATO elites. Russians and Ukrainians killing each other is their dream come true.

In this context, NATO’s diabolical policies are a continuation of the Third Reich of the 1930s and 1940s. In essence, we are witnessing a resurgent western hatred of the eastern Slavs, and a desire to exterminate them and steal their land.

The survival of both Ukraine and Russia depends on putting aside their animosity and uniting against a common enemy. The liberal regimes of NATO are determined to succeed where the Nazis failed — destroy the eastern Slavs and then establish control over Eurasia.

Only when united, just like in 1945, can the eastern Slavs put an end to this grave threat to their survival and to world civilization. The non-aligned global community, led by countries such as India and Brazil, should do everything possible to assist the two Slavic giants in achieving such a goal and reestablishing peace in Eastern Europe.

The age of NATO militarism must end. And we in the West would only benefit from a conclusion to one of the most disgraceful chapters in our collective history.