Whose War Is This Anyway?

The Russo-Ukrainian War is a tragedy. Unfortunately, it's also profitable in more ways than one for those in a position to pick their teeth with the bones of the dead and make others foot the bill.

We’re told that the most important issue for Americans isn’t the surging cost of food and fuel or the crisis brewing on the southern border or the rising tide of crime or even the “extraordinary price growth” of buying a home, but our unwavering commitment to the war in Ukraine. The chief executives of the largest U.S. defense contractors agree, and they huddled with the Pentagon’s top officials to discuss how they can, out of the kindness of their hearts, help meet Ukraine’s arms needs for years to come.

A source told Defense News the Pentagon convened last week with “our largest prime contractors, to enable a classified discussion of DoD requirements across broad portfolio areas.” An additional $800 million in military aid has been approved for Ukraine. The U.S. has given more than $2 billion in military assistance since President Joe Biden entered office.

The agenda of this unelected congress indicates that American involvement will not end anytime soon, regardless of how the public feels or the troubles at home. Ukrainians themselves appear incidental to the conflict, subordinated to the groaning appetite of the military-industrial complex and the designs of its enablers in Washington.

The only thing clear about this war is that it’s not as advertised. That shouldn’t be a surprise considering every aspect of it passes through the filter of a war-hungry press before reaching the public. Thus, a good question now is, for whom and for what is this war anyway? It’s easier to say what it’s not—and it isn’t a war for democracy, as we so often hear from the chattering class.

Last year, President Volodymyr Zelensky forcibly shut down three domestic television channels, accusing them of spreading “Russian disinformation.” He later arrested Viktor Medvedchuk, who at the time led the second-biggest party in Ukraine’s national parliament, the pro-Russia and Eurosceptic Opposition Platform for Life.

By April 2021, New Europe, a top EU affairs newspaper based in Brussels, warned that “Zelensky has consistently protected corrupt officials from prosecution and killed anti-corruption reforms.” It noted that he and his inner circle “destroyed two of Ukraine’s most high-profile graft cases—against Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff Oleg Tatarov and Ukraine’s most corrupt judge Pavlo Vovk.”

Zelensky’s political party, Servant of the People, took its name after a television show in which he played the leading role: an everyman-turned-anti-corruption president. It ran on a network owned by Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who is considered a key ally of Zelensky.