People In The West Have Grown Tired Of The Ukraine Conflict

Empowering Weak & Oppressed

Brecht Jonkers

Rajab 20, 1445 2024-02-01

News & Analysis

by Brecht Jonkers (News & Analysis, Crescent International Vol. 53, No. 12, Rajab, 1445)

Through the hugely successful breakout attack by Hamas on October 7, Palestinian freedom fighters humiliated the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) for the entire world to see. By breaching their suffocating siege on Gaza and by attacking numerous zionist colonies across the southern regions, worldwide attention has understandably been focused on Palestine.

This has come at the cost of previous foci of mainstream media, in particular the conflict in Ukraine. Looking at reports in the corporate media channels across the western world, it is hard to believe that just a year ago, these channels were saturated with reports about Crimea, Donbass and Russia. Place names like Khan Yunis and Nablus have taken the place of Mariupol, Bakhmut and Marinka.

The ubiquitous Ukrainian flags and rewriting of history to obfuscate the crimes of the Kiev regime’s hero Stepan Bandera, have been pushed to the background. The conflict showcasing itself on the streets of Europe and in the minds of westerners in general, is the fundamental struggle between zionism and the Axis of Resistance.

Partially, such a change is to be expected. The mainstream media, driven by sensationalism, cannot continue focusing on one particular subject for too long. The fact that they managed to keep Ukraine as a hot topic for over a year and a half is already a major feat. It showcases the importance of the “threat” of Russian resistance against NATO unipolar hegemony has for policy makers in charge of the media.

The situation, however, goes deeper than that. It is not that other conflicts have taken temporary precedence in the media and in world public opinion and has pushed the fate of Ukraine to the side. The deeper and fundamental issue is that many even in the west have simply grown tired of Ukraine.

The constant barrage of pro-Ukrainian propaganda that has been thrust down the throats of the inhabitants of Europe and North America seems to have had an adverse effect on public sympathy for the cause. Fear-mongering reports on imminent Russian invasion of Western Europe, at times reminiscent of the “Asiatic hordes from the East” trope from the 1940s, may have bolstered dedication of the already committed NATO types, but has failed to convince the general public.

Russia has been presented as a looming fascist superpower. That it controls most of the right-wing populist political parties that are on the rise across the continent, as some sort of a shadowy puppet master. This idea has failed to find acceptance among the majority.

The problem of “Ukraine fatigue” has been recognised even by major mainstream media outlets themselves, such as the Financial Times. “Don’t be too encouraged by EU leaders’ ability to avoid the worst,” FT’s European economics commentator Martin Sandbu said in his December 2023 article. He explained that countries such as Hungary’s unwillingness to continue the limitless support for Kiev and the difficulties EU’s expansion faces show that support for Ukraine can be very brittle.

Of course, we can’t expect a media outlet embedded completely within the sphere of western liberal capitalist hegemony to be opposed to war or critical of NATO warmongering. Where the aforementioned analysis succinctly realises that “We are contending with public opinion growing weary of a conflict that is dragging on,” it also continues by stating that it is “because of our own delays in providing Ukraine with the most powerful weapons”.

In other words, the Financial Times analyst blames the west for not yet being militarily involved enough. Apparently, $43.9 billion worth of US military aid by the end of 2023 is not considered enough yet.

Repeated failures of the promised Ukrainian “counteroffensives” and the slow but steady Russian advance have demoralised the western public. The most recent example was the complete Ukrainian withdrawal from the strategic city of Marinka. The “good news show” propaganda of western media predicting the so-called imminent collapse of Russia and the steadfastness of the Ukrainian military and political system are now being met with widespread ridicule. The constant media appearances of Volodymyr Zelensky in his obligatory khaki shirt, and his brazen demands for ever more military support have backfired and led instead to ennui in the minds of many Europeans.

Even the ruling classes of the west cannot seem to escape this unavoidable fact. Military support for Ukraine was at an all-time low in November 2023, and a massive $50 billion aid package to Kiev failed to pass through the US Senate in early December. To be sure, the Republican decision to block the passing of this package had little to do with any anti-war sentiment. It was instead caused by a fundamental disagreement with the Biden regime regarding border controls. However, the very fact that internal disagreements between US political groups seem to prevail over the previously near unquestioned bipartisan support for Ukraine is a major sign of change.

