The Ever-Widening War

As we enter 2026, the ever-widening war is further widening. Russian foreign minister Lavrov accuses the European Union of escalating the conflict and preparing for war with Russia. As a fifth year of conflict begins, Russian president Putin’s limited military operation is expanding into a general conflict between Europe and Russia. The EU has raised apparently from loans from banks approximately $100 billion to enable Ukraine to continue the conflict while Europe builds up it’s military capability to directly enter the war with Russia. This statement is not merely my opinion. It is the stated policy of the German chancellor, the British prime minister, and the French president.

From the beginning of Putin’s limited military operation in Donbas, I have described it as folly that would prolong the conflict until it ever-widened into a general war. It seems that now Russia’s foreign minister has come to agree with me.

The conflict should have been a very quickly settled affair. Russia should have cut all rail and sea routes into Ukraine, thus preventing the transfer of Western weapons. The government in Kyiv should have been attacked, and the entire electric supply in Ukraine shut down. With Ukrainian government disrupted and the inability of Ukraine to move troops and weapons, the conflict would have quickly been over.

But Putin was not prepared. Perhaps influenced by his pro-western central bank director that Russia could not afford much of a military, instead of preparing for the inevitable conflict, Putin placed his faith in the so-called Minsk agreement, which the German chancellor and the French president said was used by the West to deceive Russia. Thus in February 2022 when Putin faced the invasion of the two breakaway republics known as Donbas by a 600,000 Ukrainian army trained and equipped by the West, his only option was to protect the Russia citizens in Donbas from the Ukrainian army as Putin had left Russia unprepared.

The conflict consistently widened as the west took advantage of the opportunity that Putin’s hesitation extended to them to continually widen the conflict. Weapon system after weapon system that the West said would never be sent to the Ukrainians were sent. The Russian strategic bombing force was attacked. Today Russian life far inside the country is disrupted by Ukrainian drone attacks aided and abetted  by the West. Citizens are killed and energy facilities damaged. Putin’s hopes to end the conflict through negotiations have come to nothing. President Trump has yet to sit down with Putin, evaluate whether the United States can accept Putin’s conditions for ending the root cause of the conflict, and, if not, attempting to arrive at some compromise.

In the western world, continuing war serves powerful economic and political interests. The profits of the military/security complex bloom during war. Politicians receive commissions from awarding armament contracts. The European Union in a state of disarray seizes on Russia as the common enemy to hold the European Union together. What Putin’s policy of a never-ending ever-widening war has done is to create a formidable force against peace in Ukraine. Putin’s blunder is leading directly to major conflict.

Possibly the conflict will be stopped by the European Union falling apart. The disarray is apparent. The Belgian prime minister blocked the transfer of the frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. The president of Hungary denounces Europe’s hostile attitude toward Russia. The main European warmongers–the chancellor of Germany, the British prime minister, and the president of France–have very little public support. It remains to be seen if such weak political figures can lead their countries into a major war that would devastate all of Europe.

The world would be much safer at this time if Putin had been realistic and had understood that the purpose of the American coup against the elected Ukrainian government was directed at Putin’s statement that Russia no longer accepted American hegemony. Apparently the Wolfowitz doctrine was not taken seriously by the Russian government.

The lack of Western moral fiber is apparent when the West can be more upset by the failure of Washington’s policy to destabilize Russia than the West is by Israel’s genocide of Palestine.

Considering President Trump’s preoccupation with seizing Venezuela’s oil reserves and other national assets and Netanyahu’s pressure on Trump to attack Iran, Trump might withdraw from the conflict in Ukraine, thereby leaving the future of NATO in doubt. If so, Putin’s ever-widening war could have a better outcome than a generalized war.

We will see what the players on the stage, fools all, bring us in 2026.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/12/28/the-ever-widening-war-87/