Mitch McConell says the quiet part out loud.
Exact full quote from CNN:
“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063
I think that is just a fundamentally one-sided understanding of why the Minsk Agreement failed to be honest. It was a poorly-written, unimplementable deal that neither side took seriously. It’s not like the D/LPRs and Russia were saints here. Indeed, there also isn’t much reason to believe the D/LPRs were, beyond the first year or so, really representative of the people in the region’s desires, since the original independent-minded leaders were replaced by those much closer to Russia. FURTHERMORE, the Minsk agreement was simply too unpopular in Ukraine for any government to survive implementing it. Ukrainians largely viewed the D/LPRs as Russian proxies (to what extent they are is arguable, but they certainly were less so as time went on and never were even to start with) and, in large, abhorred this sort of Russian influence.
It wasn’t just because Ukrainian state was war-mongering and poor baby Russia was forced to step in. This is not to say at all that the Ukrainian Government made no mis-steps in the build-up to the war-yes, they definitely did, and the Ukrainians simply didn’t believe Putin would be rash or stupid enough to launch such an invasion until very close to the time so never really backed down from a maximalist NATO position and didn’t prepare properly for early-war defences. But it’s not like you are saying. Both sides caused the failure of Minsk, and neither side was ready to adhere to it.
Then why did Ukraine sign the two separate Minsk agreements if they never intended to follow them?
Peace with Donbas was popular with Ukrainians. In the most recent elections the candidate that ran on a platform of peace with Donbas won the election and became president. Zelensky then went to the front and gave his “I’m not some loser” speech to Ukraine’s militants on the front to try to deescalate the war. Once he failed to reign in his paramilitaries he began agitating for more war.
You are correct that it’s unlikely that a Ukrainian government could survive implementing peace with Donbas. This isn’t because it was unpopular with the people of Ukraine but because it was unpopular with the people in power. After the US-backed coup far-right elements were placed in positions of power in the Ukrainian government, especially in the police and military. If that failed, the US could have once again opened the floodgates of money from NGOs to anti-government protestors and replaced whoever the Ukrainian people elected with a more “pro-democratic” leader.
You’re right that overall the central Ukrainian government wanted war too much to abide by the ceasefire treaties they signed. I just don’t think that excuses them. Wanting war too much to do peace is literally what I’m criticizing Ukraine for.