The imperialist powerhouse—the United States—quite simply wouldn’t let military expansion of any kind be held up by internal squabbles if the military-industrial complex was confident that it would lead to results. These results, however, are severely lacking at the Ukrainian front. With the zionist entity in hot water and US military supremacy in the Red Sea hanging in the balance due to Yemen’s steadfast resistance, there are more pressing priorities for the Pentagon.

There was more bad news for Zelensky. The Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhny broke ranks and spilled the beans in an interview with The Economist. He stated that “there will be no deep and beautiful breakthrough” and admitted that the war is at a stalemate.

The grinding down and wearing out of Ukrainian troops and the gradual destruction of its billions of dollars worth of fancy western military equipment, suits Russia fine. Despite the ongoing ridicule in the corporate media about Russia not being able to “blitz” its way to Kiev and Lvov, the fact remains that the major goals of demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine are continuing at full speed. War’s continuation also keeps Ukraine out of NATO.

The rise of nationalist and anti-globalist forces across Central Europe has further eroded support for the EuroMaidan clique in Kiev. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has consistently criticized Anglo-American warmongering towards Russia and the use of continental Europe as a weapon and shield this would entail. Concretely, Budapest remains committed to blocking any talk of Ukrainian accession to the European Union. The Hungarian government also blocked a further $50 billion EU aid package in December.

Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia has echoed these policies, openly backing Orban in a joint recent press conference with his Hungarian counterpart. He added that further funneling of funds into the pockets of Kiev will only result in Europe itself being poorer, and Ukraine losing the conflict regardless.

Slovak member of the European Parliament Miroslav Radakovski has gone several steps further. In a recent statement he accused the west of “killing Slavs” and risking a general Slavic retaliation as a result. Further, the MEP called the European Union a “vassal of the United States”. He emphasized that any peace talks regarding Ukraine must take place without US involvement.

This does not take into the very real possibility of Donald Trump’s return to the White House as US president. Trump has already set alarm bells ringing in the halls of the Atlanticist elites. Early last year he refused to commit to Ukraine’s side of the conflict. This has led to a campaign of fear mongering against his presidential bid. It has so far failed, as his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire show.

Naturally, the promises of a man whose regime assassinated Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and the US moved its embassy in zionist Israel to al-Quds, must be taken with a pinch of salt. However, it cannot be denied that the globalists in both Democrat and Republican parties are highly uncomfortable with the populist and generally non-interventionist agenda that the voter base of Trump has been displaying.

It is clear that the Atlanticist elite is getting fearful about the future of their Ukraine project. They had started back in 2014 with the so-called “EuroMaidan” coup and the subsequent forceful pull of Ukraine into the US-EU sphere of influence. West European governments have been stepping up trying to bolster Kiev’s ranks, with over $3 billion worth of renewed British military support set to come in.

EU propaganda efforts against Russia have also been doubled in recent days, with the defence minister of Germany warning of a “Russian invasion” in as little as five years time. This was echoed by a British “military expert” and armed forces veteran in the right-wing paper, The Daily Telegraph. One would have thought that after Brexit Britain would involve itself less in continental matters and instead focus on its own plethora of domestic issues. Apparently the City of London has different ideas when it comes to imposing British influence on the European continent.

In related news, German tanks are once again rolling over Polish land, this time ostensibly to construct a Baltic military corridor aimed directly at Russia. Any similarity to earlier and extremely bloody chapters of European history in those regions, is surely entirely coincidental.

The drums of war are beating louder than ever before in recent memory, particularly in Western Europe. Propaganda efforts carrying a distinct reflection of the old adage of the Asiatic Hordes from the East (minus the Bolshevik moniker they used to bear in previous iterations) are omnipresent in corporate media, with anyone raising any doubt about the Atlanticist agenda is branded either a “fascist” or a “Stalinist”. After all, logical consistency has never been a requirement for making a lucrative career in West European mainstream media or politics.

It is, however, worth considering why this loud drum beating is needed at all. For much of the past few years, it was enough to emphasize Ukraine’s “capacity to win this war”, to show a grim looking Zelensky in front of a green screen, or to shout some Stepan Bandera-inspired slogans in a microphone. That time is now over, it seems.

Media channels have rerouted efforts into trying to convince Europeans that the Russians are coming for them next, that their children and their homes are under direct threat from a Beast from the East. Of course, the problem is that there is absolutely no evidence for any such claims, quite the contrary. But it seems that European political pundits and propagandists adhere firmly to the idea that a lie could possibly become the truth. If only it is repeated often enough.